rock sliders/steps, who has made a set????

[bggrnchvy]

Yea, I thought about beefing them up but I have seen some little gussets like that hold things you wouldn't believe. I'm having all those laser cut from one of our material suppliers for super cheap, so making them a little bigger wont cost me much. I'm still looking around for scraps & drops to piece these together. We have one of our fab shop owners coming in today for a meeting on a new job & I'm gonna toss him a print & get a quote for the welding since I dont have a welder myself.

IMO ditch .250w tube, you're just making the rig heavier for no appreciable gain. Run some .120 or .188 if you really think you need it. Run a .120 gusset from as far outward to as far upward as you can with a 1" wide .188-.250 strap welded along it's hypotenuse offset equally and it will be fine.

My sliders are entirely .120w, my rear bumper was formerly all .120 (before I back halfed it) and it works fine on the rocks. The only time they deform is when I drop off multiple foot ledges I should have been paying attention to. Even in that case I just get a shallow bend.

 

[Hezsus]

Use standard sch40 pipe, its cheap and beefing up the gussets wouldnt hurt, longer across the round tube probably or just put them on top and bottom.

 

[big_mike]

IMO ditch .250w tube, you're just making the rig heavier for no appreciable gain. Run some .120 or .188 if you really think you need it. Run a .120 gusset from as far outward to as far upward as you can with a 1" wide .188-.250 strap welded along it's hypotenuse offset equally and it will be fine.

My sliders are entirely .120w, my rear bumper was formerly all .120 (before I back halfed it) and it works fine on the rocks. The only time they deform is when I drop off multiple foot ledges I should have been paying attention to. Even in that case I just get a shallow bend.

For the square/rectangle tubing? I wasnt sure if that would be thick enough for impacts with the entire weight of the truck. For the pipe then where it would be a step I could move down to sch. std. instead of XH & save some more.

I was thinking I needed thicker materials. I havent ever designed something like this, just pressure vessels/skids.

 

[big_mike]

I'm now thinking about changing up the design a little to shave some more cost. I'll post another pic with the revision once I get it done.

 

[big_mike]

ok, here is a revised design. I removed all the pipe & its all square/rectangle tubing goin with the 11g, cost dropped to about $135 for raw materials dropped off at my work. Also got to catch the fab shop guy & he said no problem welding it all up for me on the side. So once I get my materials & everything where it should be, I'll take it to him. He wants helps leveling his truck out for 33's & said since I know how we could barter his labor for my help on his truck, score. No fab cost, just materials on this project. It'll be done with progress pics within the next 6-8 weeks.

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[zraffz]

I don't have any good pictures of them but here ya go (they have taken abuse in a rock crawler for 2+ years):

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Basically shaped like this:

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[Solid94]

You guys inspired me to get the ball rolling on the sliders so I'm going to order the trail gear ones and modify them for my truck. I don't have access to a tube bender and it's the style I like so it kills two birds with one stone.

 

[big_mike]

There ya go. I'm excited about making a set from scratch. Thats one advantage I have at my job, I can keep tweaking it on the computer & making cardboard templates to test before I cut & weld my material & everything will be nuts on dimension wise. Last night I plotted out the sliders to actual size & started making my cardboard template for my test fit.

Then looking at my slider design got my thinking about other parts, LOL. I ended up looking into the tatical armor bumpers & think I fell in love. And their pricing is a ton better than other brands of fab bumpers. I'm not payin $1000+ for a single bumper when I can get both for $1100, LOL

 

[Solid94]

Exactly. I was looking at that too lol. Your design looks nice. I wish I could weld and fab mine but I can't. So I'm having another member on here weld them to my truck. If I can't make a decent bumper I might just order one

 

[big_mike]

Yea, I doubt I try to tackle the bumpers, but the side steps were easy. Bumpers might be as well if I took the time to look closely at them. If I knew someone local with the tatical armor bumpers I'd pull dimensions off those & draw a set up to see what kinda cost I'd be lookin at.