Review Area: Armor | Skid Plates

TL;DR - I finally got off my butt and fixed the skid plate. Mostly. For over a year, the center attachment point of my mid-skid has been broken off. It's not a big deal, because I really only run my mid-skid when I feel like I'm going to need it, and that's not very often - usually about once a year on my annual 2-week trip with buddies. With that coming up for this year, and with unknown terrain ahead of me in Canada, I decided I should get the skid sorted. So, I measured for, drilled, and filed, a…

TL;DR - I replaced the bolts with grade 8 versions, hopefully solving the problem for good. I was not happy to discover that two bolts were "missing" from the rear holes of the front skid plate halfway through my first trail in Utah. I was even less happy when I attempted replacement and discovered that the heads of both bolts had sheared off, making a trail fix much more difficult. I can only assume that the bolts I had installed were "standard grade" bolts, and some reasonably bash of the skid plate, or constant vibration, caused them to shear. After…

TL;DR - The middle two mounts on the mid skid broke off again. I need to come up with a new way to secure the mid-skid at the crossmember. Back when we ran the Whipsaw Trail, I had some issues with the Relentless skids, which I addressed in the Rig Review. Two of those issues have been resolved for some time - the front mounts were re-drilled and tapped, and I added rivnuts to the rear-most mounts for the mid-skid to keep the bolts from ripping out of the thin frame. But the third issue - that the crossmember mounts…

TL;DR - The mid-skid is now securely fastened to the frame again, nearly a year later! I finally got around to putting a Rivnut in the frame at the rear driver attachment point, so I don't need to worry about the bolt there backing out. This was the last piece to making the mid-skid attachment more secure, so I'm glad to have finally gotten it done. I should note that I no longer run the mid-skid on most trips (to save weight), so I haven't really used the skid since the rig review where I noted it needed work. But I have…

TL;DR - The skid plates are holding up, but the mounting strategy could have been better. For the 3rd time, I'm modifying it. I had some significant trouble with the Relentless skid plates on the last trip to Colorado. I've always had an issue with the bolts in the rearmost mounts on the mid (transfer case) skid loosening up over time - I believe due to the fact that the bolts simply thread into the <1/8" frame, which is just too thin to really secure them. Additionally, I've had a problem a year ago where the crossmember mounts sheared off,…