Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Do it Yourself Rock Sliders

These sliders are by no means fancy, but if your on a budget, have some welding and drilling skills you could whip these up over a weekend plus some weeknights finishing them off. These were designed with the KISS principle in mind. These were done on a 95 single cab Hilux but the same principles will apply to any rig. A 2â€

Ok you’ve marked them all out, before you take them off and go weld them it might be best to mark “frontâ€

Now its time for the grinder! Take them off and cut off your mounting arms to size and go put them back on the chassis yet again. Get your piece for the slider rail and line it up to where you want it to sit (cover the whole sill preferably). If you added the 50mm or so on the lengths over lap this excess on either end of where you want to mount it, your going to be cutting the ends soon anyway, its better to have more than less! Once its lined up, mark it out and take the mounts off yet again and tack weld your rail on.

Mount the slider back on the chassis yet again (it’s a PITA putting on and taking off all the time but your sliders will be perfectly tailored, you can just rely on measurements alone if you want). Now you need to mark the angles you want the ends to be at. I made mine angle down so that rocks will tend to slide under the slider, if you keep the ends flat it will tend to get caught up a lot easier.

Take them off again once you’ve marked it all out, before you start grinding youll need to mark 8mm back from the lines you marked because your going to be welding 8mm plate on the ends, if you don’t the sliders will be 8mm longer at each end. I know this is common sense, but common sense ain’t all that common. Tack them in place and then complete the welds.

Make sure you have completely welded all the joins on the sliders, you have just about finished the structural part. You can leave the end caps as is if you like, but I rounded the edges off to not only make it look neater but also aid in making rocks slide off the ends to help stop them getting caught up on things.

If you want you can put them back on to make sure everything is sweet, other wise clean them up and its time to paint.

Painting is pretty straight forward so I wont go into that, I had some left over aluminium checker plate which I cut to size and riveted to the top of the sliders so they double as a step.

Voila.

Heres a few more pics to help you you along...

Any questions or suggestions are welcome

My only suggestion would be that the chassis mount could be a rock catcher

Make the bit that mounts onto the chassis out of the same flat steel - but make it like a u-bolt type affair. It can still be bolted over the top of the chassis like you have it - but it will be less likely to get caught on rocks, tree roots etc

Just a thought

But I like you job and the DIY write up - very cool

Awsome.

have added a "DIY" section in the bible and referenced this post to it.

good work.

Cheers, add all your suggestions in this thread for others too see also

Shorty40 wrote:My only suggestion would be that the chassis mount could be a rock catcher

Yep for sure thought about that, but i didnt want to touch the chassis so its the only option, i am willing to compromise for this.

I have another one up my sleeve for the auto elec section, will post it up next week sometime.

also be careful when welding galvanised steel not to breathe in the fumes. weld in an open area but not somewhere too windy. nice write up.

N*A*M wrote:also be careful when welding galvanised steel not to breathe in the fumes. weld in an open area but not somewhere too windy. nice write up.

Another good point. You may have noticed the nice paved drive way in the pics, all the welding was done there.

Shorty40 - You dont have a pic of this u-bolt set up you were referring too? Would be good to add in here (and im not exactly sure what you mean).

awesome

Great Tech

Great DIY, a job well done

Might go and tackle it on my Fourby in a couple of weeks

Drop Bear wrote:Shorty40 - You dont have a pic of this u-bolt set up you were referring too? Would be good to add in here (and im not exactly sure what you mean).

Instead of having two seperate bits of flat steel bolted together (top and bottom of the chassis rail), you could have 1 bit of flat steel that is bent into the same shape as a u-bolt. It is then slid up from the bottom to fit snugly over the chassis rail, and still bolted over the top of the chassis rail, as you have done. This basically gets rid of the extra 'stuff' hanging under your chassis waiting to catch on rocks etc

Shorty40 wrote:

Drop Bear wrote:Shorty40 - You dont have a pic of this u-bolt set up you were referring too? Would be good to add in here (and im not exactly sure what you mean).

Instead of having two seperate bits of flat steel bolted together (top and bottom of the chassis rail), you could have 1 bit of flat steel that is bent into the same shape as a u-bolt. It is then slid up from the bottom to fit snugly over the chassis rail, and still bolted over the top of the chassis rail, as you have done. This basically gets rid of the extra 'stuff' hanging under your chassis waiting to catch on rocks etc

Top idea, dunno why i didnt think of that I will be modifying mine like this in the near future for sure!! Will post pics up here too

I have just posted a thread in Gen Tech asking about exactly this. I am doing sum sliders for my Lux hopefully next weeknd and this is the same way I want to do mine.

Good work drop Bear, excellent write up and pics

great write up drop bear well done

am doing mine today. I just have question for ya drop bear. What length is your mounting arm?

top stuff mate i'm inspired now to make some up for the bundy, as soon as i get it back from the mechanics

diesel028 wrote:am doing mine today. I just have question for ya drop bear. What length is your mounting arm?

from the mouting plate to where it welds to the slider rail is 220mm for the centre and rear mounting arm, the front one is 320mm. Thats just how i wanted them though you could make them whatever length you want.

i kept mine a little closer to the chassis. the middle and rear arms are 170mm from plate to slider and front is 260mm. i have some pics, but i unfortunately busted my old mans camera during the build so i didnt get any of the finished product.
they have been painted black and have some end caps welded on also

i am very happy with how they turned out

very good right up. Much neater than my DIY effort, tube is harder to notch and get good angles as im only using a grinder

Very neat

dude remember, what gaps u have, your friend the welder will fix it.

i like the rhs sliders, but i'm goin to make some tube sliders soon, ditch the steps on it now,

good work drop bear, u seem to be goin great guns on your truck.

Ok theres an update now, ive redone the mounts as per Shorty40's idea and also gussetted them for extra strength...

I was thinking about doing mine like this..

Same as dropbear and diesel028 but with a tube outer bar... obviously it would be stronger, but would it be required if its only for jacking off, and stopping sill damage at low speed?

Excellent write up guys, even a hack like me could do it Is it worth using gal box for resistance against rust etc when paint gets damaged?

+dj_hansen+ wrote:I was thinking about doing mine like this..

Same as dropbear and diesel028 but with a tube outer bar... obviously it would be stronger, but would it be required if its only for jacking off, and stopping sill damage at low speed?

Excellent write up guys, even a hack like me could do it Is it worth using gal box for resistance against rust etc when paint gets damaged?

Tube would be good, bend it at the ends towards the chassis and that will work better than how ive done it, although i havent had an probs hanging up on stuff. As i originally made them they were strong, i could jack up my truck with a hi lift jack, they took a few good hits off road and have only chipped the paint.

Why not use gal when its pretty much the same price as black steel?

Heres a pic of a set of sliders i made for my mates 80 series and the 2nd pic is a set i'm making for a GQ.

Defender kev,
Just on the GQ ones, please could you post some dimensions and also how you are going to mount them to the chassis and what to. I wanna make some for my GU. More pics would be great especially when theyre on. Thanks

kkkkk