ROCKER REVIEW I recently had to redo a rocker

ROCKER REVIEW

I recently had to redo a rocker, so I said what the hell and ordered both the schofield (from wolfgang) and the Wolfsburg West rocker from WW.
The following articles are not intended to downgrade anyone's business or degrade anyone's products. It is merely for consumer information and reference.

The results? Inconclusive.
What I found was that both had their pluses and minuses and both required rework.

Passenger side rocker
2 piece versus pre welded?	Some trucks had an inner strengthener spot welded to the backside of the outer rocker skin, and some trucks didn't. The Schofield comes separate- You order the rocker and that's all you get; the rocker skin for about 38 bucks. You have to order the inner strengthener separately. The WW comes already with the inner strengthener spot welded to it which is nice if you don't have a spot welder and want the inner piece attached, but a pain if your truck didn't have the strengthener and you want it correct and have to drill out all the spot welds. The price, around 30 bucks.
Profile	The first thing I noticed was the difference in the profile of the 2 panels. The schofield has a much sharper corner edge on the top where the Rear cargo door/treasure door touches. WW on left w/strengthner, Shofield on right. Also notice that the top channel where the rubber goes, the Shofield panel has a much nicer channel and is deeper. The WW was too short in my opinion.
Modifications	Both panels require modification where the cargo door latch is. The WW panel has the setup for a normal bus with pieces spot welded on for the holes for the cargo door rods and etc. Here's a pic with those pieces drilled out with a spotweld cutter and a couple of the tabs cut off to make the replacement patch easier to make. That was easy enough, but still needs to have that cut-out filled across the top of the rubber channel. The WW panel also has pre-drilled drain holes in it that I needed to fill to be correct for the truck I was working on. Here it is with the hole filled, imperfections welded up/ground down, and new top rubber channel piece added. The schofield requires about the same modification but in a different way. It has a pressed detent in it that would need to be cutout entirely and a new piece formed and welded in. The good news is there are no drain holes on the schofield rocker. One more note on this, the WW piece comes pre-dented. Thats right! isn't that great?. Its something to do with their pressing process when they press in the drain holes that run along the bottom. There are dents above every one of those holes.. The schofield was dent free, ready for paint practically! =)
Additional notes	Both rockers had a 90 degree 'but' bend on both ends This made it a problem when going to do the overlap flange that is factory up at the front of the rocker by the B pillar (and also at the rear on most trucks) I ended up cutting them off so the rocker would lay nicely over the S crimp flange on the B pillar piece like from the factory. Speaking of the B pillar piece, nobody makes that so you will need to make your own assuming it needs to be replaced as well.. I ended up taking the schofield piece and cutting a chunk of it off up toward the front of it. The rearward cut end had to be S crimped with a pneumatic flange tool, and I left the forward end in tact with the pre-made 90 degree bend, so the B pillar joint could be sandwiched together correctly behind the dogleg. One last note on comparisons. The WW come coated with a thin coating that scrapes off easily. The Schofield panels come with a thick coat of black paint, which is a pain to remove when you need to. So in conclusion, either way you want it, its there. But no mater what your truck will thank you for it when you put on new metal =) Oh yah, don't forget to order the inner sill C channel piece that goes back behind the Rocker and strengthener . If your rockers are bubbly chances are very good that you will find out you need the C channel piece as well. The WW piece seemed to fit ok..
Rear short rocker
Fitting	(click) I ordered the Wolfsburg West short rocker panel (~15 bucks) for this and the big problem I noticed was that the flange for the wheel well was 1/8" too short which looks nasty. I have been told by other bodymen that sometimes you get one that is right from WW, sometimes you don't. Next time ill try the schofield. For this job I just remade the wheel flange to the correct width. One of the other things I found myself doing to this piece was cutting off that flange that runs across the top so that I could but weld it in smooth. Youll also have to do some work to the 90 degree bend on the foreward side.
Front wheel well wing
Fitting	This is a review of the schofield piece only. There are 2 problems. The first problem being that it is not a "true" replacement piece. It is a "patch" piece. For some people that may be fine, for others, it might not. What I mean, is it is not designed to replace the piece entirely. Its cut just short of the seam so that you can just go in cut some of it out and patch it in. It is also designed for a bus which has the pressed in bubbles in the middle of the well (see curved upward flange bends in pic). The real disappointment is that you order this piece to do the stuff down on the lower portion of the well where the rocker rust has eaten thru. You will have the B pillar rocker piece off anyway so you get this to make your life easier by having the radius of the lower curve, then you find out it isn't wide enough and doesn't extend into the dog leg/Bpillar/rocker seam. Bummer. Youll end up hand forming the piece Fabrication is more enjoyable anyway. The piece also seemed alot thicker then the factory metal.

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