ASFIR 4x4 Skid Plates

[Romer]

My last truck was pretty built, and that was fun. But my family is in a different place now.. and I just don't wheel that hard of stuff anymore, which is as much my rationalization for selling the 80 . . . . .. So this 100 series is a pretty mild build- won't be as big as my 80 was,... we'd rather camp at Devil's Kitchen than run Pritchett Canyon, in Moabspeak.

Im in the same place you are Tim. It is after all your fault I sold my 80 and bought a 100 series

That looks like a nice setup. I did get the Slee setup and although there is no hole for the oil filter, I can get to it from the side. This looks like it would be similar. Just have to stuff cardboard in there to catch the oil when you take the filter off.

 

[Chris Sandstorm FJ]

Nice info, I am doing these also.

 

[nakman]

... I did get the Slee setup and although there is no hole for the oil filter, I can get to it from the side. This looks like it would be similar. Just have to stuff cardboard in there to catch the oil when you take the filter off.

Ah, that makes sense. Ok cool.. and honestly worst case if I have to drop the front one twice a year that's probably not a bad thing anyway, gives me a reason to look at radiator hoses, etc. as long as I'm down there. Can't wait to start bolting these up!

 

[Romer]

I bought the oil wrench attachment that fits on a socket wrench and extension from Cdan. It was like $7 or something as not a lot of room to get the other type of oil wrench. You can probably get these from any autoparts store, I was making an order at the time . . . . . . which reminds me

 

[farinvail]

I just don't see the need for all that metal. Tranny/t-case piece sure. But covering the other parts just doesn't seem necessary to me.

Hey, I know way too many of you here. Rising Sun is taking over the 100 forum.

 

[Chris Sandstorm FJ]

Hi Farnham!

 

[jonharis]

I just don't see the need for all that metal. Tranny/t-case piece sure. But covering the other parts just doesn't seem necessary to me.

Hey, I know way too many of you here. Rising Sun is taking over the 100 forum.

Really?sitting under my truck pre skids I saw plenty of things that could have been easily torn off. Now carefull wheeling would probably be enough to avoid damage but there is some peace of mind to be had with full skids and not worrying about what you are dragging on.

 

[gearguywb]

I look under the truck and it frightens me at the amount of very expensive stuff hanging down waiting to get hit. I think of skids as "insurance". If I don't need them, not a big deal to have them...when I need them it is way too late to go get them.

Considering the Slee's since they are on sale. I need to find out if they fit with my diff drop and sliders (BIOR)

 

[spressomon]

It really depends where and how you wheel regarding the necessity of protective equipment including belly pans, skids, etc.

All I can say: Judging from the scars in my Slee belly and intermediate skid I'm glad I had them early on. And my front aluminum Rasta4x4 skid is not only scarred up but tweaked out of shape.

~2-2.5" of lift and even 35" tires just isn't quite enough for some...especially when you're following a group of 80-Series wheelers . I think most of these scars came from Class IV trails we've run...YMMV.

 

[nakman]

Install complete. Well, at least for now. I started by hitting the car wash, then removing all the factory skid plate stuff. Laid them out for comparison, since I had the camera out.

figured I'd start with the cross members, then the plates, so began with the rearmost cross member.

 

[nakman]

It didn't line up very well. To make it work I drilled out the frame mounts to a 1/2" hole, and wallered out the cross member holes using the same 1/2" drill bit, and twisting it around at an angle to make it even bigger. Should have just grabbed my next size up, 11/16, because I ended up using that one on the plates and other cross member. In summary, nothing lined up. I would get one side in, but the other side would be out by about half the diameter of the screw (could only see half the hole when looking through) so most of the bolts consisted of enlarged holes, and big fender washers. here's what the bolts looked like prior to modifying:

Oh, and the clearance for the exhaust pipe is a little off... hard to fault the cross member for this one as there's probably some variation in exhaust pipes, but the exhaust was here first so out the grinder came.

 

[nakman]

here we are with the frame drilled out and the cross member clearanced a little more, hopefully that's enough I will know if I don't hear a rattle.

 

[nakman]

That was the warm-up. the middle cross member was also "just off" by about the same margin. It also needed to be shimmed to clear the U-bolts of my MetalTech sliders. There's really no way around this: either get wider u-bolts and modify the slider feet, or weld the sliders on, or shim down the cross member. I chose the latter.

After wallering out (yes, that's a technical term) the 4 mounting holes, I was finally able to get this to bolt up- used some spacers I had around on the back holes, and ended up re-using the front skid plate spacers from the stock front skid, since the new front one doesn't have those side ears I had 2 extra. Plus tilting the cross member "back" just a little made it easier to get the bolts to start when poked through the skid plate.. that was 2 hours of messing around condensed into about 1 minute...

 

[nakman]

You can see in the pic above how far off-center that bolt is. I left the washer off for the picture, but later put big fender washers on all 4. In fact everything ended up with a fender washer pretty much, since about every hole had to be enlarged.

With the middle cross member in place, I went ahead and bolted up the back t-case skid, just to see what that's going to look like. Starting to come together...

 

[nakman]

Moving onto the front. reusing the spacers that came with my Slee diff drop, I bolted up the front skid to the existing skid plate holes. Again, they didn't line up the first time, but by now I'd gotten my good electric drill from the basement (burned through 3 cordless batteries by now), and I had put a bigger 11/16" drill into it. Blasting that through every hole made for just enough clearance to get everything to line up.

Also I needed to run down to the Depot for a longer center bolt- the one that attaches to the front cross member of the truck. the bolt is a M10x1.50, 100mm long. You can see the plate that came with my Slee diff drop, as well as the tube that came with the Asfir skid. Lengthwise, it's just perfect actually.. was snug to get it all in there, which made it easier to bolt together.

*Edit: I needed the M10 because my stock nutzert was boogered up. Stock is a M8, which means more than likely you need a M8x1.25 100mm long bolt. Not the M10 pictured below.

 

[nakman]

This is what that stack-up of spacers looks like on top. Not a ton of support for side loads, but since there are three bolts in front and three behind, hopefully not a factor. But it should be enough meat to support the front of the truck for future jacking.. I may swap that out for something more substantial in the future, should I find myself next to a lathe and a nice hunk of aluminum some day, would be better if it were just one piece, and wider where it contacts the truck.

 

[nakman]

Finally, just one part left, the big belly plate. Again after enlarging every through hole to 11/16, I was able to get the front sets of bolts to line up enough to thread in. This is where I had to go back to the middle cross member and tilt it back a little, with the larger front spacers. Once up, I was able to mark some holes in the t-case skid, to drill for the through bolts.

 

[nakman]

This is where everyone said I need to cut the belly plate. But I'm not sure why.. sure there's an overlap between the t-case skid and the middle one, but so what. The bent-up edges are against the truck's cross member, and there's a small gap between the belly plate and the cross member. I didn't bother trying to mark and drill holes in the belly plate to attach to the cross member, looking at all of this it seems pretty well bolted together, and more bolt heads is just more stuff to get caught on something. I guess I'm open to suggestions here, but for today it's on there, I'm tired, I think I'm done.

 

[nakman]

There's a good amount of clearance between the new skid and the transfer case, this is a considerable upgrade compared to the stock flappy thing. The rest of the skids seem fairly stout- will remain to be seen how well they perform, but I am optimistic that these are still the right skids for me, I'll be sure to post up the results as time goes on.

Only thing I'm bummed on, is how the rear cross member is kind of a "grabber" now on the driver's side, opposite the t-case skid. It's tempting to get an additional t-case skid and bolt it up there.. but dang also sucks to toss more money at this. I may try to fab something else to go over there- not worried about the exhaust, but just worried about a pokey thing getting hung up on that cross member, which would jack everything around down there.

Alright last set of pics, on with the comments.

 

[Txanm]

Nice work, and good write up on the install.