rocker panel repair question

[RICH MUISE]

ok....I've almost eliminated my "things to do before paint" list, but at the bottom is Repair or Replace rt. side rocker panel. It was the very first outside panel I relaced on the car and I didn't get it on right. The panel was too short to reach the inner rocker panel correctlyand I didn't realize how much it had pulled in until after I replaced the rear quarter panel. I thought at the time I'd deal with it later, and "later" has arrived. The reason I was even debating with myself whether to leave it or fix it is that the dummy side pipes I made for the car completly conceal it and I'll be the only one that would have even known it was off. Well, I determined from the get-go that the car wasn't going to be perfect, but it will be as perfect as I can get it, so I,\'ve decided to fix it now before paint.
My question is...we know a lot of the old repair panels were made to be welded on over the old area, rather than cutting the damaged area out and replacing it with the new panel, and this would be a much easier way to repair my screw up. Is this an acceptable method...having two layers of sheetmetal or should I bite the bullet and do it the hard way. What do you guys think...and keep in mind this is new metal going over new metal, it's not like I'm asking if it's ok to weld new metal on top of rusted metal. Rich

[Ford Blue blood]

Rich if you're like me you know it will bug you until you can't stand it....so do it the right way, even if you know no one else will know the difference if you don't fix it, you'll know.  That way you can loose sleep over other stuff.......

[alvin stadel]

Rich, you answered your own ? when you said" as perfect as I can get it" so do it right or it well haunt you as long as you own the car, little things that no one else sees have a way of buging the hell out of us. Take care, Alvin

[Hoosier Hurricane]

Rich:

Can you split the rocker along the bottom, bend it out to align with the quarter, and insert a filler strip?  From your past posts, it sounds to me like you are fully capable of doing this.   John

[RICH MUISE]

John..Thought about doing that and I still may. If it was on a rotiserie the welding would be a whole lot easier..I have an aversion to welding over my head...something about hot globs of metal falling in places around your neck...I'm going to have to weld under there one way or another, I was trying to minimize the amount of welding where I would be in that aukward position.
For the most part it's only at the bottom ouside of the rocker, but there is one area about 4" long at the top of the rocker just before the corner for the door opening where it goes in about 3/16", so I'd need to slice the sheetmetal there also, but that's an easy weld area to get to.
I hadn't intended on replacing the full rocker..only using a new one for a section to use as a patch. If I do that, the underside welding will be limited to the spotwelds (or plugwelds in my case)where it joins the inner rocker, and the seams at the ends of the patch. Those seams will be coming out perpendicular from the car, so I won't have to be under them to see where they are when I'm welding. If I do the filler thing, I don't think I'll be able to tell where I'm welding unless I get positioned further under there.
Thanks guys for you input   Rich

[ems customer service]

your probally best to replace the whole rocker,  if one section is rusted out, then a assumptioin can be made that the part of the rocker you think is good has had the material thickness reduced by a major amount, 30% 40% 50% i am sure when cut to a smally cut you will see the inside of the rocker well rusted and the inner rocker also. the water basically rolled back and forth from the front door post back to the rear wheel tub.  just my $.02

[KnottGarage]

If it were me, I would look at the rocker every time I walked pass the car and wish that I had just spent a little extra time to do it the right way.  I did this to a 55 Pontiac and knew that there would not be any more problems with it for the life of the car(thats a good feeling).  Overlapping sheet metal like that is a recipe for disaster, water will find its way in and rust will immediately start.  Go for perfection!!!!   

[RICH MUISE]

EMS:...If it were an old rocker I'd be doing exactly that, but I am repairing (or realigning) a new rocker that I didn't get on correctly 4 years ago when I started my build. The car hasn't left the garage since then so rust is not an issue here, particularily since I por15'd the inside before welding  and epoxy primed the outside as soon as it was done, it's never even had surface rust. The inner rockers are new as well as some of the floor support ends and floorpans. The was one of the panels I bought before I knew of EMS, and I made the rookie mistake of assuming the rocker I used had to be correct. Also in further analyzing the problem I realized since the "pulling in" was only in one 18"area where I had replaced a floor support end, that more than likely I somehow didn't get that positioned correctly so that may have started the whole misalignment.
I'm not concerned that the inner rocker may not be positioned exactly correct, so I'll just cut out the section of rocker that is out of whack and replace it with a section cut out from another new rocker. I have decided not to do the overlaping thing as I was first inquiring about for the reasons knottsgarage cited.