Well my Downey skids have been lost in the UPS warehouse for a week since the delivery address had been screwed up. So finally I call Downey and they give me a tracking number and I ask them to confirm the adddress and sure enough it was wrong. I contact UPS and pick it up locally.....
Sorry no installation photos or post install photos just yet, I was working solo on the garage floor tonight.
Overall the quality of the skid is very good. Well constructed and very clean finish. The install was a pita. I am what most people would describe as a walking stick. Luckily my trusty jack was handy to help lift the plate up as I attempted to bolt it up to the brackets and the cross-members.
Install instructions were lacking to say the least. I think they could very easily spend some time to snap some pictures of an install to show step by step, instead you get a single sheet with some general instructions. If you have any common sense however you'll manage.
The install requires rework to position the brackets and get the bolts to line up with the holes in the skid plate. Downey provides 2 S shaped brackets to drop from the second cross-member to the skid plate which is pretty easy to bolt up to. It's not defined where some of the hardware goes as the instructions don't tell you so I took my best stab and used the locking washers at the points that bolted up to cross-members and the two lock nuts to bolt the skid plate to the drop brackets. Which by the way unless you have long thing fingers you're not going to be able to get in place.
In the end I wasn't able to get one of the bolts in on the 3rd cross-member. I tried loose fitting the bolts many times over and still was not able to get it line up and bolt down so I will be making some slight modifications to the plate to get it to bolt down... anyways onto the plate photos... (installed photos tomorrow when light is present).
One thing that I did not take a photo of, is the additional aluminum adapter that the FJ requires. It drops the front mount point on the skid and forward.
Sorry no installation photos or post install photos just yet, I was working solo on the garage floor tonight.
Overall the quality of the skid is very good. Well constructed and very clean finish. The install was a pita. I am what most people would describe as a walking stick. Luckily my trusty jack was handy to help lift the plate up as I attempted to bolt it up to the brackets and the cross-members.
Install instructions were lacking to say the least. I think they could very easily spend some time to snap some pictures of an install to show step by step, instead you get a single sheet with some general instructions. If you have any common sense however you'll manage.
The install requires rework to position the brackets and get the bolts to line up with the holes in the skid plate. Downey provides 2 S shaped brackets to drop from the second cross-member to the skid plate which is pretty easy to bolt up to. It's not defined where some of the hardware goes as the instructions don't tell you so I took my best stab and used the locking washers at the points that bolted up to cross-members and the two lock nuts to bolt the skid plate to the drop brackets. Which by the way unless you have long thing fingers you're not going to be able to get in place.
In the end I wasn't able to get one of the bolts in on the 3rd cross-member. I tried loose fitting the bolts many times over and still was not able to get it line up and bolt down so I will be making some slight modifications to the plate to get it to bolt down... anyways onto the plate photos... (installed photos tomorrow when light is present).
One thing that I did not take a photo of, is the additional aluminum adapter that the FJ requires. It drops the front mount point on the skid and forward.
