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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)

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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.

Driver's side inner and outer rockers welded in!




A bit of filler, some primer and a coat of paint and that'll be good for now.

That's about the end of the metal work for now. Front fenders are the next project, but I'll tear into those this the fall/winter.

Looks great! What's the problem with the front fenders? It seems like those rarely struggle with rust unless the car was just totally neglected.

Here's the other side with a couple of coats of Tremclad, just temporary....for the next year, or two, or five. Lol




I suspect it was probably road salt that caused my car's corrosion issues. The driver's side front fender is the worst, but passenger's side will need similar repairs.




It would have been best to do this repair at the same time as the rockers, but not pulling the front end apart until the fall. The front 12" of the inner rocker is just screwed in place so I can remove it later to do these repairs.

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Would it be easier to find replacement front fenders? No metal work, just strip and paint. Not sure how easy it would be to find some halfway decent ones up where you are.

That piece on the A pillar is a chore, mine was, but looking back at your previous work, you can do it

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"Easier" that's not how I do thing!

Because the original paint on most of the car is so good, I'm going to keep it and only repaint from the trim down, so replacing the entire fender isn't on my radar.

Finding a parts car up here that has what I need is not too likely. There is a guy in NC that has a rust free 53 Cavalier (Oklahoma car I think) that he's been taking parts from for his 54 Caribbean project. I might be able to get him to chop off what I need and ship it to me as I think his Caribbean's front fenders are good.

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Did you rebuild the pillar from scratch, or find a donor? I was hoping to find a donor and graft a new piece on. After that's all done I think I'll spray some cavity wax in there.