Installing Rock Hard 4x4 skid plates

Engine oil pan and transmission skid plate

One of the things that attracted me to the Rock Hard skid plate is that it doesn’t bolt on to the bottom of the engine, rather it uses beefy brackets to bolt to the frame at the engine mounts.

In these pic it looks like the nuts could interfere with the upper control arms. I suppose I could reverse the bolts (the bolt head is thinner than the nut) but in practice I’ve wheeled with the sway bar disconnected and haven’t had a clearance issue yet.




The rear of the skid bolts to the cross member. The bolts are protected by tapered washers to minimize the risk of getting stuck on a rock:



In the past some folks complained of the skid being very close to the exhaust crossover. Rock Hard now provides a shim to improve clearance (seen here being removed when I installed their transfer case skid plate later on):



If reusing the OEM transfer case skid plate, you'll need to cut of the "lips" at the front end to make it flat and allow the washers to fit:




The plate installed. Another recent improvement is a larger oil change access door. Also note a little “wing” on the driver side, designed to protect the cat on 3.8 l engines. It doesn’t do much on the 3.6 l and in particular doesn’t protect the goofy exhaust loop.

Transfer case skid plate

After wheeling for a few weeks, my suspicion was confirmed that the transfer case skid plate and the front of the fuel tank were the most vulnerable to trail rash, especially on the Unlimited. So I decided to upgrade to the whole system.
The Rock Hard transfer case skid plate is quite obviously much larger and thicker than the stock plate:




The plate is an easy bolt-on installation, sharing the cross member bolts with the engine skid plate in front and reusing the OEM bolt locations (but new bolts) in the rear. The little bolt hanging down on the right is for connecting to the fuel tank plate.



The plate is also flatter, improving ground clearance a bit in a place where this matters most:

OEM:


Rock Hard:



Fuel tank skid is next.

Fuel tank skid plate

The Rock Hard 4x4 fuel tank skid plate for the JK Unlimited is one big, heavy (69 Lbs.) chunk of 3/16” powdercoated steel.



This installation required removal of the rear wheel. My vacation home doesn’t have a garage or a paved driveway so I had to share the great outdoors with the mosquitoes…



The fuel tank shroud stays in place as it holds the tank. It’s flimsy (1/16”) and gets banged up.



Next some of the bolts have to be removed. The skid plate reuses OEM mounting points.



Holding that heavy plate in place while aligning the holes and threading the bolts can be challenging. The removed wheel made itself useful. It's also useful to leave the bolts loose to move the plate around.
While jacking up the plate to align the holes, I actually started lifting the whole Jeep. That plate will hold the weight of the Jeep without bending!



Like the engine skid plate, the Rock Hard fuel tank plate uses tapered washers at the cross member to avoid getting hung up on a rock. Nice hardware throughout.



Three holes need to be drilled through the fuel tank shroud, one in the rear wheel well, two next to the driveshaft. This is done where the shroud has a “pocket” so there’s no risk of drilling through the actual, plastic tank. A coat of RustOleum and install the bolt and locknut.




The plate installed. The loss of ground clearance is minimal; in fact the plate sits higher than the OEM transfer case skid plate did.



The view from the rear: fuel tank, transfer case and engine skid plates. One smooth expanse of sheet metal for your rock crawling pleasure. Now I have to go out and start scratching them!