Just thought I'd show off my new sliders. I built these in my garage. They are pretty similar to a lot of the options out there. They are built from 2x2 3/16 square tube and 1.5" Sch. 40 structural pipe. I bent with a Harbor Freight tube kinker - you can still see the mark from bender on the pipe. I might throw a little bondo in there and remove the dimple, but I really don't all that much care, so maybe not.
I set them up so the square tube sits directly under the pinch weld. That way if they do flex, it will still lift the body on the pinch weld. I left about 3/8" gap so it wouldn't become a dirt trap in there and I can blow it out with a car wash. Otherwise I tucked them up as close as possible. The bar has about 2" clearance from the doors when opening and makes a nice step to reach the roof rack. It sits about 3" proud of the bottom of the door, or almost exactly even with the outside of the tires.
For those who want to build them - the 5th gen has to be one of the easiest vehicles ever to build sliders for. The frame has lots of welded nuts all over, and with the exception of the KDSS it's really easy to access. Plus the frame sits below the body, so you can just run your bracing straight out. In comparison the ones I built for my 96 were a multi day project and a ton more work. What I found easiest for taking a pattern off the frame rails was use a piece of semi-transparent plastic sheet (with good light butcher paper might work too) and cut to the size of your bolt plate stock. Then tape to the frame rail and punch the center of your bolt holes. Then transfer that with a punch to your stock. Then hit the drill press. It took me about 2.5hrs to run around town and get my steel and stainless hardware (it was a saturday and the only steel yard was 40 minutes away
. Then about 4 hours to plan, transfer, cut, bend, drill, and weld up the sliders. And another 3ish hours to prime, paint, let dry, then bolt on. I think I spent $110 in steel and had about 1/3 of what I bought left over, $30 in paint, $25 in hardware (20 stainless 6mm bolts, washers, lock washers).
I'd rather have steel tube, but I don't have a bender. Otherwise I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.
If you don't have metal fab tools, the products from places like rocky road are very good prices IMO. And they are probably a bit nicer than my setup, but I'm happy with it. Even with the tools I can't say that I did much better on price than just buying them if my time is worth anything.
If nothing else, now I can park without fear of door dings.
Edit: As far as structure - they are pretty solid, but possibly could use both a gusset or possibly a wrap under the frame rail to tie into some of the locations along the bottom. I kept them simple for now considering how many weld on sliders are done - this should be as strong or stronger because the ultimate weakness is the frame material its self. The plates are thicker double what the frame material is. On the KDSS side (driver's side) gussets are much harder to make work. They would need to be bolt on braces that go around the KDSS lines. On that side there are bolt locations on the back and a welded nut on the front cross member that could easily be connected to for greater resistance to vertical forces. I don't think it's necessary for my use - yet...
Here's a couple pics.
I set them up so the square tube sits directly under the pinch weld. That way if they do flex, it will still lift the body on the pinch weld. I left about 3/8" gap so it wouldn't become a dirt trap in there and I can blow it out with a car wash. Otherwise I tucked them up as close as possible. The bar has about 2" clearance from the doors when opening and makes a nice step to reach the roof rack. It sits about 3" proud of the bottom of the door, or almost exactly even with the outside of the tires.
For those who want to build them - the 5th gen has to be one of the easiest vehicles ever to build sliders for. The frame has lots of welded nuts all over, and with the exception of the KDSS it's really easy to access. Plus the frame sits below the body, so you can just run your bracing straight out. In comparison the ones I built for my 96 were a multi day project and a ton more work. What I found easiest for taking a pattern off the frame rails was use a piece of semi-transparent plastic sheet (with good light butcher paper might work too) and cut to the size of your bolt plate stock. Then tape to the frame rail and punch the center of your bolt holes. Then transfer that with a punch to your stock. Then hit the drill press. It took me about 2.5hrs to run around town and get my steel and stainless hardware (it was a saturday and the only steel yard was 40 minutes away
. Then about 4 hours to plan, transfer, cut, bend, drill, and weld up the sliders. And another 3ish hours to prime, paint, let dry, then bolt on. I think I spent $110 in steel and had about 1/3 of what I bought left over, $30 in paint, $25 in hardware (20 stainless 6mm bolts, washers, lock washers).I'd rather have steel tube, but I don't have a bender. Otherwise I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.
If you don't have metal fab tools, the products from places like rocky road are very good prices IMO. And they are probably a bit nicer than my setup, but I'm happy with it. Even with the tools I can't say that I did much better on price than just buying them if my time is worth anything.
If nothing else, now I can park without fear of door dings.
Edit: As far as structure - they are pretty solid, but possibly could use both a gusset or possibly a wrap under the frame rail to tie into some of the locations along the bottom. I kept them simple for now considering how many weld on sliders are done - this should be as strong or stronger because the ultimate weakness is the frame material its self. The plates are thicker double what the frame material is. On the KDSS side (driver's side) gussets are much harder to make work. They would need to be bolt on braces that go around the KDSS lines. On that side there are bolt locations on the back and a welded nut on the front cross member that could easily be connected to for greater resistance to vertical forces. I don't think it's necessary for my use - yet...
Here's a couple pics.
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