Skid Plate Mounting

[jac04]

A long time ago I picked up a used military skid plate. I decided that I wanted to try to mount it to my Lightweight. I came up with a great design for some mounting brackets that would fit the chassis without having to modify it. The only problem was that they would need to be CNC machined.
Well, along came our friend G.G. Sprock, looking for CNC projects. Perfect! A friend at work made some Inventor models and I sent them to Greg. He made me up a set of brackets that work perfectly. A huge thanks to Greg for making the brackets!

Check it out:
There is a 1.25" diameter hole in the bottom of the chassis. The small rectangular bracket is installed inside the chassis by feeding it through this hole. The larger bracket has a boss that engages the hole in the chassis and the larger bracket bolts to the smaller bracket, clamping it in place. The skid plate mounting brackets then bolt in place. Pretty cool, huh?

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/jac04/000_1939.jpg

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/jac04/000_1940.jpg

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/jac04/000_1941.jpg

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/jac04/000_1942.jpg

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/jac04/000_1944.jpg

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/jac04/000_1943.jpg

[TJR]

Very Clever Idea, simple and effective . No welding! .. and man is that one clean looking LR...

Was that Skid plate original or did you have that bent up too ?

Depending where you drive your truck, you may want to add plastic or silicone sealent between the aluminum and steel pieces. .. The aluminum will otherwise corrode over the long haul. Those black oxide socket head cap screws are very strong but not very corrosion resistant. A buddy mounted nerf bars to a ford ranger he drove year round. It required alum. blocks to space it off the frame.. a few years after, the blocks where a white mess of aluminum dust.!

[jac04]

Thanks. The skid plate is a Genuine Land Rover part.

Seeing how everything is bolted together, they will always be electrically connected via the bolts. The only advantage to adding something between the parts will be to keep water & debris from hiding out. Since aluminum is so close to tin (galvanizing) on the galvanic series, I don't think that I will have much of an issue with the aluminum corroding. As for the black oxide bolts, I hear you, but the aluminum and galvanizing should act as the sacrificial cathode, protecting the bolts. With the ratio of surface areas, there should be no evident galvanic corrosion of either the galvanizing or aluminum. Plus, who are we kidding, this thing will never even be driven in the rain! :o