I looked at various different sliders for my Rubicon but finally decided on the Rock Hard sliders. I almost went the Ace route but didn't want to carry the weight of both the stock rails and the Ace rails.
I thought about the Lod rails because of the step but I'm in Ohio and there were many comments about salt getting into the crevices. Also, drilling into the frame didn't excite me.
In the end, I wanted something tubular and frame mounted.
That brings me to the Rock Hard sliders.

I'll detail the process of unpacking through installation. I will be plasti-dipping the pinch seam as well.

Here is the initial package from Northridge. Packaging could have been better. You'll see there are some flaws in the way these are packed. The box also wasn't strong enough to stand up to the weight of the contents which resulted in a gaping hole on one. Luckily the hardware was taped to the slider so nothing was loose.

Sorry for the dark pictures. I don't see sunlight at home until the weekend.

 

Inspection

I looked at the ends of the sliders when I received them and noticed some damage from shipping. It wasn't enough to complain about so I started collecting paint supplies to touch the sliders up.
I figured these things will probably go through worse on the trail so I might as well learn to touch them up.

 

Further Inspection

By Friday I had collected various types of spray paint, which I'll detail in a bit.

When I unpacked the sliders to prep for painting, I noticed more rubbing.
Unfortunately, the bolts weren't wrapped and ground into the finish of the opposite slider in the package.
Looks like it will be more work than expected.
I'll also be testing a few different black finishes as well.

I figured, hopefully, by the time I'm done touching this up, you won't notice unless you inspect it closely.

 

Plasti-Dipping the Pinch Seam

The pictures don't really do it justice but the plasti-dipping came out really well. It's a very forgiving material to work with. I had some streaks after the first coat but that evened out after the second coat. As it dries, it looks better.
I pulled the tape off after the second heavy coat to make sure I got a nice edge. I opted to run the tape along the bottom edge of the angle above the pinch seam. That way the black edge is hidden from view.

Again, sorry for the lack of light. It's 22 degrees out today.

 

Back at It This Morning

The temp is actually higher but it feels colder because the wind has picked up outside and there's no sun. I can see my breath.

Here's a pic of the plasti dip outcome again.

 

Test Fitting

I raised the left slider into place and quickly realized it wasn't going to go in perfectly.

Pro-tip: Test fit before plast-dipping in case you need to ream out the holes. I was lazy. The slider was in the basement. I didn't want to carry it up yesterday and back down.

I reamed out four holes, two on each side. I hit the holes with more plasti-dip and now just waiting for it to dry.
You can see the right hole is too tight for the bolts. (Insert joke here).

 

Painting Efforts

I'm not going to details the touch up after all. I'm embarrassed with how thing turned out. The bed liner was the closest finish but had a matte quality to it vs. the gloss of the slider.
After the winter salt, maybe I'll hit both of the sliders with a new coat of bed liner. Right now, I just to move forward.
Again, more and more disappointed with the packaging from Rock Hard.

 

Sucks it didn't align. Reminds me of the Smittybuilt rocker I got rid of.

 

They don't line up and came beat up??

I would be contacting someone on Monday for sure.

Good job with the write up

 

Test fit

Finally got one of the sliders up. Looks good, nice fit. I had one of the metal bar tabs upside down so had to flip that and the slider fit pretty close. Here's a pic.