D.I.Y. Rock Sliders

rumblebee3

rumblebee3

Caught the Bug
So I'm getting ready to build a set of sliders for the Jeep and the RAM and my buddy says "hey, we should build a set for my 4 Runner to... so I say sure! Wow what a project to tackle. Especially since I'm the stuck doing all the building, fab work, welding, etc . The only thing my buddy could do was grind. He knows guns but doesn't have very good mechanical skills. Plus we were doing this at my work so he was limited on what he could do do to liability reasons. Multiples at once sucked but all in all I'm glad I did it myself​ because we saved a ton of money and got to make them fit the vehicles the way we wanted and build what we thought looked good to us.

So far we've gotten the 4 Runner and my RAM done...Due to the fact I can't weld the sliders on the WJ until I get the lift and unibody supports welded on and the fact I'm probably buying another WJ and getting rid of the one I have now because, well the new one is a limited edition with the 4.7 and looks cleaner and appears to be in better shape. Oh and doesn't need a new motor or trans like the one I have now. But I digress... Here's what we did so far...

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Material showed up!!! It's nice when you work for a machine shop and can get cost pricing! We used 2"x3" 3/16" wall rectangular tubing for the main body and the standoffs and going to the frame and we used 1-3/4" 3/16" wall D.O.M. tubing for the rest. We also used 3-1/2"x5"x3/8 flat stock for all the gussets and pads to weld to the frame.

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Got the 4 Runner started!

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Metal bending time! We actually tried bending this ourselves with a Buddies manual bender but bent the bender! Whoops. And bonus for me, when the shop we took our tubing to to get bent did mine they screwed up so they gave me my old material back and I got 1-3/4"x1/4" wall D.O.M.! That is some heavy shit!

Time for mock up...
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Being a machinist and having a job that allows me to work on my own stuff is awesome. Being able to bird mouth or notch the tubing made this look so much better!

Welding time for the truckIMG_20170419_220026153.jpgIMG_20170419_220353474.jpg... This being said I am not a welder as a profession. I'm just glad paint covers up so much LoL
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Both started....

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Time for more mock up...
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I think out of everything this is what took the most on both the vehicles.


More welding for the truck
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4 Runner sliders before installing...
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4 Runner after installing....
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Add some paint and Bam!!! Done!
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I didn't realize until I got done that I didn't take any pictures of me welding mine onto the RAM. Oh well...Here they are in they're painted Glory.
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And you know how you feel when a project finally comes together, it finally came together at about 9:30 at night. And as I was peeling the paper off from painting these I heard Rumble outside, looked outside and it was pouring ass rain. Got to work around 6 a.m., took a half a day off So I could finish these up on my truck and was at the shop until almost midnight waiting for the paint to dry enough to drive home in the rain LOL I wish I was kidding!
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So all-in-all there's rock slider builds... Two vehicles down and one to go! Thank you for looking and hope you enjoy! As soon as I start building them for the WJ I will post pics on that.

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Nice work. Like you I am a machinist and a welder in my profession. Luckily this is a great profession to have matched with our hobby. I hate grinding and cutting so usually if I am helping a buddy I'll say you cut and I'll weld. Although it usually turns into a "show me how to weld" project too. You can save a ton of money if you have the skills to do your own work. Looks good man.


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Nice work man. It is good to have access to all the materials and the equipment makes project much easier I ant it :)
 
JMac79 said:
Nice work. Like you I am a machinist and a welder in my profession. Luckily this is a great profession to have matched with our hobby. I hate grinding and cutting so usually if I am helping a buddy I'll say you cut and I'll weld. Although it usually turns into a "show me how to weld" project too. You can save a ton of money if you have the skills to do your own work. Looks good man.


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Click to expand...

Thank you very much! Yes I definitely love what we do. And yes... it usually does turn into "here show me how to do this again" but I wouldn't change it for anything. I have always said if I didn't do what I did for a living I either would be broke as hell from paying other people to do this or I just wouldn't be doing it. I am very lucky to be able to do this kind of work and especially have a job that allows me to do it as well off the clock. I run a CNC mill and CNC lathes how long with manual lathes and Mills along with gear cutting equipment, welder, saws...an entire machine shop at my disposal. [emoji106]


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Those sliders have all sorts of awesomeness in them: Original, functional, and exceptional. Thank you for taking the time to share the fabrication with us. I also want to say a big thanks for creating something original. We get so many people on here that "copy" a design and then pawn it off as if they are super studs and did it "just as good" as the item they copied. Great work on the welding and the cutting. Having limited metal shop experience myself, that all looks like magic to me.
 
NevadaZielmeister said:
Those sliders have all sorts of awesomeness in them: Original, functional, and exceptional. Thank you for taking the time to share the fabrication with us. I also want to say a big thanks for creating something original. We get so many people on here that "copy" a design and then pawn it off as if they are super studs and did it "just as good" as the item they copied. Great work on the welding and the cutting. Having limited metal shop experience myself, that all looks like magic to me.
Click to expand...

Well thank you. I don't know about awesomeness but thank you. Just did my best on them. Like I said there's only so many ways you can build sliders and I just took the best of all the ideas I saw and tried to do my own thing on them. I'm sure they both probably look like someone's in some respects in some ways​ but changed things that we thought needed to be changed and redesigned them how we wanted them and did them all myself and came up with all the dimensioning. The welding definitely could have looked better but I can tell you they are NOT going to go anywhere hahaha. I'm just lucky I work in a place that lets me do stuff like this. I don't have the most experience in the world... In my opinion you never stop learning. But did the best I could and I'm happy with the results.

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BTW.... Forgot to mention this in the initial post but the 4 Runner Rock sliders weighed about 70 lbs a piece and the ones for the truck weighed about 90-95 lbs a piece! Part of the reason I welded them on. You want to talk about a pain in the ass to get these things lifted up into place!

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