As my adventures offroad became more daring I quickly noticed that it was going to be necessary to protect some of the vital components on the underside of the TJ to prevent spending more later.
Luckily Mark was replacing his skid plate because of the long arm kit he was installing. The only problem was that he has a '03 Rubicon and I have '99 TJ and the Rubicons are longer from the engine compartment to the transfer case skid plate. With the help of Larry we made a few modifications to the skid plate that would allow it to fit.
Once we test fitted the skid plate and we were confident that it was going to work we began to mount the plate to the engine compartment and the transfer skid plate.
The first thing I had to do was reverse the lower control bolt to allow the skid to bolt up. This turned out to be the simplist part of the installation. Once the nut is removed flip the bolt around so that the nut will toward the center of the Jeep.
Slide the nuts with the metal clip on the engine mount so the nuts line up with the holes that are already in the engine mount.
Bolt the bracket loosely to the engin mount and then
Loosely attach the support from the pan to the mounting bracket. Once these are in place lift the skid plate up and slide it over the lower control arm bolt and allow it to support the weigh. Push the skid plate up loosely bolt the support and the skid together and place the washers and nuts on the bolts.
Line up the engine skid on the transfer skid and drill the necessary holes and insert the mounting bolts. Tighten all bolts making sure the skid is tight against the transfer skid plate.
Now your Jeep is ready to take on a slightly higher obstacles.