Guess what UPS delivered to me today!

[jkozub]

My Sun Preformance rocker guards showed up today by the grace and glory of the fine people at UPS! :D Looks like I have my Saturday plans now! Here's a pic. http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=954265&a=6982031&p=45644642&Sequence=0&res= high

[The Man with the Plan]

A buddy of mine (Colo.TJ) just installed those on his brand-spankin' new sliverstone TJ (w/ 35's, 5" lift, 4:1, etc.). They look great!

One thing he did that I thought was pretty slick was reinforce it with some aluminum bar-stock. Basically, it is like a backing plate on the inside of the tub. He also replaced the bolts with carriage bolts.

[jkozub]

Thanks for the idea Jon, humm...Mod time!!! :D:D:D

[The Man with the Plan]

AEV does a similar thing with their rockers. Only theirs is reinforced by the 'hump' that the seat is bolted to. The good thing about reinforcing it is it spreads the load over more metal. The sheetmetal of the body is pretty thin. A couple of good hits, and you'll be able to tell!

[Colo.TJ]

Another thing I did when I installed them is instead of having someone hold them up when I marked for drilling I used my Hi lift jack and jacked the whole side of the Jeep off the ground. What this does is preload the rocker so it doesn't move when you hit it hard on a rock. After you mark let it down then drill then you need to place the rocker in it's previous location and jack it up again to bolt them on. Make sure you tighten it up before you let it back down. Wish I could take credit for this idea but was helped out by mrblaine on JU. The only problem with this is everytime you work on them you need use your jack to keep them in the same position. But after they are on you shouldn't need to touch them. I also used carriage bolts in 5 of the 6 side locations (you can only use 5 because one uses a insert instead of a nut) instead of the button heads because they have a larger surface area than the button heads and the button heads strip out the allen side when you try to tighten them up. I found that the carriage bolts usually spin before they can be over tightened. I did break a couple of the carriage bolts by overtightening (sp) them. So if you go this route buy a couple extra. The last thing I did is put a bead of black silicone on the top edge of the rocker to help keep water and small rocks out. I left the sides and underneath alone so if water did get in gravity could pull it out and air could still circulate to help dry it out.

So far they have worked great. They haven't moved even after I banged them on a couple of rocks this last weekend. I know this because the silicone bead has not cracked or seperated at all. It did seperate when I worked on them (added alluminium stock) and didn't use the jack.

[jkozub]

Thanks Colo. TJ,

This board is great for suggestions, thanks again Tiff!