sliders...

[pbkid]

i too had heard that welding to the VX frame is very very very bad because its a "cold weld" frame (i have no idea what that means)...but i know that if you "hot weld" to it, it severely weakens it...

im planning on bolting mine on...i would rather have to go through the pain of bolting them on then having problems with the frame...

oh and btw...i made contact with a guy at work tonight that is a welder nearby where i live...he seams very very reasonable with prices...
i plan on going to talk to him about skids in the next few days...i will let you all know what he asks for something similar to kenny's...with a few tweaks of my own ....

[Ascinder]

A cold weld (in this case) is one that doesn't have a lot of heat soak into the surrounding metal. The heat soak will anneal the tempered(heat treated) frame and basically revert it to mild steel making it weak. Where the weaker metal transitions to the stronger metal cracks can form due the weak being able to flex against the strong. Essentially it probably means our frames were TIG wleded instead of the more popular production MIG welding. TIG can be more precisely controlled and effects a smaller area of metal, but is far more time consuming than MIG.

[pbkid]

^^^^ so does that mean that if they use a TIG instead of a MIG than its a safe weld job?? and wont affect the strength of the frame??

[Ascinder]

It will, but to a far lesser extent. Depending on who is doing the TIG welding. Our frames are pretty beefy anyways, so it isn't likely to be anywhere near as big of a problem as some would have you believe. Make sure if you do weld it though to avoid vertical welds, always go at an angle. Doing that reduces the chances of it cracking and failing. Just imagine if you land on a rock, and there is a small crack in your vertical weld. The next time you land on a rock, all the shcock forces are able to travel straight up the established crack, right up the weld and cause a failure. With an angled weld, the upward force can't tavel the weld as easily. The method I would recommend is for someone to just come out and make a belly pan with attached sliders. That way it bolts up nicely and if you damaged a slider, it can be worked on with no vehicle down time and you wouldn't have to cut it off of the frame. If you are wheeling hard enough to need sliders, then you are wheeling hard enough to need a better skidplate too

[pbkid]

It will, but to a far lesser extent. Depending on who is doing the TIG welding. Our frames are pretty beefy anyways, so it isn't likely to be anywhere near as big of a problem as some would have you believe. Make sure if you do weld it though to avoid vertical welds, always go at an angle. Doing that reduces the chances of it cracking and failing. Just imagine if you land on a rock, and there is a small crack in your vertical weld. The next time you land on a rock, all the shcock forces are able to travel straight up the established crack, right up the weld and cause a failure. With an angled weld, the upward force can't tavel the weld as easily. The method I would recommend is for someone to just come out and make a belly pan with attached sliders. That way it bolts up nicely and if you damaged a slider, it can be worked on with no vehicle down time and you wouldn't have to cut it off of the frame. If you are wheeling hard enough to need sliders, then you are wheeling hard enough to need a better skidplate too

ya im planning on doing a t-shaped skid underneath...to go from the very front, to the last cross member..and then come over to the sides to bolt up to the same frame piece as the sliders are attached to...ill see if i can come up with a really crappy paint program rendering later

[pbkid]

ok here ya go...please go ahead and make fun of my crappy drawing program lol....
ok-
red denotes the frame
yellow denotes suspension
gray denotes the skid plate
green denotes the sliders

let me know if for some reason it wont work like this???
here ya go...



this is my understanding of what the underneath looks like, and where the rear control arms and the torsion bars are...if im off and it wont work...let me know now before i start taking measurements...

[Ascinder]

Looks good to me. The only critiques I could make would be:

1) Have the skid plate go ahead and cover the torsion bars-it wouldn't add a ton of weight, would give you a better attachment area to the frame, and would also stengthen the skid plate itself. It also wouldn't really interfere with anything to any great extent as far as I can tell.

2) When you do the transitioning points(like wherever it makes a 90 degree turn in your drawing) I would try and do either a 45 degree or better yet an arc. This decreases stess points in the design. Just on the inside bends, not the outer corners of course.

3) I'm not sure what you are thinking of using for the build material, but if you go multi metal, you could use a ridged piece of thin steel to support a flat bottom of either aluminum or nylatron. This would make the skid plate assembly lighter overall, and enable you to remove and replace the aluminum or nylatron bottom whenever you got a deep gouge or crack. It's a little more complicated, but would be better in the long run I think. You could also cut all your access holes in the ridged steel and cover it up with the flat bottom piece so you don't end up having to drop the entire skid plate assembly when you need to get in there and look at stuff(i.e. oil, xmsn, xfer case, catalytics, O2 sensors, etc).

4) If you are having it fabbed up, then make sure they get it exactly the way you want it. Be there when they are doing it, so if they have any clarification questions, they don't have to guess because you aren't around to ask. I've seen a lot of botched installs due to "interpretation".

[pbkid]

good tips, thanks beau...

im not completely clear on what you mean by #3...do you mean to use two sheets?? one with a basic frame and one with a complete sheet???

and secondly, dont the torsion bars articulate??? i was under the impression they did, but i could be mistaken (similar to the control arms)...
if not then i would definately cover them....

these are very very rough still, i would use kenny's design initially and then just make a few tweaks...

[Marlin]

My suggestion would include making sure that there is a central low point in the design, or perhaps use a drilled pattern. I have a plastic "splash" guard that runs from the under the front cladding all the way back to the forward end of the transfer case. When water, dirt, mud get in there, it stays because there is no where for it to go, so if you put a crease down the center having it come down toward the ground, that would help in drainage. My other concern would be heat. If you do mostly rock crawling type off road, then it is even more important since there isn't a lot of air flow generated by forward motion. Maybe holes in the bottom, like the prerunner skid plates?
As far as two pieces go, a solid frame rail design with removable under pieces and thinner cross members, good idea, I like teflon. You can get it in sheets, its lightweight, very convenient if you get on rocks and stuff since most of the time you would slide over just about any obstacle, and if you get gouges, you can heat it up with a torch or nice heat gun and smooth them back out again (not too hot, it will liquify or burn). There would be no galvanic corrosion, or any other type of corrosion, you could inset the mounting bolts to minimize risk of breaking the head off of one as well. I put teflon runners down my boat trailer boards, my boat came off the trailer like a greased monkey after that. It was one of my better projects and was cheap as well. My boat was heavy, about 5.5Klbs geared up, a Mako 191 center console with solid t-tops, twin Honda 4-stroke outboards, setup to troll with 7 Penn international 50s...I miss my baby.
Sorry, I was just flashing back...
But either way, keep us posted on your skid plate project, I am waiting to see how Riff Raff's deal works out, if not, I gotta do something before Moab and it may just be ghetto fabulous pending more time and money.

[etlsport]

it would be pretty cool to have a skeleton fabbed up that went frame rail to frame rail across the vx then extended out to become sliders.. that way any load on the sliders would be applied across the frame and not just on one side.. and you should be able to bolt it to the stock skid plate mounting holes so there would be no drilling or welding to the frame.. once you had that skeleton attached to the underside of your vx, then making plates to cover the area between that can be bolted to the skeleton should be somewhat easy?

[Ascinder]

im not completely clear on what you mean by #3...do you mean to use two sheets?? one with a basic frame and one with a complete sheet???

Yes. The steel framework underneath would be able to be made out of thinner metal if you throw in as many bends, flares, creases, flanges,etc as possible, then with that supporting whatever your plastic of choice would be (Delrin, Nylatron, or Teflon), you could just use disposable sheets of the stuff will all of the benefits is mentioned previously. Heat shouldn't be a huge issue as long as you plan for it. When you do the sheet metal around the lengths of the exhaust, just rivet or weld an extra heat shield type piece of steel that has an air gap between it and the skidplate and between it and the exhaust. Sparay the exhaust side with ceramic header paint, and presto you're all set.

and secondly, dont the torsion bars articulate??? i was under the impression they did, but i could be mistaken (similar to the control arms)...

Not even close. The torsion bars only rotate, and when I say rotate, I really don't mean it. On full flex they rotate less than half, a turn-a lot less. Think of the torsion bars as a tube that is also like a spring. If you try and twist it, it springs back. Like so:

[pbkid]

ok cool cool...i like the teflon idea...design a really basic "skeleton" of steel and then bolt the teflon to that....

and with the heating issue....im planning on adding an aux fan anyhow before i go to moab on a switch to the interior...secondly it would have ventilation holes throughout, both to relieve heat and to release mud and dirt...that way when i go to the car wash i just pressure wash the underneath and everything comes out...

ill have to crawl underneath this afternoon to get some ideas of where it could be mounted to and how many different pieces it would be built in...

well, hopefully my tax returns show up in the next few weeks and i can get a shop working on this while i wait for my sliders and my diff shield to show up

[pbkid]

hey quick question, justin you may know this one...

where is rocky road based out of?? are they utah or colorado?? i know they are mountain time zone, so it cant be that far

[Marlin]

I put my sliders on today, took about 2 hours, and a lot of cursing. You HAVE to have a close quarters drill. Harbor Freight, 29.99. I only managed to get about half of the body bolts in, unless you have a 3" cobalt bit, there is no way to drill em. They are sturdy enough without those bolts, I do recommend getting the Vermont White Cobalt steel bits. They cut through frame with no problems, and I drilled them all 5/16 instead of 1/4, that wiggle room was a must when puttin the sliders in. You will also need a jack, to hold it place and get it nice and tight.
I am gonna work on a skid plate with teflon inserts soon, I am puttin the hood scoop in tomorrow. Only a few months till Moab!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pbkid]

I put my sliders on today, took about 2 hours, and a lot of cursing. You HAVE to have a close quarters drill. Harbor Freight, 29.99. I only managed to get about half of the body bolts in, unless you have a 3" cobalt bit, there is no way to drill em. They are sturdy enough without those bolts, I do recommend getting the Vermont White Cobalt steel bits. They cut through frame with no problems, and I drilled them all 5/16 instead of 1/4, that wiggle room was a must when puttin the sliders in. You will also need a jack, to hold it place and get it nice and tight.
I am gonna work on a skid plate with teflon inserts soon, I am puttin the hood scoop in tomorrow. Only a few months till Moab!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nice!!! my sliders should be getting built in the next week or so...
should have the diff cover and air tank soon too...

next on the list is a skid plate frame (i was talking to my art teacher who is really into cars and he has a friend who works at an offroad shop who is gonna hook me up with a large strip of teflon )

should be ready by the time we get to moab