How to attach Rock Sliders ?

[mightymouse]

Am making some rock sliders for the Mouse and have several contradictory stories about how to attach them to the chassis.

So far the "advice" has been :

1 Weld. Seems a bit permanent to me....
2 U Bolts. A bit messy and can be a pita to make.
3 Plates to chassis, through bolts and crush tubes - seems like the business to me but ?

What have people done ? What have the pro's and cons been ?

Pics of the "so far so good bit......

Slider Rail - 2011T6 extrusion I'm told. A bit thicker than I'd planned but...

Rail, End Caps and mounting stub

Rail, End Caps and mounting stub (alloy), blue bit is heavy wall RHS ( steel )

[mightymouse]

Oh well - lacking evidence to the contrary, will go the bolt through approach....

[gwagensteve]

Sorry Ross, I was going to a little drawing but ended up being out tonight which wasn't planned.

I don't like any way I've seen to date of bolting a slider on around the rail. It seems that the outcome is a slider at the sill but an anchor of some kind under the chassis. I consider that a net loss.

My preferred removable solution is as follows.

lets say you aim to use a 100X100 mounting plate.

Cut a thick mounting plate, say 10mm. Drill and tap say 10mm bolt holes in the corners.

Fillet weld this to the chassis after drilling appropriate clearance holes in the chassis to allow for full thread engagement.

now weld a matching 100X100 plate to your outriggers, drilled as appropriate.

Now you have a welded mounting boss on the chassis and the sliders can be removed. There's no loss of clearance and no nasty U bolts or things on the inside surface of the chassis where you have brake lines etc.

If you're concerned about engineering, choose an appropriate thickness and shape doubling plate and weld that to the chassis first and then weld the thick tapped plate to that.

Michael's sliders have been welded to the chassis and I admit it's not for everyone, but the bolted plate solution seems to get around the problem of the permanence of welding, especially for an experimental design like yours.

I had ARB side rails on a Hilux and thankfully that was high enough I never caught up on the U bolts/mounts but on a sierra/vitara/feroza I couldn't live with it.

Steve.

[mightymouse]

Thanks Steve - that's a little bit of a adaption of the two more prommising methods, and it makes sense.

Really don't like U Bolts, can see why they are use commercially but IMO its far from an optimal solution.

Sliders sandwiched to the chassis ( even with crush tubes ) seem to present too much opportunity to "pivot", whereas your suggestion of bolting to purpose made plates overcomes these problems.

IN fact..... I have a "spare" set of mounts on the chassis where the old gearbox crossmember used to be..... they are horizontal not vertical but they are strong and already welded to the chassis. Rear mount - Hmmm some fab.