Thread: Rocker panel rust, suggestions? (Pics inside)

I have a 99 GTP Sedan.

I recently replaced the passenger fender and both doors. I thought I needed to replace the rocker molding but it appeared in good shape. I pulled it off anyway to look at the rockers and found what's in the pics below. I assume the drivers side is just as bad or worse, but haven't pulled it off yet. I have a friend that can weld in replacement rockers, but I'm wondering what you guys think. Should I just patch? Another thread on here showed some pretty heavy duty replacement, I thought the rockers were just the metal cover piece but that guy had some weird looking frame pieces he redid too.

That appears to just be the outer rocker panel which can be replaced with a patch. The pic doesn't show the condition of the inner rocker panel which is probably the "frame piece" that you speak of, but if that is rusty, then it needs to be taken care of as well.

Originally Posted by hitman92499

That appears to just be the outer rocker panel which can be replaced with a patch. The pic doesn't show the condition of the inner rocker panel which is probably the "frame piece" that you speak of, but if that is rusty, then it needs to be taken care of as well.

I'm pretty new to this aspect of car repair. I wasn't aware there was an inner and outer. I can't tell if the inner is rusted without cutting off the outer, right?

The pinch welds will give a decent idea of what's going on in there. If the pinch welds are still intact, then the inner rocker panel is probably still in pretty good shape.

Originally Posted by hitman92499

The pinch welds will give a decent idea of what's going on in there. If the pinch welds are still intact, then the inner rocker panel is probably still in pretty good shape.

Please explain what pinch welds are.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk 2

Originally Posted by dsmuts

The pinch weld is where you jack the car up.

The seam that sticks down that runs along the bottom (the one I bent the hell out of like an idiot jacking the car up before I started using the actual frame) of the car?