ZUKIWORLD Reviews: SHROCKWORKS SLIDERS Rocker Panel Skids For Your Samurai

 

SHROCKWORKS SLIDERS

Rocker Panel Skids For Your Samurai.

Editor/Photo: Eric Bewley

ALBANY, OR – In this our final installment of the ShrockWorks armor project for our Samurai Project: Hermey, we have a great sense of completion and accomplishment. The Shrockworks armor really has finished off the Samurai well making it a formidable trail machine. The rocker skids that we have installed for this article are robust and make a solid addition and contribution to the total ShrockWorks armor package.

Intallation should take the better part of eight hours depending on the amount of damage and repair / prep you need to do to your rocker panels. We were fortunate and did not have to repair much more than the accidental ‘drill throughs’ that happened when we were drilling out the spot welds.

1. Remove factory plastic fastening screws for the rocker panel protection. click to enlarge 2. Remove factory plastic rocker panel protection exposing the factory undersupport. click to enlarge 3. Find and mark where the spotwelds are located click to enlarge 4. Using a spotweld drill, drill out spotwelds. click to enlarge 5. Using a drift punch, remove the rocker undersupport. Take your time at this step and make sure that you have drilled enogh, but not too much, of the spotweld. click to enlarge 6. Haste makes waste. Here we did not drill far enough and the spotweld ripped the sheetmetal. click to enlarge 7. Once the undersupport is removed, clean and prep the rocker surface. click to enlarge 8. Paint and or rust proof surface. click to enlarge 9. Using a large hammer or mallet, flatten the lower body seam against itself. click to enlarge 10. This was shipping damage, that tab needs to be straight. click to enlarge 11. Use a floor jack and jack the new rocker skid into place. Mark with a punch where the holes should be drilled. click to enlarge 12. Lower rocker skid out of the way and drill the five (5) side holes. click to enlarge 13. Using the floor jack reposition the new rocker skid and install the hardware (bolts, nuts, and washers) click to enlarge 14. Snug bolts. click to enlarge 15. Drill the rear two bolt holes and the two holes underneath. click to enlarge 16. Install hardware. click to enlarge 17. Snug bolts. click to enlarge 18. Install the floor plate, install hardware. click to enlarge 19. Tighten bolts (you may notice the floor tweek as the bolts become tight.) click to enlarge 20. Tighten all bolts (recheck all hardware after 100 miles) click to enlarge 21. Trim excess bolt. click to enlarge 22. Repeat steps 1 thru 21 for other side. click to enlarge

There were a couple of gotchas on this install. First, is we had to feed the side bolts from the inside out which left a pretty ugly bolt, washer, and nut combo hanging outside for all to see. If the step tube was adjusted just a small bit it would be possible to feed the bolts from the outside in which would give a nicer finish. The second gotcha was that there were no sleeves supplied for the side bolts. Having a sleeved bolt would help immensly because what happens with this kit in its current form is that the body starts to crush when you tighten down the bolts thus one never truly gets a tight, torqued bolt.

In no way do these to small issue detract from the otherwise great build quality and fit. We opted to powdercoat ourselves so we can not comment on the factory finish but if it is like the build quality, there is nothing to fear. The ShrockWorks rocker skids are an excellent addition to any Samurai armor plan.

 

suzuki_underline_650.GIF (1221 bytes)

Check Also

Jarbidge Nevada – An oasis

JARBIDGE, NV - Several years ago, on one of our epic ZUKIWORLD adventures, long before the term "overland" was really anything other than the word after "Willys" we were on a journey along the northern edge of Nevada exploring ghost towns and abandoned mines.

2 comments

  1. Are there any such thing as rocker skids for Suzuki X-90’s

    • Good question… The chassis is the same as a Sidekick / Tracker so those ones would be ‘close’ but It’s hard to say how different the body is out there at the end. I know Calmini and I think Trail Tough have both made sliders for x90s before. Give them a call

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.