The tail lights arrived, although 2 days late. FedEx dropped the ball twice in back-to-back days in delivering them. I contacted the sales rep I used to work with when I was shipping manager, and he helped get things straightened out. At any rate, these things are a work of art, attention to detail is top-notch. I debated between the black anodized and the raw aluminum housings. Savvy claims that the "Mil-Spec" anodizing doesn't fade. While that was a concern, it came down to availability. The black housings were on backorder, so raw it was. I actually like the look with the aluminum corners. I feel that they compliment each other well.
The sliders came in right on time last Monday. That evening I test fit them and marked where the holes would need to be drilled in the body and then took them to be sandblasted at IPA sand blasting in Provo. He is quick and does the blasting for a decent price. I've had him do axle housings, control arms, bumpers, etc. He is usually same day if you can get it to him early enough in the morning. While there when he was doing my axles, he explained that the guys from Bitchin' Rides have brought stuff to him to be blasted. Kinda cool.
After I got them home I hung them in my paint area for 4ish coats of Steel-It.
Installing the lights went straightforward. I wired them while watching Dennis @ Teraflex flop Slimer on Hanging Tree one night after work. When it came time for install, it was just a matter of plugging them in and checking that they were working properly. I did have to get an LED compatible flasher relay. Superbright LED's said that the 01-06 TJ flasher would work with a 2000 TJ, THEY WERE WRONG. The 01+ flasher is a 5 pin unit, and the older TJ's are 4. I did some research online and found the correct one needed. Fortunately O'Reilly's had one in stock so I grabbed it and installed it.
The sliders initially installed easily. Barnes 4wd explained that there was no modification to body mounts for the sliders to be installed, but when I went to install the 4 rearward body mounts the gaps were so large that I couldn't even start the bolts. I ended up cutting my body mount spacers where the sliders installed .5" shorter to account for the additional height provided by the sliders. Ideally I would have used a band saw, but all I had immediately available was a c-clamp to hold the puck and a 4.5" angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. Not ideal, but I made it work. Once the body mounts were cut, and cleaned up with a flap disc, install went quickly.
Yesterday I drove down to Price, UT to run Pinnacle 1. I already made good use of the new sliders. Everything seems to be working well.