Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Here we go with another project! It's not going to be as straight forward as I had thought, which I should be getting used to by now!

First I had to remove the patch that had been put on the front fender as it was covering the front of the rocker. Some quality workmanship here! LOL











Then start drilling out spot welds and pulling things apart. I haven't fully formulated my plan for the inners, they may happen in a couple of sections.

My replacement rocker panels came in a parts car I bought for the windshield a couple of years ago. That parts car is a gift that keeps on giving!

One step forward, two steps back. Is it progress when you're putting something together than you shouldn't have taken apart?

I drilled out the spot welds and removed this section of my rockers, but in hindsight this is not the best approach. I thought the best way would be to fully replace the inner and outer rockers, but after finding the top half of the inners and outers are fine, and hearing from Ross, I'm just replacing some of the inner and outer rockers.

Because this was already apart I'll put a new piece of metal here.





Sill/top of the rocker back where it used to be, and where it should have stayed.





Now the plan is to do a long butt weld for the outer where the red arrow is. Cut off the inners where the blue line is and then lap and plug weld a new inner which will just be a flat piece with a little step at the bottom where the outer attaches.





Because I do not have access from the outside at the front and rear floor pan brace I'm thinking I should cut them off, do my inner rocker repair, and then weld them back on. If anyone has any thoughts about this let me know. Cutting tomorrow!

Welded this section of my rockers back in. The idea of completely cutting out and replacing both the inner and outer rockers was not the best idea. (Thank you Ross for your guidance!) The top 1/2 (second picture) is very solid and only had a bit of surface rust which cleaned up well. I'll paint it and it will be good for 100 years!








To gain access to remove and replace the inner rockers, I cut off the ends of the front and rear floor pan braces.





The ends of the floor pan braces have seen better days, so I welded some patches on them to give them a bit more strength. They're ugly, buy I'll layer the undercoating on thick. I'm thinking that instead of welding them back to the rocker I may bolt them and put a little spacer so dirt and moisture are less likely to collect in there. Maybe one day someone will reproduce these.