People with/knowledge of JCR Stage 2 Rock Sliders chime in please...

I posted this on JeepForums but that seem not to get a lot of traffic so I'll post it here too...

This morning I got up and figured before it got HOT outside I would go and drill all the holes for the rock sliders on my XJ.




Well I brought them up out of the basement and laid one on the jack and lifted it into place just like their instructions from their site says too. I first started on the drivers side and figured the one and only slider which had a welded "F" on one of the mount posts would mean Front...




Made sense...this SHOULD go on the drivers side because of the pinch welded mounting points are facing up...




So I was saying "sweet...nothing to it" BUT I look under and I'm going to have problems drilling the holes for the mounting the bolts...:brickwall

Passenger side front mount...


Passenger side rear mount...


Drivers side front mount...


Drivers Side rear mount...



Now I took the "supposedly" drivers side slider and moved it to the passenger side and vise versa and it didnt seem to line up to the body and frame as they did before.

Am I doing something wrong? I made sure they were centered as per the directions where it says to center them between the fender flares. Kind of lost so I'm looking for others to chime in and maybe if they have a few pics of their installs. I know there are lots with the JCR stage 2 owners here because thats one of the reasons why I went with these BUT all the pics I find dont show the mounting points.

TIA

Just put 3 bolts in the uni-body.. that's plenty to keep if from pivoting...

I dont have any bolts in mine.. they're welded on..

Just get em welded on. Banditt does his work somewhere up around where you live.

http://bandittoffroad.com/

drill out a new hole, doesnt have to be symetrical with the others in the exact 4 corners. Just that way you have more contact points, more lbs per self tapper, and its not a beauty contect. Just drill out the plate with the 4 holes, put a 5th hole where you can and call it a day.

What everyone else said! Just move it a little forward or aft to find metal. I had to think in perfection before I started modding my S-10s and learned to lower my expectations so, it wasn't culture shock when I joined this great crew.

I drilled all the way thru the frame rail and thru bolted the ones the wouldn't line up. Use a backing plate so you don't smash the inner frame rail. I had to beat the and reweld the pinch seam bracket to get mine to fit nice. You have the hassle of cleaning, priming and painting after you get them to fit and it winds up not being a bargan with the time and extra money spent.

Stumpalump said:

I drilled all the way thru the frame rail and thru bolted the ones the wouldn't line up. Use a backing plate so you don't smash the inner frame rail. I had to beat the and reweld the pinch seam bracket to get mine to fit nice. You have the hassle of cleaning, priming and painting after you get them to fit and it winds up not being a bargan with the time and extra money spent.

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you can still crush it with a backing plate....you also should use a crush sleeve (pipe works well, and is cheap)

Man I really wanted these....now im not sure I do.

Motorvated said:

Man I really wanted these....now im not sure I do.

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i've had a few sets of rockrails on my jeeps and helped a few others install threirs. they all have had this same issue....i usually just use 3 of the 4 bolts and have never had a problem

mine did the same when installing, I have 3 bolts each side. I've smashed the hell out of those things, stood on them and rocked the jeep back and forth (my 2 year old loves it) and they haven't moved a bit. They get a A+ from me. And you might want to paint them before you install them!

Motorvated said:

Man I really wanted these....now im not sure I do.

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Sometimes modifications to your jeep requires more than just bolting it up.

Every jeep is going to be different, the amount of undercoating, bent framerails, holes in weird positions. I just moved mine around until I felt comfortable putting the self tappers in and finished it up.

FWIW, I don't think you could engineer these, put them together and add in your labor to get yourself much more of a bargain.

What everyone said, pretty sure all makes of sliders have some alignment issues. One thing I really like about my Kevin's Jeep parts ones is the "L" bracket design where they bolt to the frame. Makes getting the up/down alignment a no-brainer. I too had the aft holes interfere with the big frame hole, just slid it a little bit and drilled and bolted it with minimum wall thickness at that point.


I've fabbed sliders before on my CJ. The amount of time you spend measuring, cutting, welding, etc. on the raw steel is huge. A few hundred bucks for something you have to slide one way or another to get a good fit is a bargain.

RedHeep said:

............FWIW, I don't think you could engineer these, put them together and add in your labor to get yourself much more of a bargain.

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X2!

The guy who makes custom sliders (rock rails) for S-10s (part time) lives close to JCR and can't believe that they can sell them for that. I believe I paid over $500 for my sliders on the S-10 and the additional costs to go to the stage 2 version would have cost almost as much as JCR's Stage 2's cost. I did have mine sand blasted and powder coated so, that added some costs.



My XJ is a "beater" but, it is a backup DD and the JCR rails have saved me from a lot of carnage. I have no clue on how I got rock/tree rash on them starting on the top of them and ending up under them. I don't recall anything that would have done that!

Frist off sorry about the issues.

The sliders are more than strong enough with 3 bolts per leg.

We put 4 holes in the plates for ease of making the parts and so I don't have to think to much when I put them together :dunce:

No seriously I think that it looks a lot better with 4 bolts per leg. I changed my jig up a month or two ago to move both legs forward a half inch or so. It's a delicate balance because I want to try to be on as much of the double wall part of the frame as possible, while still missing those factory tie-down holes. I don't know what version of the sliders you have though... when did you order them?

If this continues to be a problem I may have to change my jig up entirely. And spread the legs apart 3" or so. I just need to do some testing to make sure that will be solid enough.

Once again sorry, but please note that having 3 bolts per leg will be plenty strong for serious thrashing. If you have any more problems feel free to shoot us a call 269-353-1184

JoesXJ said:

mine did the same when installing, I have 3 bolts each side. I've smashed the hell out of those things, stood on them and rocked the jeep back and forth (my 2 year old loves it) and they haven't moved a bit. They get a A+ from me. And you might want to paint them before you install them!

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X2

Great product. atriot:

Definatly paint befor install.

monkeyevil said:

Frist off sorry about the issues.

The sliders are more than strong enough with 3 bolts per leg.

We put 4 holes in the plates for ease of making the parts and so I don't have to think to much when I put them together :dunce:

No seriously I think that it looks a lot better with 4 bolts per leg. I changed my jig up a month or two ago to move both legs forward a half inch or so. It's a delicate balance because I want to try to be on as much of the double wall part of the frame as possible, while still missing those factory tie-down holes. I don't know what version of the sliders you have though... when did you order them?

If this continues to be a problem I may have to change my jig up entirely. And spread the legs apart 3" or so. I just need to do some testing to make sure that will be solid enough.

Once again sorry, but please note that having 3 bolts per leg will be plenty strong for serious thrashing. If you have any more problems feel free to shoot us a call 269-353-1184

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Ok not a problem. I just wanted to see what others were doing as far as the installs go. And this set was ordered at the begining of the year...to be exact I think the 1st of Jan.

XJedi23 said:

X2

Great product. atriot:

Definatly paint befor install.

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Yea I'm def painting them. I just wanted to get the holes drilled and what not and ready for mounting. I'm waiting for my front bumper to arrive so I could paint everything in one day and then mount the following day.