Permanent Rausch Creek thread

I got the very last 1/4” reinforced skid from @Mobtown Offroad since he thought that I would be the last and only one in the East Coast that really needed it. Joe Mobster also thought I couldn’t bend or dent it.

Wrong. Lol.

RC boulder vs 1/4” reinforced skid.

Boulder won.

 

I just built my transmission skid from 1/4" with 1/4" reinforcement

We shall see how it holds up!

 

The boulder always wins!

Eddy down at SOS built some heavier ones for Jimbo don't know there specs but the old 3/16 ones that came off were beat.

 

Please, I dinged my fender, you can't even see it, and scuffed my bumper.

 

you did awesome last weekend, I didn't hear you stall at all lol

 

We offered 1/4" steel, 3/16" steel and 1/4" aluminum without reinforcements when we first launched our skid plate line. The 1/4" steel never sold. I pretty much gave them away to get them off the shelf and killed the 1/4" steel skid plates. @Subway4X4 and @HolyHandGrenade got the last two, and I reinforced them.

We now offer 3/16" steel and 1/4" aluminum in both non-reinforced and reinforced. For this area of wheeling we do not recommend aluminum skid plates for Rausch Creek. They simply will not survive.

Weight differences are about 50%. Our full set of steel skids weighs around 175lbs total whereas the aluminum weigh 90lbs total.

 

Thanks for the information. That’s a good amount of weight over aluminum but if they won’t hold up then it doesn’t really matter.

 

With @Mobtown Offroad full skids, sliders and on e rated 265/75/r16 st maxx I still get 18-20 mpg cruising at 70~.

I think they test products in a wind tunnel. Aerodynamics are key.

 

I don’t know that I’ll be doing skids before July. I have bought a ton of shit already. Wife gave the ok for tires so I’m thinking I’m gonna jump on some skinny ST Maxx’s and just stick to green trails. I’m sure that OEM TRD skid is gonna take some abuse but I’m ok with it. I’d rather bash that, then blow out one or more tires.

 

But you bang around like Ray Charles in a whore house.

 

@HarryTheBunny

I would think tires over skids.

A. better traction = better control of truck. You can use traction instead of momentum.

B. You should gain close to an inch of ride height.

C. If you rip a sidewall your buying tires anyway.

That being said, skids make you much more comfortable rolling through rocks.

Really depends on driver though.

 

Thanks for the advice. I’ve been off-road with tires but not rocky areas. It was just some forest/park trails. They were old snowmobile trails, plenty of trees but not many rocks. I still need a new spare so I’m either buying one or two more of these falkens or selling these and going to the st maxx. Skids are on the list but I’m still new to this and now that I got the itch I’m just researching what to do next.

 

Cause good driving and #bestgen

Would have to agree here. Been to Rausch at least a dozen times or more by now, and never had a date with a tree. Been to AOAA once and already got body damage. Rausch has much wider open trails, even Tata's is wide open compared to the one blue I hit this weekend. For anyone who knows AOAA it's the blue that runs parallel to bee line.

You are definitely going in the right direction with tires. ST MAXX's are a great tire, a ton of us run them. Chances are you would blow a p rated tire on even greens, they just aren't built for that kind of abuse.

 

Good idea to do plenty of research. I did some research and ended up buying aluminum skids, which is good protection, but not enough for Rausch Creek blues and whatever. Hopefully good enough for greens...

 

My aluminum skids were 90 lbs when I installed them.

They were about 70 lbs when I got rid of them.

The other twenty pounds are embedded in the rocks at RC.

 

Damn. I keep telling everyone.

You’re the best damn poet in this planet with a Mohawk.

 

Haha it’s because my slow ass was so far back. I stalled like 4 times, and I rarely stall.

 

@winguyen and I ran AOAA months ago and he has p rated 265 falken at tires. We ran all the blues and a couple blacks on the eastern reserve.

While his tires did survive (sort of) he has since had a slow leak in one of them. They are also beat up, cut, and chunked pretty bad considering they don’t really even have lugs to chunk off.

Also the weakness of the sidewalls really took a toll on his rims. While everyone who wheels rocks and airs down has torn up wheels, His just after one time were destroyed because the sidewalls did nothing and just caved. My wheels with e rated mud terrains look better after several trips then his after one trip.

 

Well said.

And e rated tires can help at the mall. Damn Belgian block curbs can really fuck up a P rated tire.

 

The malls though. This is why I choose e Rated