After finding out about this myself, I wanted to find a way to try and add to the longevity of my hellcat. So after researching what others have done, I decided to take a stab at starting to prevent it as best as I can. I pulled the side cladding off to expose the lower rockers and the holes underneath. This is what you are left with when it is off.
I cleaned the rockers up, removed clips, sprayed 3M cavity wax inside the inner front fender via the now exposed holes at the bottom. I also sprayed the wax in the lower sub frame rails to coat them internally as well. I did this in the rear rails well from the inner fender where there are holes into the frame exposed there. I plan to do more, but I only had 2 cans of the wax and had used it all up at this point. I just have the front frame to deal with now as well as pulling wheel liners out to address any seams exposed in there.
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I then put the butyl tape over the holes the clips go in, making a small hole for the clip and covered the holes that were not used at all for any clips or mounting of the side cladding with the tape. To my knowledge from research, none of the materials I used are harmful to paint or metal. Hopefully I don't find out the hard way I am wrong there.
I then moved to the cladding itself, and used the 3M strip caulk to run an entire strand at the top of the cladding as well as around the plastic mounting tabs at the top to make a seal around all holes and stop water from being able to get in behind the cladding at the top.
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Sorry for the lack of more pics, but once I got to it I did not stop to take pics of everything.
I also figured I would break clips removing the cladding, which I managed to only tear the felt washer on a few, but still used new ones anyway. The part number for them is 68172491aa on my 2019 anyway. Not sure if this differs for any years.
2012-2023 Mopar part # 68172491AA - W Type Clip
www.stevewhiteparts.com
At the bottom of the pinch weld seam I did see some foam that had come through small openings, so I sealed the whole lower seam with rtv to help stop that from getting soaked and absorbing water. This took a couple of hours and the hardest part was getting the cladding off the lower clips.
