By Mike B. on Tuesday, September 18, 2001 - 05:53 pm: Edit

While at SOLAROS, I saw a few Discos without rock sliders with bent sills and door bottoms. So, for the most of the first day I'm thinking my rock sliders are the best investment I've ever made.

Then I saw a Disco with what looked like RoverTym sliders (which I also have and am very satisfied with) with the sills and door bottoms bent up. (I would be interested to hear how that happened.)

While on the trails, I watched my RoverTym Sliders flex enough to make me nervous as I slid slowly across the rocks. I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that any slider that mounts solely to the body is inherently weak. Is there any way to make this type of slider stronger? I don't know, maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Opinions? Does anyone have any pictures/diagrams of a body/frame mounting system for sliders?

Thanks,
Mike B.

By Alex Schubow (Alex) on Tuesday, September 18, 2001 - 08:54 pm: Edit

You're not being paranoid.

Yep - the RT sliders are fine. They won't bend. The sill mounting will, however, and in my case, did. I caught the edge of the nerf bar on a rock, and it levered the sill inward and buckled it at the top. Not pretty.

A frame mount would be ideal, but difficult to do on a Disco. Maybe some 1/8" steel plate welded to the sills, with the sliders bolted to that would be better. Or maybe that would just move the damage elsewhere.

Alex

By Ron on Wednesday, September 19, 2001 - 03:32 am: Edit

How about cutting the back end out of the sill and inserting some thickwall square tubing, then welding angle iron on the sides to reinforce where the sill meets the body floor.

OR

"A frame mount would be ideal, but difficult to do on a Disco."

Buy Rockware

Ron

By Discosaurus (Discosaurus) on Wednesday, September 19, 2001 - 06:14 am: Edit

After looking at RT sliders, I was all ready to have my local NASCAR welder guy add those nerf bar extensions to my DesertRover sliders. I've nicked the doors a couple of times when ledges and stuff got close and I figured those nerfs would be great for keeping shit away from my door panels.

THEN....I heard what happened to Alex's sills (and evidently other people's too...). Now, I'm thinking it's not too great of an idea to have that big lever arm sticking out, waiting to put massive amounts of torque on the door sills when you come down on a rock. With most sliders, this can't happen. Most of the force on the sills would be straight up and down.

I'll bet that sill bending wouldn't occur if the sliders didn't stick out so far...

keith
discosaurus

By Ron on Wednesday, September 19, 2001 - 06:20 am: Edit

Maybe you could weld extentions from the sliders on to the outriggers as brackets to stabilize any torqueing?

By Jack Poehlman (Jpoehlman) on Wednesday, September 19, 2001 - 07:29 am: Edit

Take a look at the write up I did on the Atlantic British sliders in the tech section. I now also have a set on my Range Rover Classic LWB, and they all work great. I have never had them flex into the doors and they are both frame a sill mounted. Now the addition I made of adding the extra angle iron on the back of the sill has also probably helped alot. Lastly, we recently designed and build a set of sliders for the New Range Rover 4.0/4.6, that I am working on documenting for those interested. Send me and email if you would like to know more.

By Mike B. on Wednesday, September 19, 2001 - 03:22 pm: Edit

Thanks for all of the great input.

I'm pretty attached to my RTE rock sliders; especially the nerf bar. I hope that it didn't sound like I was bashing RoverTym, because I wasn't. I'll continue to ponder on this a bit more. Fortunately, I live in Florida, so I won't be doing any rock crawling anytime soon.

Ron:
Do you have pictures of the mounting system for Rockware?

Jack:
Yes I'm interested in more info. An email is on it's way to you!

Thanks,
Mike B.

By Alex Schubow (Alex) on Thursday, September 20, 2001 - 01:31 am: Edit

Unfortunately, adding frame mounts such as you describe to the RT sliders is problematic. They are a 2 piece design, and the main slider portion (where the outriggers would have to be welded) is completely obscured by the 2nd piece. I guess you could cut notches in them for the outriggers, but then it would create more hangup points under there as you drag over rocks. I'll have to take a closer look, however. I will definitely be doing something about this over the winter.

After what happened to my sills in Attica last time, I have lost all my confindence in their strength. (the sills, not the slider).

I'm also a big fan of the nerf bars built in to the RT sliders, but Keith definitely has a point about the nerf bars acting as a lever arm. I do know that I would have some serious damage (ok, more serious damage ) to my doors if those nerfs hadn't been on there!

Alex

By Ron on Thursday, September 20, 2001 - 03:20 am: Edit

Do you have pictures of the mounting system for Rockware?

I will see what I can do, but it will probably be a while before I get any to you.

Basically they mount to the frame outriggers and then there is a bushed mounting to the bottom of the sill.

Ron

By Mike B. on Thursday, September 20, 2001 - 02:10 pm: Edit

Alex:

Do you have any pictures of your bent sills, etc.? Can you give us any idea about how much force it took to bend your sills?

Thanks,
Mike B.

By Alex Schubow (Alex) on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 02:19 am: Edit

http://www.asmc.net/sliders/

Those are pics of the result with the sliders still on. I have no pics of the sill itself with the sliders off.

It didn't seem to take a real big hit to lever the bodywork - just a precision hit to the right spot. If you look at the pics, you can see crushed rock on the outside of the slider - that must have been what did it.

AAMOF I didn't even notice it until we got back to the campground that night and I tried to open my passenger door, several hours after it actually happened.

Alex

By ARog on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 09:39 am: Edit

Alex,

Are you still running 235/85...or are my eyes deceiving me to make those tires of yours look bigger?

By ericrat on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 10:12 am: Edit

As long as the subject is drifting, say you were at Solaros and didn't have rock sliders and ran all the intermediate trails and bent your door bottom.

How would you straighten it back out?

It is a pretty slight bump, moved the bootom of the door inward and up about 1/4 inch.

Suggestions?

By Ron on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 10:17 am: Edit

Check to see what you did. Take off the plastic and look at the sills, then check the actual hinges on the door to see if they were what moved. Finally hammering out aluminium is a PITA, I can give you some instructions but it is not the easist thing to do and there is risk.

If it is the door and it is a simple bend you might be able to successfully bend it back using a cresent wrench, maybe with extentions on the "jaws."

Ron

By Bill Bettridge (Billb) on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 10:24 am: Edit

Take Ron seriously, he can give really good advise about hammering large pieces of automotive sheet metal (especially bulkheads) - whereas I can give a few pointers about angle grinder use

(just being a smartass again - must be Friday)

Seriously though, if it is just a 1/4" of the door - you're just in the point where the door skins meet and that may be possible to straighten with a set of smooth jaw vicegrips (about 2-3" jaws) or some similar tool

By Ron on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 10:34 am: Edit

Bill,

Yes I can hammer

If you ever see a large man swinging a 12lbs sledge with a short handle you will know who it is.

And Bill thanks for cutting those bolts for me.

Anyway I prefer cresent wrenchs to vice grips but either will work. I had to reskin some series doors and it was just a royal PITA until I figured out how to use the cresent wrench and a couple small pieces of thick metal as extentions on the jaws. The problem is that you can overwork aluminium and make it brittle if you bend it more than a little bit.

Ron

By Alex Schubow (Alex) on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 01:07 pm: Edit

235/85. BTW, it doesn't look so bad in those pics, but there was extensive damage to the sill. Bent in on the outside, and buckled on top (had about a 3/4" gap between the carpet and the plastic trim that runs along the doorway.

Alex

By Mike B. on Friday, September 21, 2001 - 03:17 pm: Edit

Alex:

What are you planning to do about the damage? Do you have a cost estimate to fix it?

Thanks,
Mike B.