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Homemade skid
Jun 08, 2006 02:48 AM #1
hey guys, great jeep site. i am thinking about doing a belly skid like yours, homemade. could you post some pics, and maybe specs. thanks
Jun 08, 2006 03:22 AM #2
Hey Don.
Yeah after we got tired of bending Chris's stock belly skid back up to spec,
we decided to just add to it. We just went to the scrap steel yard and picked up a 1/4 inch flat piece of steel for pretty cheap. $13 for 30lbs or something, I think.
You do have to cut a hole out so you can reach the tranny mount. I also cut the side edges of our new square steel plate in so it matched the contour of the stocker and then for good measure and to keep crap out, I lipped the front end. I actually used an adjustable wrench with a breaker bar and just crimped on down the line a little at a time.
Bolting it up was pretty easy since the original skid has plenty of existing holes in it. I just drilled equal holes in the new steel piece and dug into my private stash of old take-off nuts and bolts. The rounded ones are better to keep them from being caught on things, but so what if a rock scuffs at it? If I needed, I could use vice grips to get a ruined bolt off.
I just had to make sure the bolts weren't too long so they didn't interfere with the t-case or moving parts. No biggie.
For the heck of it, since there is a central dip in the stock skid, I decided to utilize Chris's t-case drop pucks since they weren't needed anymore with the Atlas. It kept the new skid from bowing at that spot so it would stay straight. I know I used 1 on each side, but I believe I centered one as well.
I hope this helped some. You're basiclly just cutting some and drilling some. The new double config doesn't bend at all. Sometimes, as we've found, the slightest bend in the stock skid can change the whole geometry of the driveline and/or shift linkage and causes noises (that take forever to figure out) or even stress to the t-case tail shaft.
Good luck!
Thanks
Yeah after we got tired of bending Chris's stock belly skid back up to spec,
we decided to just add to it. We just went to the scrap steel yard and picked up a 1/4 inch flat piece of steel for pretty cheap. $13 for 30lbs or something, I think.
You do have to cut a hole out so you can reach the tranny mount. I also cut the side edges of our new square steel plate in so it matched the contour of the stocker and then for good measure and to keep crap out, I lipped the front end. I actually used an adjustable wrench with a breaker bar and just crimped on down the line a little at a time.
Bolting it up was pretty easy since the original skid has plenty of existing holes in it. I just drilled equal holes in the new steel piece and dug into my private stash of old take-off nuts and bolts. The rounded ones are better to keep them from being caught on things, but so what if a rock scuffs at it? If I needed, I could use vice grips to get a ruined bolt off.
I just had to make sure the bolts weren't too long so they didn't interfere with the t-case or moving parts. No biggie.
For the heck of it, since there is a central dip in the stock skid, I decided to utilize Chris's t-case drop pucks since they weren't needed anymore with the Atlas. It kept the new skid from bowing at that spot so it would stay straight. I know I used 1 on each side, but I believe I centered one as well.
I hope this helped some. You're basiclly just cutting some and drilling some. The new double config doesn't bend at all. Sometimes, as we've found, the slightest bend in the stock skid can change the whole geometry of the driveline and/or shift linkage and causes noises (that take forever to figure out) or even stress to the t-case tail shaft.
Good luck!
Thanks