ltball

Zetsaz, thanks for that direction. I thought that may be the case that I would need to trim the top but I was reluctant to jump in and start cutting into a new panel! Thanks for confirming this is what you had to do. What was your process? Did you trim the entire length of the top edge all at once or did you just trim back the areas under the door post and rear 1/4 to allow the whole panel to be moved upward as needed until the door gap was correct? Thanks again for feedback.

Hi everyone. I appreciate all the information from the members of this site. It's been invaluable since I decided to tackle this project. I have a 71. I've replaced the drivers side floor with one from MSA. The floors and lower inner rocker, outer rocker were toast. I initially cut out the bottom of the inner rocker which was beyond saving along with the outer rocker. After welding in the new floor on three sides along with a new MSA frame support rail, I went about the business of figuring out to best tackle the lower inner rocker to best support weld ing points for the exterior side of the floor pan as well as attachment of the new MSA rocker panel. I've attached a few pics but I will upload more later tonight when I get home. Basically I created a new lower third of the inner rocker and then welded it to the bottom of the remaining lower rocker as well as spot welded it to the vertical attachment lip of the new floor. It's not pretty and my welding sucks but it's solid. I've mocked up the new MSA rocker and re-attached the door and fender just to get an idea of how it looked. My confusion is around the MSA tabco rocker panel. I believe I have the panel placed as high as it is designed to go. Essentially it goes up as far as the top edge of the rocker will allow before interference at the front with the door post and it's basically flush with the bottom of seatbelt mounting plate in the rear. Seems all is good until I look at the gap between the bottom of the door and rocker which seems way too big. Again, sorry about these pics. I have more which will help better show the current mock up of the rocker panel. My questions are: 1. Do the tabco replacement panels need trimmed typically at the top edge for fitment? The top edge of mine is currently already higher than the top edge of the existing inner panel lip where the weatherstripping will go. 2. Can anyone tell me if my thought process is correct on the height of the new rocker panel? Should the top edge be flush with the seat belt mounting plate? That seems like the only point of reference I can use to describe the height. 3. What is "normal" gap size from bottom of door to rocker? 4. Am I overthinking this and maybe it's more a matter of making adjustments to the door hinges to help with the gap? 5. And yes,I've now seen the great inner rocker fabbing from disepyon. I wish I would have seen those beforehand. I may have done a full inner replacement vs my rudimentary approach to the bottom 1/3 of the panel. I'm hoping to weld in the rocker this weekend but I'm reluctant to do it until I understand this a little better. All help is appreciated.

Does anyone have experience with fabricating new metal for the lower third of the inner rocker (below the holes/dimples)? My floors were a real cluster. Lots of rust of course, with not one, but two additional layers of metal welded over the top of the orginals from previous PO's. During the removal of the old floorpan layers, I had to cut away the rusted bottom of the inner rocker. I have the outer rocker removed for access (replacing that too). I have the tabco outer rocker and the zedd floor on hand. My question is what can I do to best create a new attachment point for the new floor to the inner rocker knowing I'm missing that lower third were the original floor attached? The missing third is pretty uniform from front to rear and I'm wondering if I could weld in replacement metal to the bottom of the inner rocker? If so, wondering if 18ga is appropriate? I'm also wondering if I would need to shape that new bottom in some fashion to replicate how the floorpan was originally attached? I'll post pictures later today. I'm ok with a welder but new to this kind of repair. I'm learning as I go. Has anyone tackled this before? Is there another way to go about this?