Cracked welds on slee sliders??? (1 Viewer)

[cjmoon]

This is a customer of mine that uses his 80. To the fullest, but was surprised on the incoming inspection to see this. Only on the driver side. Passenger huge cat protection I believes help keep this issue from coming up.

I’ll be re-welding and adding horizontal gussets to help release the stress point on the bottom leading edge of tension where the cracks started.

 

[Comet]

Age of sliders please. Knocked the crap outta those boys. Nice!!

beer in my belly talking now.

holy crap. Its like every weld failed at once two months ago. Rust jumped up and bit the sliders. Then we have another one two punch for the proverbial knock out.

 

[jfz80]

Just don’t call it a design flaw amarite @concretejungle ?

(Goes to inspect sliders)

8os are heavy and With repeated use it wouldn’t surprise me. How old?

 

[Comet]

Now the whiskey has kicked in. Take all those welds off and start over.

 

[cjmoon]

Just don’t call it a design flaw amarite @concretejungle ?

(Goes to inspect sliders)

8os are heavy and With repeated use it wouldn’t surprise me. How old?

5 years about. 6bt Cummins rig, arb front, slee rear. She’s a heavy girl.

 

[Comet]

I stick with my original drunken statement. Break out the grinder. Still very impressed.

 

[matzell]

Clean out the welds, reweld it and lay a piece of 1/4" strap on the bottom to tie it into the frame better and not allow it to pull away from the frame. A 6" x 2" piece should work well. Over lap the bottom of the frame 2" and have 4" on the slider. It looks like it is pulling the frame out at the weld. The way it is set up now it is only "butt" welded.

 

[leonard_nemoy]

That is surprising to see. I am amazed that the welds and sliders cracked instead of the frame. The frame is by far thinner material. I cant help but think that something was wrong with the welds the first time. Maybe the wind was blowing all the shielding gas away or something happened to create sub-par welds. Maybe the welds were unpainted and rust worked it's way into the joint. I have seen weld on sliders that ripped the frame apart on a 4 runner. This is why I prefer bolt on sliders.

 

[I Lean]

That's not welded to the frame, that's where the leg attaches to the main "body" of the slider.

 

[Pin_Head]

Maybe more of a design issue. A square tube would perform better than the inverted U because there is too much stress and a stress riser at the ends of the U where there some weld under cut. If you had to use a U, you would want U right side up so that there is more weld where the stress is, but then it would catch all the dirt.

 

[BlueCruiser84]

Maybe more of a design issue. A square tube would perform better than the inverted U because there is too much stress and a stress riser at the ends of the U where there some weld under cut. If you had to use a U, you would want U right side up so that there is more weld where the stress is, but then it would catch all the dirt.

Not really surprised it failed there. Plate the open portion of the “U” and tie it in at frame and on slider body. Problem solved. Weird they made it with channel instead of tube in the first place.

 

[nukegoat]

Maybe more of a design issue. A square tube would perform better than the inverted U because there is too much stress and a stress riser at the ends of the U where there some weld under cut. If you had to use a U, you would want U right side up so that there is more weld where the stress is, but then it would catch all the dirt.

This was exactly my thought. 100%

 

[nukegoat]

Also those sliders don't look that used

 

[Grandlooser]

Poor design, poor welds and abuse. Not much surprise here.

 

[BILT4ME]

Grind out the welds and redo.

Don't carry the weld within 1/2" of the end of the toe of the channel. Weld inside and out, but don't carry the weld to the toe of the channel or it will fail again.

The wrapping of the weld created the weak spot in it. Once it cracked or pulled off, it carried through the rest of the weld.

If you want a sealed weld and get the strength, do like @matzell said and lay another piece of flatbar inside to gain weld and changes the tie-in direction.

 

[flintknapper]

Very 'hurried' looking welds to me and subpar penetration judging by the build up.

 

[Pin_Head]

Very 'hurried' looking welds to me and subpar penetration judging by the build up.

That too.

I’m sure Christo didn’t weld that himself. It is easy to criticize other people’s welds but a lot of people like me didn’t do too much welding for a living. I mostly OA welded mufflers using coat hangers as filler and welded nuts onto broken off bolt heads. A better design would tolerate mediocre welds better though. At least it wasn’t a tire carrier with a 80 pound wheel hanging off it.

 

[cjmoon]

I don’t disagree with any of the comments. I’ll be grinding welds and gusseting. I’ll post pics. There is always more than one way to skin a cat. Hind sight is 20/20. This rig is used, black sliders never show.... white front and rear show off very well.

 

[cjmoon]

 

[sleeoffroad]

Couple of points on this. Anything can be broken and as with any product, there are compromises. The channels are used because on the other side is a U bolt that you need access to the nut to attached. That is why it is a formed U channel and not a square tube. Yes welding them with the U up would help that situation, but does not work on the mounting side and it would fill up with dirt, and to prevent that we would have to cut drainage holes in the arm and weaken it.

Judging by the video and the scrapes on the back bumper, I would say they are getting used, and in general I assume they protected the rocker panels for 5 years, so I would say they did and are still doing their job. There is also the compromise of not making things so strong that failures would happen to the frame where the fix would be way more expensive.

One can play Monday quarterback and critique the welds, the overall design etc, but there is compromises in product cost, weight, design etc that has to be taken into account. Can we add more metal and additional welding. Would that prevent the cracking from happening, probably, but based on the numbers of these we sell and the very small amount of these situations we see we feel the product still does it job to protect the vehicle.

I would say anyone that wheels a truck that hard probably owes themselves to inspect their trucks regularly and good thing this was caught at this stage and can easily be remedied.