Ford Raptor Sill Rust Potential? "Poor Design"...

[BigJ]

IRONMAN posted this on FordRaptorForum and gave me permission to reproduce it here. Thanks IRONMAN!

Very interesting...

"Well a few day ago I spent the day cleaning my truck and decided to remove the door sills for better access of cleaning the carpet of built up dirt and grime. After removing the sills I noticed that there was water laying in the channel where the electrical wires run. I also noticed Crystallized salt build up from the winter. If you notice on the picture with the bottom of the truck sill exposed it shows yellow rubber like washer that must be used to stop the water from under the truck from coming in. Apparently they're NOT doing there job and allowing all this salt water from the winter to come in from under the truck and settle in the channel. Now I'm sure this is going to lead to all kinds of RUST to start forming so my idea I THINK is to maybe seal all the clips from the bottom of the truck with some kind of silicone.
What are your thoughts and suggestions on preventing this?"

 

[MagicMtnDan]

I know that cable tray/trough well having spent a lot of time looking through the wires in both sides of the truck.

In addition to the through holes used to mount the plastic cover panel (with molded in treadplate pattern), there are larger rubber plugs (at least one per side - can't remember if there are more). You can run a wire(s) through the plugs if you wanted to get wires from under/outside the truck into the cab.

There's got to be a better way to close these off from spray but I'm not sure how well it would do if you're submerging the Raptor up to/beyond the doors in deep water.

 

[KaiserM715]

I pulled my door sill up this past weekend to investigate. Unfortunately, all I had time for was crappy phone pics.

Here is a close-up of the yellow rubber seals (hard to tell from the pic, but the metal spring clip has a copper color):


One of the more forward penetrations from underneath:


Moving back to the next one:


The one closest to the rear s-cab bottom door striker:


I have some ideas, but will have to get some time to try them out and develop further...