Welding rocksliders to frame

[Zeus33rd]

Engineering standards vs welding to a light duty vehicles frame is like citing international war criminal evasion laws in a Jay walking case. It's just so out of the league of forces it's stupid.

This could not have been said any better, haha

Just weld that shiz to the frame and don't worry about it. Everyone always thinks they may want their sliders to either be removable or worry about damaging the frame....it's a 25+ year old frame anyways, it's not perfect and I doubt you will ever want to remove your sliders. I just welded the tubes to the frame and then did my own tabs that were welded to the body mounts (similar to Kerts design, I just made them and welded instead of bolting). I have hit them really hard mulitple times and the sliders and frame look the same as the day I put them on

All of the above.

Do you think these light duty frames were tossed together in someones back yard or engineered using these same standards? I would venture to guess that engineering standards were used to design and manufacture 100% of automotive frames on the road today

You can weld to a frame and not cause problems because you know what you are doing or you just get lucky. Or you can introduce unnecessary problems and have a failure on the road. I wouldn't care if a weld failed on a rock slider, I would care if my frame failed.

Suggesting someone learn some basics on the dos/don'ts of welding on a frame is should make some sense to you.

Holy balls man...Are you for real?

These are mild steel truck frames. The only way a truck frame fails from welding anything to it, is if there was something structurally wrong with it in the first place. They will NOT just up and catastrophically fail from a weld. Think of it as a tractor as far as that goes. Weld away, worry free. Go look at 99% of new frames these days. They all have welds on them. Common sense applies...if you've never welded anything before, have a friend do it, or learn yourself. It's not rocket science in this context.

You aren't helping people by telling them all of this and quoting things from AWS books or structural steel welding practice regulations etc, you are confusing them and making something simple sound very complex. I have held the certifications, I have been through the classes and I have a life time of experience with this sh!t. From truck frames, to structural steel, to ornamental iron work, to chromo tube chassis ultra4 cars.

 

[Stomis]

The factory welds on frames are generally atrocious for the record. I'm not gonna argue but you are over complicating something that's pretty simple by mixing structural building codes into the mix...

 

[Deuling]

My only point with doing a fish plate instead of just tube welded to frame, is that it will put any stress in one small spot, i like the fish plates with angled sides that way you dont get the vertical welds.

 

[K30Blazer]

Geez, I expected this to get one or two responses! I have no qualms about welding to the frame. I was just considering a 4x4 square to disperse the force.

 

[Stomis]

My only point with doing a fish plate instead of just tube welded to frame, is that it will put any stress in one small spot, i like the fish plates with angled sides that way you dont get the vertical welds.

Yeah there's nothing wrong with said advice. A plate to spread load always helps.

The topic of welding to a frame always seems to spark a **** show around here. A lot of us have done some heavy duty fab around here and I've never heard of anyone having an issue.


There was that guy last time that made up some story about a vertical weld causing some utter catastrophic failure, remember that?

 

[Deuling]

Yeah. Web wheelers like to web wheel while the rest of us are having fun

 

[jekquistk5]

Same convo comes up as well with the frame cutting and welding back together.

 

[kennyw]

All of the above.



Holy balls man...Are you for real?

These are mild steel truck frames. The only way a truck frame fails from welding anything to it, is if there was something structurally wrong with it in the first place. They will NOT just up and catastrophically fail from a weld. Think of it as a tractor as far as that goes. Weld away, worry free. Go look at 99% of new frames these days. They all have welds on them. Common sense applies...if you've never welded anything before, have a friend do it, or learn yourself. It's not rocket science in this context.

You aren't helping people by telling them all of this and quoting things from AWS books or structural steel welding practice regulations etc, you are confusing them and making something simple sound very complex. I have held the certifications, I have been through the classes and I have a life time of experience with this sh!t. From truck frames, to structural steel, to ornamental iron work, to chromo tube chassis ultra4 cars.

Try reading and using common sense before jumping down my throat over nothing. I was telling the guy to use caution. I didn't tell him welding on a frame would kill baby kittens.

There are things you can do that will cause problems when welding to a structural member in tension. Structural cranes are built from the same steel as a truck frame. In the center of the truck frame the bottom of a frame is in tension at all time. If you create a stress riser in this location, it will propagate.

Welding is used to lengthen and shorten truck frames all the time and there are many things from that type of work that are worth looking into before you start a project like this. If I knew all of those tips off the top of my head I would share them. But I don't have time to do the research at the moment.

 

[kennyw]

Here is a quick one.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...LKVX1sJFRjl8FsL5w&sig2=hOXts9bXiTriAtMpUAMvfQ

 

[kennyw]

The only way a truck frame fails from welding anything to it, is if there was something structurally wrong with it in the first place. They will NOT just up and catastrophically fail from a weld.

What about a bad weld? The weld with a bad start or stopping point. Hit the rock slider hard on a rock and you end up with a small tear in the weld. You don't notice it for a few months and it spreads. But now it isn't just the weld but a crack in the frame from the stress riser. Given enough time and cyclic loading the frame will fail.

Your welds are probably high enough quality to prevent this senerio with your experience and I'm sure you understand the risk of a bad weld on a frame.

If someone asks about welding to a frame my first thought is not that this guy has experience in recognising these types of risks.

 

[truck-oholic]

To summarize, the main take away is this.

Welding to a tie plate and bolting that to the frame is the most conservative, "safest" route. When doing that the orientation of the plate doesn't really matter.

BUT

If you are welding to the frame you either need to take the tube straight to the frame with no tie plate (not ideal and I have seen this result in frame tear out) or use a weld on tie plate (much stronger) and either orient it like a diamond (allows you to weld all the way around) or orient it like a square/rectangle and just stitch weld around it instead of running a continuous bead.

I am just rehashing here but these are my own personal practices also with less "blah blah blah"

 

[kennyw]

Thanks, very good info.

 

[Avery4jc]

I see both sides of this argument and see valid points from both sides so I'll just leave it at that.

What I will add though is welding your sliders to the frame and leaving them bolted to your body (or welded) will tear your truck up a bit. That's how mine are and it's super solid but you're essentially eliminating your body mounts and things get NOISY and you feel a lot more vibrations.

My sliders are welded the entire length of the cab and I have a couple pieces of 1-3/4" .120" wall tube spanning from the sliders to the frame. I've probably wheeled more on them in the past few years than most guys on this site have wheeled in a lifetime and the frame is fine for what it's worth.

 

[Stomis]

To summarize, the main take away is this.

Welding to a tie plate and bolting that to the frame is the most conservative, "safest" route. When doing that the orientation of the plate doesn't really matter.

BUT

If you are welding to the frame you either need to take the tube straight to the frame with no tie plate (not ideal and I have seen this result in frame tear out) or use a weld on tie plate (much stronger) and either orient it like a diamond (allows you to weld all the way around) or orient it like a square/rectangle and just stitch weld around it instead of running a continuous bead.

I am just rehashing here but these are my own personal practices also with less "blah blah blah"

Yep I agree.

The non continuous bead is actually a roll cage trick used on cage stake plates if you didnt know. It basically lets the plate rip off the floor rather than the tube off the plate in a catastrophic hit.


A huge problem with having a welded point failure really has nothing to do with the fact that you weld a tube to the frame but more that you didnt add enough tubes to distribute the load over a broader area. Although the fish plate deal is by no means a bandaid as it is beneficial in more than one way it will actually absorb the beating of not having them tied in in enough places also.

 

[blazinzuk]

When I build my crew cab I'm going to basically make it a unibody. The sliders will weld to the rockers and the frame.

Plus it basically adds a huge member to the frame. The amount of frame stiffness this provides is impressive.

Also. I understand the engineering and do and don'ts. But the real world has shown me nearly all of them are simply not true when applied to most any road going vehicle. The exception being something (big tow trucks, semi, tractor) that has tremendous stress loads. 100 of times more than any chevy frame will ever see.

 

[badmix]

Can take this for what its worth, but here was my approach. This was my idea/design, I call it a Hybrid Slider Mount. WHile its not as good as direct welding, I feel it gives me a good compromise for my style of off roading (bunny slopes, lol)

I have vertical supports from rock slide to body mounts and then a plate with tabs and poly bushings bolted to the frame and then the cross bar (frame to rock slider) is welded to rock slider.

I trimmed the pinchweld so the rock slider is up against the body.

The idea behind my design is to tie body and frame but still allow some movement. If I were to take a direct side impact on the rockslider, it shouldnt move. I realize that a direct UP impact would probably only involve the body mount and I understand that risk.