Transmission Flat belly Skid + All-Pro IFS Skid

+1 for taking the time to design it yourself and getting it done!

Looks good

 

Looks great, nice design.

One more comment though...you might wanna go with countersunk hex socket head cap screws for hardware, bolt heads hanging down like that tend to get sheared off, or they get bumped on a rock and become loose and fall out.

 

Looks great man nice work! I may take your template and have my buddy in the fab shop at work make one up for me with some scrap steel if we have any. Haha guess I should get a front skid first tho...

 

Thank you Boyd. The center support should stiffin things up a little bit. I was going to weld a "X" support in the middle but I think this might be fine. Yea, those welds on the exhaust drop box are far from tacks and are actually 1"-1 1/4" stitch welds. I don't think it wall just fall off but could use some extra stitching I think.

mh3kgt - Thank you. Certainly take it and build it! Give me till tonight to revise it though. I want to add the elongated bolt holes on the drawing.

NwiTACO - Thank you too. I see your point for sure. I was originally going to put carriage bolts there but didn't have the means to cut square holes. can you get those bolts in grade 8?

Pap

 

Thats the whole friggin point, they aren't sticking out so they dont get sheared off

They aren't any harder to extract IF they were to get sheared off, since a bolt with no head is a bolt with no head. However they are much harder to shear off, since the entire skid would have to move in order to shear them. Whereas with a regular bolt head hanging below the skid, a simple touch on a rock can take the head right off.

 

You sure can. You may have to order them, but they are in production.

A little tip on carriage bolts for future use on projects, just drill a hole the size equal to the distance between the flats on the carriage shoulder, and knock out some corners using a square file.

 

Pap,

Looks great man. Good job!!!

 

Ahh yes. Great tip. I will certainly go back to carriage bolts then.

Pap

 

I don't know about Gr 8 carriage bolts, but you could always use "plow bolts" which are the same concept of a square portion of the shoulder to prevent rotation, only they can be countersunk too. Oh, and they come in Gr8

 

Thanks man I'll check back for the updated diagram. Oh and do you or anyone else know of a template out there to make up a front skid plate? If I'm gonna be having my buddy make up a trans skid might as well make up a front skid while we're at it. If anyone knows of any templates out there lemme know. Thanks! If not I'm sure we could figure something out using the stock skid as a model.

 

I am, they are using skids lined with HDPE and countersunk bolts. And a bolt failure from a distorted bend skid wouldn't be shearing off the bolt, it would be a tension failure. Spend a little time on pirate, see what they use...

And I dont know about you, but it takes me longer than 5 minutes just to get the damn skids off let alone dig out a broken bolt.

we are just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

The skid I made up is made as an attachment for the All-Pro IFS skid. It bolts to it. Take a look at mine with the front bend (looking at the drawing, the part to the right) it has a 120 degree bend to mate with the All-Pro. All other skid makers utilize a different designs so, mine wont work with others as is. You could modify mine to work with others though depending on how they are designed. If I had one in front of me, I could make it work....

Pap

 

Gotcha...thanks for the clarification. Hmm maybe I'll have to look at Allpro's design and see if I can just make something similar and then use your template with a few tweaks to get it working with whatever I come up with. Thanks again man!

 

Impressive, nice work!

 

Thanks keeping the thread clean Boyd! The PM was very informative.

 

Huh, it is tack welded and painted, it looks like finished product. It should be welded continuously along the edge. hence pAP replay. So what you see wrong with my comment ?

 

Revised the first post with direction and proper drawing to build from.

 

Thanks for the update and writeup man! I'm gonna work on making up a front skid hopefully soon and put your trans skid to use off of what I come up with. Gotta be a whole lot better than the stock tin can skid lol

 

I just added another version of this skid to the first post. This skid covers the entire lower flat portion of the cross member now. You will need long 1/2" grade 8 bolts to utilize the existing cross member holes on the bottom. I think this is a better way to fasten to the cross member now because its reinforced from the factory.



Pap

 

Not trying to thread jack but here is the skid I built that copies, well you know. Thanks to TacoSalad's dimensions.








Could probably take the original plans and add a few things to better them. I think all in all I spent like 50 for steel, 15 for the undercoating, and then I don't count the shop materials.