TR6 Junk TR6 rocker panels

[TR6oldtimer]

Well I had it. The junk they sell is outrageous. I thought I could work with this:

and this:

But no, while I was able to fix most of it, the stamping was so out of whack, the amount of work to <span style="font-style: italic">maybe</span> fix it overwhelmed me. I almost sent the panel sailing across the back yard.

So I took a look at the original and decided it would be easier to repair then the "new" panel. I still had the old rocker from the passenger side, so a little cut here a little cut there and I am well on my way. I still have some dolly work, but it is coming along nicely.



From the look of the new panels, I have come to the conclusion that the dies used to make them may be worn, but I suspect the real problem is Heritage is using a less powerful stamping machine then the original.

End of rant.

 

[sabot]

On the flip side it is very embarassing to go to sell new afmkt sheetmetal to a customer,
open it for the customer and find it all *^%@?!! up.
My little rant also,
good luck with your project,
Tom

 

[tdskip]

Hang in there Ray

 

[justin_mercier]

I'm going to have to do rocker panels (and other associated parts / caps / whatever) real soon myself. I guess it's a good thing that i've got a lot of metal working tools and forming tools in my garage then ! now to save up for some of those. Even with the problems i've seen several people posting about fit, it's about the only option when the ones that I have are not salvageable. Heck they're mostly just a shell of paint with no metal left at this point =D

 

[Deleted member 8987]

Many, many years ago, we found a powder-blue 1966 Mustang couple, 6-cylinder with a 1968 top-loader 3-speed (fixed the manual trans issues) for my son't first car, cheap.

Drunk had come across the centerline of a 4-lane road and hit the LF while parked.

Hood (bonnet) okay, suspension, door, needed the headlight surround casting and a LF fender.

The shop I ran had a small body shop as part of it, so we ordered a fender.

These aparently are made in the back-jungle of Thailand or some such, with a wooden mould and a hammer.

First issue was the bracket to hold the outer fender to the inner right behind the headlight.
Four inches too short to reach.

Then, the rear vertical edge, where it meets the leading edge of the door....straight line.
I mean, dead straight.

The leading edge of the doors on early Mustangs are anything but straight.
Had to cut the curve into it, then weld the roll-over back to the fender to give it some strength.

The FOMOCO cast headlight piece never did line up properly, so they had some issues with that portion of the fender, too.

On LBC's, doesn't one company have all the old original tooling to stamp out body bits?

This rocker from that source?

Dave

 

[TR6oldtimer]

Dave, the rockers came from Heritage, ostensibly from original dies that are worn. IMO, the dies may be worn, but from the looks of the stamping, a smaller stamping press was used. I say this, because for the most part, the metal is the same thickness throughout. If you look at the originals, you will find they are thicker were compressed and thinner where stretched. Also, the total lack of crispness is more then a worn die would produce.

Anyway, this is as far as I got before I quit and started repairing the old.

Working with oxy-acetylene I got the rear creases worked in.

However, when I fitted it, you will notice that the slope of the sill edge does not match the rear fender. You will also notice that the little step under the door edge is not as wide as the original.

Here is another shot of the sill with the door in place. Again notice that the sill is a 1/4-3/8 of an inch narrower then the original (which does fit well.)

The front also has problems, although not as bad as the rear, the rocker is still lower then the fender.

Also, what is not shown very well in the photos, is the extremely rounded edge, where the chrome strip will go.

Recognizing how much work, if I could do it at all, molding the new rocker to fit was more work the then fixing the old.

Had I not had a repairable rocker, if the visible top edge in photos 3 and 4 were in good shape (or reasonably repairable), I would have cut that off the old and pieced it on to the new.

Regardless, to get a good fit, takes a lot of work and skill.

I hope this helps those who are facing this task.

 

[AngliaGT]

Ray,

Did you contact them to see if they'd refund your money?
They should at least be made aware of the problems with their
product.
I had the same type of problem with a patch piece from
Expressed Steel Panels in England.

- Doug

 

[TR6oldtimer]

Ray,

Did you contact them to see if they'd refund your money?
They should at least be made aware of the problems with their
product.
I had the same type of problem with a patch piece from
Expressed Steel Panels in England.

- Doug

Doug, at the time, the first set I bought from one vendor as really bad, I returned those and went with another. These were better. While still unhappy, all I got from the vendors is "they are all the same." Never having done this before, I naively thought they could be easily crisped up if you will. For the most part, had all the lines been a least the right dimension, things would have been ok. But when faced with actually having to realign edges, that was it for me.

In closing, I did find a "Metal Bumper" who had the tools and skills to fix the pieces. The problem is he wanted at least $750 each, to do the work.


PS. Since I started this project, I now look for rocker installations on cars listed for sale. You would be surprised at how many of these junk rockers were marginally hammered out then installed.

I will post pictures on my repair process, which is now not too far from being done.