I had to pull off my Shrock radiator skid this weekend and I had forgotten how annoying it is to remove. The slots on the front to access the lower sway bar busing bolts are only big enough for an extension. You have to find your shallowest socket, and fish it into place. Then, when you loosen the lower bolts, the socket gets backed against the skid plate and you can't remove it to loosen the other side. So you have to tighten it back in enough to get the socket out but not too much so that it's too tight to slide the skid down later.
I thought of a couple options to make this easier.
Option 1 would be to cut the access holes larger. This would slightly compromise the strength of the skid plate, and would allow more debris to get in there, but if the hole were large enough you could just get a socket on it from the front.
Option 2 would be to use a different fastener that didn't require a socket. Hex drive, square drive, torx, other? I need to figure out the size and thread pitch on the bolts to see what's available. Oddly enough 3/4 of mine have a 17mm head and the fourth is 19mm IIRC.
I was wondering if anyone else had modified this, or has any other suggestions.
Edited to add: Stock bumper. No interest in removing front sway bar since this has become my wife's daily driver most of the time.
I thought of a couple options to make this easier.
Option 1 would be to cut the access holes larger. This would slightly compromise the strength of the skid plate, and would allow more debris to get in there, but if the hole were large enough you could just get a socket on it from the front.
Option 2 would be to use a different fastener that didn't require a socket. Hex drive, square drive, torx, other? I need to figure out the size and thread pitch on the bolts to see what's available. Oddly enough 3/4 of mine have a 17mm head and the fourth is 19mm IIRC.
I was wondering if anyone else had modified this, or has any other suggestions.
Edited to add: Stock bumper. No interest in removing front sway bar since this has become my wife's daily driver most of the time.
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