Reinstall front skid plate

Doing my first oil change on a 2016 Tundra. How difficult is it to reattach the front skid plate?

 

Not difficult at all.

 

It can be a little bit of a pain to get the hooks on the front of the skid plate to line up.

 

Is there any tricks to it some people say it is a pain to reinstall it.

 

I mean for me it certainly is. Some others here clearly don’t seem to have the problem.

just make sure to get the 2 little hooks lined up with their respective holes. when you push the skid plate up, slide it just a bit to the side and those hooks should hold it up for you.

My problem is that I always line it up with the bolt holes first then the hooks get in the way as opposed to help me.

 

Is the plate heavy? Obviously you can’t jack the front of the truck up.Not much room to work on it.

 

It's not really difficult as long as you have good upper body strength. The skid plate does have some weight to it. As Zapp mentioned, lining up the hooks on the front of the plate is the "hard part" while holding said metal plate up.

 

If you don't have ramps to drive up on, I would recomend investing in a pair. Will make your life much easier.

 

Not at all. Once you do it once, as long as you remember to put the hooks in first, it will never be an issue.

Its like a 25# item, you need to bench press and slide it to the drivers side of the truck like 2 inches after removing the bolts.

Install is reverse.

 

Fun fact, you can actually just take all the bolts out of the plate and let it drop while leaving the hooks attached and just let it hang, then it's a breeze to reinstall. I have done it both ways, obviously completely removing it gives you more room to work with but lining the hooks up and sliding it over can take a few tries, its not super difficult, just trial and error but just dropping it and leaving the hooks attached makes it super easy to reinstall.

 

Like other's said, as long as you do the hooks first, it's easy. After it's hooked it place, I find it easiest to install the bolt in the center rear first (this is also the last one I remove during removal). Don't tighten all the bolts until they are all in in place. My old Tundra's skid plate hooks were bent and rusted and hadn't worked for years. So I got used to just balancing it with one hand while I bolted it up, so with the hooks my new truck is much easier.

 

You could just leave it off. Weight savings = improved mpg.

Mine has been off a fee months.

 

In my 2008 tundra, first thing I did was cut out those dam hooks and just spray paint the exposed metal.