GOAT Fabrication Rock Sliders installed on Ranger Raptor

[ZombieDropper]

After 43 days of waiting the Goat Fab sliders arrived. Well packed in two separate boxes because they are heavy. The finish is excellent and the fit is perfect. The tubes are nice and fat and these are very stout. Less than an hour to install by myself which included driving up the ramps. (Bench pressing the rail up into place while getting the first bolt started was the best part). Getting in and out is now a breeze. Much better than those crappy stock sandpaper planks. The doors ride about 1" above the slider rail. Hardware was included and if you're not careful you will miss the little Goat keychain that gets stuck inside the hardware bag.

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[superj]

They look cool

 

[jeffers]

Have they been tested to see if they can take a hit?

 

[ZombieDropper]

This is good enough for me.

 

[ryanO]

After 43 days of waiting the Goat Fab sliders arrived. Well packed in two separate boxes because they are heavy. The finish is excellent and the fit is perfect. The tubes are nice and fat and these are very stout. Less than an hour to install by myself which included driving up the ramps. (Bench pressing the rail up into place while getting the first bolt started was the best part). Getting in and out is now a breeze. Much better than those crappy stock sandpaper planks. The doors ride about 1" above the slider rail. Hardware was included and if you're not careful you will miss the little Goat keychain that gets stuck inside the hardware bag.

View attachment 78788

So they dont bolt to the frame?

 

[ZombieDropper]

They bolt to the body. Today's hydroformed box channel bodies are a lot different than they used to be.

 

[Flak]

This is good enough for me.

That looks like its bending the slider brackets/body when its coming down on it?

 

[ZombieDropper]

That's a pretty extreme test. I would think that if your using your RR for that type of crawling then the entire truck is gonna be junk in no time.

 

[donkey]

That looks like its bending the slider brackets/body when its coming down on it?

yeah thats a lot of deflection - Im going frame mount

 

[Flak]

That's a pretty extreme test. I would think that if your using your RR for that type of crawling then the entire truck is gonna be junk in no time.

What's the point of sliders if they can't safely handle the partial weight of the truck on one side though? It doesn't matter if it's a giant boulder or just you are slightly hung up on a ledge over a decline due to wheelbase being a smidge too long. You're going to have half your truck resting partially on rock rails and have to slide forward.

Maybe that's within spec and the right steel is flexing the right amount. But it looked not great to me in that clip, it looked fine initially then the entire rear part deflected to the body, like once it was between the rear two brackets it wasn't enough.

 

[ZombieDropper]

I bought them because they look cool and mostly to cut down on paint chips. My truck will never see a dirt road anyway.

 

[ShadowDragon24]

I bought them because they look cool and mostly to cut down on paint chips. My truck will never see a dirt road anyway.

Ahhh so you R.I.C.E.'d it.

 

[ZombieDropper]

Pretty much. Or it's there for the next guy. Almost one year and only 1600 miles. I rarely keep anything past it's first oil change.

 

[Lion77]

That looks like its bending the slider brackets/body when its coming down on it?

You know those curly things around the big red straight things under your truck....did you know they bend a LOT when you drive it, especially when you jump it? Did you know your frame, even a fully boxed hydroformed frame, flexes when you drive it?

It's called elastic deformation, aka something that flexes or moves out of its natural shape but returns fully to its original position when the load is removed. Sorry, not trying to be a jerk, I'm just trying to make people think differently about it by illustrating applications.

The GOAT fab sliders have some small amount of elasticity built into the brackets that act like a spring. The movement is limited; it doesn't just keep flexing and allowing the slider bar to move upward into the rocker. Also note the underside of the cab is the crash panels, they are structural and actually stronger mounting points than the frame. You also get the benefit of the cab being isolated via the big heavy duty rubber bushings, so there's some damping there as well, hence why both GOAT and Rocky Road use those locations.

People always assume "flex = bad", but it's application dependent. You don't want flex in an engine block; but you DO want some limited flex in shock springs, suspension bushings, chassis bushings, engine mounts, diff bushings and yes, slider brackets. Slider brackets benefit from a small amount of flex because it limits shock stresses on the bolts, attachment locations and welds.

Some of the impact energy is stored in the elastic deformation, that once the load is removed, just like a spring, returns to it's original shape. In-elastic impacts, aka where nothing can flex and store energy, has a higher risk of denting / bending the bar, cracking the welds, shearing bolts / threads and in the case of frame mounted, bending or puckering the fame = massive damage. As long as the brackets aren't flexing to the point of allowing the slider bars to contact the rockers, it's doing its job. Goat fab sliders are my next mod (just did Method 705's). I've yet to see a single instance of a Jeep or Bronco owner say their GOAT fab sliders flexed to the point of damaging their rocker or failed, the design is pretty solid, and it works as intended.

That's my 2 cents. Find me a post from someone with GOAT fab sliders where the sliders flexed to the point their rockers were damaged......then we can talk about it. Everything has its limits, maybe if you drive off a 5-foot drop straight onto a rock....but I'll bet a frame mounted slide would also fail in that situation too. That's my point, there's no contact in the video, it gets close, but close isn't contact, it reached its elastic travel limit at which point it no longer flexes until failure.

 

[Flak]

You know those curly things around the big red straight things under your truck....did you know they bend a LOT when you drive it, especially when you jump it? Did you know your frame, even a fully boxed hydroformed frame, flexes when you drive it?

It's called elastic deformation, aka something that flexes or moves out of its natural shape but returns fully to its original position when the load is removed. Sorry, not trying to be a jerk, I'm just trying to make people think differently about it by illustrating applications.

The GOAT fab sliders have some small amount of elasticity built into the brackets that act like a spring. The movement is limited; it doesn't just keep flexing and allowing the slider bar to move upward into the rocker. Also note the underside of the cab is the crash panels, they are structural and actually stronger mounting points than the frame. You also get the benefit of the cab being isolated via the big heavy duty rubber bushings, so there's some damping there as well, hence why both GOAT and Rocky Road use those locations.

People always assume "flex = bad", but it's application dependent. You don't want flex in an engine block; but you DO want some limited flex in shock springs, suspension bushings, chassis bushings, engine mounts, diff bushings and yes, slider brackets. Slider brackets benefit from a small amount of flex because it limits shock stresses on the bolts, attachment locations and welds.

Some of the impact energy is stored in the elastic deformation, that once the load is removed, just like a spring, returns to it's original shape. In-elastic impacts, aka where nothing can flex and store energy, has a higher risk of denting / bending the bar, cracking the welds, shearing bolts / threads and in the case of frame mounted, bending or puckering the fame = massive damage. As long as the brackets aren't flexing to the point of allowing the slider bars to contact the rockers, it's doing its job. Goat fab sliders are my next mod (just did Method 705's). I've yet to see a single instance of a Jeep or Bronco owner say their GOAT fab sliders flexed to the point of damaging their rocker or failed, the design is pretty solid, and it works as intended.

That's my 2 cents. Find me a post from someone with GOAT fab sliders where the sliders flexed to the point their rockers were damaged......then we can talk about it. Everything has its limits, maybe if you drive off a 5-foot drop straight onto a rock....but I'll bet a frame mounted slide would also fail in that situation too. That's my point, there's no contact in the video, it gets close, but close isn't contact, it reached its elastic travel limit at which point it no longer flexes until failure.

Yea I get flexing isn't always bad. My concern is more, why did it flex and more importantly what did flex under a relatively calm dynamic load at that point. It was already on the rock. I don't think it would be unreasonable if it smashed down into it that it deflects.

These things are attached to a few brackets, it's not a monolithic rail style attachment... So bending strikes me as more a concern with punch through or shearing.

Again not saying it's wrong or bad, it just didn't look great in the clip to me is all when it deflected so much at the end well after the drop onto the rock.

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