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Westin Transmission Skid Plate

morricus

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I currently have the Westin oil pan skid plate installed and have been very happy with it. I saw the transmission pan on sale (Westin part #42-21075), so I thought I'd add that to the mix. The transmission seems almost as vulnerable as the oil pan, especially with that exposed exhaust downpipe running in front of it.

Install took me about an hour or so, was pretty straightforward. After removing 4 bolts at the front of the transmission, you install brackets on either side of the transmission using the included replacement bolts. I included a pic of the brackets before installing the front plate. Torque the 4 bolts holding the brackets to 7 ft/lbs then install the front skid plate. Easy.

The rear plate took me a bit longer. The front of the rear plate is attached to to a cross member that has holes cut into it, while the rear uses an existing oem bolt. The front attach bolts include two nuts with plates welded to them (see pic) that took me me a bit of fiddling to get work. The nuts sit inside the cross member with the holes, using the plate welded to them to straddle the hole. Just took about 15 minutes of swearing, got them in.

The plates themselves are quite heavy, I'm certain they'll take a substantial hit. I paid only $106 shipped for the oil pan skid, $150 for the transmission pan. I'm not really tying to compare these pans to the full skid kits out there. But I didn't see the point in spending $1000-1500 for a full kit. The gas tank skid has seen some abuse, shown no signs of failure. And the stock transfer case skid isn't perfect, but it'll take a hit and until I destroy it, I see no reason to replace that either. The only exposed areas, in my opinion, were the oil and trans pans and for a total of $260 I think I sufficiently mitigated risk. If you think otherwise, I'm all ears. Perhaps I'm being ignorant relying on the stock transfer case and gas tank skids.

Westin's website leaves a lot to be desired regarding pics, which is one of the reasons I'm putting this thing together. Its a lot easier to make decisions about buying stuff like this when you actually see them installed.

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wibornz

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Krondor

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Nice find. Looks like a solid option.
 

Sheepjeep

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correct me if i am wrong but from the photos it looks like the oil skit ties into the bell housing and the the cross over pipe ties into the side of the tranny, both of those have me worried as those are not locations that i would to hold the weight of the jeep slamming into a rock
 
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morricus

morricus

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correct me if i am wrong but from the photos it looks like the oil skit ties into the bell housing and the the cross over pipe ties into the side of the tranny, both of those have me worried as those are not locations that i would to hold the weight of the jeep slamming into a rock
They do, and I can understand why that would give you concern. But I'm not too worried about it. It would have to be one helluva hit. But I'll keep this post updated as I beat on it. Hopefully I won't be posting how my drivetrain went out in a blaze of glory, but I doubt it.
 

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_thewick

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Looks like a really good option. I've also wondered if the $1500 kits are necessary, and it seems like some of the cheaper full kits hang down pretty low and you lose a couple inches of ground clearance.

The only thing I'd be worried about with these, if I'm really dragging the bottom, it hitting/breaking all the exposed bolt heads but I guess that's not a huge deal. The armor will do it's job and like you said, for the price it seems hard to beat!
 

Acme

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Any update after a few months?

I just installed the trans skid, and I was looking at the engine oil pan one. Three things I don't like so far...

1) the bolts sticking out a lot and will probably get smashed sooner or later
2) the trans oil lines not getting much protection
3) the mounting points of that front trans skid

I didn't want to spend thousands on skids since this is my DD and I'm not doing anything too hard core. This looked like a good option for my use case.

I haven't been offroad with the trans skid so far so can comment, but next saturday we have a nice one coming up, we'll see if they get some hits or not.
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