olharleyman

OK, So the roof rack is done and the truck is being readied for the sliders to be installed. First I should say that I got the sliders from WAB FAB and that they were the do it yourself set that he sells. The first thing that I noticed is that these things are heavy and that's a good thing. After unwrapping them from the plastic they were shipped in the next thing I noticed was the craftsmanship put into these things WOW very very nice.

TIME TO INSPECT THE GOODS

All the guys in the shop had to come over and check them out and all agreed that the welds on the sliders were AWSOME , some of the best welds we have all seen from a production product in a long time. Now that we are all done drooling at the welds and all the questions about where I got them from was over it was time to finish unwrapping the plastic and set up for some welding.

The next thing that I noticed was as stated in the info ad from WAB FAB were these really nice cut to fit pre notched for the round bar itself anchor legs. Next find was the bolt to the frame plates and gusset pieces all very nice and thick pieces of raw steel. After laying out all the pieces it was time to mock them up and get a feel for how they would fit together.

BRINGING IN THE TRUCK

Next it was time to drive the truck into the shop and up on the 4 post lift that was sitting empty and looking for a customer. Once the truck was set on the 4 post and e brake set we raised it up about 3 1/2 - 4 feet we had a nice eye level view of the frame. I first thing that I noticed was that the frame near the front has a angle inward and that made me a little nervous. My friend TOMMY (who is a k-9 officer I work with M-F and owns the shop , this is our weekend get away ) said lets not worry about that now lets start by setting up the bar to the height you want them to be.

SETTING UP AND ASSESING THE SITUATION

We grabbed a set of jack stands and set one of the pre fabbed parts of the sliders on top and found just the right height for them to sit and not hit the bottom of the body spot welds all 4 runners have. Once that was figured out we noticed that the anchor bars were going to hit the bottom of the body. We readjusted the height to make sure they would not hit the body and still looked good. The alternative was to cut the body with the plasma cutter to fit the shape of the bar but the tip on the cutter was messed up so we did the readjustment instead. Now that we were happy with the placement it was time to measure the mounting points we were going to use.

MEASURE AND MEASURE AGAIN

With the tape measure in hand I looked at the rocker panel and decided that the best point to get an even measurement on both side was to use the split between the front door and front fender were they meet. I slid the end of the bar even with the split and it became the point of all measurements from then to finish. Once I was satisfied with the placement of the slider we then took the frame mounting plates and began to find the points on the frame to set them for the best and most sturdy point for mounting.

Now that we had established the the mounting points I marked them with a steel pencil. Now it was time to find the distance from the frame to the slider. For that I used a 6 1/4 piece of cardboard cut to the shape of the mounting bars and same angle so it would mock the round bar of the slider and found it was an excellent distance. So that was what we decided was the distance out from the frame for the first two bars. Next was the front bar measurement witch turned our to be 9 1/2" and again used cardboard to mock up the angle of the frame and bar. It lined up straight across the length of the back side of the bar so that was it. We marked all the bars to the measurement's we had and used a chop saw to make all the cuts.

Now that all the measurement's to the bars were done we went back to the mounting plates and set them on the frame with c-clamps and decide that it was time to make one little alteration. Instead of bolting them to the frame we would weld them instead. We also took one of the mounting plates and set it on top of the bar between it and the body pinch welds used it to give us a comfortable space between the bottom of the body and the top of the bar and tacked them to the plates so we knew where they needed to be. So we pulled them down and took them to the welding table.

TIME TO DO SOME WELDING

First we did the sides of the bars to the plates just to hold them solid and around to the bottom. Now that they were set , we placed the little gusset piece in welded it into place and finished the first one of six. One after another they all got welded and finished up. Now we grinded the frame clean so we could get a good ground and not have to try to weld thru the paint which we all know don't work. It was time to weld them to the frame so off we go back to the frame. The plates were set in place to the marks on the frame and a small tack set in place. With the edge of one of the plates set to check and make sure the body pinch welds and bars were still correct we did the final welds on the frame. It was time to place the slider to the mounts and found that all the measuring and remeasuring payed off it fit like a glove. With the jack stands in place holding the slider I grabbed a angle-o-meter and found 15 degrees upward and tacked the slider double checked the angle and then welded the sliders into place. We repeated the same steps on the other side and they both looked very good and talk about strong we put 3 200 plus pound guys on the first side at one time and it didnt even faze them. I would say that these sliders are more then worth the money and time spent and I highly recommend if you don't have a set of sliders now and are considering some look no further then WAB FAB these things are built TONKA tough. He does sell some that are pre built but doing the work yourself is very gratifying and like anything else you do to your truck you know the what to fix it if you need to someday.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

Very sturdy and strong sliders easy to build and in stall the hardest part i found was the welding and if you know how to weld its an easy job just time consuming I would say its an 7 1/2 if you can weld I'd give it a 6 out of 10 so its really not hard at all just a lot of welding.

heres the only picture I got its the final look I don't have a digital cam so a friend took this picture for me so I could atleast let you all see the end result

Ringmaster

Great writeup!

Any pics of the slider install?