Chevy & GMC Vans

Dean, so why didn't you bolt the plate directly to the front cross-member?

I did it to keep the bolt heads from being exposed plus the front cross member isn't very thick. I suppose you could weld in a 1/8" or 3/16" plate to the bottom and then drill and tap the whole thing. Counter sunk bolts would recess nicely then. You would need to add 2" - 3" to the length of the plate too.

LiftedAWDAstro wrote:I did it to keep the bolt heads from being exposed

But it looks like you have bolt heads sticking out in your photo. Could one use rounded or flat head bolts?

LiftedAWDAstro wrote:plus the front cross member isn't very thick.

This is true. What about going through the entire crossmember?

The bolts on the transfer case crossmember did in fact start out as hex head and they did get ripped out on the first wheeling trip out. I then counter sunk the holes and used flat head allen bolts to keep them flush. You could also do this in the front by making the skid plate a little longer and bending up the front lip slightly.

LiftedAWDAstro wrote:On Lockdoc's aluminum skid plate we added some supports that will hit the frame the lower control arms mount to. This keeps it off the engine oil pan.

Did you have problems with it hitting the oil pan?

With the 96+ engines having the cast aluminum pans, I never bothered when it would hit the bottom of the engine. On lockdoc's 93, the oil pan is light steel so we supported it better. There were lots of gouges in the skid plate right where the oil pan is. If you make it out of steel you probably wouldn't need the extra support.

Is there any place where you can get one of these skid plates, or it has to be all custom built? I have been thinking about getting one lately...

Thanks!

I don't sell them any more simply due to shipping cost plus I didn't make very much $$ on them. You can easily take the dimensions from the first page to a local steel fab shop and they can cut you a piece of steel or aluminum and bend it. You then just need to drill some holes and mount a piece of angle up front. Read through this thread for info.

LiftedAWDAstro wrote:I don't sell them any more simply due to shipping cost plus I didn't make very much $$ on them. You can easily take the dimensions from the first page to a local steel fab shop and they can cut you a piece of steel or aluminum and bend it. You then just need to drill some holes and mount a piece of angle up front. Read through this thread for info.

Yeah, shipping 60# sheet of metal will not be cheap!

Thanks a lot, will try to make one for me at some point.

LiftedAWDAstro wrote:I no longer build and sell these. The shipping cost is just too high. I posted the dimensions so anyone could take them to a local fab shop and have one cut and bent. You then drill the holes and mount the angle iron up front.

Hello everyone.

I know this is fairly old.
Does anyone have the plans or dimensions from this build still? I am curious.
Thanks to all.

There are browser plugins that work around the missing pictures. Otherwise I backed it up here https://sites.google.com/site/astrosafa ... -skidplate

So I've gotten one of these fabbed up, but I'm pretty confused about the mounting. I see that you're supposed to tap the cross members, but the steel on my 2000 AWD cross members seems too thin to get sufficient threads tapped to hold up the steel skidplate. I was thinking about maybe bolting L-brackets through the entire width of the cross members instead and bolting the skidplate to that.

Has anyone here tapped these cross members? Advice? Comments on their durability?

Hi,

I posted my aluminum skid plate info on another part of the site last month for my 2003 AWD.
My forward plate protects front diff and oil pan. Middle plate protects transmission,

Rear plate protects transfer case.

AP

My 1998 had the transmission cross member tapped and I have not had an issue so far, I am however cautious whenever I remove and remount the skid plate because I'm worried about stripping the threads.

Thanks for the input, folks. I think I'm going to try tapping the crossmember and if I get insufficient threads, I'll use a hole saw to cut out a few small access holes on the front of the cross memeber so I can get a wrench and a nut inside it and secure the bolt that way. I hope that the strength lost by cutting these holes would be offset by bolting a 3/8 plate of steel to it, but I'm not an engineer... I imagine I should also patch these holes up in some manner to avoid accumulating salt and grime in there.