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The original stamping leaves plenty of drain holes

My car has some rust on the floor on the front passenger side only because that area happens to be a bit lower without a drain hole. The rest of the car is rust free not because the car doesn't leak water, it is because all the water goes out of the car quicker than the water coming in! It has multiple drain holes on the floor and under the rocker panel, and I see the water coming out when I wash it. (it still leaks, just doesn't leak in the rain)

[quote]
53 Cavalier wrote:
Should I put the drain holes in my new outer rocker panels before I weld them on?

Was there a drain at the front and rear of the rocker panel? Those sections were rusted out, so not sure if there was one there or not. If there was, maybe there shouldn't be, or if there wasn't, maybe there should be??

Thoughts?


I duplicated the drain holes when I replaced my rockers, good job!

My car had 5 drain holes in the rockers, two small ones towards the front along the bottom corner and then 3 larger ones towards the back. I suspect the front ones were smaller to prevent debris from the front wheels getting inside the rockers. I opted to do the 3 larger ones and skipped the smaller ones as they were plugged on my car.

The places that my inners rusted through were where the floor pan braces meet the rockers. Those areas collect dirt and moisture, which combined with the lack of coating and being difficult to clean means they are doomed.

The worst part of the outers was the last foot or so before the rear wheelhouse. This entire area was a bad area, that is, wheelhouse, floor pan, floor pan brace, inner and outer rockers all needed repairs.

Once my rockers are done I'm going to spray the inside with 3M cavity wax and the insides have a coat of POR-15 and/or epoxy primer, so I'm already a step ahead of the bare metal like they were from the factory.

Have the driver's side rockers all cut and fit so I'm off to my buddy's whop today to weld these on.





While I have the panels off the inside of the doors I repaired a long dent that started about 1/3 of the way back on the front door and went to the middle of the back door. Some hammer and dolly work and then a small amount of filler. I'm using Eastwood's roll on epoxy primer, which is great for the way I'm work on my car.