Planning to finish my skids soon starting with a trans and t-case skid then gas tank skid. I like seeing other people's designs and pick ideas from there. Post what you built and what you like or dislike about certain aspects of it. I've seen some really nice skids out there and figured we can compile them into one place.

Let's see 'em!

I'll start with my front skid. Made from 3/16" steel plate and tied into my radiator cage. Things I need to change are more bracing and recessed bolt heads to keep from damage.

Both bumper and skids were done by RLCWeldFab here in Louisville, KY. Being a custom built bumper, I need him to make me some skids too. Came out great. I need to do recessed bolts myself.






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I like the simplicity of those skids. If they get destroyed, they are easy to duplicate. I plan on abusing mine so that is something that I like, rather than making them super beefy and heavy.

Question though. What's the reason for the large opening in the front of your bumper? Seems like a vulnerable spot for damage. Maybe add some thick mesh or thin plate?

Oil Drainage?

Not planning on it. I don't change my own oil. When I get an oil change I just pop off the skid, drive down to the shop for an oil change, get free car wash, clean everything underneath the engine, then pop the skid plate back on. Plus rocks and dirt don't get underneath the engine and skid as much.

7ga 304 Stainless steel skid plate with SRQ cutout. Completely bent to design specs so there are no welds.

Heres mine, 3/16th steel going from the radiator back to the cross member between the transfer case and transmission. No oil drainage because I always take them off to change the oil anyway. I would like to add some more bracing in the front and build a better front cross member sometime. I also have full cad drawings and dimensions available for sale in my sig.
IMG_3890 by Phoenix Black, on Flickr
skidplate finished (6) by Phoenix Black, on Flickr
skidplate finished (1) by Phoenix Black, on Flickr

Front Skid Plate Build:
Bandit Runner's skid plate build - YotaTech Forums


Flat Belly Skid Plate:


Lower Control Arm Skids:


Rear Diff Skid:


Gas Tank Skid:

@SRQ-Runner that stainless looks awesome. No welds is pretty sweet too. I don't have access to a brake so I unfortunately have to weld and can't weld stainless either. Looks amazing though with no paint or rust.

@Black798 Your skids look good! That's awesome that you made the CAD drawings. Eventually that is something I'd like to learn. Question on your skids. I see that you added a second bend on the trans skid. I get the reason for it. Higher clearance of course. I've been debating on making mine a single plane back to the trans crossmember to make it a very smooth transition vs making it two planes like yours. Still not convinced one way vs the other. What made you choose the way you did?

@Bandit Runner Your skids are awesome! I love pretty much everything about them. Especially the gas tank skid. Funny how similar our front skids look. I swear I don't remember seeing yours until after I built mine but every time I see yours I feel like I must have subliminally copied yours. Obviously yours is much better and more detailed but same shape haha. The diff skid is pretty awesome. Looks like some kind of Star Trek space ship haha. Do you have any issues with it making contact with your gas tank skid?

Thanks man. I have not had any issues with the diff skid contacting the gas tank skid.

@AssBurns , I choose to do the extra bend because it gets to the higher clearance much sooner. I found with the type of wheeling I do where Im coming off of ledges and staircase type obstacles fairly often that I would hit the crossmember that the skid plate fastens to behind the tranny pretty often. Which basically was kinda showing that if I had of done one smooth piece, yes it will slide along better, but theres also a lot of wasted space IMO where I would be dragging it on things unnecessarily when you could just be driving over it. Ive found that because of the wheel base of the 4runner when we drop off of things like that it tends to hit the most in the area around the trans, so I wanted as much clearance as possible. Doing the single smooth piece also increases your span of unsupported area so you'll need more bracing to stand up to the extra abuse it will take when it is hanging lower.

Another thing I did different was narrowing the tranny skid. I did this partially because of the amount of material I had, weight savings, and because I felt being wider it wouldn't gain much more protection and I wanted easy access to the front driveshaft for greasing.

Sorry for the long winded response, just sharing the thought process I went through when designing it.

@Black798 That's the kind of information I've been wanting to hear. That's a good point in not dragging over things when you can drive over them. I was thinking the smooth transition would help better when having to reverse over obstacles but you make a good point still. The longer unsupported area could easily be supported with little extra weight though. I think you might be swaying my opinion though!

@AssBurns it definitely is a bit of a catch 22 between the two designs. Ive never really had an issue with getting mine to slide backwards over things but then again I have only needed to once. Most times when I hit that center skid I end up driving the rest of the way over because as the rear of the truck comes forward it moves the frame up and away from whatever hit. Unless for some reason I was on top of something that was just plain too tall but that would point more towards poor line choice on the obstacle. I try to stay as high as possible with tire placement which I think is why I have been able to do a lot of things open open with small tires and minimal lift.

EDIT: I guess another thing to consider is that even with bracing the skids take a huge amount of point force and direct loading. One really good example of that is the skids on @Dirtco 's rig. They are budbuilts that he reinforced pretty heavily and even so hes still been able to bend the s*** out of them.

Pretty much any design has it's pros and cons. It's just a matter of figuring out what fits better for your situation. I still gotta get under there and look some more to see what would be better. I think you got a pretty solid design though. Having the single plane style would be even easier to duplicate after destroying it. We'll see. I appreciate your input! It helps me think outside my own little box haha.

Also, have you done anything for tranfercase and gas tank? T-case will be easy but gas tank will take a little more design work.