Armor Part 1: 4xInnovations Rock Sliders

Since the last off-road trip, there have been several overnight camping trips and one-day wheeling trips.  One more than a few of those trips, the lack of a lift and the low running boards meant I smacked the running boards on a few rocks.  Having the steps there is a nice luxury for daily driving, but they certainly get in the way for rock crawling.

It was clear even from the first few trips that rock sliders were absolutely necessary for the type of off-roading I enjoyed.

Along with rock sliders, there were certain other needs that I wanted to handle with some more armor.  Since the air lockers were installed, the spare tire location had to be re-dedicated to an air tank.  That meant that the spare now resided on the roof, which is no good for drag and gas mileage, and more importantly, is in a very in convenient location should I actually need to use it.  On top of all that, some of the more challenging trails proved to be a bit too much (required a friendly pull from others), and the idea of some self-recovery gear, namely a winch, would likely prove helpful in the future.

And so, a whole lot of armor was ordered, all from 4xInnovations based out of Wisconsin.  Front bumper, rock sliders, a skid plate and a rear bumper with tire carrier and optional camping table.  All to be painted and then installed soon.

First up was the rock sliders.  Since the truck is a "Limited", there are factory flares on it.  With the wider body, a decision was made to get the sliders with a kick-out at the rear.  Another option was whether to go bolt-on or weld-on.  Welding is obviously more permanent, and supposedly stronger (versus drilling holes in your frame to bolt on some sliders), so weld-on it was.  The installation took a good part of the day, since we had to paint and then weld, so there was a decent amount of downtime.

Often, folks like to powdercoat their armor for a clean, even look.  However, the problem with that is once you scratch or otherwise mess up the armor a bit, it's impossible to perfectly match your original powdercoat.  So instead, we went with rattle can bedliner.  Touch ups would be easy this way, and cheap.

With rock sliders on the truck, the look of the truck really started to change, though still quite subtle.  Once the rest of the armor goes on, it won't be so subtle anymore!

The finished product: