sliders...

[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...