I'll get under my Jeep in the morning and validate which one I'm on and let you knowOne pic shows the arm partially on
Thanks very much, I was trying to put it on the frame horn towards the back of the Jeep. Yo are very helpful. Much appreciated.So, @Gmanjeeper - my driver's side skid arm is mounted on the furthest forward frame horn:
The support arm comes down in front of the oil filter:
Another angle, it's the furthest towards the front of the Jeep:
Cool, glad to help dude!
Ok, one more (I hope) question. I have the DS side arm attached and the one long bolt through the arm and the frame horn. It is kind of hard from my back to get my ratchets up in there, but I have done so and (seemingly) have the nut pretty tight. However, the arm still easily rocks up and down. Either I do not have it tight enough or the arm will not totally tighten so it does not move at all until the skid is attached. I almost thin that the only way I can get the nut tightened anymore would be to take it to my mechanic so he can put it on a lift etc. What do you think?So, @Gmanjeeper - my driver's side skid arm is mounted on the furthest forward frame horn:
The support arm comes down in front of the oil filter:
Another angle, it's the furthest towards the front of the Jeep:
As long as it's pretty tight you should be good - it's just a single bolt so there will be some movement for the arm until it's connected to the skid. If there's still movement after you've got both arms attached to the skid and the skid attached to the crossmember that's when I'd start tightening more.
Thanks again. I put the nut on the other side of the frame horn (the side closest to the front). Surely this would not make any difference in terms of how tight I can get it???
Nah, either way should be fine. Just make it good and tight, and start attaching the skid to the arms.
Wow they are super tight. Great for me, but shawty needs something to step on.Alright, long weekend was good to me - had time to get the Metalcloak rails installed. Install was super straight forward - bolt the rails to the tub using the bolts along the bottom of the tub and a couple bolts through the pinch seam to line up where you need to drill, mark where to drill, pull the rails off, do the drilling, paint the exposed steel, and reinstall the rails.
No issues with install, but a couple notes - the supplied serrated flange head bolts for use on the stock threaded holes on the bottom of the tub are a little jank given the size of the supplied washers and the size of the bolt hole in the rail (also, washers with a serrated flange head? Odd choice...), so I reused my OEM 13mm bolts and their captured washers there - they're much larger and more substantial washers, bolts appear roughly the same length.
Metalcloak also asks for a 13/32" drill bit. 3/8" works just fine, nice tight fit on the hardware. One thing to note with the 3/8" hardware is that the 1" bolt length is just a touch short for the front fender area due to the added pinch seam thickness - they come just to the end of the nut instead of protruding through. They still catch the nylock portion, and with liberal blue loctite they should be fine. However, 1-1/4" hardware may be a future upgrade.
Overall impressions though are good though - with the wider Mopar rails I could push down on the rails with my hands and get them to flex relative to the body if I gave it a strong push. If I stood on the rails and bounced I could get ~1/4" or more of flex relative to the Jeep body. Nothing doing with the Metalcloak rails. I'm not able to get any flex out of them manually, at least nothing I can readily see. The tube work on the Metalcloak rail sits roughly 1-1/3" off the body. Anyway, pic time!
Tons of clearance, they hug the pinch seam really tightly:
Given how these mount, I think their Overland rocker with the flippable step would be pretty rigid. Same setup for the actual slider, just the tube is bolt on instead of welded. Wife and I are planning on swapping our KL for a JT after it gets the refresh and after this install I'm 100% going to be running the flip step kit on the JT.
