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need advice for skid plates

2K views 9 replies 5 participants last post by  SC20K 
#1 ·
Looking for advice. I bought the Rubicon express oil pan skid for my 07 jkur. There's an access hole for the drain plug but I use an EZ drain valve which I love and won't get rid of. The valve doesn't quite clear the hole. Simple solution is to cut the hole bigger but I don't want to make a hack job out of it. I need to find someone with a cutting torch to make a nice clean cut don't I?

I also got the Rubicon Express manual transmission skid. The rear oem star bolts in the transmission are what this piece uses to mount in place. I can get to then and turn them but can't get them out. Looks like the transmission frame cross member needs to be removed to get these bolts out and back in. Do I need to support the transmission with a transmission jack or can I just remove the cross member without doing that? I don't want the transmission falling on my head lol.
 
#3 ·
I need to find someone with a cutting torch to make a nice clean cut don't I?
If you care what it looks like, then you do. Otherwise, there is no other reason you can't just use an angle grinder and make a big ugly hole. There's no particular obligation or structural reasons to make a nice clean beautiful hole. Obviously if you make the hole unnecessarily huge you will reduce the structure of the skid, but you could do that with a cutting torch too. Depending on what shape you're going for, you can actually often make better cuts with a small grinding tool than with a free-hand plasma torch anyways.

I'm a little concerned about what you describe, though. If you are going to have an oil drain valve sticking out a hole in your skid plate, I guarantee you're going to rip that off and lose all your engine oil if you ever actually go into the rocks and utilize this skid plate for what it's meant for.

As for the trans bolts, no idea about the manual can't help you there.
 
#4 ·

to truly assist this OP , he's gonna have to paste us a few URLs to photos he's uploaded to some cloud storage ....throw us some visual bones to gnaw on , dude! - do we can see the skids.
I use a fumoto valve & it is low profile enough to clear the drainhole my MORE engine/tranny skid has. I dunno what drain OP has but any that hang beneath oilpan much would be useless on an off-road vehicle. Fumotos cost all of $30 tops.
A worthy purchase compared to skid price.
Or use a sawzall or air sheet-metal trimmer .

as far as the cross member , if you gotta ask if a tranny needs a jack to get the bolts out , you sure you should be tryin this ? There's tons of scenarios on here of us replacing crossmembers or tranny's or skids,replacing the mount that's torn ,etc...showing this process.
it makes me wonder what was searched o here .
if you did so , forgive me .
yes. you'll wanna support the transmission to extract the bolts , dude.

photos , mate.
don't try to upload to jkowners. Use a photo host that generates a URL of the image & attach that .



 
#5 ·
#6 ·
Installed my Rubicon express oil pan skid. I refused to lose my EZ oil drain plug because it makes oil changes so quick and easy so I had to lengthen the oil plug hole with a step bit and grinder. It doesn't hang down, it sticks out on the back side so should be ok. If it gets hit, I'll deal with it then.
 

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#7 ·

the images really help.

nice work modding the skid to accommodate the drain port.
if you do rock crawl her, that's a calamity & environmental nightmare waiting to happen , bud.
you obviously have metal Fab ability ; couldn't you have encapsulated the spout in a 3 sided gusset box to prevent snapping it off?
in my mind it'd be like a smaller , driveshaft pinion skid as I've horribly annotated:


my Fumoto offers shorter length drain option but would still need protection.


 
#8 ·
I keep forgetting that there are oil pan skids that just cover the pan and nothing else. Not a real fan of the just cover the oil pan skid plate.

For myself, I went with Clayton Offroad's skid plate system and Femco's, now called No-Spill, oil drain. Here is the thread that I put up for the oil drain:

https://www.jkowners.com/forum/stock-jk-tech-dept/225001-what-i-found-quick-oil-drain-valve.html

Anyway, what @j3ff3ry_j33p would make sense to help with protecting your oil drain valve. I would suggest doing something like that to prevent a problem rather then waiting for it to happen.
 
#10 ·
I keep forgetting that there are oil pan skids that just cover the pan and nothing else. Not a real fan of the just cover the oil pan skid plate.

For myself, I went with Clayton Offroad's skid plate system and Femco's, now called No-Spill, oil drain. Here is the thread that I put up for the oil drain:


https://www.jkowners.com/forum/stock-jk-tech-dept/225001-what-i-found-quick-oil-drain-valve.html

Anyway, what @j3ff3ry_j33p would make sense to help with protecting your oil drain valve. I would suggest doing something like that to prevent a problem rather then waiting for it to happen.




That's a cool low profile design. Could still get hit but not as easily. I'll definitely be thinking about a solution to this.
 
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