m002922
OBS Enthusiast
For anyone wondering why every diagram they see has an outer rocker panel and an inner rocker panel, but when they look at their third door truck with rusty rockers they see an outer, inner, and something in between . . . You're not crazy.
I've torn my rusty rockers apart, and now I can finally tell how this was put together. The middle piece is spot welded to the inner rocker panel just below where the inner and outer rocker panels come together (roughly where your door weather stripping is). Unless you start cutting your out rockers back to that area, you can't see it, but you can see the spot welds on the back of the inner rocker panel. It looks like that middle piece could be joined between the outer and inner rocker panel, but it's not. The bottom of the middle piece is sandwiched between the bottom of the outer rocker panel and bottom of the inner rocker panel.
If your inner and outer rocker panels are rusty, this piece will be destroyed too - it's perfectly designed to trap and retain dirt. I have looked everywhere for a diagram of this, or someone selling the piece. No luck.
It would be fairly easy to fabricate something to serve roughly the same purpose, which, best as I can tell, is extra structural support should someone T-bone you where the weaker third door is. I'm guessing this was added sometime along production when crash ratings increased . . . or perhaps when the third door became available (I'm not sure if third door was available at the beginning of production).
I'm going to try and drill what is left of mine out in a salvageable piece, and weld some additional sheet metal to it to shape to the proper size / purpose since I can't find the piece.
I've torn my rusty rockers apart, and now I can finally tell how this was put together. The middle piece is spot welded to the inner rocker panel just below where the inner and outer rocker panels come together (roughly where your door weather stripping is). Unless you start cutting your out rockers back to that area, you can't see it, but you can see the spot welds on the back of the inner rocker panel. It looks like that middle piece could be joined between the outer and inner rocker panel, but it's not. The bottom of the middle piece is sandwiched between the bottom of the outer rocker panel and bottom of the inner rocker panel.
If your inner and outer rocker panels are rusty, this piece will be destroyed too - it's perfectly designed to trap and retain dirt. I have looked everywhere for a diagram of this, or someone selling the piece. No luck.
It would be fairly easy to fabricate something to serve roughly the same purpose, which, best as I can tell, is extra structural support should someone T-bone you where the weaker third door is. I'm guessing this was added sometime along production when crash ratings increased . . . or perhaps when the third door became available (I'm not sure if third door was available at the beginning of production).
I'm going to try and drill what is left of mine out in a salvageable piece, and weld some additional sheet metal to it to shape to the proper size / purpose since I can't find the piece.
