Mounting Homebrew Skidplate?

[pope_face]

I bought my car without the stock skidplate, but I live in fear of going "offroad" and damaging something. The car already has dents in the exhaust pipes and gas tank (yeah, really) from a PO's excursion, and I'd rather not make it any worse.

However, I managed to get ahold of a large aluminium sign that would be perfect as a ghetto skidplate. Yes, I realize it's not as nice as a "real" skidplate from Primitive Racing or someone, but I have a choice between buying a good one for ~$450 (front and rear skidplates, taxes, shipping), or making a jobber one for the cost of screws and a little elbow grease.

I've already started figuring out what it's going to cover and where I need to trim/bend, but I have no idea how to actually mount it. I'm assuming there must be some threaded holes or something where the stock skidplate mounted, but seeing as I've never seen the stock skidplate, I have no idea where the holes are or what the threads are. Does anyone have any info on this? If worse comes to worst I'll try to find an "installation guide" from Primitive or someone that says how to mount their skidplates, but I figured I'd ask here first.

[UP2MTNS]

mounting points up front are threaded into the subframe brace (large U-shaped piece that goes along the front of the car, bends at the corners and goes back to the control arms).

rear mounting plate should still be there attached to the subframe itself w/2 threaded mounting points as well.

[pope_face]

Awesome, that's exactly what I needed to know... I'm assuming this is for the GF/GC body style, correct? I noticed you've got an '04 WRX, so I just wanted to confirm.

Secondly, any idea what the bolt size is? I'm assuming something about M8 or M10...

[UP2MTNS]

M8x1.25

GC is the same I think for those mounting points.

[A1337STI]

I think the metal subframe piece in the rear of a GC has holes but no threads. you can weld nuts to the back of it and it works great. (the primitive skid plate kit comes with an extra sub frame piece with the nuts welded to it)

I guess alternatively you could just Tap them one size bigger... ?!?

[pope_face]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the info.

Alex: I'll take a look when I have a chance to get under the car again... I was hoping I could avoid having to do anything of the sort (my welding skills aren't great), but if it's not threaded I'll try that route. I guess more welding experience can't hurt...

[A1337STI]

You can just use a normal nut for the rear most mounting point. on a gc. but its a big PITA ... i had to do that once to remove mine, because the weld broke (that holds the nut to the sub frame peice thingy) :( at like 1AM with a rally the next day.

JB weld might hold depending on how close your exhaust gets to that part... if it fails you will probably want to just drill off the head of the bolt and pop it out ...

[pope_face]

Yeah, I'll have to weld it on probably... I want to be able to actually access my engine from time to time. If not, I may try to make some sort of hanger for the skidplate where I can just hook it on to the subframe in the rear and use the nuts in front to attach it. A few pieces of metal and some rivets might work well enough.

[pope_face]

Just thought I'd share a little update (as I've finally had time to get under the car and check):

There are two threaded mounting points in the front, as mentioned. Not sure if it's the subframe, but they're in a metal brace just in front of the base of the radiator.

The rear mounting points (that I'll be using) are just two threaded holes (a couple inches apart), right in the center of a brace, just behind the steering rack. There's a little plate (about four inches by eight inches) that's the steering rack and front sway bar, and it mounts with two bolts in the front and two in the rear. The front bolts simply pass through a hole in the brace and use nuts on the other side, but the rear subframe is actually threaded for the two bolts. Not sure what size/thread pitch it is, but it looks roughly the same as the holes in front of the radiator, although I couldn't thread the bolts very far into those holes. Still, that may be due to rust/grime in the threads, not thread pitch.

I'll get this fitted together and (hopefully) get a couple shots of it... I won't bother bending it up to match the contours yet (I'd like some protection on there now), but I may end up making it a bit nicer in the future.

[Bacana_Innovative_Equip.]

check out this guys How to thread with a skid plate i made for him.

http://slcsubaru.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=794

hes got all the measurements and bolt sizes listed