skid plate thickness

no excuses · Nov 20, 2006

Building a new skid plate/belly pan and was wanting a good Idea on what thickness of plate to run. Belly pan will be 36" x 24". I am going to be running 1"x2" tubing around the outside with 1"x1" tubing crossing that with .25"x1" bars also so there should not be more then 8"x8" without a cross brace above it. I am also going to be running a 3/8" or 1/2" sheet of UHMW under this for slider material.

Just wondering should I go with 1/8", 3/16" or 1/4". Prefer to stay away form 1/4" cause it would get god awfull heavy but will run it if needed. Thanks for any and all input :kiss: :flipoff:

Comet · Nov 20, 2006

I run 3/16" with my Jeep and it supports the tranny/t-case. It supports the weight of my Jeep as well. Mine is smooth on the bottom and sorta shaped like this:\______/ but shallower on the angles. I have a kick up in the front to protect the tranny and also act as a gusset.

Bunk1 · Nov 20, 2006

Mah belly is 3/16ths, It has a bunch of support welded on top of it though.

wayne_fj40 · Nov 20, 2006

Comet said:
I run 3/16" with my Jeep and it supports the tranny/t-case. It supports the weight of my Jeep as well. Mine is smooth on the bottom and sorta shaped like this:\______/ but shallower on the angles. I have a kick up in the front to protect the tranny and also act as a gusset.

But how do you know if it works Comet it doesn't even have a scratch since it doesn't move :redneck: :haha:

no excuses · Nov 20, 2006

I am leaning to 1/4" or maybe even 3/8ths. My old sky manufacturing skid plate was 3/8" thick and it has lots of scratches on it and it never bent. I will pob. just build a seperate tranny/tcase mount to keep the # bearable when I mount shiat up.