How necessary is that 14mm bolt?

I just finished putting on these Caliraised rock sliders on my '18 OR last night. I LOVE them! Took me a while, and pulled a few muscles getting them into place, even with a jack. On the drivers side I was able to "hang" the slider with the 14mm bolt I took out from about the middle of the frame.

But on the passenger side, when I did the same thing, all the other holes were almost impossible to line up correctly (bent frame?) so I just hung the sliders with all the other provided hardware and left off the 14mm bolt.



My question: is it safe to just leave this 14mm bolt out? Looks like the bolt was going into one of the cross-members between the frame rails. It's the rail that goes horizontally and the makes a bend as it crosses the driveshaft.

Do I really need to get back under there, loosen up all the hardware, and somehow convince all the holes to line up?

 

If the sliders are for style leave it off. Else loosen the slider bolts and jiggle. If that fails grind the hole larger.

 

They’re not just for style. Guess I’m getting back under there.

 

If they are mostly fitting except for that one hole, get in there and wallow that mounting slot out a bit.

 

What sort of tool would you use to wallow out that hole? A drill bit?

 

So first of all I'd loosen up all of the mounting bolts and see if you can get them all started loosely. If you cranked down on the first one without starting the rest there's a chance the alignment could be off. If it's that simple, get them all started then start torqueing them down evenly from the center to edges.

That material doesn't look too difficult to cut through. A dremel might be able to do it, but a drill press would probably be safer.

 

I had to do some fitting on my Cali raised sliders because my frame is a little munged. If you can't get it to line up after loosening everything up a bit (as others have suggested above) try a small carbide burr in a Dremel. Go slow - putting metal back on is a lot harder than taking it off.

 

Die grinder with carbide bit would be first choice.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the help! I'm going to first loosen up all the bolts and see if I can coax the slider down a bit. If not that, I'll run over to Harbor Freight and get a die grinder.

Y'all are awesome. I'll update once I'm done.

 

These will work if the unit it removed completely so he doesn't bugger up the threaded hole he is trying to bolt into.

A carbide die grinder bit can make short work of wallowing out the hole without going too deep.

I would slip a chunk of fuel hose over the carbide bit to only expose about 3/16" to have good control of the bit depth. Or thread a bolt down from the top to plug the exposed threads.

 

Rotary file bit in a drill or a tungsten carbide cutter in a dremel. If slider is off the truck just elongate the hole with a round file

 

OK, so here's the update:
I loosened all the bolts to the point I could lift up and wiggle around the slider. I could slide it forward a teeny bit, but it really is back as far as it can go. So I tightened up all the bolts again and went to Harbor Freight. Got a die grinder and a set of carbide grinder bits. I'd never used a die grinder before, and it took a little bit to get used to, two hands were required to keep it from bouncing around! But, after a couple minutes of careful grinding (as careful as I could be for my first time) I had enough "wallowed out" to get the 14mm bolt into the hole. AND I didn't even mess up the threads in there!

Thanks for all your help! Do you think I need to put a washer on that?

 

Awesome! Sucks about the fitment issues but it happens sometimes.

A nice wide washer would be recommended to help spread out the load a bit over that section.

 

Done. Thanks!

 

Also just thought y'all might want to see the finished project.

 

Anyone know the part number for that 14mm bolt? I broke mine off and Toyota is no help identifying it.

 

The local “Service Star” or equivalent should have them. Pull one off the other side and take it in. I’d replace with a grade 8.

 

no such thing as "grade 8" metric bolts.

For JIS bolts, I go to BelMetric

https://belmetric.com/jis-flange-bolt-10-9-fine-m10x1-25-14mm-wrench/?sku=BF10X1.25X25YLW

 

If you look at the metric proof loads, they’re nearly identical to the grade system. 8.8 = grade 5, and 10.9 = grade 8.