Ford Super Duty Cab Corner and Rocker Repair

This was a real hoot! How not to replace Ford Super Duty Cab Corner and Rocker panel! Guide you through the process so you at least know what your getting into before you do it. Maybe it helps, or maybe not, but at least you get to see me struggle!

All right everyone today we are going to replace the cab corner on my 2000 ford ford f-250 it’s basically the truck i use to pick up metal and uh anything else they got to get and so the cab corners are all rotted out i found out on the driver’s side when i went out to get on the footstep and it um broke off and bent a little bit so i’m going to uh attempt to

Repair this i did the passenger side already as the trial run the practice and only to find out the driver’s side is that much worse so basically the driver’s side’s gonna be practice as well so let’s take a look at this so here’s my truck i uh custom made the uh flatbed on the back and let’s take a look so it’s a 2004 ford f-250 and there’s my cab corner

There and if we open up the door right so step where it bolts up is all done this is flaking off you can see where i was poking around up here so uh we’re gonna go through we’re gonna cut all this out i have a replacement corner as well and uh see what we can do about this placement corner got online i forget where i could post a link there there it is they’re

Pretty huge when you get them i didn’t realize they were as big as they are so let’s go through they actually had a set with the rocker panel and i didn’t think i needed it because i wasn’t uh i don’t know i didn’t look hard enough so yeah let’s get going on this all right so first step is uh we’ll remove the step and start cutting out everything that we need

And getting everything marked up because i’m gonna have to make sure that these holes line up in the same spot for this step if they don’t it’s really not a big deal all right so let’s get this set up and go so i start using the impact gun there are six bolts that hold the step on three in the front two in the back two that sandwich the rocker panel seam and

Then there’s a two captive nuts on there you can see as i start basically pulling this off the rust starts uh flaking right off okay so the next thing we do is we’re going to come in and we’ll start drilling out some of those spot welds i got a little device off of um a spot weld drill off amazon it worked pretty good on the other side but you can see here

It’s pretty bad so we’re gonna go in and start uh pulling all this uh metal out so i go in with the flap wheel i clean up where the spot welds are just to make them see and then i go in with like a little eight inch bit and start drilling holes in them so that the tool that i use right there so yeah will then use that centering mechanism to hold it into the spot

And then just start drilling out those uh spot welds so you’ll see here there’s quite a few and then i miss a couple i also will go in use the air hammer and keep going so just close up of them and let’s get back to drilling out some more spot welds there’s the air hammer they like hide in places so you think you get them all and then you only find out that

There’s more and even when you think they’re rotted through there are well there’s there’s still a pain so they’re very interesting to do but this little tool makes quick work of them and it’s not so bad now i’m basically masking off where i’m going to cut and draw now with the sharpie i come in with a with a grinder and i basically will just start uh with the

Cutting just come in and start off pulling off this piece it comes off relatively easy once those spotlights are out you’ll see i struggle with it a little bit and i’ll come in with the air chisel and start blasting some of those i miss and then i’ll have to go in and find some more spot welds like a never-ending battle with these spot welds but they all come

Out so this is the cardboard template to basically replace a massive rotted out section of the rocker panel so this here so it’s gonna go from over here over under let’s see if i can get a shot underneath here all the way up to over there um there’s pretty much nothing to weld to so i might like clean it up as best as i can get a few zip screws in to hold

It up in place and get a few tacks and uh maybe throw some seam sealer on it it’s not what i’d want to do if there was some actual metal there would be nice but there’s not and uh this is not a show truck this is a work truck so it is gonna be basically to hold my step up and uh look quasi presentable so let’s uh let’s kind of get rolling on that section so

I traced out my little cardboard template onto here it’s a little short it’s uh it’s over 48 inches so i’ll probably i might i’ll see how i feel i might do a seam like right here and then go over there you go a little uh miller extreme right here 375 to do this so let’s so let’s get that cut yeah in my miller extreme i go in and basically follow the template

That i made relatively straightforward pretty easy okay so there’s the piece i made um i’m literally gonna zip screw this in throw some tacks to hold it in uh throw a coat of paint on the outside i’m not even gonna remove any more rust on the inside this is uh if i start removing more rust it’s gonna be like a point of no return so this is a band-aid fix not

A professional fix nor do i care to be a professional but it’ll uh hold my step up allow me to weld a new rocker panel on and kind of you know give this a few more years all right so that piece is in for now um let’s take a look at it from the other side it’s nothing pretty but you can see it’s up it’s in um it works for now i’m not super happy about it but i

Need something to weld to to get that rocker panel and then uh i mean as you can see there’s rust everywhere on this thing this will hold good uh for the next few years at least all right so basically what i went and did is i marked out for the holes where the steps gonna mount they’re there use the plasma torch cut them out uh then just uh use the plasma also

To use little pierce holes to get my holes in the right spot and now i’m gonna throw some uh wells in some of this cleaner metal right there to make sure that this holds up a little bit and then i’m gonna do the cab corner and then i’m just gonna fill in with a piece for the actual rocker panel so i did find some good metal and i’ll basically kind of weld up

Wherever i can between those two to really get it to hold together and i noticed that after i did this it it does hold i thought the you know the zip screws were not going to be enough um and i’ll come in here and do a pretty good amount just to get it to really hold but once it’s there it it holds it doesn’t really go anywhere so i was pretty happy with this

It’s not the best obviously if it was clean metal it’d be great or i could replace all that metal but that is a lot of work that i don’t want to do right now so basically what i’m going to do next is i’m going to use the old cab corner as kind of a a template to figure out where i’m going to mark the new one um i’ll leave a little lecture i’ll leave a little

Extra so that uh if i can fine tune it i can so let’s let’s get on that so i come in i mask off i pretty much kind of lay the other one up against it and marked off where it should be cut mask it makes a little bit easier to see and then i come back in with the wheel and start cutting cutting away this nice piece of metal to get what i need it wasn’t perfect

There were some spots like especially in here that i probably could have traced out a little bit better and i didn’t and you’ll see when i fit it up and actually tack it in there’s a little bit of space but i go in and i fill in some with some metal it’s really not the end of the world you’re not gonna really see it or notice it well you’ll see it and probably

Notice it when you open the door but when you don’t you don’t see it which is great and i just kind of go in and i start attacking moving around and uh move a little bit more eventually i get it all up and it held pretty it it holds pretty solid it’s uh definitely not the best weld job but it works for this and uh i will be wrapping the truck so i’ll probably

Go in and i’ll clean it up a little bit more or not and just wrap right over it and let it be it is more functional than it is supposed to be beautiful all right it’s okay door seam seems to be all right which is probably the most important thing the rest is uh after that i’m gonna do some uh welds on the bottom and then we’ll start on the rocker panel section

So here’s the truck rocker panel that i made in fusion 360. so you can see i’ve used the sheet metal feature created some bends and then from here i made a flat pattern and i put in the relief cuts right here and when we go over to the manufacturer tab these are the paths right here that the machine is going to make in order to make the rocker panel so it’s

Relatively straightforward we can actually simulate this too let’s take a look at the simulation and then this simulation right here basically shows how it’s going to get cut and just sped up so there you go so we’re just going to take this over to the langmire right now and get this cut out all right once it’s all designed then i bring it into the crossfire

Pro and have some sheets set up here so we’ll take a look at this uh getting cut so come in this is going to amp up the feed rate a little bit all right and let’s watch this go so for these cuts i am cutting out 110 inches per minute 30 amps using the razer weld cup 45 with the machine torch and it makes pretty good work of it very little dross on the back

Side then i take it over to the bench you can see where the reef cuts are clamp it down and then uh basically by hand i’m able to do it for the other part i need a little assistance with the pliers to get those bends a little bit more crisp but it’s it’s not supposed to be i wish i had a sheet metal break and i had one at one point got rid of it what didn’t

Really have the capacity i need but this works for here now i basically take that piece i’ll put it up i’ll clean up with the flap wheel around to get so that i can uh start welding to it i am uh just putting a lap well right over it where the old rocker panel was i could have attempted to do a butt weld but that was not in my cards that day it was getting hot

I was getting tired and well you only notice that when the door is open and if the door’s not open you don’t see it so i am fine with that a little hacky as it may be it is a work truck i did get it relatively cheap um runs great low miles but you know what it is what it is it is just a rocker panel and this is uh just me going around welding it so so

All right well it’s all together grinded for the most part i’m going to leave it like this i’m going to get myself i’ll throw a quick coat of paint on it this is not beautiful but it does work and i’ll make sure the holes are drilled out for the step so let’s get some paint on it we’ll take a look at it and go from there all right all finished up here got that

Remounted in like that but the best not the worst but uh if i’m gonna get a wrap it should be good if we take a look underneath looking underneath from over here there we go it is what it is so you can see here just uh kind of like before and after what i’ve pulled out of the truck the amount of rust that’s sitting on the floor of my driveway and kind

Of where it is now definitely an improvement it’s not the best fix it is uh maybe what not to do but it does work put that step on there i could jump on it all day and it doesn’t go if you like this video please subscribe like it comment if you want if you uh have any constructive criticism or not let me know so have a great day everyone talk to you later bye

Transcribed from video
Ford Super Duty Cab Corner and Rocker Repair!!!! By Science Monkey