rocker replacement options

[andyr354]

Rocker pannels are rusted out and dented up. Did some measuring last night and looking for a few options.

The pinch seam is gone in most places, nothing left. I would be cutting the rocker all the way back to where the floorboard and the interior part of the rocker area meets. Everything is thin and rusty making it a PITA to weld to as well as weak.

Looks like I would need at least 3x6" tube to get the area filled back in well. Tube of that dimension is not easy to find, heavy, and expensive.

Ideas I have come up with:
Run round or square tube of around 1.5 or 1.75 back over to the unirails and use them to support a piece of 2x4x.120 tubing (have a pile of it already) with a piece of 2" angle welded on the backside to fill in the the rocker area.

Just bend up some sheet metal and build new rockers I can weld in and run your typical sliders underneath that.

 

[87manche]

http://madxj.com/MADXJ/technical/technicalfiles/SRrockerPanels/RockerPanels.htm
http://madxj.com/MADXJ/technical/technicalfiles/JArockRails/Rockrails.htm
http://madxj.com/MADXJ/technical/technicalfiles/ARrockerPanels/RockerPanels.htm

 

[XJ_ranger]

sweet replacement rockers here -

http://www.formattfab.com/

 

[waxer]

sweet replacement rockers here -

http://www.formattfab.com/

Is there anything more to these rockers than I can see from the pictures on the website? I can't see spending $185 on 2 pieces of rectangular tubing thats cut and capped. No offense intended, just my opinion.

 

[Menzenski]

Banditt Offroad XJ Extreme Super Sliders.

 

[gearwhine]

Here's my rocker replacement. It will be a little different than yours since I attached mine to the cage, but you can see the middle tube of the three goes straight from the rocker to the frame, you can just do that for all 3 or more. I did cut into the floor to not have anything hanging around. It's towards the bottom of the page.

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=62729&page=3

 

[andyr354]

Thanks for the ideas.

gearwhine I know what you mean about loosing clearance. I was propping some stuff up there this weekend and was thinking how I hated to loose the clearance I had. I will have to study it some and see if I could tie to anything easily since I don't have a cage.

Some comments on this idea:
Put some 2x6 box tube in where the rockers were. Run some 2x1/2 (maybe overkill!) flat in three or four places welded to the bottom of the tube and run up against the floorboards over to the rails?

Found link to the formatt ones. Doesn't look like anything special for the money.
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=55727

Mambeu:
Like the look of those, but would have to build my own since they plan on the pinch seam being there. I would also want to engineer something different than those bolt heads sticking down out of the bottom of the rails.

 

[TrailHunter]

Here's how I've done it, http://www.4x4trailhunters.com/article.php?id=17.

I know many say you need some sort of support or the rocker will get bent or damage your door sills, but On the three vehicles that I've installed them on, never has this happened. They've been abused too.

Here's a variation of the ones in the writeup with a outer rail to give them a more traditional slider look. http://forum.4x4trailhunters.com/index.php?showtopic=4585

 

[IntrepidXJ]

....I am one that will say they need to be tie into a cage or to the framerails.

Here's mine: http://www.myxj.net/tech/rockers/

Mine have always been tied into my cage, but I was lazy and didn't tie my cage into he framerails right away......because of that, my floor is now buckling from hard hits to the rocker. I can't imaging what would have happened if the rocker wasn't tied into my cage at all.

I'm in the middle of tying my cage and rockers into the framerails better now

 

[Krawl]

One thing that many people over look when using tubing is the placement of the seam. Meaning the seam of the tube, it should always be away from the impact side of whatever your building. So many people never consider it when building something, but it is a weak point of the tube.

 

[andyr354]

It is nuts how long it took me to build this thing :lol:
Using the bender, getting tubing notched using the chopsaw, ect.. Several firsts in this project. But it all came out well so far.

I did some mocking up with several different materials. At first I was thinking of replacing the rockers with square tube. There just wasn't enough strength there unless I ran stringers out under the tube. That would make it not smooth on the bottom with places to hang up. So I started messing with round tube instead. My reasoning is that having the one length of round tube right out under the edge of the floorboard with be a nice smooth surface to slide on. The way it is setup the tube hangs no lower really than the stock pinch seam did. There are probably other designs like this out there but I didn't come across any searching. Anyway, enough typing, here are some pics.

This is all that was left of the stock rocker.

Here is what I built. 1.75"x.120 tube and one piece of 1x3x.120 rect tube

I think with this span I might get some .120 flat and skin the bottom of it. Be almost like having boatsides.

 

[XJEEPER]

How do they attach to the removed rocker area to maintain structural integrity of the unibody?

 

[andyr354]

How do they attach to the removed rocker area to maintain structural integrity of the unibody?

If the rocker was that structural most XJs in the midwest would have taco'd by now. There is hardly an XJ of this vintage driving around that the stock rockers aren't missing due to rust. As you can see there wasn't much left of the rocker when I cut mine out.

I am going to put some 1.5" wide flat on the inside of the tube that runs along the floorboard and bolt or weld it to the floor in several places.

 

[formatt]

Any of you guys priced steel lately?... it's DEFINITELY not cheap. That being said, I usually don't build many of these setups for people that aren't Denver or Colorado Springs local. Price steel and everything else included, you'll see that that price is actually not bad at all. It'll be the shipping that'll kill you...

Randy has the right idea for tieing them in. To just weld them in place (via the top of the door sill and the pinch seam) and leave it at that is a bad idea. I've seen them fold up on several occasions. I know the ones on MadXJ kinda leave it at that but you really should tie them back into the frame. I use a piece of 4"x3" cut at an angle kinda like what Randy has done, but flipped over.

Mount these in 3 locations along (front, middle and back). If you place them in key locations, they're also nice points for tieing your cage in. I noticed substantial frame stiffening when tieing the framerails (also using stiffeners), rockers and interior cage all together.

If you're serious about building a set, get ahold of me and I can walk you through it. It'll take you about 3 hours to build them (including the tie-ins) and another 4-5 to install (if you're a decent welder), including vehicle prep. You should plan on setting an entire day aside.
__________________
matthew - 96 xj
formatt fabrications
www.formattfab.com

 

[andyr354]

these I built have around $25 of materials in each one.

I priced some 3x6 tube (with the pinch seam rusted away 4" wide tube does not reach out enough) and decided not to go that way. Steel prices have come down slightly in this area, but are still to high.