...I know that fiberglass parts are inherently a little off, here and there; however, I did not expect this.
The outboard surfaces of both pieces are really scuffed, bumpy and irregular. There are chips out of them and scratches that look like a herd of camels were river dancing on them. The trimmed edges are rippled and appear to have been cut by a drunk person suffering from CP while hanging from a rope on one and the other was cut by a short bus load of blind dee dee dees using the rounded plastic sissors and a french curve as a straight edge.

The jack post holes on the rockers are off by .375.

After all of that, I was going to accept the fact that I could clean them up and refinish them to what they should be. No problem....
Then during the fit check I found that the driver's side rocker is an inch (.920)shorter than the passenger side rocker. WTF...

I had aftermarket fiberglass rockers on my 73 and they looked finished right out of the box. Didn't even have to paint them.

Where did you get those? I dont wanna by from them.

For what it is worth, I got mine from AA and they seem to be good right out of the box. Need paint, but they pretty much fit.

Zach

I expect rocker covers to be steel...

YO! Anything other than Factory steel is just NO YO!

C'mon people - they're out there.
Pat

..after this I agree..

I just finished re-checking the fit. The passenger side is .412 aft of being flush with the steel flare. (the position is driven by the jack hole).
This was with the front valance in place and aligning the flare with the aft facing edge of the valance.

...I really can't stand that pig avatar. It's the most irritating MF thing I've ever seen.

...yeah, it would be great to have the bucks to get steel rocker covers.
But what about the people who don't think it as necessary...and expect the aftermarket manufacturers (who provide components for a narrow market) to produce a component that fits properly and doesn't look like a kindergarten group built it for a class project.
When I was in the 7th grade (1962), everything I made in art class, sheet metal shop or wood shop either became a paper weight, door stop or an ashtray.

What happened to process verification and acceptance rejection criteria?

I design and manufacture components for military rotorcraft. If my parts look and fit like this, I wouldn't have a job.
In fact, my daughter could have done a better job of it.

...I just measured my 74 from key points, left and right side. This is what I found.
the overall differential is less than .125 from left to right side.
My only choice, now, is to one, STFU and go on and modify the rocker to fit properly.
1. Make lexan templates of each side
2. cut each rocker into three pieces
3. add or remove material as required
4. sand, primer and paint
5. hinge rockers just aft of the jack holes for access to adjustible toe rods
using bearing plates, screws and 1/8 inch rubber sheeting (live hinge).
6. bitch, moan and groan the whole time at the a&^$(# who made it.

or

return them and hope that the other supplier takes pride in his work.

9 posts and we still don't know who made them?

OOHHHhhhhhhh looks like someone ate a crabby patty for dinner

Not as bad as this......

...for andy and scotty, I don't want to start a lengthy vendor bitch session. It's my fault for buying them (from a source).
I should have gone to my first choice...which I may consider...
I'm thinking of making my own out of 1mm sheet. I've already start contour cuts for the front of the rears and the aft sections of the front steel flares.
I can either form them, or butt weld the transitions...I have scrap to test with.
If I make them, I'll get shots of it for the site...

my f/g flared rockers fit like crap too...i bought em used, don't know who made them
but by george they will fit when i am done with them!!
if AA rockers are nicer i will buy them next time!!
....but again this all depends on postioning of flares on the body...
fiber glass seems to need a lot of work to get it to fit regardless...
so i would say it is expected...if you want it to fit like NOS, well i think you are dreamin...

I bought some from an ebayer who regularly sells them. It was too long ago for me to see their store name. Mine are not scratched, are straight, and have the
jack holes in the right place. Maybe I don't know what to look for but they seem
to fit pretty well.

I'd say return those dogs and buy another set from someone else.

John

Pardon my ignorance, but has no one made a replacement STEEL rocker yet ?? Seems kind of dumb if not. HUGE market for a relatively simple die.


To answer you question NO I haven't bought any 914 parts lately nor have I perused any of the catalogs

Or just simply what they look like....

Design restoration has these in steel for $135 each. Shipping may be a few dollars, but every part I've bought has been quality.

By telling us who made them or where you got them from can save other 914 owners some trouble.

Please advise.

we must have made them because we used factory Gt end caps when we made the panels. They fit PERFECTLY to the jack posts and to the underneath of the inner rocker. The end caps vary left to right as they are the exact duplicates of the original factory ones and for us perfectionists will need build up to match each other perfectly. They are as exact though as the factory original steel panels and fit just as well. That is what took us so long to make them.

Maybe its me (shut up Scotty) but if I was to put flares on a car, and I knew that the flared rocker was ALWAYS in a fixed position....based upon the jack post, I would get the rocker cover before I measured and mocked up the flares.

The flares can move, the rocker cannot move.
The rocker is a certain fixed length...

Why do people always complain that the rocker does not fit there specific car...
There is no way to put the flares on and have them match an unknown rocker aside from sheer dumb luck.

Aside from that, I expect any fiberglass part to need sanding and prep prior to paint...you get what you pay for on those parts.

Rich

The last time someone reported bad experiences from a vendor they were chastised for it. For pages and pages. Neverending. Not worth it, you need to roll the dice and find out for yourself.

It isn't necessarily a vendor issue. Is the car straight? Accident history? Sagging? These cars are notoriously odd dimensionally. Some can fit 7"X16" wheels and others only 6". I know of one car that fits 7" in three corners but couldn't in the fourth.

Fiberglass is kind of a "who makes the least crappy part" thing. Heck, I have pulled a stock VW/Porsche part off of one car and bolted it on to the same year car and had fit issues.

Best way to do rockers is what Paul Sayegh did. Weld the flares and modify the steel stockers to match... His are perfect. But you knew that...

This could be any number of things.

But hey, I can smell the anger... why don't you guys get a rope and find a tree. It must be a bad vendor right?

I'd like to see someone stamp just the flare part of the rocker in steel, so it could be welted onto the OEM rocker.

...I agree on one side of the issue and disagree on the other.
As far as my jack post position (on the car) being fixed, I would agree. Mine was within 3.17 mm from left to right. If one has a problem after replacing the jack post during a restoration, the hole in the rocker can be moved to accomodate the position. I wanted to place the steel flares based on hub centers and split the dimension of the opening in the flare.
My assumption was that the dimensions, from left to right, would be within .125, hopefully, and that the rockers were mirror image of each other. That assumption was incorrect.
Prior to all of this, I made a dimensionally square layout in solidworks and ran a tolerance study of the individual parts. I had the numbers before I started the fit check. My irritation was the numbers were, consistantly, not falling where they should have.
After three attempts to find the error in either my calcuations, or the deviations in the car, or the components.
The other incorrect assumption, on my part, was that the new front valance was dimensionally the same as the original. It was not.
The new part was beautiful, square, and manufactured better. It was thicker in section.
I found the deviation in the newer valance after I placed the original valance into position and screwed it into place. I aligned the passenger side steel flares with the original LE valance and then positioned the GT rocker covers into place. I was delighted to find that the rear flare fell within my original marks based on hub center.
I then went to the driver's side and did the same thing, and the driver's side fell within .125 of the original marks again.
Comparing notes against the installation versus the nominal data. I found that the car is not square.
I don't trust manufactured parts by nature. I deal with acceptance/rejection criteria everyday. Everything falls within zones of tolerance, diametrically, projection and planer, giving intermating part fit.

Sometimes we are so smart, that we're stupid.
My new rule on the 914, and the 911 for that matter, is make no assumptions.

This only convinced me that the car is organic in nature. From one car to the other, they may look like a toaster on wheels and similar in that fashion, but at the detail level they are different in all respects.

I am not an expert, I just have my own ways of doing things. Validation of my own thinking doesn't mean I'm smart. It just means that I'm aligned with the data.

I want to thank everyone who has communicated in this. It's like having all of you guys in my garage, sharing ideas and sweating the details.
I know once my car is finished, it will be a rolling example of all of our shared efforts. Each with its' own story of recreation.
Dave

All the time you spent..and the car is the variable.
I would buy the rocker covers BEFORE I put the flares in place.
Then you know what you are dealing with.
Mock up the flares based upon the rocker covers and the front valance...all together.
They decide what needs to change.
I would doubt that there will ever be "bolt on" parts that all fit every car..

I say that because if you try to put 7 inch or fatter wheels on the car, one side will fit, the other one will not...so how accurate can you assume the car is anywhere else..

Computer modeling is great.....IF you have a symetrical car to begin with.
Rich

...rgr that....I only modeled the component foot prints, and three hard points on each side of the car. like I said previously, it is asymetrical.
Anyway, the flares are tacked in position...all is good...at this point.

Totally agreed. We've put flares on twice (Once on my Dads, the other on mine) The first time, we didn't have the rockers, and had to modify the steal ones. The second time, we used the Rockers as a guide. Saved us about a day or two of work.

I haven't seen the new ones from AA, but EVERY other flaired fiberglass rocker panels I've every seen are borderline crap and need extensive modifications to fit good.

Thank You, he'll be here for the whole month! We appreciate your comments!

Pigs rule!

Now, what does that have to do with rocker covers?