Getting Ready for Rocker Replaceent...Should I Paint with Bed Liner?

4'running'26

4'running'26

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My uncle and I will be tackling the removal of my rusty rocker panels and welding on aftermarket rocker panels from Wolf Steel. I don't really care if they necessarily look perfect, I just want to keep them from getting rusty. Will painting them with the paint on truck bed liner work well? What should I prime them with first? Some type of rustoleum primer?
 
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If you’re into that texture. I think it looks like bubbling paint in that area. I’d do gravel guard and then color match. It works.
 
4'running'26 said:
My uncle and I will be tackling the removal of my rusty rocker panels and welding on aftermarket rocker panels from Wolf Steel. I don't really care if they necessarily look perfect, I just want to keep them from getting rusty. Will painting them with the paint on truck bed liner work well? What should I prime them with first? Some type of rustoleum primer?
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I have Monstaliner on mine. Prep and prime as you would for any paint surface, before hitting it with bedliner, scuff it up good for nice bond.
IMPORTANT- if you want your rockers to last, cause they rot from the inside as frames do too, do yearly rust preventative up thru the drain holes on the bottom of the rockers. I squirt WD-40. The rockers hold moisture inside, also the sunroof drains thru the rockers. Same deal for doors, hatch, hood.....There's a lot of stuff on this forum for rust prevention.
 
On the Grand Cherokee Fourm I belong to some have replaced their rotting rockers with rectangular tubing. It looks good.

I have the typical rust ball on my drivers front rocker and need to deal with it soon.


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I wouldn't use any paint that ends up really hard because you won't be able to see rust underneath. I prefer regular paint that bubbles if rust underneath. Then you can see exactly where the rust is. Id just use primer then regular colour matched paint. Then rubberized rocker paint over this in areas where you think rocks will hit. I saw a land cruiser the other week that got monstalined. It would have looked great right after but you could see that rust was travelling far underneath it. It would be a pain to have to chip that off to get access to all the rust. You don't wanna lock in the moistire and salt underneath your paint. It will do more damage than good.
 
Mark_BC said:
I wouldn't use any paint that ends up really hard because you won't be able to see rust underneath. I prefer regular paint that bubbles if rust underneath. Then you can see exactly where the rust is. Id just use primer then regular colour matched paint. Then rubberized rocker paint over this in areas where you think rocks will hit. I saw a land cruiser the other week that got monstalined. It would have looked great right after but you could see that rust was travelling far underneath it. It would be a pain to have to chip that off to get access to all the rust. You don't wanna lock in the moistire and salt underneath your paint. It will do more damage than good.
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Yeah guaranteed that LC Monstaliner did half ass job with bad prep and painted over crap, maybe rocker rotting from inside from lack of knowledge of rocker inside channel rot and how to prevent it.
Monstaliner is good stuff, although different, it works great on rockers. I put mine over the perfect condition factory rocker paint that was prepped good. Clean rust free, heavy scuff for bond and prep solvent.
Here's a couple pics of my Monstaliner I have about 100k on my rocker Monstaliner, they are perfect, no chips. The rear bumber I slammed big piece of metal on getting out of my rear hatch a couple years ago. The bare area holding nicely and not acting weird like the LC. But again everything good prep. I spent a fair amount of time in my family's body shop as a kid to learn paint. But Monstaliner is not for everyone of course, I like the stuff because of its durability and easy to spray or roll on. Mine is rolled on btw.
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The reason why our rocker panels rust out is because the sunroof drains into the rocker panels. Then the water drains through the pinch welds. Simple as that. Water inside metal is a bad design. If you ask me. Especially if you off road in muddy areas. You can can clog the rocker pinch drains with mud.

With that said. Why wouldn’t you want to bedliner our rocker panels vs regular paint? Bedliner is much tougher against rocks and chips. You can always get matching bedliner paint. Some manufacturers spray bedliner with matching color from factory.
 
Just spray the insides of the rockers with Eastwood Internal frame coating. 360* nozzle gets it everywhere & runs down & out the drains in the pinch welds.
 
kolelt said:
The reason why our rocker panels rust out is because the sunroof drains into the rocker panels. Then the water drains through the pinch welds. Simple as that. Water inside metal is a bad design. If you ask me. Especially if you off road in muddy areas. You can can clog the rocker pinch drains with mud.

With that said. Why wouldn’t you want to bedliner our rocker panels vs regular paint? Bedliner is much tougher against rocks and chips. You can always get matching bedliner paint. Some manufacturers spray bedliner with matching color from factory.
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I guess one good thing about not having a sunroof on this “new” 4Runner I bought is not having the issue with the drainage. I believe the reason these rockers got so rusty is that the previous owner still had the running boards on and never noticed, or never cared about, the rust building up.
 
4'running'26 said:
I guess one good thing about not having a sunroof on this “new” 4Runner I bought is not having the issue with the drainage. I believe the reason these rockers got so rusty is that the previous owner still had the running boards on and never noticed, or never cared about, the rust building up.
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A guy that I just sold some 4runner bushwackers to pulled up in a low mileage base model 3rd gen with no sunroof or running boards. He was starting to get a little rocker rot thru on drivers side near rear wheel, the frame and rest of undercarriage was mint. I think the rockers will still hold moisture regardless of sunroof, why wouldn't they. They are open to elements and these things got 20 yrs on the clock.
Make sure your pinch weld drain holes are clear. I took a screwdriver and spread a few of mine that we're pinched a bit more than the others. I seasonally spray WD-40 thru the drain holes with the little red hose fully coating the inside. Any kinda periodical RP spray you can get up in there is gonna stop the creeping death rust.
 
4'running'26 said:
I guess one good thing about not having a sunroof on this “new” 4Runner I bought is not having the issue with the drainage. I believe the reason these rockers got so rusty is that the previous owner still had the running boards on and never noticed, or never cared about, the rust building up.
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I dont have a sun roof either & it's awesome. BUT, when you remove the running boards the front tires pelt the rockers with pebbles. I had no rust on my rockers until I removed the running boards. Now there are paint chips everywhere & rust spreading under the paint.
 
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