Rocker Panel Modification and/or Replacement

I bought a 4runner that had this done and the bondo was falling off of the foam.

 

All of the holes on the underside of the rockers are supposed to be covered by glued-on rubber pieces. Looks like all of yours are gone, which may be a result of the rust or what allowed moisture into the rockers to cause the rust. I had 3 missing on the passenger side, replaced them with pieces of inner tube and gasket maker last weekend. Missing 3 on the drivers side, plus a couple are loose. Guess what I'm doing tomorrow?

 

OP, when did you first notice this starting to happen?
i have been trying vigilantly to fight this from starting for 22yrs now

 

Just get some metal either square or rectangle tubing or even sheet metal and form as needed .

What ever you can source for cheap .

Venture up to Glick`s you should see something you like

I have even seen slider type rocker replacement notched out to make steps .

As it is a cosmetic piece it only needs to look good to you

 

Wulf, great to know. Thanks for the pic. Yeah, if I go with foam/bondo it will only be temporary till a real job of cut/weld/paint (either fabricated sheet metal or a real donor rocker).

TL4x4Taco... that's what I had always wondered from when I bought the truck! I asked a few people familiar with car upkeep but they couldn't tell me whether those holes were supposed to be covered on a Tacoma! So I stupidly kept on with my life. Then I got some pics of a guy's rockers I was considering purchasing and saw them all covered with that rubber stuff. I should have trusted my gut and covered them 4 years ago when I bought this truck. Its something I had already planned to do somewhere in the next few weeks. I was gonna try FlexSeal Tape. I bought a roll of that. Was gonna just cover all my holes (inner and outer rocker, not my bodily orifices for all you smart Alecs), paint the rockers black and buy me some time till I attack this in a thorough manner later this season. I have some of that inner-tube material and gasket maker if the tape won't stick.

Wyoming09, got any pics of such a process being done on your own rockers? I suppose its going to look kind of like Wsidr1's pics earlier in this thread. And speaking of Glick's (a local scrap metal recycler for anyone not from the local Pennsylvania area reading this thread)... that's all well and good, but I'm never stepping foot at their place again. Was there a few years ago and they offended me so bad I coulda jumped the counter and beat the tar out of them I was so angry. Imagine a person of different ethnicity walking into a KKK rally, that's how they looked at me and treated me when I went to ask about prices on stuff I brought to the counter. Quoted me higher than new price that I knew on the stuff treating me like I didn't know better.

 

i know how you feel OP, i visited a local trucks plus shop with my little truck surrounded by the huge detroit trucks in the lot to get some deets on what they could do to protect my undercarriage. I was not very confident in the job they would be doing that they estimated to cost nearly $1k and felt they really had no interest in saving my truck from this midwest climate for another 20yrs

there are a ton of trucks in my area (mostly the detroit ones as 1st gens are very hard to find here) that this rocker panel and fender well rot is already starting to happen after just 10yrs

 

Ya know what GZ7227, I don't think I realized you were referring to me when you said "OP"... sorry! Does that mean Original Poster?

To answer your first question, yeah, I bought the truck in 2015 from a small mom/pop dealer in upstate New York near Syracuse. Shoulda walked away but I had pridefully thought I "bargained" so well by phone from down here in Pennsylvania, and went out of my way about 3 hours to go up and buy what I thought was a good truck bargained down to a thousand under KBB value. They ripped me off. I saw the beginnings of the body rust that day but figured I didn't want to have driven up there for nothing. The frame was good, recently having had the swap. So anyway... 4 years in the making. I sandblasted the underside and coated it all with 3M body shutz that first summer and didn't pay it much mind till this year. Shoulda coulda woulda... (plugged those holes on year 1 and tended to all this little at at time every year, etc.). Much of this is my own fault (other than living in the salt belt of 'Merica), but I'm manning up to it this season.

And, amen on "they really had no interest in saving my truck from..." The economics of all this is slanted towards either just having the American dream of dropping the rusty old beater for the next new shiny expensive $37,000 toy upgrade, or for you to pay a lot of money with someone else because you don't know how to fix the old beater.

 

Wow sorry you were treated like that !!

At times I spent a few thousand there in a day Good to know.

I suck at taking pictures to me it still means sending them out to get developed then getting back pictures of my thumb So I never got into the habit of taking pictures .

Still trying to figure out the camera on my stupid phone it seems to take great pictures of my thumb and run the battery down

 

yes OP = original poster

check this one out for sale about 20 miles away from me

https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/l-Use...edium=cpc&utm_source=criteo#listing=234752527

its a 2oo3
$11,5k at a Chevy dealer
out of curiousity I had to check it out but it was very rainy out so did not get to look it over very thoroughly ... they had it parked in back out of sight since its a Chevy place
its had a lot of owners originating (I think I read on CarFax) in MI to PA to KS and now to NE

 

Don't pay that much. And beware because that bed looks off kilter. You can see it doesn't line up with the body in front of it on the drive side! The rear bumper is also cockeyed downward. And it it lived in Michigan and Pennsylvania its a good chance its got rust up underneath. I do nearly all my own repairs and between used and new parts have dropped about $2000 keeping up with my beater on all 4 brakes, suspension, gas tank, steering rack, etc, etc. That truck's going to need work, its 16yrs old. Don't pay more than $5000-6000 or walk away and buy one private party.

But we digress on a rocker panel thread.

 

sorry for the digression, I know better than to pay that lol, I was looking at that one just in search of what my truck value is for insurance purposes so I don't get it where the sun don't shine if I ever involved in collision they (insurance co.) deem not worth fixing

 

My truck... well was my truck until Blackout14 drove off with it on Friday. That's about 6 or 7 layers of Herculiner roll on bedliner put about 8 years ago. Held up 100% flawlessly. Not a single bit of rust under the rockers or edges of the doors and not one bit of chipping or peeling.

Roll on bedliner goes on pretty thin compared to the hot spray on applications like LineX so that's why all the layers.

 

Great to know! Sorry if I called it not so glamorous... but one again who's the winner in the end when you look at what I've got by not using your method. Good work.

 

I'd like to find some vinyl wraps to put over the part directly under the doors. The Drivers door side is chipped but not rusted, and I'm to cheap to pay a body shop just to repaint this one area.

 

Got any pics of what kind of thing you're thinking of?

 

I am finding literally nobody online who would make economical "slip-on" style rocker replacements for my Tacoma (hours of searching over the past months). I'm done with the search for that. It's totally going to depend on either finding used/scrapyard/partout Tacoma rockers, or just fabricating metal into place as we've been bouncing around here on this thread.

 

will they let you cut out the rockers from a wrecked cab? might take a bit of time but may be worth getting the spot-weld drill and chisel to pop those pieces off. or have you been looking for these already (if so my bad)?

 

Frizzman... that's basically my top choice if I can find one to pull from.

 

You can cut mine out not like I use them for anything .

Much better shape then yours Last I looked