Skid Plates
#42
JK-Forum Founder
Join Date: Jul 2006
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great post made by seer1 on another thread...
there are a lot of things you can spend your money on and replacement skids really aren't one of them.
I've gone through both RH and RR skids and there's good and bad with both. Rock Hard's solid, but it's two gigantic pieces of metal you throw on down there. If you have to do anything to the transmission or t/c, you have to first drop the front skid before you can drop the t/c skid. Add in some rocker guards that attach to the frame and it becomes some real work to do anything down there. If you have to access your t/c, transmission or front of the rear driveshaft and you've added on a great deal of labor to your efforts.
Now on to RR: I apologize to you fans out there, but I'm less than impressed. Kenny seems to put out a great deal of stuff with less than stellar product development. The attaching hardware for his skids is pure shit. Allen pan head bolts? Really? They look cool until you scrape a rock with one. Then you have to cut or grind the damn thing off to remove the skid. In the front he uses tapered allen head bolts with rubber bushings to hold the front of the transmission skid to the rear of the oil pan skid. Have those fall out while trying to walk up The Wall on Poughkeepsie. Plus there was no clearance between the tranny pan and the exhaust crossover. My last gripe is I could not get the transfer case skid to fit without some serious reaming out of a couple of the holes.
Both of those skid sets retain a great deal of extra heat and create quite a few extra rattles. Right now I'm running RR engine skid, Rock Krawler's transmission pan and RR's transfer case skid. I'd have gone back to the stock transfer case skid, but it's long gone. I traded Rock Hard's engine/tranny skid and transfer case skid for a tattoo and RR's transmission skid and the RockHard gas tank skid are lying in my junk pile. It's easy to add on a bunch of extra weight for little to no return. I'm not convinced we need an extra fuel tank skid and that the stock t/c skid really needs to be replaced.
I believe at this point that all you really need to cover is your oil pan and transmission and the rest of the stock stuff is more than sufficient. Apologies for the length of this post and good luck with whatever you decide.
Now on to RR: I apologize to you fans out there, but I'm less than impressed. Kenny seems to put out a great deal of stuff with less than stellar product development. The attaching hardware for his skids is pure shit. Allen pan head bolts? Really? They look cool until you scrape a rock with one. Then you have to cut or grind the damn thing off to remove the skid. In the front he uses tapered allen head bolts with rubber bushings to hold the front of the transmission skid to the rear of the oil pan skid. Have those fall out while trying to walk up The Wall on Poughkeepsie. Plus there was no clearance between the tranny pan and the exhaust crossover. My last gripe is I could not get the transfer case skid to fit without some serious reaming out of a couple of the holes.
Both of those skid sets retain a great deal of extra heat and create quite a few extra rattles. Right now I'm running RR engine skid, Rock Krawler's transmission pan and RR's transfer case skid. I'd have gone back to the stock transfer case skid, but it's long gone. I traded Rock Hard's engine/tranny skid and transfer case skid for a tattoo and RR's transmission skid and the RockHard gas tank skid are lying in my junk pile. It's easy to add on a bunch of extra weight for little to no return. I'm not convinced we need an extra fuel tank skid and that the stock t/c skid really needs to be replaced.
I believe at this point that all you really need to cover is your oil pan and transmission and the rest of the stock stuff is more than sufficient. Apologies for the length of this post and good luck with whatever you decide.
#43
JK Freak
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Detroit, Michigan
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Hmmm wow never read about any complaints about these skids until that post just now. Good to know some bad things on expensive things I was gonna spend my money on. I guess im stuck with my bent skids...
#44
you don't need anything. the factory skids are more than adequate and, are what all my friends and i still run today. if anything, an oil pan skid like the kind rancho makes is all you might want to get but really, that's it. don't trust me on this, watch some of our videos to see what kind of trails we punish our jeeps on all the time.
#45
I'm gonna get the full traction crossmember skid, and i think the arb diff skids. would it be better to get the diff skids, or just protection for the diff covers? diff protection is high on my list, as i will be running stock 32's for a while, even after i get my lift.
Last edited by Rubichronic; 07-28-2011 at 08:57 AM.