I received my EVO rock sliders and skins last week, so prepped/painted and installed this weekend. I purchased the powder coated skins, so just had to paint the sliders.
To install the skins, I didn't want to purchase a $100 tool for the nutserts to use one time, but I have used the bolt/nut method in the past on 3/8" nutserts (the only other time I have used nutserts) and it sucks, so I needed a different solution. In my tool chest, I have a Harbor Freight Pop Rivet tool # 66422 that is built like the real nutsert tool, so went to work modifying the tool for nutserts. The rivet tool works great on 1/4" rivets, so I didn't want to destroy it if this could be avoided, but for $20, it was worth the risk.
As you can see in this picture, the pop rivet tool (which is only $20 at Harbor Freight) can be disassembled to create a hallow barrel. I removed the interior crimping piece with the spring by unscrewing it from the barrel. I screwed the large nose piece back into place, but left off the tip that holds the rivet, and screwed the bottle off. In this configuration, I was able to slide a 12 inch long 1/4 x 20 all thread rode down the barrel. I tried to find a 1/4 x 20 bolt in grade 5, but needed 8 inches long, so no luck.
I added 2 washers and two nuts on the all thread rod on the bottle side, and drilled out 2 number 12 fender washers to 1/4 inch so the washers had a tight fit against the nutsert. After marking and drilling my first 4 holes, I put a nutsert on a 1/4 inch bolt, smeared on a little clear silicon to control rust on the inside, and tapped the nutsert into the hole. Finally, I screwed the bolt out of the nutsert and screwed the tip of my all thread rod into the nutsert that had been tapped into the hole. (the picture above is for illustration, as the nutsert was already in the hole when I screwed the all thread onto the nutsert) I tightened the nuts to spread the tools arms apart, and then pulled them together to crimp the nutsert into place. After the first nutsert, I tightened the two nuts together so my arms were at a consistent position for each nutsert.
I was surprised the all thread rod was strong enough to crimp the nutsert. The only issue I had was that I bent the tip of the all thread rod on two occasions, which meant the rod had a little wobble when screwing it out of the nutsert after crimping. No big deal, as I had plenty of extra rod, so I just cut the tip off, cleaned with a file so it would screw into the nutsert easily and moved to the next nutsert. I think a grade 5 bolt would keep this from happening if you can find one long enough, but it was more of a nuisance than anything else. Installation of the nutserts took about 1 hour per side, so the total job took about 3 hours with the silicon and final installation of the skins.
To prep the sliders, I setup 2 sawhorses and screwed the sliders to the top 2x4. I laid down 3 coats of self etching primer and 4 coats of black hammered paint...as well as 3 more coats of royal red on the end pieces to add my red accent color to each side. Not sure how long the red will last or how difficult it will be to keep the accents red, but it's a nice touch to start with. I wish I had painted the pinch seam black before installing the sliders, but I can still get to them, so that will be a project for another time.
Time to go find some rocks for a good test...