Anyone with Westcott silders on a 3rd gen DCSB?

Hey-o Crew, happy Saturday!

I installed my Westcott sliders today and they are absolutely beautiful. I have a question for anyone that has them installed. Does your set completely butt up with no space between the back of the slider plates and front of the frame? Mine are tightened up nicely and seem to butt up mostly well but I noticed in the middle it's not exactly butting up with no gap area below (stole a pic from another thread)

 

Here's the gap:

 

I'm not an expert on these sliders, but I would think that you would want a small gap, for water to drain. If they butted right up against it, then water or moisture could gather long term up there, which would lead to rust.

I could be totally wrong and they maybe designed to butt up right against the truck. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

Should probably ask Wescott directly but in my opinion the reason they should butt up like most other properly designed bolt on sliders on the market is that it increases the surface area for force to be distributed along the length of the frame. Same reason weld on sliders have plates that you weld on between the frame and support arms. Hit a rock with the sliders pictured and the force is applied to that one weld chain. It will guaranteed weaken over time if not crack on the first hard hit.

I would just weld the suckers on. Redrilling the hole doesn’t appear to be an option.

 

I sent em am email...thing is everything lines up I don't even know what I'd redrill

 

Interested to hear what they say. If the plate doesn’t butt up… why even have the plate? Literally placing ALL of the force encountered by the slider upon that one weld chain.

 

I think OP has the rust prevention under control. Pretty impressive undercoating regimen.

 

It does seem that it's just this one area with the gap...where there are bolts + backplates through the frame it appears tighter.

I did reinstall today too to make sure there was nothing in-between and it seems installed right...all tight up

 

Here's another view from a section with thru frame bolts/backer plates. Much tighter, woolwax even squeezed out from here and other thru bolt/backer plate areas

 

If you took the bottom bolt out will the others pull the gap out....?

 

Bottom bolt appears to be slotted.

The bolts should pull the sliders tight to the frame, that is wrong and weaker. Too much extra force is going to be transferred to the bolts instead of the frame.

My sliders have those holes plenty big enough to clear those rivets.