Through drilling chassis for rock sliders good or bad?

[morewheeldrive]

Hey all,
Started through drilling 3/8" holes in my chassis today to mount heavy duty U brackets to mount
Sliders to.
A friend heard I was doing it and said it was a bad idea. Anyone
Got thoughts on this. I thought drilling
And bolting was the way to go seeing as welding is a big no no????

[A.J.]

Sorry to tell you but, BAD IDEA!!

If anything, you drill oversize holes and then insert "chrush tubes" all the way through and weld them in around the holes on both sides.
Crush tubes are there to prevent the chassis from being squashed and also fron tearing where the hols have been drilled.

But the preferred option of mounting sliders is either clamping, using a backing plate and bolts above/below the chassis or a U-Bracket arrangement wich bolts together above the chassis rail.

Or- plates welded onto the chassis which are drilled and tapped and then bolt sliders to that.

Welding to the chassis is not a problem if done correctly and by a certified person who knows what they're doing!

[turbo gu]

Sorry to tell you but, BAD IDEA!!

If anything, you drill oversize holes and then insert "chrush tubes" all the way through and weld them in around the holes on both sides.
Crush tubes are there to prevent the chassis from being squashed and also fron tearing where the hols have been drilled.

But the preferred option of mounting sliders is either clamping, using a backing plate and bolts above/below the chassis or a U-Bracket arrangement wich bolts together above the chassis rail.

Or- plates welded onto the chassis which are drilled and tapped and then bolt sliders to that.

Welding to the chassis is not a problem if done correctly and by a certified person who knows what they're doing!

Sorry how is welding a 12mm plate to 4mm chassis BETTER than drilling a hole and using a crush tube???
He is still using the u section around the chassis!

[A.J.]

If I read correctly, I think he mentioned he didn't want to weld to it, that would mean he will not use crush tubes.

Now you tell me, just drilling right through and bolting to it, even using u-section, is ok?

There are plenty of fab-shops that weld plates to the chassis and bolt to that.

My preferred option, out of all, would be to clamp it, leaving the chassis untouched.
That's what I did with mine.

[morewheeldrive]

Ok so is there a certain tube I need
To use as crush tubes or can I just use some steel hydraulic tube with the same internal diameter as the external size of the bolts I'm using ?

[A.J.]

As long as the wall thickness of the tube is enough, probably 3-4mm, it should be fine.
But I'm not an engineer, hopefully somebody with the "proper" expertise can comment.
Just look at the way other things are mounted (steering box etc.) so you get the idea of what it should look like.