Andrew's(Medic 5150) Dodge skid plates
Andrew called up and wanted me to go ahead and make him some skid plates, one for his huge gas tank and another for the transfer case. Both of these are pretty exposed to rocks, especially the plastic gas tank. The gas tank didn't even have any kind of factory weenie skid plate on it.
I got pictures of everything except the transfer case plate, but suffice to say, a rock is not going to trash it out..
First of all I made a template for the gas tank, much the same as I later did for the T case. I then figured out how much room I had to play with and where the bends were going to go. Once the skid was cut to fit and the bends were in place, I then located the mounts. These ended up being 1/4" steel welded to the existing cross members on the frame on the inside and to the actual frame for the outside mounts. These were then drilled and welded to the frame. Matching mounts were then welded to the skid plate. Initially it looked as though I could use the tank strap bolts, but this didn't work out.
Once the mounting locations were in place on the skid plate, a strengthening rib was welded along each side all the way to the front of the skid. At some point down the road, Andrew is going to be installing a body lift, so this also had to be taken into consideration. As it is now, when the lift is installed and the gas tank raised, 4 new locating holes will have to be drilled in the mounts, but this otherwise remains unchanged.
With the addition of these skid plates, the whole underside of Andrew's rig is pretty well protected. If he does grind over a rock or two, he will be hitting metal that is designed to be hit, nothing important. BTW Andrew, thanks for the help on these and also for the work!
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...they are on her side...
