Few weeks ago while rock crawling I put a dent in my oil/tranny/catalytic skid plate causing it to touch the exhaust pipe. Today I removed it to bang it back out. Turns out there are two places the exhaust has been touching this skid plate even after I added additional spacers (it comes with one).

I have been debating about removing it, allowing more air to circulate (only had 1 oil temp lite episode which was my driving, I believe now I know how to the Jeep needs to be driven in 4x4), and getting an oil pan skid and placing the OEM tranny skid bar back on and calling it good. I did reinstall the tranny skid bar for the time being.

BUT this leaves the front end of the tranny pan very exposed and part of the tranny, although the tranny would be hard to hit being so hi up and between the tranny and oil pans..

I am thinking maybe I should build another spacer so that I have good clearance between the exhaust pipe and the oil/tranny/catalytic skid and reinstall it. It has been a good skid and with the scraps/dents it's has been working. I know alot of you say these skids really help the heat build up, which I would believe, but so far I haven't had that issue.
I do think it would be a pain to repair anything with this skid on.. ie, linkage to transfer case for 4wheel drive..

I only have a 2 1/2" lift probably not going higher, and 33's (maybe 35's) are the biggest tire I'll have.

My question is what are you rock crawlers doing to protect the front exposed area of the tranny pan?
Other thoughts?

few pics.
OEM skid bar,,, showing the exposed area of the tranny pan..

exhaust marks were it is coming in contact with the skid plate... I don't want to wear a hole in these areas...

Dent in skid plate...

other scraps showing it's probably been doing it's job...

 

on our old 2009 JK, we ran a rock krawler hd deep sump tranny pan and just ditched the skid plate. for us, this was the best solution and with perks (more capacity for better cooling and greater operating angles and drain plug). we ran this with a hd oil pan and just ran factory skids for everything else.

 

I'll look at those.. so far I have been very happy with the other OEM skid plates. The Tranny skid bar I think is lacking though.

thanks for the idea.