Feeling the Buzz yet?

Stu_Barnes said:

Should you have the same or similar experience to me.

To de-banana a steel flange:

You will need

• Gaffer tape
• Thin steel sheet cut to size for the jaws of your Stilson wrench (a sliding jaw parallel wrench could be better)
• Stilson wrench
• Hammer (optional)
• Anvil (optional)
• Support for the slider to being it level with anvil

View attachment 7864009
Tape the area to be remediated. I used 3 wraps total.


View attachment 7864010
Cut some thin steel sheet to size for your Stilson wrench, make a nice crisp fold so it can get right in there.


View attachment 7864011
Using your Stilson tease the flange back to position, only do this a few degrees at a time and move down the length of the flange as you work. Start at the position which has the most deflection. Make sure to tighten the jaws so they're snug, as they will work lose.


View attachment 7864012
After teasing back into the original shape by the Stilson wrench you may need to gently tap the flange with a lump hammer to flatten it out. Make sure to hold the hammer parallel to the work piece to avoid damage. 3 or 4 extra wraps of gaffer tape will provide adequate protection. Note you dont need to hit too hard, just tap things back to shape.

After doing this you should be good to go.


View attachment 7864013
Thanks go out to the MVP, Factor 55 strops for providing support while doing this job.

The whole job took less than 15 minutes once the tools were assembled.



Now onto fitting them.....

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• 19mm socket (hexagonal preferred)
• 17mm socket (hexagonal preferred)
• 19mm long reach ratchet spanner (preferred) or ring spanner
• 17mm long reach ratchet spanner (preferred) or ring spanner
• ratchet and extension bars to suit and fit the sockets
• torque wrench
• tef gel
• milk crate or equivalent (to rest the slider on whilst offering up to the vehicle)
• G clamp
• extra washers 24 M10 in total including Buzz supply (I like to put a washer on both the bolt and nut)

1. Secure the vehicle.
2. Arrange your tools and something to sit/lay on, mine had some large posters in the box that did the trick.
3. Knock off any dirt that's accumulated on the landing faces for where the slider will attach.
4. Using one of the M10 bolts thread into each hole in turn to clear out the underbody corrosion protection (front 4), do the same for the M12 holes (centre 3) rear most holes are both through.
5. Lay the slider on the respective side of your Grenadier (they are handed, ensure that the centre bracket is in line with the B pillar)
6. Place your calibrated milk crate under the Grenadier in way of the B pillar.
7. Lift your slider onto said milk crate, they're pretty evenly balanced so should be stable.
8. Offer up the front flange (incline with A pillar) to the chassis rail mounting points, using the G clamp lightly secure.
9. Put a little Tef Gel or whatever you chose to use or not, on the leading couple of threads of the bolt, place washer on bolt and screw in loosely by hand, repeat for the other 3. (you only need lubrication on the first 3 threads as it will chase down the thread when tightened)
10. Tef gel and washer 2 of the fine pitch M12 bolts and loosely screw in by hand (only the pair on the underside of the chassis rail)
11. Tef gel and washer 4 of the M10 bolts and place one by one screwing the nuts on until you reach the nylon insert. The bolts are inserted from the underside and the nuts are on top.
12. Tef Gel and washer the last of the fine pitch M12 bolts and loosely screw in by hand (if you need to raise or lower the rail slightly to make the bolt fit you can do this with tightening or loosening as needed the bolts at the front and back)
13. Once all the fastenings are in place and hand tight then align the rail if needed (mine were pretty much spot on)
14. Nip up the bolts starting at the front and working to the rear (tighten bolts on the same flange diagonally from each other)
15. Torque down the bolts front to rear.
16. Repeat for the other side

RyanT said:

Hey Stu,

I've spoken to OK4WD and they will be in touch very soon. As per my email earlier, we'll do whatever needs doing to put this right and have apologised for the inconvenience caused. I can assure you it is heartbreaking to see the damage considering the amount of work that we have put into those. Also for the record, the way you received the boxes, as two separate deliveries, is not how we packaged them and loaded them into the container. We strapped both boxes together which we believed would have prevented them from being manhandled as they clearly have been. If we had know that the boxes were going to be split we would have packaged them differently.

Of the 5 sets of the custom slider that were done I am aware of three that have sustained similar damage and I have been on contact with both customers to resolve the issue. We have not had any reports of issues with our standard rock sliders.

Cheers

Ryan

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AngusMacG said:

I ordered the same steps as @DaBull and @Stu_Barnes. Mine arrived first (about 2 days after OK4WD shipped them) since I am on the east coast. Luckily for me only one of my brackets was bent. The unlucky part was that the drivers side was the bent one. I was able to mount the passenger side with a little help from my neighbor.

I contacted @DaBull and we chatted about the issue I had. I reached out to @RyanT (last Friday at 1:14 east coast time) and sent him pics. Amazingly he responded about a half hour later (after 6:00pm London on a Friday). Needless to say both of us were disappointed and he has been absolutely fantastic to work with. We agreed on a solution and my bent bracket will be fixed and installed next week.

Overall the wait was longer than expected but the product is exceptional.

The damage incurred was due to shipping somewhere. I wouldn’t give the packaging a high grade but reading Ryans post above does explain a bit about how it was packaged the way it was. UPS delivered the sliders and each had its own box and they were separate. They were stored on the floor of the truck in a vertical position. At the time i did not notice which side was on the floor.

The situation is unfortunate but Ryan has been great to work thru this and I will be enjoying these sliders for many years.

Huge thanks to @DaBull for doing a ton of legwork and working w/Ryan to develop these custom sliders!!!

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AngusMacG said:

I ordered the same steps as @DaBull and @Stu_Barnes. Mine arrived first (about 2 days after OK4WD shipped them) since I am on the east coast. Luckily for me only one of my brackets was bent. The unlucky part was that the drivers side was the bent one. I was able to mount the passenger side with a little help from my neighbor.

I contacted @DaBull and we chatted about the issue I had. I reached out to @RyanT (last Friday at 1:14 east coast time) and sent him pics. Amazingly he responded about a half hour later (after 6:00pm London on a Friday). Needless to say both of us were disappointed and he has been absolutely fantastic to work with. We agreed on a solution and my bent bracket will be fixed and installed next week.

Overall the wait was longer than expected but the product is exceptional.

The damage incurred was due to shipping somewhere. I wouldn’t give the packaging a high grade but reading Ryans post above does explain a bit about how it was packaged the way it was. UPS delivered the sliders and each had its own box and they were separate. They were stored on the floor of the truck in a vertical position. At the time i did not notice which side was on the floor.

The situation is unfortunate but Ryan has been great to work thru this and I will be enjoying these sliders for many years.

Huge thanks to @DaBull for doing a ton of legwork and working w/Ryan to develop these custom sliders!!!


View attachment 7864056

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tmarr said:

I recently received and installed my sliders, but I've encountered a problem. In short, the driver's side sits just over 1/4" higher than the passenger side. While this may not sound significant, it's quite noticeable in person.

Initially, I thought it must be an adjustment issue. However, after spending considerable time taking numerous measurements, I determined that wasn't the case. I also confirmed the mounts on the frame are at the same height from the floor on both sides.

I've attached some images to illustrate the issue (mouse over the image...the title will indicate the driver or passenger side). The white piece of PVC shown in a couple of the images easily slides under the body on the passenger side but doesn't come close on the driver's side. Again, hard to see in the image. It's challenging to fully capture the issue in photos because the perspective can change significantly based on the camera angle.

I could potentially shim the driver's side down, but this seems excessive and would require new hardware and modifications to the center mount, as the vertical bolt would no longer fit.

I know a few people have installed these sliders, so I thought I'd reach out to the community in case I overlooked something. Upon receiving the shipment, some of the tabs were bent, as others have mentioned, but I don't think that's the problem here. Before I contact OK4WD, does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Click to expand...

tmarr said:

I recently received and installed my sliders, but I've encountered a problem. In short, the driver's side sits just over 1/4" higher than the passenger side. While this may not sound significant, it's quite noticeable in person.

Initially, I thought it must be an adjustment issue. However, after spending considerable time taking numerous measurements, I determined that wasn't the case. I also confirmed the mounts on the frame are at the same height from the floor on both sides.

I've attached some images to illustrate the issue (mouse over the image...the title will indicate the driver or passenger side). The white piece of PVC shown in a couple of the images easily slides under the body on the passenger side but doesn't come close on the driver's side. Again, hard to see in the image. It's challenging to fully capture the issue in photos because the perspective can change significantly based on the camera angle.

I could potentially shim the driver's side down, but this seems excessive and would require new hardware and modifications to the center mount, as the vertical bolt would no longer fit.

I know a few people have installed these sliders, so I thought I'd reach out to the community in case I overlooked something. Upon receiving the shipment, some of the tabs were bent, as others have mentioned, but I don't think that's the problem here. Before I contact OK4WD, does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Click to expand...

Stu_Barnes said:

I’m hopeful that @RyanT will pick up on this and get in touch. Ok were responsive with regards to my damaged sliders. Fingers crossed you get a good outcome.

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tmarr said:

I recently received and installed my sliders, but I've encountered a problem. In short, the driver's side sits just over 1/4" higher than the passenger side. While this may not sound significant, it's quite noticeable in person.

Click to expand...

tmarr said:

Thanks, Stu. I'll tinker with them a bit more this weekend when I have time. So far, I can't see how this issue can be adjusted out, especially since the sliders are level in this configuration (i.e., adding a couple strategic washers to tip the front of the slider forward wouldn't fix the problem). That said, maybe there's something I'm missing, as I've been wrong before.

Overall, the construction appears to be excellent. This design fits the truck very well, as they took time to consider and match the existing angular features of the vehicle. The sliders really look like they belong on the truck. I'd prefer the option to delete the branding or reduce its size. But the overall design is great.

Tom

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nuclearbeef said:

I ordered my sliders from OK4WD on May 13th.
Latest update says they are in production and will be in the next container.
No estimated delivery date.

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