Under-armor

Eventually, you will want to add extra protection to the underbody of your vehicle in the form of differential covers and skid plates.

As a Beginner, this is probably not a priority. Jeeps come standard from the factory with decent skid plates. As you evolve as an offroader, and begin to tackle more difficult trails – then upgrades such as lifts and under-armor are usually the next step.

Differentials (aka pumpkins) are your lowest hanging fruit. On Jeeps, the front differential is located in the front axle, positioned underneath the driver. The rear differential is centered in the rear axle. Your differential housing reduces your ground clearance by approximately a fist’s height.

The differential cover is the most likely part of your undercarriage to hit or scrape against something in your path, such as a rock or an elevated mound of dirt.

The metal housing cover that comes stock on your Jeep is pretty tough, but it makes a lot of sense to beef it up with something even stronger.

Many companies manufacture heavier reinforced differential covers to replace the faces of your stock front & rear differentials. Prices vary according to thickness and cosmetic style.

It is reassuring to know that you have extra protection on the parts taking the most abuse from enemies below!

“My wife and I are not hardcore dedicated rock crawlers, but often we do have to crawl over some obstacles to get where we are going. That exposes our underside to occasional scraping, or even becoming high centered on a boulder that we just couldn’t get over on our first attempt.”

The next phase of under-armor is to add more skid plate coverage.

Artec aluminum belly pan skid plate

From the factory, Jeep Wranglers do have SOME skid plate protection, but there is still a lot of territory left exposed. Climbing over obstacles increases the chances of becoming high centered on a rock surface, or a small drop onto that one rock sticking up just a wee bit. Aggressive forwards or backwards maneuvering might result in catching onto something important and damaging your vehicle.

Skid plates can be ordered either as individual modules or as full belly pans.

If you only desire limited coverage to complement existing skid plates – just order the pieces you want.

Full belly pans are complete sets that replace existing skid plates and provide full coverage. Full pans tend to be more cohesive with less gaps in between sections, so less places to get hung up on.

Skid plates are available in steel or aluminum, depending on how hardcore you offroad.

For us, our mechanic guru recommended aluminum. Aluminum weighs a lot less than steel. It doesn’t rust, so you don’t have to repaint periodically. It flexes better than steel, so slight dents reset themselves so to speak.

We purchased a full belly pan from Artec Industries. The total weight of the full skid plate was only 15 pounds more than the original steel partial skids that came with our Sahara.

In addition, the support brace for the Artec aluminum raises the gas tank by ¾ of an inch, giving us a tad more ground clearance than we previously had.

The Artec fits together smoothly, and the bottom bolts are all countersunk so as to not catch on anything.

On the negative side, Artec was more expensive than some of the competition. But that was our choice, and I only mentioned it as an example.

There are lots of excellent manufacturers to choose from, including MetalCloak, Extreme Terrain, Quadratec, and several others.

Steel skid plates are much heavier than aluminum but usually offer greater strength. They are very popular amongst the hardcore rock crawlers, who are more concerned with constant scraping and less about mpg economy.

Because they are steel, they can rust when the original paint or coating is worn away. They need to be eyeballed periodically and maintained.

Steel is harder to dent than most aluminum, but tends to retain those dents. Aluminum has more flex and will often spring back to its original shape.

Aluminum can gouge easier than steel.

Talk to your mechanic and choose what fits your needs and budget.