Rock Sliders / Rocker Guards Guide
- Thread starter JMT
- Start date
downthepines
TJ Enthusiast
I couldn’t handle watching the install on a dirty Jeep.
They look good though.
They look good though.
They are there for anyone to make. Blaine helped me with the design of these, including the rub rails, followed by a small team effort to get the CAD file made for a fabricator, and then the fabrication of the base rockers to build the rest upon.
All you need is a hunk of cardboard and be willing to fold in your Jeep's pinch seam to get started with them. The rest is just layout.
Once I get the rear stretch done on mine, I will be replacing my Savvy sliders with the DIY mini boatsides.
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I’ll buy the takeoffs!
It will be a while, but they will be the mythical hardcore Savvy slider that never was. They are going to be trimmed up front for highline fenders and also have a full length steel slider.
Compared to a normal rock slider, the mini boatside increases the ground clearance of the body by removing the corner under the door.
The mini boatside we built is very similar to the GenRight mini boatside, except that ours does not have the giant tube step to get in the way of the rocks. The other way ours is nicer than most is that I copied what Blaine designed for Savvy by adding the slight over-bend and the slight secret bend under the door to force a tight fit onto the body.
Another detail that is missing from the BFH video would be the use of a large aluminum backer plate inside the door opening intended to sandwich the body sheet metal between the slider and the backer to create a tight unitized structure.
The idea behind these mini boatsides was to take the GenRight mini boatside, remove their clutter, and add in as many Blaine details as we could.
This was the inspiration from one of Blaine's builds a few years ago.
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Put another way, they revert back closer to the original design that GR did for me on the Viking rig, the first set of which is on it.
I can't find much for your actual rigs. Is this your current or a past one of yours? Or was this a customer's? A sick build regardless, the travel looks insane!
Edit: I'll add that I'm not familiar with stuff that you've built or are connected with, so this may be common knowledge to some.
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That's going way way back in time! I never knew to look for those back then.
UKTJ
TJ Addict
I've been playing around with my rudimentary CAD and it has raised a question in my mind about the Savvy sliders I can't quite answer with certainty from the pictures I have seen of them.
One of the advantages quoted is that they have two 45 degree bends, rather than a sharp 90 degree bend. The aluminium part is made of 3/16" 6061T6, my understanding is the recommended minium bend radius for that is 4.5x thickness, so for 3/16" that would be an internal radius of 27/32". When I measure the drop between the bottom of the side of the body to the underside of the torque box it is a very similar distance to that radius (I actually make it slightly less, but my measurements may not be 100% accurate). That would imply that there is not enough room to form a 45 degree bend, run a flat section and then form a second 45 degree bend - unless I am missing something there is just about enough room to form a 90 degree bend. From the picture above it looks like a 90 degree bend in the aluminium - but I have learnt that the angle pictures are taken at can mean you misread them.
Again from the picture above it is clear that the steel section that attaches to the aluminium does have a 45 degree bend with a flat section then another 45 degree bend. This makes sense as my understanding is the steel can be bent more sharply than the aluminium (is there a minimum bend radius for mild steel?).
When people refer to the two 45 degree bends being a benefit of the Savvy sliders, are they referring to the steel section rather than the aluminium?
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