Have any of you guys (girls) from here in the midwest, had the rocker pannel rust under your doors replaced? Ive got a 2000 f150 4x4 extended cab, and the rocker pannels under the doors are getting rust holes in them. I would like to get mine fixed/replaced this spring. My truck is in great shape other than the rust holes under the doors. I havent spoke to any body shops yet about the repairs. If you did have the rust repair done did you do it yourself or did you pay a body shop to do it?

 

Depends on how bad it is. If you open the door, is the step above the rocker in decent shape ? Is the entire problem the rocker panel below the step and above the running board ?
I took the running board off and used a cut off wheel to cut the rusted out rocker panel off. About 4 inches deep and 3-4-5 feet long depending on the cab design. I cleaned inside the bottom of the step and the frame behind it. Painted with rust converter, then top coat with enamel paint.. You cant really see the missing rocker panel when you stand back and look, as it is mostly horizontal. I did not replace the panel, but i did weld in 4 small sections about 3 inch x 4 inch, one every 18 inches to help support the doorstep.. Clean the running board supports and paint them also, then install the running boards. Almost good as new, and with the converter on, should last several more years.

 

Thanks for the reply Steve. The rust holes in my rocker pannels are along the bottom, right above the running boards. the drivers side is worse than the passengers side. rust holes (on both sides) are bad enough that I can reach up in there dig around with my hand, and pull slabs of rust out. I noticed the inner rear cab corner on the drivers side is eaten away pretty bad too. The rust holes have gone past the pinch welds in some spots, and have started eating up toward the cab floor. I "love" what salty Wisconsin winter roads can do to a vehicle.

 

Gotta love the rust belt. The lower part on both my rockers is completely rusted out, plus the driver side cab corner has a good size hole in it and this winter the front driverside corner of my bed also started showing a good size chunk of rust through. Planning on taking a grinder and cutoff to it this summer and get as much of the rust junk off as possible, then maybe buy the replacement panels or one of those stainless panel kits. Not sure how low the stainless kit covers though.

 

I cut the bottom completely off as stated. I have done this on 3 different trucks. Mo old 2001 was up into the step / front piller area on the drivers door and i replaced a section about 3 inches wide and a foot long with a wire feed welder. The big part of this is to get the bad bottom are removed, wire brush and paint with a rust conversion product so it does not continue... I also drill a coupe holes in the back each cab door 6 inches from the bottom, and 18 inches from the bottom. I sprayed a cleaner inside and blew out with air pressure and a long wand.. I then stuck the nozzle tube of a lithium base liiquid grease spray can in the holes and shoot into the bottom seam. Filling this area with a white grease that can flow into the crack and then setup simi hard might help keep moisture / water out a few extra years. You might have some rust now, but stopping it from getting worse is the idea.

 

...Steve..You would be a SAINT, if you could take a quick snapshot of your rocker panels...I "also" cut out the rust area and I used por15 on the inside area, but it still seems to continue with the rust. I was also thinkning of welding in some patches, but what did you use? 1/16" thick metal?
Thanks
Rich

 

Yea, you cut out the strip that is 3 or 4 inches wide from the rocker panel outside lip to the spotwelds at the back.. Mine was about 6 ft long since i have a crew cab. Still seems pretty stiff, but i cut out some 3 x 4 inch braces from 16 gauge sheetmetal (about 1 /16 thick as you said). I grind the edge of the rocker lip and the corresponding area on the frame 3 inches behind it. I weld this small plate on maybe 16 inches apart. Two under the front door and 2 under the back... where you step. I also had to clean up the corner pocket of the cab where the rocker runs into the rear wall. I used a little filler putty in the small hole... cleaned the inside and sprayed undercoating up inside the rear door post.. I acutally used rust converter on all metal areas, then undercoating up inside the rocker and frame area. Was going to use black enamel, but decided undercoating might last longer. The whole goal is to post pone the inevitable. I do like the white lithium spray grease inside the door panels.

 

....I have the same...with my supercrew....what did you use for a rust converter?

 

Hopefully I will have enough pennys saved to buy a welder this summer. Im going to remove the step bars on my truck, and throw them in my scrap steel pile. They're rusting from the inside out. I already tried to remove a few of the bolts that hold them on the truck.
Im going to have to cut the heads off most of the bolts, because they break loose, spin in the bolt hole and wont come out .

 

Check your frame very well. If the rockers are rotted, I would bet the frame is also starting.

If worth the effort, Cut the bad off, and reweld new on. Coat with krown or fluid film on the inside and outside.

 

https://www.theruststore.com/Rust-Co...rt-P41C10.aspx

i had some damage on the frame braces that hold the running boards, but not the main frame area. I just cut out some of the bad area , cleaned and covered with converter. I only replaced some of the step above the rocker panel . None of the trucks really needed structural repairs. You can be missing 20% of a couple running board braces and not matter.

 

here is the rocker cut out below drivers door.

 

here is one of the braces welded into positon between the front and back doors. This was taken today, 6 months after repairs... salt spray and dirt show up well ! The vertical body/ frame in the background was sprayed with under coat.. WHen you stand up and backup 4 feet, you dont even see the missing rocker panel, just the original lip.

 

Here is a view kneeling down a few feet back from the truck. This is a different truck i did 3-4 years ago.

 

Steve, is that undercoating sprayed OVER the rust converter? Mine looks exactly like that....minus the patchs......I picked up a nice Lincoln 175 off craigslist, so we'll be trying it out welding on some patches pretty soon! I used por 15 in there about 6 mos ago and the rust still came thru it!