Protecting Your Jeep: Rock Rails or Body Sliders?
JK-Forum members share their input on the best form of body protection for a Jeep.
If you are going to spend much time rock crawling in your Jeep Wrangler or off-roading in an area with lots of rocks, it is important to protect the body of your vehicle. When traversing large rocks, a sudden shift in weight could cause the vehicle to slam down on the terrain and without some form of protection, the body of your Jeep could be badly damaged.
There are two key ways to prevent this type of damage: body-mounted sliders or frame-mounted rock rails. And JK-Forum member duckrunner asked the community which they would recommend for the best protection to the body of their Jeeps.
I’ve been kicking around a few ideas for making my own rock rails. Not a fan of store bought where I can help it and this is definitely a place I can help it.
The biggest thing I’m coming across right now is whether or not I should make them to bolt onto the frame or to the body. As far as structural integrity goes I would think bolting them to the frame would be better but then I feel like the gas tank would be a pain to work around.
Another thing, I’ve never really gotten down to look at how companies are making these ones that bolt to the body. Is it on the body mounts or the holes in the pinch seam? I feel like that would keep the big damage from happening but still be able to tweak the whole body if I take a hit hard enough or in the wrong spot.
Over the course of the lengthy discussion prompted by the thread, there is overwhelming support for frame-mounted rock rails, and nearly everyone recommends bolting and welding them to the frame. Member DKehler pointed out that welding is the strongest, but his rock rails bolted to the thickest part of the frame, including the images below.
Body-Mount Downsides
JK-Forum‘s planman offered a detailed explanation on the downside of the sliders that bolt on at the body mounts:
The stock body mount rubber pucks are so soft that you can literally squeeze them to a bulge by hand. As a result on a hard impact, the tub will actually move up to 1/4″ or more.
Sliders bolted to the frame with the body mount bolts will leverage the body mounts and flex also.
This movement of the tub combined with flexing/leverage of the sliders sometimes results in tub damage from contact with the slider.
PhxSilver then offered some first-hand insight, explaining that repeated impact to the body sliders will result in damage to the front fenders fairly high on the body:
I put on the Poision Spyder sliders that bolt to the frame and then tie in with some body protection. The down side to this is if you impact the sliders on a regular basis the flex in the slider will move the plate that is attached to the body.
The result is a pucker on the front fenders about 1/2 way up the door.
Details on Rock Rails
The best example of the rock rails comes from groovebus, who offers a rundown on which rails he picked for his Jeep, why he picked them and how he went about installing them. He also included pictures of the items before and after installation.
I got these from White Knuckle Offroad in Apple Valley, California. They were only $410 bare metal and they are bullet proof. I got them unpainted to save the $100 on powder coat since it’s going to get scraped off anyway. I also drove up there to pick them up to save the $100 in shipping charges. My friend Scott at Scott Monks Racing in Hesperia welded them for me.
I don’t like the way that alot of rails bolted on to the body at the pinch weld and the pre-drilled holes under the body. Or they attached at the body mounts; like the ACE rails. I was afraid if I came down hard enough, and often enough, the weight of the engine, frame, and drive train would weaken the body mounts. So I opted to weld them on. They are awesome.
The front bracket attaches under the front skid plate cross member, with the bolt running through the bracket, and it aligns the install perfectly after that. I like the “L” brackets because they wrap around under the frame. They are marketed as bolt on.
3/16th” DOM steel, 2×3″ rectangular tub with a 1 1/2″ kicker. You can get them with a 20 degree bend on the kicker or straight. They make a great step after I added some grip tape. He builds them when you order them.
Johnathan_JK, whose Jeep is displayed at the top of this post, offered this input on his protection upgrades:
I have LOD rock sliders that bolt to the frame. I’m not sure if they are DOM. But they are freaking heavy duty they weighted over 100lbs shipped and if I wanted to I could lay some beads down on the mount to strengthen it. But I think they are strong enough and If I need to repaint I can unbolt them sand them down and repaint.
Finally, Machoo posted a couple of videos of body-mounted sliders in action, including the clip below. In that video, you can see and hear the Jeep slam down on a large rock, followed by a close-up look at the damage to the slider. In that look at the slider damage, it appears as though the body metal just above it has been creased.
In short, the body-mounted sliders are great for those who don’t deal with many hard impacts with their Jeep, but those who do lots of rock crawling will want to go with a proper frame-mounted rock rail.
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