Building Your First Set Of Rock Slider Full DIY

to dandruff lifestyle we're going to replicate what i think is the perfect template for a beginner set of rock sliders i picked up this 2021 toyota tacoma about two months ago and i've been able to have a whole lot of fun in it for being a stock truck so far the only mod is a winch bumper but today we're gonna change that for those of you that watch this channel because you're a beginner fabricator and you are looking for those early fabrication projects that can get you hours on your machine that get you a really big return on investment there are a few things that i think are better than rock sliders so originally i was going to build a very complicated set of rock sliders for this toyota tacoma and we still will but that's me version 2.0 i'm going to build a set of aluminum rock sliders that are going to be pretty complicated but they're going to look really good once i get a lift and tires on this i don't want to build that set yet because it's going to look ridiculous on a stock tacoma but we can build a version 1.0 with very little investment in material i mean we're just going to we're going to build it as steel it's going to go together really quickly as you're going to see and i think that this will be a cool opportunity because i do want to try and reach way more of you beginners in this 4x4 world with this toyota tacoma so we're going to do a simple version 1.0 that is going to be so basic that you can literally adapt this design to any vehicle car truck suv you name it this design can be adapted and then later on once we get this truck built the way that i want it we do a version 2.0 [Music] [Applause] starting this project is pretty simple just break out the tape measure pull some basic measurements and start cutting since you're building these from scratch the length is up to you you can go all the way from tire to tire or you can just cover the doors whatever you think looks the best [Music] this project is about to start moving forward really quickly and before i start welding all this up i just want to talk real quick about wall thickness and tube diameter and how i choose these different things because i get asked about that constantly how do i know what thickness to use or what diameter to use for the projects that i'm working on i want to start by saying i'm not an engineer so everything you see in this video all my recommendations just take it as some random guy on youtube but i can point you to a document from a race organization called ultra4 and i've read quite a few racing spec documents just to kind of educate myself over the last 10 years or so of what sizes are appropriate in what situations and if you go to the ultra 4 page you can find a specifications sheet that is a list of requirements that your your vehicle has to meet in order for you to race in one of their races you scroll down to the chassis section you will find a you will find requirements for tube diameter versus vehicle weight and basically anything under 3 500 i believe is either 3 500 or 4 000 somewhere in that ballpark you can get away with inch and a half tube and anything over that anything over that 3 500 to 4 000 margin you have to use inch and three quarter an inch recorder is also mentioned a lot in the nra spec it's mentioned a lot in the nascar spec so if you read these different specifications uh it can help you it can help inform you on how to it'll help you make the best decision on what size diameter you need for the job they also have minimum thicknesses for the for the wall tube as well now how i choose the wall thickness is i got to decide is this going to be getting impacted a lot or is this going to be tucked away in a way that it's not going to be so for lower control arms i recommend a quarter inch wall and that quarter inch wall doesn't make it stronger to resist bending over a long span but that quarter inch wall helps it take an impact and not kink the tube or put a dent in the tube as soon as you dent a piece of tube you start to ruin the structural integrity of it whereas upper control arms does the same has the same amount of forces from the axle and from your chassis but i would go i would feel completely comfortable with eighth inch wall the reason why is because it's strong based on its diameter not based on the wall thickness and because it's an upper control arm and it's tucked away from your obstacles you don't have to worry about it taking an impact and getting dented i hope that some of this makes sense essentially the taller or the larger diameter you make your tube the more it's going to be able to resist turning into a banana whenever you put forces over a longer span and the longer the span is the larger diameter tube you're gonna need so if you have a suburban and you have super long set of sliders inch and three quarter might not be enough it could be but i think if i was building a suburban i would do two inch just to make sure that all that force that could be pivoted on the center of that slider isn't going to turn it into a banana on the first obstacle so i hope that this can help point you in the direction of how to choose diameter and thickness again i'm not an engineer but this is kind of the rationale i average the stuff that i've read on ultra4 with all the experience that i've had of building stuff constantly and going off-road and testing them now what thickness should you use on where you mount it to the chassis i'm using 3 16 i'm trying to build this all as thin as possible and as light as possible this is 3 16 plate and the reason that i'm comfortable 3 16 is because it's not a very big distance between the edge of this piece here so this is going to mount on our frame this is going to mount to our slider and there's going to be forces that are being going like in every direction based on where we're taking a hit and it's not a very big distance between the hole that i'm going to drill and mount our hardware through and the edge of this piece here the longer that distance becomes the more leverage that it has and you're going to it's going to be much more likely that you're going to distort the piece or get deflection so if you have a hole way over here and you are mounting way over there i would recommend going to quarter inch or changing the design in order to accommodate a thinner material type this set of sliders is not thick enough i am using this as a test piece i'm always trying to build lighter so everything you're seeing me use today other than these plates is eighth inch an eighth inch is not thick enough for this but i wanna push the boundaries of this and knowing that this is a wearable part for me this is essentially a consumable part it just needs to last a few months and i'm curious how light and how thin i can make a part like this and how long it will last in the field so don't do what i do i recommend a minimum 3 16 wall thickness for something like a slider but you know just continue at your own risk do some research and consider the weight and the length of the vehicle that you're working on [Music] now we need to work on getting the base piece that we just made for the sliders connected to the chassis and this can be just as easy or just as difficult as you want it to be for me i'm going to connect in three different locations based on what's in the way behind the part of the frame that we're mounting to remember one side of your frame could have fuel lines or brake lines the other side might have exhaust who knows what could be in your way so you need to plan the legs of your sliders accordingly and i wouldn't expect them to be a complete mirror image on either side [Music] if you can take advantage of holes that already exist in the frame from the factory then this drill anywhere else you have to around that hole hoping that you can do a bolt and nut combination anywhere that you can use a bolt but can't attach a nut on the back side i would recommend using some self-tapping bolts self-tapping bolts should be used sparingly but they're definitely handy in places that you can't get a bolt all the way through the [Music] frame [Music] sometimes you need to build one or two of your mounting plates completely different than the rest of them in this instance there was two bolts that were already going through the frame to mount something on the inside i utilized these two factory bolts and then added two holes on the outside in places that i could fit extra hardware [Music] the lower rim on both sides is complete well somewhat complete i haven't mounted so all three mounting flanges have been mounted to the uh to the frame everything is tacked together in a way that makes it really solid and we'll pull it off here a little bit we'll finish weld it but right now what i want to do is i want to add a round piece of tube that's going to go around the outside and kind of bring this up to give us protection right below the door and i was actually thinking about it this is going to be extremely similar to how i did it on this jeep truck this is going to be difficult to see but if you look close you'll see a lower rim that's protecting the lower part of the body and then i have a 45 degree angle here 45 degree angle there and a round piece of tube that comes up uh just below the door to give us a little bit of extra protection i think it's a really clean way to terminate a piece like this i'm gonna probably have to put a little bit bigger gap on this toyota because these these uh frames flex a lot but either way it's the same concept if you've watched my channel before you know i'm a big fan of doing layout on the floor or layout on the table this means that i just mark out basic measurements on the floor or on a table and lay pre-bent sections onto that layout this makes it where it's easy to predict as to where my bends are going to end up and i know exactly where to cut for each piece that i'm working on [Music] now that i have the bends where i want them all i have to do is put this back on the template that i laid on the table line everything back up exactly square and then i can mark lines against the edge of the table they'll now become the cut that we need in order to mate up to the flat surface of the lower part of this slider [Music] now i grind away a little at a time until these two surfaces meet up flat and we have a really tight fitment we've reached a point in this project where pretty much all the hard work is behind us and now we just need to accomplish a couple simple things we need to add some support structure between the inner tube which is the square tube and the outer tube which is our round tube and the reason we want to do that is because we have this really wide span where this outer tube joins to the inner tube and if we can reduce that span it's going to be stronger meaning that even if we just added one piece of scrap material in the center to join the square tube to the round tube we're going to make this way stronger because we've taken that span and we've divided it into two now it's so light to add strength at this part of the process that i'm going to add three places so i'm basically going to divide this up into quarters i'm going to i'm going to add three different support structure pieces in line there with just some of the scrap tube i haven't decided if i'm going to go round or square yet but i'll decide once i'm done shooting this little segment and uh it's gonna make it way stronger we're gonna have very little sacrifice and then once that is complete we can finish weld everything i would recommend if you're new to finish welding something like this is welding the plates that mount to the chassis last because that's the easiest thing to change if this piece tweaks on us a little bit because there's gonna be some places where it's gonna expand a little some places we're gonna shrink a little and you can get a piece that looks completely straight and then when you go to bolt it up and then your holes line up so what i'm going to do is finish weld everything let it cool and sorry finish weld everything but the inner plates let it cool and then i'm going to bolt the center plate on there and make sure that all the holes line up before i finish weld the inner plates so again if there's any movement all i would have to do is just cut a couple tack welds and i can shift those plates wherever it lines back up tack it in place pull the piece back off and finish weld [Music] wow [Music] it's the next day i let the paint cure overnight but i have a concern it is really really cold out here and uh i'm not completely confident that the paint has cured up as much as i want to before i install them so i'm gonna do is i'm gonna take my diesel heater i'm gonna direct it at these two sliders and uh hopefully with like an hour or so of heat on them i should be okay i could be okay now i just don't wanna risk it and have to do a bunch of touch-ups so i have a new grill and i've got some decals that i would install on this toyota i'm going to pull the toyota in real quick and while we're heating up these sliders i'm just going to throw on some decals and a new grill and then whenever we throw these sliders on we can check out the toyota and all of its glory [Music] if you've never applied graphics to one of your vehicles before i think that this is one of the easiest ways to change the look of the truck and not break the bank unfortunately i chose the wrong decal so they sent me the trd sport decal instead of the trd off-road but it still looks good enough i'm gonna put it on and i'll just order what i need later [Music] i've always been a big fan of the look and styling of the ford raptor and i know this is a toyota tacoma it's not a ford raptor but when i saw this grill and i saw these decals it felt like such a great way to make this toyota tacoma look a little bit more off-road [Music] in terms of a return on our investment of time of money of uh of resources it's hard to beat a set of very basic sliders like this and adding vinyl and adding a grill with the sliders i think just about anybody could build these all you need is an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel and any welder you could build this with a stick welder if you wanted to and you don't have to use a tube bender if you don't have a tube bender and you can also i used to build stuff like this with that hundred dollar pipe kinker from harbor freight i still have the thing and you can still build really good stuff with really cheap tools if you're motivated to and you're creative enough so i think that for those of you that are looking for an early fabrication project to just kind of cut your teeth and build something that doesn't cost a whole lot of money something that's really effective in terms of helping uh your vehicle look more off-road and in terms of protecting that vehicle from obstacles this is it's gonna be hard to beat a decent set of sliders like this now to answer the question that i get asked all the time and i answer all the time uh the paint and stuff that i used for these sliders i'll just put in the amazon shopping cart the paint that i use the primary they use i'll even put the stuff that i use to prep the surfaces and whatnot so if you're looking to build something like this and you want a finish that looks similar to this you just go to my amazon shopping cart and it'll all be right there also for those of you who are curious about where i got the grill and where i got the vinyl i got it from a place called taco vinyl i will link each sticker that i used and i will link the grill that i used for this video in the description so anything that you saw me use in this video you can just go through and click and it'll take you right there now i need to load this truck up because i'm headed to mexico tomorrow and i'm going to go try and get on the rocks see what this stock tacoma is capable of and i've got a really long road ahead of me so i need to get pack it if you enjoyed the video make sure you give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already you're gonna be seeing this tacoma around a lot uh my discovery is almost done so if you like over landing the discovery over landing stuff is on the way i promise i'm planning trips with it um it's gonna be a sweet build also if you're into outdoor adventure content there's gonna be a lot of that this year so if you're into any of those things just make sure you stick around and subscribe to the channel if you wanna help support our channel you go to thunderlifestyle.com we have t-shirts hats net gators all that stuff and if you and help support us on patreon we have a link to that on our website if you want to follow me on social media i'm at your lifestyle nate we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Dirt Lifestyle

Views: 135,135

Keywords: rock sliders, rock sliders build, rock slider, rock slider install, diy rock sliders, welding projects, welding project, welding projects for beginners, rock sliders install, diy rock sliders toyota, diy rock sliders tacoma, rock rails, rock sliders jeep, rock rails 4runner, build your own rock sliders, how to build rock sliders 4x4, building rock sliders toyota, building custom rock sliders, rock slider install tacoma, diy welding projects for beginners, rock rails jeep

Id: AgOCduqHwAI

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021