Fitted up new outer rockers, Rocker support, fender support, and door jamb, and despite using some repro parts when OEM was not available, I was able to get a perfect fit (lots of grinding and pounding on the repros). Started to notice the way these parts were joined. Outer rocker attaches to the top threshold seam where the floor panel and inner rocker come together in a "C" channel. Bottom edge is welded right onto the floor panel. Rear is welded to the inner rocker support with the quarter attached to the sides, and front is left pretty much open with the top attached to the hinge post and sides and bottom front tacked to the fender support. Yeah, it does add some structural support, but from what I see, about 10% if that, with the bulk, if not all, being supported by the inner rocker/floor/console structure. Even with the rocker and rocker support off the car, I did not notice any deflection no matter how the car was jacked, and there was no door gap deviation.
Now, I have experience in monocoque fabrication for my race cars where the entire chassis is built from aluminum sheets, bent, riveted, and epoxied together. So, my thinking was to epoxy these panels together using stainless steel countersunk head blind rivets every 1.5" or shorter. Given the epoxy bond which is being used solo on new cars to hang quarters, door panels, and roofs, coupled with the SS rivets with 700 pounds of tensile shear strength each, it should be as good, or better than just spot welding or tig'ing every inch or so. Plus the counter sunk rivet heads could easily be covered with a thin layer of bondo, and most of them will not show anyway.
Biggest problem with welding is the tight corners and "C" channels that is almost immposible to tig, or spot weld even if I had a spot welder. Plus with lots of hidden spots, I'm thinking that this epxoy/rivet combination may just work. So has anyone out there ever use this system? After all, the original "real" Hummer was completely put together like this. Any thoughts or structural engineers from 3M out there? Thanks Allan
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