Rocker rust suggestions?

Hi guys, so when i first bought the truck i noticed the door well (top of the rocker panel) had a fair amount of surface rust on it. I cleaned it and repainted which lasted a year, but come the winter again alot of salt makes its way into the cracks. What I've noticed is the plastic trim on the door well rubs paint off of the metal then salt comes in and it begins to rust the bare metal again. Does anyone have a long term solution to this? I'm tempted to bring it to a body shop but its probably quite expensive

 

Pictures would help a bit.

But I can say that nothing should be rubbing paint off of anything.

 

Heres a before pic of when i first got the truck:

I cleaned it very well and repainted the works. When i was sucking some salt off the mats just then i noticed right under that plastic you can see the stretch where the plastic touches the metal and the paint is gone along with some surface rust in that line

 

Not to detract from your topic, but look at the seat mount.

Have you been under the truck and thoroughly examined the frame with a pry bar, ball peen and maybe a borescope (camera to your cell phone) inside the frame?

If all that is good, we'll come back to the rocker. But based on your seat mount............ I'd be very concerned about the frame.

 

This is all normal for winter heavy areas lol, frame passed inspection and seat mounts rust in every car here due to 7 months of winter with heavy salt use. Truck is perfect and the only spot of rust is the seat rails and the door sills lol

 

Also as a fun fact if you look at the seat mount you can see small bits of salt chemically attached to the metal such a pain

 

Damn, probably less rust on the Titanic than that seat mount.

 

I'm glad for you. But I don't trust inpectors as much as I trust myself. With 7 months of rabid salt I'd have to be looking.

Back to your topic.

You can remove the sill plate, pull the carpet back a bit, sand the rust down. Then treat with something as simple as muratic acid (very carefully, like on a brush) to finish up eating at the rust.

Then paint with a rust encapsulator like POR15 or the www.monstaliner.com product to 'seal' it, then finish with your color of choice. You might find black monstaliner to be a good selection for that area, since it appears the truck is black?

I'd also pull the seat and treat the frame/mount the same way and use a new bolt.

Now back to being assured the frame on a perfect truck is good..........

 

I had to put corrosion x on my seat mount. And it’s a 2015. Salt from you feet drips on that and stays there. It’s almost perfectly made to hold moisture, thus the rust.

 

When they put my father's 1st gen on the lift they could hear the frame cracking as it went up

 

Maybe do what this guy did.


https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/rust-under-plastic-panel-door-frame.537339/

 

Yeah it’s insane, my buddy got a 2016 wrx sti and the seat mount is already rusted to the point you can’t see paint lol. Since Canada is a very tiny market I imagine car makers don’t use high quality corrosion resistant paint due to this not being a common thing outside of here. Looks awful though

 

I actually told him how to do it haha, the method works but the rubbing on the paint from the plastic is causing the issue. I’m thinking maybe repaint again the spring and put some type of buffer between the plastic and metal

 

This is what I was thinking, the rust isn’t behind the sill (at the carpet) it’s simply at the contact point between the plastic and the metal. I really should upload a photo of what it looks like now because I fixed 95% of the rust in the first picture. I’m thinking sand again, prep with the por 15 prep stuff then por 15 paint and maybe a top coat, but that doesn’t matter because almost of the rust is at the edge of the sill plastic

 

Here’s what it looks like currently, notice how salt is accumulating in the sill. Also the plastic is stained from prior rust, the front looks good still (first picture) but I’m noticing it start to show a little in the second:

 

Np. I live in Western NY a half hour outside of Buffalo, and have an 09', and have none of that. Just a little ar the seat mount, But that is it.

 

scribe a line on the offending edge of the sill about 1/16th up from the edge, then gently work the sill along a belt sander to that line. Should give a gap between the sill plate and the paint surface.

1/16th may not be enough, but it's better to do it a bit at a time till you are happy with the result than to try and take all material off at once.

 

That plastic rocker piece does not rub through the paint. Hasn't even scuffed my paint in 13 years. More likely the salt works it's way up inside the trim and eats away at the paint. Like others have said, clean it up to remove the rust, thin coat of por-15, then repaint to match. Por-15 is magical stuff.

 

I’m not sure how bad your winters are but my town will pop up in I’d say 99% of the articles for snowiest major cities in the world, and we have a very wet winter with loads of salt. I should say it’s normal for here rather than generalizing lol

 

So what I think I’m gonna do is trim the plastics about 1/16 like you said, sand, por15 and I’ll make sure I have enough layers on it to prevent this again