Bolt on sliders.
I needed to remove them to do some minor body work. Since I've removed my mudflaps the lower front fender area (where it's held in place with bolts at the bottom near the seam weld) was down to bare metal due to rock chips, road salt & sand being thrown up on the sheet metal from the tires.
The other reason I wanted the ability to easily remove them was to give them the occasinal coat of paint. The winter climate here is really hard on painted finishes especially the onse that get constantly blasted with road sand & salt mixture.
I don't want this to degenerate into a weld on vs. bolt on argument thread but at the end of the day I prefer bolt on for the following reasons:
1-Easy to remove if required.
2-No heat affected zone in your frame due to the welding process, thus no long term concerns. There are may good welders that can weld to the frame of a vehicle but your backing plates that weld to the frame must be properly designed and welded.
3-With proper U shapped brackets that wrap arround your frame, use existing holes and distribute the weight evenly the sliders are as strong or stronger than the weld on ones plus there is no chance of tearing the metal out of your frame where the slider is welded to it. I admit that this would be rare, but there were a few reported cases on TTORA of this happening. If you manage to twist your frame with the U shaped brackets the vehicle will most likely have other more severe problems.
If you do a search on TTORA there are lots of discussions about weld on vs. bolt on.
At the end of the day for my needs I will never have anohter weld on slider if I can help it. Not to say that welded sliders don't have their place.
Cheers :beer:,
p
DaveInDenver said:
Please, more info! I originally wanted bolt on sliders (thinking Roger Brown's), but as I think about it I get less worried I was
about welding them on.
Dirty Harry said:
Why have you needed to remove them? Just curious, I have weld on sliders on two of my Toyotas and bolt on sliders on the third and have never needed to remove any of them.