Toyota Tech: Rockslider Roundup
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| Http://www.4x4Wire.com/toyota/tech/sliders/ |
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| Jeff Bathke's All-Pro sliders, first welded, later bolted brackets around the frame (continued) |
About a 1/4" to 3/8" gap is left between each slider leg and the body's pinch weld so it doesn't vibrate. When it flexes up on a hard hit, the body provides some support and a limit to how far the frame will twist. I'm very happy that they stick out so unusually far since it has kept my doors away from many rocks and trees. In 3 years of off-roading, I've added several shallow dents and scrapes in the tubes, but really they've stood up well.
When I slam rocks, most of the force of leveraging off the frame presses the gusseted 1/4" bracket into the outer face of the frame rail, with tension across the weld at the bottom of the brackets, prying against the inner wall of the frame. The bolts extending through everything don't do a lot except to hold the sides of the brackets tight against the frame walls. The brackets (as opposed to the bolts) do most of the work on an impact. I don't have a fear of squashing the frame with the bolts since they don't need to be massively tightened. I still used 1/2" bolts just in case the bottom weld ever pulls apart. If that were to happen, it transforms into a standard through-frame bolt-on solution with large plates on each side to distribute the load and the bottom of the brackets would maintain the distance between plates.
These took a massive amount of work, but I'm extremely happy with them.
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Jeff Bathke's modified bolt on All-Pro Sliders
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