mounting rock slides

How do you guys mount your rock slides? To be honest I'm not even sure the XJ's have frames like trucks. Thinking about putting some on my buddies MJ and don't know whether to weld them to the frame or bolt them. Either way better or worse than the other.

hadAjeep said:

How do you guys mount your rock slides? To be honest I'm not even sure the XJ's have frames like trucks. Thinking about putting some on my buddies MJ and don't know whether to weld them to the frame or bolt them. Either way better or worse than the other.

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Bolt them up against the pinch seem and into the frame rail. Plan carefully though: you probably want some box still against the pinch seam and the floorboard/rocker panel (look at how supernerfs are designed) as you want something to rest against as you land on the rock rail (I pushed my pinch seam up with the rock rail when I went through a series of landings on teh rock rail.. long story).

Like Kejtar said.

After I installed the Four Real skids on mine (Daystar rock rails) I spot welded the corners of the foot to the frame rail. Ensures I won't pull them out when jacking from them.

Derik

Doesn't it make you nervous welding on the frame? I work on Freightliner trucks and really the only time we weld on the frame is to fix cracks, other wise everything is bolted on. Welding does seem stronger to me though.

Welding on a truck frame rail is totally different. It is thicker and is much different material. The challenge of welding to the XJ unibody frame is the thinness of the material, besides dirt etc.

I believe Freightliner truck frames are heat treated in some form as well, hence the lack of welding to them.
JP

Nervous, No.
considering that most or all aftermarket rock sliders are only lag bolted into the frame rail. That is no retaining nut on the back of the bolt. Spot welding was the only option to ensure the rail doesn't pull out when using it as a lifting point.

Derik

I've never seen or heard back from anyone where bolts failed from jacking up their vehicle. There was once case where someone did manage to come down on their driver's side so hard that it tweaked the main tube of the rail a little but sheared off the mounting bolts that go into the framerails. But the frame rails were distorted quite a bit (pulled out in the bolt areas) so it's probably not a bad thing they did shear before causing even more damage. He said the impact was pretty severe though, he said it sounded like his XJ was split in half by a giant maul.