33 Engineering transfer case skid plate: two piece design, low profile. You are supposed to net 2" of ground clearance over stock. 33 Engineering and Offroad Toy Store (their parent company) are now out of business. Both companies were worse on delivery than PSC. 3+ month wait times. Which is too bad, b/c it's a nice design.
Starting measurement, from lowest point on stock tc skid: just under 17" belly clearance.
I already had one broken nutsert from a few years ago and I had picked up a replacement earlier in the winter. The plan was to drop the skid, install the new one, then take the Jeep to Andrew's to weld the new rivnut in. I started to pull the bolts, only to discover that they were all free spinning. :banghead: Chris had 3 more, so I snagged those from him and headed off to Andrews.
We ground all the bolt heads off, popped them into the frame, then ground down the nutserts so we could install the new ones.
When one side of the skid was done, half the tranny mount fell out. :banghead: Picture below shows the rubber mount that fell off, the bent bar, and the bent tabs on the tranny mount.
Andrew welded it back up for a temporary fix. New poly one is on order... people say it transmits more vibes than the stock rubber, but I could care less. I like the one piece design of the poly version over the two piece stock rubber one.
4 new nutserts installed, welded, and ground down. The other two (middle ones) will be done later.
Installed cross member:
The tranny moved up a
lot. I have a 1.25" BL, it had no problem clearing, nothing is touching the body. My exhaust is slightly touching the heat shield, I will probably bend the mount for it a little bit so it doesn't rattle too much (only noticed in reverse and on the trail, well, my rig aint exactly quiet... never heard it rattle).
Installed skid:
Belly clearance after? 19". So just over 2" of additional clearance over stock.
I tried to order some more rivnuts from McMaster-Carr (
http://www.mcmaster.com/#95105A169) ... had them shipped to the UPS store. They called the UPS store, got my number, called me, and canceled my order. They won't export and they've gone all out crazy for some reason and flagged the UPS store as a location for "export" so they won't ship it there. Good news is they gave me a # for an affiliate store that does ship to Canada and they are coming to my door for only $21 for 10 rivnuts (inc. shipping). Weird policy, but it all worked out.
