For those of you fitting Tuffant sliders (my friends to the North...) I've annotated their already pretty good instructions with some notes of my own. Thought I'd share them here—attached.

I installed mine over the holiday break. Naturally, I chose to do this in my outdoor driveway in the Oregon rain, on a car whose underside was still caked in mud from its latest off-road antics. Classic unprepared me. But it is pretty straightforward and I was surprised I could keep my front mudflaps on the truck.

My rating: 10 out of 10. There is not one thing I could say could be improved except my choice of venue for the install. The product is top top. Welds, powder coating quality, packaging (came on a flat crate pallet from the US distributor who btw is a great chap), and thorough inclusion of all parts needed - spot on. Tuffant really does a first class job. I'm going to be buying their underbody armor next.

A few notes

Driver/Passenger Labelling: As someone else here has already pointed out, the sliders come helpfully labelled "Driver" and "Passenger." Since they’re Australian, the labels are the wrong way around for us in USA.

Instructions: There are two sets of installation instructions floating about online. If you're in the US, you need the newer LHD (Left-Hand Drive) instructions from 2022. Avoid the older, non-US instructions—you might stare at them confused like me for an hour deciphering. Anyway, the attached are the LHD ... my "doctored" version.

Clearance: I put the car into Offroad Height 2. Here’s how because I thought it would only go into Offroad Height 1 usually: start the car in AUTO terrain mode in Park, disengage the parking brake, then hold the "up" button. After that, popped the side of the car I was working on up onto ramps. Loads of clearance. Note: I could swear a year or two ago, mine would only go into 1 when I did this. Maybe a software update changed it. No idea. But going into 2 helps.

Balancing Act: Per the instructions, the slider sits perfectly on a standard roller floor jack. Balancing it with all the little spacers in place was much easier than expected.

Label The Spacers: The black plastic spacers come in various sizes. Label them w/ a paint pen before you start. I dropped them all and ... it'll save you time from getting your metric ruler out and measuring them to figure out what's what again.



Sliders on their first test run today on a fire road in the forest.


Pre-Install


Neat little fitting goes into the jacking point.


Jacking. I put cardboard down. Unsure why since they're going to get scuffed up.


Labelled spacers.. good idea. Do this. You can see here where I did not remove the black guards it said to remove in the instructions. This is something I annotated in the red notes in the instructions: I think it is fine to *not* remove these btw on US models as it says in the instructions -- if you just remove the bolts (I marked the bolts I removed with a white dot on the frame of the car, you can see it above the spacers..) . The small extra space the bracket takes up I don't think matters...


Mid-install picture after snugging up bolts.


An underside view of the bolts snugged up. You can see a couple of the holes they have in here for the "Tuffant Bottle Jack adapter" which is avail on their website. I'll probably buy that too


Testing the footing. Turns out they make a handy step - front door view.


And rear door.I was not expecting to actually like using these as "side steps" too. I'm 6'4" so I don't need them, but for shorter folk, sure...

 

Thanks for the straightforward and informative write-up! Will definitely be helpful for those wanting to tackle the installation themselves.

Is that a late-MY R129 I see in the background?

 

Ahh. Keen eye Cincy, close but no, that is a W124 cabriolet, 1994 E320 in Bruno Sacco’s favorite color, Midnight Blue. A real stunner but parts availability for these mid 90s Mercedes is a cross between comical and horrendous. I do love it though.

 

Interesting that Midnight Blue was Sacco's favorite color. God rest his soul. Gorgeous color, too. My step-grandfather had an old 1983 300CD in a metallic dark blue. Not sure it was Midnight Blue or not, but it was nice and looked great with a tan interior. Can't you get just about any part for any old Mercedes from the Classic Center in LA? I recall a video where Jay Leno said that he broke a mirror or something on his 600 Grosser and was upset because he thought it was irreplaceable, but he decided to call up the Classic Center and they had one readily available.

 

<< Deleted my Mercedes conversation with Cincy to keep this thread focused >>

 

That is a plan beautiful Cabrio! I have a soft spot for 80s and 90s Mercedes. The R129 is definitely my favorite, but your W124 is gorgeous. Love the matching navy roof. What color is the interior?

 

On the topic of the rock sliders, why does the instruction manual tell you to remove a bunch of the under tray? Also, what’s different about the install for RHD cars?

 

Likely a silly question, but where are the jacking points with the sliders installed? Can you simply use a floor jack on the slider, or do you now need their bottle jack adapter?

 

Q: On the topic of the rock sliders, why does the instruction manual tell you to remove a bunch of the under tray? Also, what’s different about the install for RHD cars?

I bet Tuffant wants you to remove them because they're under the sliders (so serve no purpose) and they need the mounting holes to secure the sliders.

I did not have the current V2 LHD instructions when I was installing, so I winged it. LHD cars in the US market have 2 additional undertrays that AUS RHD cars do not have. I did not yank them to see what they were protecting underneath. You need a few of the mounting hole to mount the sliders. I simply removed the bolts I needed to, left the trays, and mounted the sliders over the trays—it worked fine. That said, the sliders themselves are identical for LHD and RHD cars—I can confirm this.

This a pic of the parts in question:




And in this picture, you can see I left them..


Q: Likely a silly question, but where are the jacking points with the sliders installed? Can you simply use a floor jack on the slider, or do you now need their bottle jack adapter?

Three points to make here:

#1 -- Factory Jack NO I would not use the factory jack anymore with Tuffant Sliders, for safety reasons. You could, in theory, in a pinch, but I'd deem it unsafe given the top v-shaped surface of the factory jack. The factory jack points are covered completely by the slider (you can see in the photo below, the slider fits up into the jacking point and uses it as a reinforcement.

#2 -- Normal Floor Jack anywhere along the underside of the sliders.

#3 -- Bottle Jack -- Anywhere or with an adapter in the holes Tuffant has in the sliders. I think a bottle jack would slide round as the car tilts up and this is what someone else here reported. So, Tuffant has provided a number of round holes that a bottle jack with an adapter can fit into. I've bought this bottle jack https://safejacks.com/products/safe-...th-bottle-jack and this base to go with it https://safejacks.com/products/unive...ttle-jack-base and this Tuffant adapter . https://www.tuffant.com/product-page...hassis-adapter which based on my somewhat vague conversations with the jack company, will fit the jack in that kit. Unsure though, it hasn't shown up. I give it an 80% shot of it fitting the jack.

What I like about this jack above is it has a bunch of extensions so you can get it high when Offroad. My buddy has it. We used it once Offroad on his Defender with a body lift and 35" tires when we debated a tire in some sand dunes. Worked very well for him.

 

This is 2mm thick steel plate protecting the A/C components. It's redundant with sliders in place. I removed mine for the Voyager slider installation. Different design. No spacers. They can't be fitted without removing these. The sliders protect all that stuff once installed.

I think leaving them in place is not a good idea, The extra 2mm of steel will keep the full diameter of the spacer from supporting the slider. Probably me being a dumbass but I'd take them off.