Disclosure: I am not a mechanic. I cannot weld. I am not a body man. I do not have a ton a high quality tools. I have no attachment to the company whose products I am mentioning here. I paid $800 for this Jeep. I'm not off-roading it. I use it to commute.
I have a typical New England rusty-rocker 2000 Cherokee Sport. I have no idea why but an inspection tech was recently nice enough to pass the Jeep despite the fact that the rockers were mostly missing.
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I ordered what are essentially rocker covers from autorust.com You might know them from doing frame sections for CJ/YJ/TJ. I saw a youtube video of them demoing these rocker covers but they don't have a part number on their website. So I called them and ordered a set for $249 plus $22 shipping from RI to MA.
They say you don't have to cut out the rusty bits of your old rockers but I did and I covered the bare metal in Rust Reformer spray paint.
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I cut out a lot of crappy rust and a lot of dirt and powdered rocker panel fell out onto the driveway.
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I used some ratcheting bar clamps and the terrible stock bottle jack perched on a piece of firewood to lift and clamp the panel in place.
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You then have to drive in a bunch of self tapping screws. I used a little 18v impact gun I recently bought.
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Then you have to attach the panel to the new backer. This is done with about 20 1/4" nuts and bolts. The directions don't mention incorporating the existing pinch-weld into the "sandwich," new panels but I did. The problem with doing that is the bolts they provide are just a tiny bit too short. So I went to Home Depot and go 20 1" X 1/4" bolts for a couple bucks. Then I drilled through the existing pinch-weld (everywhere it still was there) and bolted everything together.
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I didn't take a picture of this but then I used the jack to move the entire new piece up as close to the floor as possible and then I shot more self-tappers through the panel into the floor. A couple places I think I hit either some rusty metal or maybe the screw went in badly. I took a couple of the leftover screws and shot them up anyplace it seemed like it couple use some more support.
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That's really it. Both sides took about 4 hours including 1 trip to Harbor Freight for the clamps and 1 trip to Home Depot for the bolts.
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I'll post some pics when I paint them. I'm going to do the bottom of the doors and the new panels in spray-on bedliner. Any questions, lemme know.
I have a typical New England rusty-rocker 2000 Cherokee Sport. I have no idea why but an inspection tech was recently nice enough to pass the Jeep despite the fact that the rockers were mostly missing.
how to take screenshots
I ordered what are essentially rocker covers from autorust.com You might know them from doing frame sections for CJ/YJ/TJ. I saw a youtube video of them demoing these rocker covers but they don't have a part number on their website. So I called them and ordered a set for $249 plus $22 shipping from RI to MA.
They say you don't have to cut out the rusty bits of your old rockers but I did and I covered the bare metal in Rust Reformer spray paint.
img hosting
picture upload
I cut out a lot of crappy rust and a lot of dirt and powdered rocker panel fell out onto the driveway.
image url
I used some ratcheting bar clamps and the terrible stock bottle jack perched on a piece of firewood to lift and clamp the panel in place.
image
image ru
You then have to drive in a bunch of self tapping screws. I used a little 18v impact gun I recently bought.
post images
Then you have to attach the panel to the new backer. This is done with about 20 1/4" nuts and bolts. The directions don't mention incorporating the existing pinch-weld into the "sandwich," new panels but I did. The problem with doing that is the bolts they provide are just a tiny bit too short. So I went to Home Depot and go 20 1" X 1/4" bolts for a couple bucks. Then I drilled through the existing pinch-weld (everywhere it still was there) and bolted everything together.
image upload no limit
I didn't take a picture of this but then I used the jack to move the entire new piece up as close to the floor as possible and then I shot more self-tappers through the panel into the floor. A couple places I think I hit either some rusty metal or maybe the screw went in badly. I took a couple of the leftover screws and shot them up anyplace it seemed like it couple use some more support.
jpg images
That's really it. Both sides took about 4 hours including 1 trip to Harbor Freight for the clamps and 1 trip to Home Depot for the bolts.
image upload
I'll post some pics when I paint them. I'm going to do the bottom of the doors and the new panels in spray-on bedliner. Any questions, lemme know.
Rocker Panel replacement
