I hit some rock covered trails at Rausch this past weekend and put the skids to a test. No damage to any aftermarket skids, but my fuel tank skid is dented nearly an inch in touching the fuel tank in two different spots. Anyone else run into this? Should I be concerned enough to replace with an aftermarket fuel skid?

 

Pull it off, turn it over, and pound it out until you get around to replacing.

 

Not that easy....the tank and skid comes down as one piece.

I did the same thing to my Sahara and bashed it in pretty good. Not much you can do aside from getting a real solid skid made out of 3/16ths.

 

May not be easy, but I'd consider it. I'd be concerned that the points touching would eventually wear a hole through the tank causing a larger headache...and fuel aint getting any cheaper.

 

I been though this two times now. First time after wheeling at the Moab EJS the skid had some dents, just dropped it and hammered the dents out . The second trip to Moab I really bashed it in, so I had too drill the spot welds out and split the thing apart and hammer the dents out and weld it back together.
After all this work I just decided too go with a full belly skid that covered the trans and transfer case, oil pan and the gas tank. I have no regrets putting a full skid under it. It does add weight too your JK. Some of my skid is 3/16 steel and the gas tank skid is 1/4 aluminum. The reason I did the tank skid in aluminum was to cut down the weight on the right side of the JK with a full tank of fuel and the skid I thought it would lean to that side more loosing some ground clearance.
This week my muffler skid will be in, the reason I went with it cause I have had it push up into the body enough too bend the heat shield screws that are welded to the body.
I know some people don't like skids but hey it's protection and I look at it as a time saver and it's just good protection for your equipment.

 

Aluminum can be just as strong as steel nowadays with a significant reduction in weight. What skid did you throw under the belly of the tank?

 

After rubicon trip this year my gas tank and crossmember were beat. Replaced crossmember with a take off and plated it with 3/16 flat bar and covered exaust crossover. Removed tank skid/ holder and pounded out. Welded around drive shaft area due to spot welds breaking and it contacting the drive shaft on the trail. Then plated the gas tank skid with 1/8 inch flat stock. 2 prieces welded all the way around. This was about 50$ in steel and 6 hrs of welding. Easy stuff and cheeeeeep. Though as nails now.

 

Check out this site for skids and rock sliders!

tntcustoms.com/JK.aspx

Note: there was no www in front of this link, just the http://

They even have a link to this site on their homepage.

 

really, it's not that big of a deal and everyone i know has a gas tank skid that looks like that. so you know, your fuel cell is NOT strapped down and so, it is just being pushed up a bit now. i know a lot of people will swear up and down that you need to replace the factory skid with an aftermarket skid but for me, i would save your money and just keep on running what you have until it really needs to get replaced. if you've ever seen any of our pics or videos, you know the kinds of trails we run and to this day, i still run factory skids on both my JK's. are they beat to all hell? sure - but, they still do the job just fine.

anyway, this is just my 2¢ and just trying to save you some cash.

 

This past weekend I removed mine and pounded out the dents. I had a good one up front that pushed the bottom of the tank up enough so it was no longer flat. This past summer I managed to run out of gas on the trail, even though I figured out later I still had about 5 gallons left in the tank. Lesson learned- even though we were on a short trip from camp, always make sure your tank is full before leaving. Your tank may not be flat on the bottom, and the pick-up tubes might start sucking air if driving up or downhill for long periods of time.