Rocker Panel undercoating

While spending all those hours (so...many...hours) under the floor of the car cutting and welding, I noticed that were some very distinct spots on the floor that were basically sandblasted from road debris and had quite a bit of surface rust on them. I decided I would do some preventive work on these areas after the floor had been primed.

Here's the rusty wear patterns under the passenger rocker panel. Dirt and rocks kicked up by the wheels would get spit up here and just ablate away the factory paint. The metal is still good, it's just beat up a bit.

Same view on the drivers side. The previous owner, if I heard correctly, lived on a dirt road, thus all the damage.

I chose the DupliColor Bed Liner in a can for this job. I shot a piece of scrap metal with three coats and then the Apprentice and I went out back and threw rocks at it for 'simulated' road rash. It doesn't build up a thick layer, just a few mils thick. The coating holds up well enough - it takes big rocks to hurt it, and it tends to peel a little instead of chipping off, so I think it'll work well in this application. I'll also use this later on the outer firewall an torque boxes for the same protection.

Masked off the rockers. I used the old rusty wear patterns as a guide for how much to mask.

And the finished product. It's hard to get a good shot of matte black on satin black, but here you can see the texture of the undercoating. I didn't shoot the fuel line that runs down the rocker because I like the look of shiny steel next to the rocker. (And I should've done this before installing the fuel line.)