I bought this truck less than 2 years ago, and it was rust free. For the past year I've been noticing a bit of rust on the rockers, and bottom door seams. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I went off roading and must have flexed the truck too much, and my front driver and passenger rocker panels actually split. I know I can cut the rust out, and weld in new rockers, but I don't have access to a welder. Any other ideas here?

 

Bring it to a shop is about your only other option. Or sell I suppose.

Cost of the welder and doing it yourself would cost about the same as a shop.

 

Rust free huh? They're shot! I'm going to be replacing the rockers on a buddies expedition and we are going to use the 3M glue instead. I'm predicting it won't be that bad, but you know how that goes....

 

Bump, I am going to tackle this job one way or another at the end of April. Either going to paint with POR15 and bed liner the bottom 2 inches of the cab, or cut all of the rust out, spray foam and then spray with bed liner. I do NOT have access to a welder, and I need to do this cheap. Rear corners are getting bad too, besides that, the truck is clean as hell. I've read that foam will act like a sponge, but if I spray everything with bed liner, won't it be sealed from the elements? I am also gonna remove the running boards to take any un needed stress off of the rockers.

 

I wouldn't foam anything. Chances of moisture getting in there are still pretty good and that spray foam will hold that water for a lot longer then if there was nothing in there at all.

 

Buy some aftermarket panels, cut the old ones out and weld the new ones in. Primer them then take them to a shop, have the color matched and paint the whole thing one color. IMO it looks like crap and is super obvious what was done when the bottom section of a vehicle is black when the rest of the vehicle isn't. It looks like a cheap body job to me and someone who didn't want to spend the money to have it match.

 

That's typical, if you see a little rust on you rockers with these trucks the rocker is already gone. They rust from the inside out.

 

Very normal. Stupid engineers thought those little trim pieces would be nice on the inside but all they do is leak water and rust out the rockers

 

No access to a welder.

 

Cutting and filling with expanding foam will cause a lot more problems. It holds a lot of moisture, dirt, and surface rust in will rust out the rest of your rocker fast. The only proper way to do it is weld. The 2nd way is to use that 3m glue like 2002fx4 suggested. I've never used it but it should be fine for non structural parts. The 3rd option witch I don't recomend but will make it look good is cut out rust and fiberglass hole.