sigh!, after finally doing the drivers side floor on my 68 I turned my attention to the passenger side. After I took the door off I got a nasty surprise, where the rocker panel meets the front cowl. I didn't notice how bad it was at first, but digging into it now I find its far worse than the drivers side. I am looking for some opinions on what to do to try to repair the rust damage. Check out these pics, click on em to get a bigger pic. The real bad thing (I think) is where the cowl is rotten and the 2 convertible stiffeners inside the rocker are basically rotted through.

<a href="http://www.skullmobile.com/fbrott/rustbig1.jpg" target="_blank"> http://www.skullmobile.com/fbrott/rustsmall1.jpg
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<a href="http://www.skullmobile.com/fbrott/rustbig2.jpg" target="_blank"> http://www.skullmobile.com/fbrott/rustsmall2.jpg
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<a href="http://www.skullmobile.com/fbrott/rustbig3.jpg" target="_blank"> http://www.skullmobile.com/fbrott/rustsmall3.jpg
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Any idea's/opinions on how to fix this?

Thanks

I think in a unibody car that is where the body gets most of its stiffness ( refering to the rockers ) if it were me l would weld in metal patches and go from there. As far as the floor, mine was every bit as bad as yours ( Wisconsin car ) so l bought floor panels from Classic Industries they fit awesome. Don't give up on her , any Camaro is worth saving. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I have to disagree with "any Camaro is worth saving" sorry but some just aren't. I can't say that this is one of them, but it needs to be looked at AFTER you take of your rose colored glasses. :(

First off, I have a completely different "standard" than you do. I live here in sunny California and rust like that is just not fooled with. The fact is, you just don't see it.
That being said, if I saw rust like that, I would NOT be worried about fixing that area, that is a piece of cake, just time, that is all. What I would be thinking about is what other little surprizes are there?????? :eek: I would look over that car with a fine tooth comb and WITHOUT the rose color glasses. To me, the photos show a small part of what the rest of the car looks like, am I wrong? If that is the case, man, you have some thinking to do. If you have repairs all over the car like this one, that is a killer. The worst part about rust like this is it is EVERYWHERE. When you cut out an area like that to repair it all you do is find that there is no place to stop. You have to stop cleaning under the panels and in between the pinch welds or you will end up cutting the whole car apart. I HATE it when I have to do that, stop that is. You KNOW there is more, you can see more, but you HAVE TO stop or you will be doing every square of the car like this.

I do know of a guy who did that, he split every weld on the entire car! It was a '65 Mustang and he COMPLETELY disassembled the car spot weld by spot weld until it was a pile of parts. He sand blasted every one and welded it back together, well, it may not be done, I havn't seen it in two years.

Well, I have owned the car(cass) for over a year and have no 'rose colored' glasses anymore but I have too much time in it to dump it. My main question has to do with the cowl where the rear lower part of the front fender bolts to the cowl. What is the best way to repair that? Should I get a that section from a donor and weld it in, or is there another way?

Thanks!

Call the cops....there's been a break-in

Mr A, how did you get in my garage and take those pictures? My 67 rusted ragtop is a mirror image of what you are looking at. I've owned it for about 9 years now and started taking off some panels about 2 years ago to work on a few "problem areas"....needless to say, after I pushed a screwdriver through an outer rocker panel, the job took on a new level of effort.

After stripping off everything that has a bolt or screw on it, I can probably tell you exactly where your other very rough spots will be. I have many areas that are in great shape, but the following look pretty rough still: the sill area under the windshield, under the cover panel directly in front of the windshield, the attach areas for the front of both of the rear leaf-springs, 1 of my rear quarters.

I don't have a ton of experience in body work, so of course I'm in well over my head, but still having fun with it. I've got the car stripped out and have a rotisserie welded up, and have both of the door openings well x-braced. Plan of attack for the summer (after returning from Navy deployment soon...) is to rip out the rockers and weld in replacements. Seen numerous postings on this site regarding the availability of convertible rocker parts, so I think they are all out there, or easily fab'ed. After poking my nose and screwdriver around the base of my cowl areas, I'm pretty sure that I can section off a the rusted bottom portion of the panel which is covered by the fender and weld in a cover piece (and work the drainage/ventilation...thanks for the prior advise there, MARTINSR). Getting the rocker lined up and welded in without warping the body is biggest concern...but got some great pointers on body support and alignment from this site.

-Jeff

hey i have a 68 rag top that i am getting ready to paint and i had one side of the cowl where the bottom of the fender bolts rotten also, i got lucky and a friend who has 10-15 parts camaros had one with a perfect lower cowl area, so i went up and torched off a huge area and then just trimmed it to fit so all i have know is a nice welded seam and it has all the right contours, anyway you could fab something up fairly easy, but i chose to get one from a donor
jake

10 - 15 parts Camaros?? Do tell! smile.gif

Thanks BBCamaro, thats exactly what I was looking for. Now time to spark up the torch! (provided I can find a donor). I really do want to save this one from the scrap heap. This is the worst part of the car, and I already did the drivers side. I mean I have to replace every part but the trunk lid, but I actually have them all. Now, can anyone tell me how hard it is to replace the entire rocker? I am going to build a jig today to hold the drivers side together. Thanks

"...(and work the drainage/ventilation...thanks for the prior advise there, MARTINSR)..."

I am glad :D you mentioned this topic, as I have wondered where the water goes that drains down to the lower bowels of the cowl area. Can anyone steer me toward the info posted on this by MARTINSR? I tried searching but could not find it.

Thanks,
Jim graemlins/thumbsup.gif

mr abody,i went through exactly what your going through on my 67 convert.i replaced every part of the rocker,inners, outers and the part the floor attaches to.its a lot of work.its not all that hard though.i had to have the inner ribs made up out of 3/16 steel.the part of the cowl yor talkin about is rotted on mine also.i might have to fab up that part if i can't find a doner.my car also needed everything,floors, rockers, quarters,frame rails(i'm working on now).what i did was jiged the car so there was no way it could move then i started cutting(there was nothing left from the rust).i replaced the 2 inner ribs first then the inner part the floor attaches to then finally the outer.i used a coupes complete rocker and cut off the outer pourtion(the convert and coupes sill areas are different).good luck,if i can help let me know.....

I may be wrong but i believe you can cut that piece off a nova, if you cant find a camaro or a firebird donor.

I know these patch panels won't cover all of what you need, but check out the side cowl panels on the link and see what you think (about 3/4 down the page)

http://shermanparts.com/new.shtml

Thanks bretcopsey!

Gotta give sherman a call and see if that thing includes the mount point for the rear lower fender, if it does it's just what the doctor ordered!

I will me emailing ya emtcee1973, thanks!

I have been there and am in the process of doing it also. I replaced the complete passenger side rocker with another and am in the process of doing the driver's side now. I searched high and low and finally found a acceptable set of rockers off of another 69 ragtop. Remember that coupe rockers are completly different......much thinner metal, outer panel is shaped different on the top where the sill plates cover and without the internal ribs. The door pillars are pretty much interchangable if you need these or you can fab yourself up pieces if need be. I explored fixing my old rockers that looked exactly like yours but it was as Martinsr said....the rust went a whole lot further than was apparent. If you need any pics of how I did it let me know. Good luck!!!! graemlins/thumbsup.gif

where are you guys getting convertiblr rockers from? I'm doing my 68 now and desperately need inner rockers on both sides(where the floor is attached).

Arno

camarobird,you can get that part at either ricks first gen or npd,its sold as "convert inner rib".this part is not the 2 inner ribs on the inside of the rocker that u can't see.

camarobird, don't get scared when ricks (or other vendors) tells you that the advertised inner rocker rib is NOT the inner rocker panel. They swore up and down, 2 different people, 1 person claimed that they have held the part in their hand, that this is not the inner rocker panel. I went through that last year and had them fabbed (took a month for the shop to get around to doing it). I had to replace my whole rocker so I just ordered that expecting it to be an inner rib. guess what it was, the inner rocker panel!

bretcopsey, just got that cowl patch panel. I was told it included the mount point for the rear lower fender. of course it doesn't, its not even that piece of the cowl. its the piece that is towards the firewall, not the piece that is behind the kick panel. just for future reference.


I *hate* that!

MrABody, sorry about that, I tought for sure that piece would at least cut down on what you have to fab from scratch or cut from a donor.

bretcopsey, not your fault, it looked like that to me and I even talked to the vendor about it nad he said it did!

Wow, I have just read through this whole series of posts. My rust-bucket '69 convertible appears to have most of its rocker rust at the rear of the rockers. I've had this thing disassembled for over 10 years waiting for my budget to catch up with its needs, and my opinion on whether or not it can be properly repaired has flopped back and forth many times. However, my rose-colored glasses are more like rose-colored corneal implants, and I just can't say good-bye to this car.

Your discussion has been incredibly valuable to me (as are all the tech sections- THANKS!

My biggest problem remains finding a reliable person or shop that won't charge me a fortune to do this job. I guess I could have learned how to do it myself in the 10 years I have been waiting.

If I had any idea how to post images to this site I would show you scenes of rust horor that would make you cringe.