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 Seems like these days everyone but me is into having their Jeep not only perform well, but look good as well. (click read more to view entire write-up)
Seems like these days everyone but me is into having their Jeep not only perform well but look good as well. This silly desire to have a Jeep look nice has lead to great popularity in body armor to protect the rock rash susceptible rocker panels of just about every model of Jeep out there. Rocker guards, or rock sliders, are an easy and useful addition to any trail Jeep. Not only can they protect your rockers form on trail errors in judgment but they can cover up past mistakes. On top of this they offer a nice solid area to pivot your Jeep against as well as allow you to use a high lift on the side of your Jeep without creating large body shop bills.
There are two styles of rocker guard, ones that bolt directly to the tub of the Jeep and ones that bolt to the frame and are located slightly below the tub. Both offer excellent protection and I feel are equally as strong. I prefer the style that bolts to the tub because they eat up less ground clearance. However, they do require drilling holes in the side of your Jeeps body where the frame mount style does not. In this article we are going to follow along with the install of a set of Poison Spyder Custom Rocker Knocker guards with the optional ?nerf? bar on them. This extra bar is nice in my opinion because it helps protect the sides of the body and offers a handy step. Plus you can?t go wrong with the super cool spider design they laser cut into them. It?s all about image you know?
A quick warning, this is a slightly involved project. Nothing major but it is going to require a fair bit of time and a decent selection of tools. You should be fine with a basic set of hand tools, a drill motor, and a good jack. Plan on a full day for the install, it may take less time and it may take more, depending on your pace.
When we picked up the rockers form Attitude Performance I was surprised to see they where shipped unpackaged. Even though they where steel there where a few scratches from shipping but nothing that would not smooth out when painted. The corner of one by where it ties to the body mount was slightly tweaked as well but a hammer quickly fixed that. Over all they where a pretty nice piece, here are the rockers as received.
At this point it was time to get the rockers ready for paint. Many people powder coat their rocker guards but I disagree with this practice. Powder coating looks very nice and under the correct conditions is VERY durable but I believe it has no place on a Jeep that may see the trail. When it does ship it is hard to touch up well. Plus it can fade or get a haze if exposed to the sun a lot. Semi flat paint on the other hand is cheap, easy to touch up and much cheaper to boot!
First step in painting, as well as the most important is prep work. First thing I did was to scuff the entire surface of the rockers with a medium grot scotch-brite pad in my die grinder, this can be done by hand but this was quicker. I made sure to prep BOTH sides of the rockers. This is important, if you do not prep (and paint) both sides of the rocker. Leaving the inside unfinished will allow it to corrode and cause problems. I made sure to pay special attention to the area around the welds and on the backside of the welds where the heat had caused scale to form on the metal. Here are the scuffed rockers.
While scuffing I noticed a nasty burr around all of the counter sunk holes. To me this looked like it could abrade the finish of the Jeep and allow corrosion to start. Also some of the marks from shipping had rough burrs that could do the same. To take care of these I used an 80-grit sanding disk and ground them all smooth. I also sis this to the area in back of the spider cut out, it had some burrs as well. This is a before and after of the burr around the hole. In the picture you can see the slightly rougher finish left by the 80-grit around the spider.
After scuffing the rockers thouroghly they need to be cleaned up in preparation for paint. Wipe them down good with a solvent that leaves no residue to get rid of any oils in the metal and all of the dirt form prepping them. After this applies several coats of primer, several light coats are better then one heavy one. After you have allowed the primer to dry as the manufacture suggest you are ready to topcoat. I choose to use a paint with anti corrosion properties. The paint is made to paint rusty stuff and is supposed to be corrosion resistant. In my opinion it is a slightly better product then standard paint. Same as with the primer several light coats are better then one thick one, I cannot stress this enough. The final coat should be slightly thicker to help it flow out for a nice finish. I choose to paint the inside first and then the outside. With the extra bar on the rockers they where a little tricky to get good coverage on but not impossible. Below are the painted rockers.
Now that you have the rockers all ready to go it is time to start tearing into the Jeep. First step is to remove that silly little thing behind the front flare if your Jeep is so equipped. Same goes for that silly step. If you have the little flare extension you are going to have 3 little thread inserts in the tub to deal with. They can be left in but will keep the rocker from setting perfectly flush. An Easy way to remove them is to use a large drill bit to drill the head off of them and then knock them through the tub with a punch. If you do this be sure to touch up anywhere you removed paint. This is a picture of the insert.
And this is what is looked like after I drilled them out
If you have any existing damage to your rockers that you are covering inspect it at this time to make sure the paint is intact. If it is cracked or scratched take it down to bare metal and feather the edges out of you can paint over the damage to prevent it from rusting under the rocker. The rocker guards by nature are going to hold moisture against the body so you want to make sure you have no dings, nicks or scratches to let corrosion get toe hold. This is what I did to prepare a small dent on this Jeep for paint.
This is what the side of the Jeep looked like after I got it all prepared for the rocker. Notice I am cheap and used the same paint I got for the rockers on the tub.
Now it is time to get down and dirty. Next step you have to trim the body mounts. The rocker guards sandwich in between the body and mounts at the rear two mounts. To trim them you first have to remove them. Take ALL of the body mount bolts out of one side of the tub and use a jack to tilt the tub up enough to get the mounts (or body lift spacers) out. Be sure to place some wood along the bottom of the tub to spread out the load, no reason to damage the tub. Ideal would be to stack wood and lift form the floor of the tub inside the lower lip. Here is the Jeep with the body jacked using a high lift.
The instructions said to remove 3/16? from the mounts but if you look closely at the tub (at least on a 2002) the mounts sit in a small cupped area in the tub, the rocker guard fits across the cut so for a proper fit you actually have to trim more then the 3/16? off of the mounts. I choose to take almost a full ? off of the body lift spacers, you may wish to trim a little more or a little less depending on your Jeep. Cutting the round spacer evenly was a pain, I finally settled on using a cut off wheel to score the mount all the way around to use as a guide to finish the cut with a saws-all. If you have no body lift you need to cut the mounts themselves. Separate the rubber from the metal spacer and trim away. Just remember that you have to cut the spacer down the same amount other wise the bolt is going to bottom out before it crushes the body mount.
At this point it was time to test fit the rockers so I could mark where I needed to paint the tub a pretty color so the spider showed up well. The rockers are a pretty tight fit so I decided to remove the mounting bolts form the flares to pull them out of the way so they would not get scarred up mounting the rocker guard. I simply used a couple of empty paint cans to hold them out of the way.
At his point I had a little bit of a problem? how could I mount the rocker with the jack holding the body up? In theory I should have been able to set the tub on the other mounts and just slid the rockers in place but due to the tight fit around the flares and the fact I was planning to test fit them several times and paint behind them I came up with a easier method. I simply took a wood block of the appropriate size and used it between the tub and the frame to hold the body off the mounts slightly. It worked great and left me with enough room to easily slide the rockers on place. With the block in place I was able to start all of the mount bolts so that I could be sure the rocker was aligned properly when I test fit it. Here is my handy block; if you look o the right edge of the picture you can see the trimmed mount with the air gap between the tub and the mount.
At this point I test fit the rocker. With all of the body mount bolts in place I simply slid it in where it needed to be and made sure it was level by comparing the level of the rocker guard to the level of the edge of the door opening with a level. Then I marked where the spider was going to be and removed the rocker to paint.
Now this is where it got scary. I was about to paint the tub of a pretty NEW Jeep and if I screwed up I was going to have red spots above the rocker. After checking my measurements twice I masked the area and scuffed it well then primed and painted. After removing the tape it looked HUGE and I was sure I messed it up but fitting the rockers in place showed it had come out perfect. I suppose you could use colored tape or plastic sandwiched in between the pieces but I feel this was the best looking option. After I had the one side laid out I measured it and transferred the measurements over to the other side. This is why in the other pics the red splotch is already there. As you can see in the pictures above it looks kind of nasty.
After my paint dried it was time to mount the rockers. I simply slid them into place as before and used a floor jack and some wood blocks to hold them in place. After using the above-mentioned level method to ensure they where straight I then drilled the center hole out and installed the center mount bolt. After snugging the mount bolt I rechecked my level and drilled the rest of the holes and installed the bolts. I coated each hole with RTV before installing the fastener to ensure a corrosion free life and keep moisture out of the interior. With all the holes drilled and bolts installed I removed my spacer, dropped the body back down and tightened all of the rocker fasteners and body mount bolts. At this point it was time to reattach the flares and I was DONE!
Well, except for the other side?.
Here is the finished product.
Doug
C.E.S
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Posted on Friday, April 09 @ 12:59:56 CDT by truth |
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Average Score: 5
Votes: 1
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Re: Rocker Knocker Install by The Notorious DUG(Score: 1)
by missouri (missouri01@mailcity.com) on Sunday, April 11 @ 21:31:11 CDT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://TIJA.org | Nice pics
Toys by Troy same price, thicker metal, already powder coated. Would have taken about and hour and 20 mnutes to mount.
missouri |
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