By Cal on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - 06:20 pm: Edit

After some recent close calls on rocks I decided it's time for rocksliders. I'm looking for some input on what kind to buy. Which one is the best or worst? Easiest/hardest to install and which is the biggest bang for the buck?

Cal

By Kyle Van Tassel (Kyle) on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - 07:51 pm: Edit

Hands down it Rovertym sliders. but check each out for yourself. There certainly allot of choices these days. Give John a call. www.rovertym.com


Kyle

By Troy on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - 10:45 pm: Edit

IMO, stay away from the Atlantic British ones- I bent them the first day I ran them at Tellico -- on BOTH sides!
Troy

By Mike on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 02:57 am: Edit

After months of research, I finally decided to go with the ones from RoverTym. I have had them on for about 6 weeks now and I am very pleased with the product. Installation required some drilling, but is very straight forward. I love the nerf bar (side step) feature and they work great. The nerf bars help keep you away from the 'nasties'. If you are into rock crawling, go with the heavy duties.

Terrain Master in the UK also sells a great pair. Theirs have integrated jacking points and look to be of very high quality. Although, I doubt that I would ever jack up my Disco using my rock sliders (not enough clearance for a high lift jack).

SafariGard also sells a pair, but I have heard that they can get bent pretty easily just like the ones from Atlantic British.

The biggest debate in this area seems to be whether the rock sliders should mount to the sills, frame, or both. The basic problem is that the body mounts to the frame in such a manner as to allow the frame to flex independently of the body. So, attaching the rock sliders to both the frame and the body may interfere with the natural flexing of the frame. I would imagine that the potential problem would be that the body panels could potentially 'wrinkle' if too much stress is placed on the body. I have never heard anyone actually having this problem, although the potential is certainly there.

Attaching to the frame sounds good, but the distance between the frame and the sill is so great that the frame mounts can very easily get bent. Usually, this means that the rock sliders end up damaging the very part they were meant to protect. I have seen this happen and have heard of more than a dozen cases of this occurring.

Mounting to just the sill also poses a problem in that the sill is not very well reinforced. I figure the Land Rover designers never imagined that Disco owners would want to put on rock sliders. So, anything that attaches to the sill suffers from the same weakness as the sill itself.

RoverTym has come up with a novel solution to this problem. The sliders attach strictly to the sill using a sort of sandwiching effect. The RoverTym rock sliders consists of two parts; the slider itself and a heavy duty backing plate. The slider and the backing plate sandwich the door sill to protect it and to help give it more strength. This makes it very strong, and since the sill is completely enclosed in steel. As a result, it becomes almost impossible to damage the sill. To my knowledge, the RoverTym product is the only one that has this benefit.

Lots of luck in your research!
Mike

By Ron on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 09:28 am: Edit

Rovertyms are the best, but rockware are also very good and offer some extra features if you request them (jack and recovery points). If you are cash fluid you may want to go with the ECR Rox ones.

Ron

PS SG ones are miserable

By Simon on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 10:25 am: Edit

RTE! definetly!

www.rovertym.com

good luck

Simon

By mrbieler on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 10:34 am: Edit

Any opinons/thoughts on the Mantec sliders or the ones from Trek Outfitters?

As for room to use a hi-lift, just open the door...

By ho on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 12:04 pm: Edit

wow, seems like most people are sold on those RTE sliders.
i have a set and i must agree with everyone here.

just one thing: return the crates to john. he even puts prepaid shipping labels in there.

ho

By Bill Gill (Bluegill) on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 12:14 pm: Edit

I agree with Ho - seems like you can't go wrong with RTE. Also, very good write-up on sill protectors by Mike. I never knew all the gory details. One quick question: could you use the rock slider as a recovery point, meaning a place to hook a winch or tow strap to for a little help (not a full tow) if you're sliding sideways in the mud on an off-camber slope? Does the RTE slider have enough structural support to survive the tension (keeping in mind that it's not frame-mounted)? I ran into this problem on a muddy slope, and nearly lost the Disco over the edge. I had no place to secure a line to on the side of the truck, so I spent the whole morning literally inching my way backwards. I'm wondering if John could work in some simple recovery loops on his sliders. I plan on installing the nerf bar sliders eventually, and may want to add this mod if it'll work.

By Discosaurus on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 12:26 pm: Edit

I use sliders from DesertRover.

I think his design is one of the better ones
out there, due to the integrated sill protection
plate that runs underneath.

I think he still could be talked into making a
set...

keith
discosaurus

By Ron on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 12:41 pm: Edit

Side recovery points. The reason I suggested rockware or ECR. If no one comes through with a used set or other solution for the 110 I am going to bite the bullet and take it to Mike or maybe John@RTE and have a set made. I already have the design worked out. 2"x4" thick walled channel mounted to both the frame rail and to the ears (which will also serve to reinforce them) two steel tabs with 3/4 holes like on J**p bumpers on each slider to serve as recovery points or instead maybe 2 2in recievers frenched into the sliders in the same spots (so I could use the multimount to pull sideways or could but the reciever d-ring puller thing in there). The plan I have for them is to make them structurally more of like additional frame rails or outriggers (like on a canoe) of the chassis which will give full side protection while looking somewhat like they are supposed to be there. I might tackel some of the fabrication myself but I am not a good enough welder yet to pull it off. Oh, and I am going to galvanize them to minimize scratches.

I spent way too much time thinking about sliders

Ron

By John on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 01:01 pm: Edit

The side nerf bars are also side pulling points as I have used them as such....the attachments for the nerf bars create 3-14" long x 1" wide recovery slots along the side, creating 3 different points for the angle needed to pull sideways. And they will take that pulling pressure...not snatching, but pulling. Been there, done it, got home. Just my .02

By Bill Gill (Bluegill) on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 01:49 pm: Edit

Good enough.

By John Graham (John) on Thursday, March 15, 2001 - 04:19 pm: Edit

To add my two cent, RTE was not available when I purchased side protection for my disco. I went with the Terrain Master units. I have pictures, etc. and need to send them into the tech section (soon :-)). The Terrain Master sliders are nice units, very strong, and yes you can use them for jack points. They mount to the frame with heavy brackets. As my real need is for recovery, and under the door protection (not actually rock sliding) they do warok very well for me. Plus the Terrain Master folks are very nice, and build quality equipment. I also have the front steering protection plate, with recovery points, works great, and very heavy duty unit.

By Dadster on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 07:26 am: Edit

Another place to check is Mike @eastcoastrovers.com. They fab sliders with welded recovery points for all rovers. Very heavy duty.