New Front Skid Aluminum Ricochet Off Road 2015 DCSB

Hi all. Just installed a combined front and engine skid plate. I went with a 1/4" aluminum skid from Ricochet Off Road. They are local to me, which made taking a look easy and saved on shipping. They are great to work with. Very helpful and great follow up. The skid is well designed and fit well. Ricochet specializes in ATV skids but they also do Toyota skids, especially for FJs. The person I worked with is Brad. He is the key behind the Toyota skids. He owns an FJ and developed so he could have skids. Hardware is 8.8 metric and looks to be high quality. Whole skid weighs about 30 lbs I estimate. Anyway, great product and service. Here are some pics:

 

Looks great, I'm trying to pick one of these up this week!

 

Damn.. 25% off Ricochet right now...

How are you liking it? Im looking to get their skid plus the LCA skids.

 

Wow!I like the design of this skid!I'm due for a replacement of the factory OEM one.Going to keep this one in mind for sure!

 

Nice! Is that 25% off deal still valid?

 

Nice design.

 

I love mine, looks great 1/4" thick, light weight, it's the ifs and mid plate together, weighs less then the steel ifs alone

 

Excellent craftmanship!

One thing of note; can't truly tell from your pictures, but you may want to double check that you're using SS fasteners. Using zinc plated with Alu. will only exacerbate dissimilar metal issues... Might want to add some form of isolation washers in between your mounting pads and the bolts as well.

 

That seems to be the common perception but its actually the other way around. Here is a chart showing how little galvanic potential there is between aluminum and zinc.
http://www.pemnet.com/design_info/galvanic.html
Its still a good idea to use dielectric washers of some sort.

 

First time hearing about this skid but damn it looks nice! Any deals or discounts going on soon?

 

Ricochet does a 25% discount for pick up. Their thoughts are they do not need to package for shipping.

I also just recently picked up their trans skid. It is for an FJ so it took drilling an additional hole. These guys are great to work with and helped me sort through the trans skid install. Here are a few pics of the trans skid installed.

 

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but, Wow that’s an incredible weight for that skid! How have theyheld up over they last couple years? Just got a 97 taco and have been doing repairs to it. Took my plates off yesterday to access the things and they’re all sorts of dented up. One bolt for the engine plate was crushed up and around an edge making it exceedingly difficult to remove. Shoulda just cut it off in retrospect

But seriously considering these! Are they sturdy enough to jack the tuck up on them, like some of the thicker steel ones?

 

They have. I haven’t dragged them across lots of rocks but they have seen a few.

 

Looking good!

 

what are oil changes like with these on?

 

In case anyone is installing the bash plate, as came with no instructions, definitely chase all the threads first. Two of the shorter bolts go to the rear, two to the front, the two long ones in the middle. The large concave washers go to the rear. The two spacers go to the front, in between the skid and subframe. The middle and rear bolts utilize the smaller flat washers, the front- the larger pair. Lock washers for all bolts (just below the bolt heads). A little anti-seize on all threads is a good idea. Also my two front bolts didn't quite lineup, even after loosening/removing the other bolts- the holes are slotted front to rear, but my problem was side to side- took a little material off one of the slots and then used a small pry bar to help line it up.

the Ricochet bashplate weighs 28 lbs, the oem plate 8 lbs- mine (oe) had a pretty good crease in it discovered when I removed it

 

Major thread bump again, but just ordered up their Tranny skid! Right now I have a Cbi engine skid, but the tranny skid should work (maybe a little finessing). So far seems like a great comoany, called them and they said they would ship it out same day, where most major companies have 4+ week lead time. Cant wait, and will probably get rid of my steel front skid, and get everything else from them aswell.