Which skid plate?

RCI, easy install by myself.

 

Hardly ever go off-roading. Is it possible? Sure, but I haven’t much in 8 years. Salt is 100% an issue. The possibility of driving on ocean beach is high. Didn’t plan on buying CAT cover only the skid. Sounds like aluminum is my best option yes?

 

I feel like I have blabbed a bunch in this thread, but I feel the need to blab some more. I know there are a few other popular brands on this forum, and most of those have been around a lot longer than us and that's ok. It just means I need to get out there a little bit more.

This quote highlights the biggest issue with my brand. A lot of people think we only sell catalytic protection shields.... Well, the results are in, and this is FALSE. From the beginning we have designed our products to be both a skid plate and a catalytic protection shield. Anyways... Let’s talk some tech about our skid plate.



First things first, we offer a Engine, Transmission and Transfer case skid. To start, I am going to talk about a few features on our engine skid that make it better.


First, our engine skid plate mounts between the tow hooks and frame. We did this for several reasons.

1.We chose not to mount to the radiator support as we did not want to put any extra load on it and risk pushing it up into the radiator on a hard hit. As you can tell by the second photo the tow hooks are mounted directly below the main frame rails of the truck making it one of the strongest points on the front of the truck.
2.We have also slotted the front hole on the mount to make install easy as well.
3. Offers a wider skid plate for better coverage, more protection.​

You may ask yourself why others do not mount to these points and choose to mount to the radiator support...and while I do not have proof, I have a theory. COST SAVINGS. We found in our early development that if we mounted to those two points, we could fit a ENTIRE EXTRA engine skid set on a 4x8 sheet of material. I chose to make a better product over profits.



Next let us talk about the first place on your skid system that is likely to take a hit. I highlighted it in blue for you on the first photo. We choose to do something different here. Where most manufactures use a couple pieces of round tubing to make stand offs to mount the front skid plate, we did not, we made an entire bracket.

1. Hits from the skid plate will be distributed across three mounting points on the frame.
2. Strength - Not only we are laminating this area with extra flat material but see the big vertical flange on the back. This flange is adding considerable strength to this area. Think of it like a 2x6. Lay a 2x6 flat and stand on it, it will flex a ton. Stand the 2x6 on end and stand on it... No more flex.
3. It allows us to make the engine skid plate a 2 piece system. Easier to install and easier to remove if you need to get in there to fix something.
​

We also took the A arm frame mounts into account. While later designs have more consideration for this, we did do a refresh on our front tundra skids to do a better job at this. A Arm mounts can take a ton of abuse off road, and are one of the lower points of the truck. As you can see Plate B of our two-piece design wraps around this are to help protect the A arm Mounts. While we could do a better job at protecting the very front mount, the slid plate is slightly below this area and should help deflect blows.


Oil Filter access and Oil drain access. Our oil filter door is held to the plate with a bracket that bolts on.
1. We choose a bolt on bracket because it can be replaced if damaged, or if the screws get stripped out.
2. Because it mounts the same way across the entire diameter, it allows the oil drain door to sit flush with the rest of the plate, and not protrude out because it needs to sit against a spring clip or other hardware.
The bumper mounts neatly fit between the skid plate and the radiator support
3. Our oil door does not go below the bend line. Cutting out the bend below the oil drain door just to get a bigger hole would have caused the plate to be weaker, and we won't tolerate that.
4. Our oil drain door is supported on all four edges. Need a little bigger hole for your hands? You can remove the bracket with the door and get an extra 1/2" of space.


Diff Drop Capability. Our first prototype was built around a diff drop, our first beta tester did not have a diff drop, and boy was he pissed off that he lost another inch of ground clearance. We then changed our entire first design and made it to where we could add spacers to accommodate a diff drop. Instead of using a small cheap round spacer, we laser cut large spacers that contour to each foot of the mount bracket to provide maximum support. The larger spacer footprint allows more friction, which helps take the load off the bolt holding it all together. We send 4 of each spacer to ensure you have enough to match your setup.

While I was intending to talk about all of our skid plates in this post, I have already wrote a novel, and need to get out in the shop and help work on making some skid plates. I will be happy to continue this later. Feel free to ask me any questions you want answered.

 

You will defiantly want aluminum if that is you environment, and you might even consider changing out the hardware to stainless steel in the future.

Another consideration is galvanic corrasion, as long as the frame on your truck still had paint, and is not bare metal you should be ok.

 

Do you make aluminum plates for super salty areas like mine?

 

What equipment did you use for 3D scans?

 

We have both steel and aluminum.

 

Goscan spark

 

Ok so now I am torn between RCI and Talon!!

 

Where do you live? In MA my RCI started to rust heavily in couple of winters. Had to take it off, remove the paint, treat the rust and prime + coat with Raptor. Not sure if Talon does better paint job. Valhalla's did better, especially with priming.

 

Aluminum rusted?

 

Nah, mine is steel.

 

I am getting aluminum.

 

I've had a aluminum RCI front skid for about 5 years. I bought it without any coating and sprayed it with rattle can bedliner. It makes it easy to touch up if I ever get around to it and has actually held up as good as powder coat would have I think. I drive low/no maintenance roads, logging roads, and pasture about 30-40 percent of the time. I don't rock crawl, but do drive on a lot of loose rock or exposed rock on these roads. The aluminum has been perfect for this especially since this is also my daily driver, but if I did real rock crawling I would go steel. Looking at the wear in the rattle can liner, it has done a good job of protecting things that would otherwise be getting pelted over and over by thrown rock, gravel, limbs, etc.