To crazy to work but....

[hugger6933]

Any way you look at it I can't see why it won't. This is the wildest thing on the truck yet. While we [me and Dad] were working on one of the 70's during the slow time at the shop, I had been getting the rear wheel humps stripped and ready for epoxy prime and working on the drivers door getting ready to take off the door skin. Dad is more of a tear down and put together kind of guy as he can't bear to sit still. He is 84 and refuses to slow down, he HAS to work every day and be doing something while there. So while I was busy doing my thing he was taking the drivers rocker off and asked me to get him the outer and inner rocker and the floorboard patches so he could look at them and do some studying on what need to be done there. Well I have three of these trucks so I have a couple of sets of rockers both outer and inner laying around. I have both kinds of inners the one that is flat and the one that has the floor extension. I left him alone for a while then when I went to check on him he had started to mock up and had the rocker laying on the floor covering all of the rust and it is past all of that that has to be cut out. That panel fits like it is made it go on the floor, over to meet the flat inner rocker panel. I know the thread is worthless without the pics, I had to go to the hospital 100 miles away today for my treatments I take bi-weekly and only got to spend a couple of hours at the shop today. Even the holes in the rocker plate line up where the nut plate is for the seat belt. The seat riser is in the way just ever so slightly and a v cut can solve that problem. The angles and bends are the same in length and depth on both bends. am I the first to ever make mistake or notice this coincidence? Jim

[dfwright]

I noticed the same thing with several patch panels I used. The outer floor extension pieces, the right and left floor patches, the lower a-pillar patches all would fit right over the top of the original parts.

It's like the patches were made to mold over the original parts, not be exactly the same dimensions. I guess they did take moulds of the original components, then created tooling from that. At least they can be made to work!

[bbcmudtruck]

So to clarify, you are just putting the patch ontop of the rusted spot with cutting the bad spot out?

[dfwright]

Oh no, I cut out the rusted area and fit the patch in. A lot of times I had to "massage" the patch piece to fit. It just seemed curious at the time to me that the patch pieces fit over the original metal so completely, where if it had been exactly the same size, it should have caught on the bumps in the design.

This picture shows the floor pan. It sets over the top of the existing floor perfectly all the contours in the stamping are wide enough to fit over the contours in the original floor.

I personally would not use it like that though, I would be to afraid that it would be a rust magnet between the two sheets.

[Kennuck]

I think they make two kinds of patch panels "Slip On" are like the ones you have and the the other ones you have to cut out and replace.

[chiefcfd]

Years ago I watched a body man take a hammer and bend the rust out of the way and weld a rocker panel over it. I thought that was odd.