Swaybar Skidplate Necessary?

[arcticaaron]

I don’t think you can rotate it to the back. I had to notch the winch plate to rotate the motor to the front and up.

Sponsored

 

[mlebofsky]

Anyone rotate it to the back?

 

[D60]

I don't think it's possible, either. You're using existing holes in the motor so options are limited.

Ace has a helpful vid on their site, although it's for a JK. The motors look different externally and I had to watch it repeatedly to make sure I was catching the correct hole (although truthfully, it's difficult to do it wrong - it just screwed w my head that their finished product looked a bit different than my JL when referencing features of the motor)

 

[JimSa]

Anyone rotate it to the back?

I experimented with rotating it back rather than forward. It appears to be possible and there is a different hole to use on the housing. It tucks the disconnect up nicely, but there might be some clearance issues with the drag link bolts under extreme turn and flex conditions. It's close, and I think that it can be addressed.... That said, there is still ONE BIG FLAW. The wire harness connection, which is the most fragile part, is then pointing directly down, just asking to be hit by a rock. I would only rotate it like this, if you were also going to put on a skid, and then there's not much of a point to it. I wish someone would create a simple (and small) skid for this thing, much like the MetalCloak FAD skid.

 

[Doug G]

Here are two finished photos showing final placement of the swaybar motor. It hangs down about 2.5” lower than the bumper but you really can’t see it unless you crouch down in front of the Jeep

This is awesome. I plan to do this.
What winch Warn are you running? Was it hard to fit? Did the rotated swaybar disconnect have any interference with the winch?
Do you have details of the winch plate mod?
Now that it has been a while, how do you like it?

 

[arcticaaron]

This is awesome. I plan to do this.
What winch Warn are you running? Was it hard to fit? Did the rotated swaybar disconnect have any interference with the winch?
Do you have details of the winch plate mod?
Now that it has been a while, how do you like it?

Running the Warn Zeon 10-S. On the genright bumper I had to grind a little bit where the winch and sway bar made contact with the plate if I remember right. I sold that Jeep and put an Evo quarter pounder on this new 2023 and had zero clearance issues. Here are a couple photos of the quarter pounder installed with the sway bar rotated.

It’s a great easy mod and I’d do it for a third time in a heartbeat!

 

[arcticaaron]

I should say that the genright ultra clearance bumper is awesome but EXTREMELY tight with a warm zeon 10-S. It was so much of a pain to install I bought a different bumper (quarter pounder) for my 2023 even though I really like the genright looks.

 

[Doug G]

I should say that the genright ultra clearance bumper is awesome but EXTREMELY tight with a warm zeon 10-S. It was so much of a pain to install I bought a different bumper (quarter pounder) for my 2023 even though I really like the genright looks.

Thank you. I was going between the Evo/Genright myself. I too really like the sleeknes of the Genright look. The Evo does seem beefier. Did you go with an Evo rear bumper?

 

[arcticaaron]

Thank you. I was going between the Evo/Genright myself. I too really like the sleeknes of the Genright look. The Evo does seem beefier. Did you go with an Evo rear bumper?

Went with motobilt for the rear but haven’t yet installed it!

 

[Doug G]

Went with motobilt for the rear but haven’t yet installed it!

I just contacted Evo. The aluminum Quarter Pounder does not support the rotated swaybar. I was hoping to avoid the weight. How much of a pain was the Genright install? How many hours. Your pictures made it look really seamless. You did a fabulous job.

 

[arcticaaron]

I just contacted Evo. The aluminum Quarter Pounder does not support the rotated swaybar. I was hoping to avoid the weight. How much of a pain was the Genright install? How many hours. Your pictures made it look really seamless. You did a fabulous job.

Well Evo is incorrect. The aluminum quarter pounder is what I installed a couple months ago and it fit as you can see in my photos with no issues.

If you want the ultra clearance genright and don't mind taking a bit more time to get it to fit, I'd say go for it. I'm always in a hurry and just didn't want to deal with it again, although I think it looks amazing. I think I even had to grind just a little bit of the winch ridges off to get it to sit flush. Everything was so tight with that setup. Probably took me 3-4 hours extra to install than the quarter pounder but it's been about 5 years. I found a photo of the genright showing where I notched (poorly) the winch tray so that the swaybar motor could be rotated.

 

[Old Jeeper]

Hi All,

I am having a tough time deciding between the Ace Pro Series front bumper and the LOD Destroyer Stubby...

I am leaning towards the Ace bumper as it is beefy (1/4” steel) and I am planning on going with their rear Halfback bumper, BUT Ace does not have a lower skid plate to protect the sway bar motor. They do however have a swaybar motor flip kit that tucks most of it behind the bumper.

So my questions are:
1. How necessary is a lower skidplate really?
2. Any real concerns with daily driving / light trail use without a lower skid?
3. Any insights regarding Ace vs LOD regarding strength/ quality / powdercoating/ customer service?

Thanks!

I never ran one and don't know anyone who ever did.

I designed my own front bumper off an existing design and I made engineering changes to increase it strength. Stong enough to slam into a 4 door caddy, pass side rear quarter panel, collapsed it, the trunk and popped the rear window. Never hit the brakes and I was going 55 in a 55. The caddy made a left hand turn in front of the as I came thru the intersection on a green light.

My design did not fail, NO DAMAGE done to my Jeep other than some paint scrapped. Made it from ChroMo.

Hear a pic. The flat base under the bottom is full ¼ full welded plate undertake base boxed on the back side, 2 attachment points are for towing and or extractions.

NOTE my 'stinger'. The purpose of that is to do a full nose down, like dropped off a ledge and instead of rolling on your lid, the stinger will push the Jeep to the right or left putting it on its side. When I did a point of failure analysis on my rock crawler I saw that my failure point was the radiator. This led me to raising the radiator loop to just above the top of the radiator and then I added the stinger which on the back side are two points of attachment 1 on the bottom of the loop the other on the back side of the stinger. Thus if I hit hard enough to push up the stinger, it will push down on the bottom of the radiator loop.

What I see today is mostly angularity and a very short loop that really does next to nothing. In fact most of what I see is few pieces of 1/8th and a little loop and if your playground is rocks, then its only going to let your down...

 

[Doug G]

Well Evo is incorrect. The aluminum quarter pounder is what I installed a couple months ago and it fit as you can see in my photos with no issues.

If you want the ultra clearance genright and don't mind taking a bit more time to get it to fit, I'd say go for it. I'm always in a hurry and just didn't want to deal with it again, although I think it looks amazing. I think I even had to grind just a little bit of the winch ridges off to get it to sit flush. Everything was so tight with that setup. Probably took me 3-4 hours extra to install than the quarter pounder but it's been about 5 years. I found a photo of the genright showing where I notched (poorly) the winch tray so that the swaybar motor could be rotated.

Very nice. Did you find the difficulty more in how tight the Genright was to get the winch into, or was it due to the swaybar disconnect? How much easier would it have been without the swaybar disconnect?

Did you ever use the winch to see if there was structural issues with the extra notch?
Thanks again for all this. It has been so helpful.

 

[arcticaaron]

Very nice. Did you find the difficulty more in how tight the Genright was to get the winch into, or was it due to the swaybar disconnect? How much easier would it have been without the swaybar disconnect?

Did you ever use the winch to see if there was structural issues with the extra notch?
Thanks again for all this. It has been so helpful.

No problem. The winch I used was just a really tight fit and I remember it being tedious. Then notching the plate with bad tools was kinda frustrating. There is a lot of metal in the plate and I doubt it weakens it significantly. Probably used the winch about 12 times before selling the Jeep.

 

[Doug G]

Running the Warn Zeon 10-S. On the genright bumper I had to grind a little bit where the winch and sway bar made contact with the plate if I remember right. I sold that Jeep and put an Evo quarter pounder on this new 2023 and had zero clearance issues. Here are a couple photos of the quarter pounder installed with the sway bar rotated.

It’s a great easy mod and I’d do it for a third time in a heartbeat!

Thank you. The Aluminum Quarter Pounder is an Aluminum shell with Steel tray, correct. Was ther ne interference with the metal tray?
Was it much easier to install than Genright?

Sponsored