So I've had my XJ for about a month and I'm starting to look into fixing some of its quirks. I am not the most handy when it comes to cars and replacing my rockers is a bit out of my skill range and I simply don't have the time.

I stumbled across this site (rustrepairpanel.com) and they have these nice aluminium covers that go over your rockers. This is exactly what I'm looking for and for $60 it seems like a deal.

Has anyone tried these? I would plan on treating the rust underneath first (product suggestions?) before I put them on.

 

Those are just a cover up and really a bad idea.The rockers on a xj are structural and they rust from the inside out.Putting any rust killer on the outside won't really do any good its still gonna keep on rusting from the inside out.I would save up buy replacement rockers and have a body shop weld them on for you.

 

Hmm darn, good point. Rockers themselves aren't too expensive from what I've seen. Any idea how much a shop would charge? It seems like a time consuming process.

EDIT: Or, since its already opened up, could I use something like this (http://www.eastwood.com/internal-fra...ay-nozzle.html) to treat/stop the inside rust?

 

Body shop prices very shop to shop and state to state call around get quotes to see what its gonna cost you.Have you crawled under your jeep and looked for more rust like the floor pans or the rear half of the frame rails?

 

Usually like Andrew says when they rust like that you have a lot more under the Jeep check there first to see if it is badly rusted in those areas.


Another idea to kick around is to replace them with a pair of rectangle rock sliders if you plan on going off road later on. Its a good upgrade and stops damage in those areas for good and replaces the rusted out panels.

 

If the rest of the chassis is solid, I would fix the rockers right. It looks like a fairly straight 2 door you have there. Some tires and wheels with nice paint and it would look pretty sweet.

 

The frame and everything underneath is actually in pretty good shape, the only think that shows any noticeable amount of rust under there is the driveshaft. The rockers really aren't too bad except from what you can see from the side.

I know it's not necessarily ideal but I'm really not looking so sink too much into my jeep for another year or so when I graduate from college. I'm just looking to get rid of the look and stop the rust for now. When the time comes I will replace them.

 

Those rockers look pretty badly rotted. I have some rust on mine that for now I've sealed up with POR-15 patches (a hole about the size of a quarter on the side of each rocker), and sprayed the insides of the rockers with Fluid Film to help retard further rust. I'm sure though at some point I'll need to pay a shop to properly replace them unless I can learn to do the welding myself. Surprisingly there is virtually no rust at all underneath on the chassis, it's amazingly clean for a 17-year-old rust belt vehicle.

This is the stuff I'm talking about, I spray inside the rockers, on the chassis underside, and inside any drain holes in the unibody frame rails:

http://www.theruststore.com/Fluid-Fi...-Can-P181.aspx

I spray all the vehicles with this stuff before the start of the winter season each year.

 

I think those people have a lot of gall calling themselves "rustrepairpanel.com".

Those things won't repair anything - they just cover up the damage.

 

If you cover it up like that all you will do is end up making it worse in the long run.

 

If you buy replacement rocker panels, I bet you can shop around and find a welding shop that would do the work for much less than a body shop. Then you could prime it to keep the metal rust free till you get the necessary coin for the finish work. You might even want to learn some body and paint skills on that area. It's a good place to practice if you're a beginner because if it doesn't turn out perfect, it's hard to tell.

 

Primer is a rust magnet if that is all that's on it!

 

Yep. It needs to be covered with a final coat as soon as possible.

Doesn't need to be a perfect match, but get something on it.

 

I have the same issue with my 98 XJ I looked around and found a company called Genright they make a set of rockslides for the XJ that completely replaces the factory rocker with 2x6 tubing it includes plate to cap the tubing with and more tubing and plate to weld to the unibody I'll be ordering a set when I get the money

 

You can paint the outside of the rockers with por15 but not much more you can do with out spending some money to repair the rust.