Rocker panel square tubing install

[ToddK]

I finally finished installing some 2" square tubing inside my rocker panels. The outer rocker covers needed to be redone anyway, so I decided to add a little extra reinforcement while they were off. I also installed a couple of Nascar style jack points. I cut away the outer cover about a half inch below the face of the door sill, and left the sill intact. This left a nice square corner formed by the door sill part of the old outer rocker and the inner face of the inner rocker panel. I welded it where it makes contact with both panels. The new piece of tubing runs from where the main hoop of my roll cage mounts all the way forward. The jacking points are in the middle of the door opening right where the floor rises up under the seats. The jacking plate is welded to the bottom of the square tubing and opens up to the outside of the car thru the outer rocker panel. No more driving up onto boards to get the jack under the car. Once everything was finished inside the rockers, I bent up some new outer rocker panels and welded them on. I used sheetmetal from an old door that had rusty corners. I laid a straight edge on the door and cut off a long strip of sheet metal with a grinder. For now, it is just painted with some chassis paint to keep it from rusting. I plan on painting the whole car in the Spring.

[ToddK]

(nt)

[THE1ST3]

Nice work; very ingenious!

[brad_c-ville_VA]

good idea and nicely done!

i actually just removed the factory jack points entirely when i re-did my rockers but yours are well placed and are much more substantial.

[Arshloch]

Nice job there, I remember you were talking about that a substantial amount of time before hand.

Did you reinforce the portion thats under the only or the whole ordeal including the quoter?

[ToddK]

Yea, it took longer than I planned. As projects go, it morphed into several other improvements as well. I removed all of the tar undercoating in the wheel wells and repainted with black chassis paint. I also dropped the front subframe, rebuilt everything with new eurethane, added proper tow hooks and repainted it before reinstall. I also cut out some rust and remade the area behind the headlights. Added some more structural webbing to the wheel wells.(made from the underside support of a trunck lid) I removed the front fenders and prepped for paint. There was the original green, a Kawasaki metalic green and white paint on them. I also fixed several cracks in the rear fiberglass fenders, and prepped for paint. Currently I am gutting new doors and prepping for paint. I still need to rip out the old roll cage and build a new one before Spring gets here. Once it warms up, I'll pull out the side windows and windshields. Sides will get plexi, front and rear get new rubbers after paint. Add to that list, some quality time spent rebuilding a set of Weber 45 DCOEs to replace the 40s that were on the car, and the parting out of a couple of other cars. I won't even begin to list the work I did on my other cars this Summer.

[mattmcginn]

Nice work, and a great idea to boot!

We did something similar on a six series we did years ago-this car had custom side skirts and had a front airdam that was too low you could not get it onto a lift of jack, so we boxed in some beefy points at the front and rear in a simiilar fashion...

I have toyed with the idea of using a 911 jack support in an 02-its really super to just plug it in and jack it up with no worries about scratched subframes, having to drive onto boards, etc.

Great idea!