I recently bought a DII that has sliders on it. Looks like the sliders trapped a bunch of sand, water, and dirt, which caused the sills to rust out.

I just had the sills replaced by a body shop so I'm going to reinstall the sliders.

The original sills had some sort of black coating applied to them, maybe POR-15, bedliner or similar. Clearly it didn't work. I think it may have been done by LRSV, that's my assumption since everything is "factory" (sliders were made by Trek Outfitters).

I plan on using Eastwood Interior Frame coating on the inside of the sill boxes and then spraying some fluid film over that.

I live in CA so I'm not too worried about them rusting from weather conditions (previous owners were in salt belt states, plus I'll be conscious about cleaning out any junk around the sliders if I see any.

I thought about applying some foam weather stripping in specific areas to keep water and crap out but I doubt that would be foolproof, may even be worse. Anyway, with fresh sills, I'm wondering if I should apply a similar coating (not that it worked the first time around) on the exterior of the sills or leave them as is and bolt the sliders to clean paint?

 

I have resisted sliders for just that reason.

I saw some sliders by a UK company that cuts slots in the flat bar on the bottom so you can flush out mud.

Probably best to leave gaps between parts so you can wash and spray with an oil coating regularly.

 

When l built my sliders, used concave steel plate for bottom piece...to help eliminate this issue. After every off road event, l'd stick a hose in the lower channel and wash it out.

There are two strips of steel, running length way along each edge of sills, that creqtes a small area with even flat stock being used for bottom piece. Key is...washing out mud/salt.

 

Makes me wonder if I should drill holes in the bottom plates for drainage...

Still trying to decide what to do about mounting points.

 

So I’m finally getting around to installing my sliders. Had the sills replaced and the body shop re-drilled the holes for the slider bolts using the old sills as a template.

Well, I got one slider up with a few bolts and of course the holes don’t all line up with the ones in the sill. The slider is also riding high and the bottom plate looks like it’s right up against the bottom of the sill.

Like everything else from the factory, precision wasn’t a top priority. Looking at pics of the old sills, it seems like the holes weren’t all the same size or even lined up perfectly with the ones on the back of the sills.

Question: Would you drill the holes in the sill bigger to allow for some adjustment and alignment or would you try drilling the holes in the slider larger or maybe even slotted? The slider plates are at least 1/8 to 3/16 inch thick so it would require more work to modify (I have basic tools and drills so I can’t get super expert on these). I will probably also need to use a dremel to adjust a few holes here and there.

 

How many of the hole line up? Hopefully you have some or at least one at either end which do. Then you could adjust some of the middle as necessary. The goal would be to ensure it wouldn’t shift around on you under any weight

I also drilled a few larger holes in the bottom Of my sliders so I could flush them out & mud muck would have an exit. I used grade 8 bolts to help with the corrosion thru the sill. (And I also made heavy steel brackets from the back side of my sliders to my frame so I can use my farm jack to lift the side of the truck)

 

Yeah, l wouldn't have pre-drilled the holes. You want them as centered as possible...using the old sheet metal was a mistake...but that's for here nor there now. As mentioned, hopefully you have one front and rear that are correctly aligned without enlarging. I'd get the ones in that you can, without to much enlarging, and drill a few more pre-side to make sure they do what they are suppose to do.

 

I do wish I had given the body shop the sliders before they drilled the holes. I figured they'd use the backside holes to line up the new holes, which it seems they did as all the bolts go through fairly straight. But, as I mentioned, I don't think the factory did a good job the first time around so the holes may never have been perfectly straight...

Some of the holes do line up. So, I can get it up to see which ones don't line up correctly. However, I may need to adjust the sliders so they ride a little lower. What's the best way to do that? Should I enlarge some of the holes that line up now? I think they need to come down about 1/4-1/2" though.

 

There are no predrilled holes from the factory that go complete through. The holes that are along the door side are for the black plastic piece that runs along bottom of rocker panel. I'd want the rock-slider up against the bottom of the rocker panel, the inner edge is a bit lower than outer edge, l'd want it against that and not entirely resting on bolts. Line up what you can and redrill a few extras.

 

Yeah, I know the holes for the stock plastic sill covers that you're talking about. These are different and are drilled all the way through to the back side of the sills. There's a separate plate that goes on the back of the sill, the screws (4) go through the plate, and then some washers and nuts. My truck is an '03 TReK so the sliders were either done at the factory or on this side of the pond by LRNA for the competition. Either way, the original holes weren't super clean on the face of the sills when I removed the sliders.

You'd want the bottom plate of the sliders right up against the bottom of the rocker/sill? I was thinking it needed to be at least even with the bottom of that inside lip of the sill that you mentioned. That would give it around a 1/4" of space between the two. I figured that would be better for clean out and drainage, no?

Here's are some pics of my old and new sills along with the Trek Outfitter sliders and inner plate.