2 door coupe rocker repair panels?

**Burn1nRubb3r** · 05-16-2012, 05:04 PM

I am surprised the rest of my car is fine besides the rear arches and a little rust near the front shock towers. But my problem is the outer rocker panels are badly rotted, rock chips allowed the salt to eat away at the bare metal over the years even though the car was undercoated. My question is this, is it possible to find the rocker panels for a 2 door coupe? Or is it possible to hack up some 4 door panels to patch the rust along with some help from bondo and fiberglass? I love this car and I do not want to see it go to the scrap yard. Stupid Minnesota and their salt usage....

**Burn1nRubb3r** · 05-16-2012, 05:55 PM

The outside of the rockers seem like they are almost completely gone on both the drivers and passenger sides.... BUT, the rear wheel arches aren't horrible and can be replaced, the floor panels are rust free, rear frame rails are rust free, bumper brackets, gas tank, etc. I will get some pictures of the rust, I want some honest opinions. And of course my reason to keep it is that I love this car, the usual excuse most 3gee owners have for their rusty rides.

**Burn1nRubb3r** · 05-16-2012, 08:22 PM

https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthrea...r+panel&page=4

Carotman's Hatch had rocker rust similar to mine in the thread page listed above. He has some pictures. I will post my own tomorrow evening. Is this amount of rust worth fixing? Especially since I cannot find 2 door rocker repair panels anywhere?

**89HatchbackLxi** · 05-20-2012, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Burn1nRubb3r

https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthrea...r+panel&page=4

Carotman's Hatch had rocker rust similar to mine in the thread page listed above. He has some pictures. I will post my own tomorrow evening. Is this amount of rust worth fixing? Especially since I cannot find 2 door rocker repair panels anywhere?

I've had to do some rust repair on my hatch rocker panels. My passenger side rocker panel was, if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably 60% deteriorated from the blasted rust. Being as it was my first car, and I had just got the thing, I was not happy with rust on it, especially on a visible like along the topside of the panel. I rust-brushed and sanded the crap outta the rotting panel for days and got a huge amount of the rust off. My main concern was to get the rear side of the rocker panel sealed off (since there was a large rust damaged area there leading up to the wheel well) and I did. I removed all exposed rust I saw and then put some fiberglass filler on it to get it to look nice and back to a good shape. I even used a rattlecan for primer, the metallic paint and the clear, and somehow managed to get it to look pretty friggin good considering those cirumstances. Now, from the underside of the car, it's obviously nowhere close to a spotless repair but- nobody sees that anyways, and I live in desert terrain, so I don't have to worry about road salt causing any more additional damage to my car.

Anyways, my opinion would be, if you can find rocker panels for your car, definitely make it into a project. If not, it still might be worth attempting to fix. Then again, I don't know how bad the rust on your car is, so I can't really say what you should do until you post up some pics of it.