Second Set of Mods

The first two mods performed that were not associated with a repair were the installation of a vacuum canister relocation bracket and a full set of skid plates. I purchased both of these items from Metalcloak, they were easy to install and I've been happy with them. The relocation bracket moves the cannister from its original position back and higher under the body. It is supposed to reduce the chance the plastic cannister will impact a rock when on a trail and break. There were a few issues that I encountered with the move. The first issue is that after the move the valve on the cannister positioned in such a way that the valve release tab is close to the body on top and difficult to reach/release. I also decided to purchase a new hose because the original was a bit short and the connection to the cannister would have been pinched at the turn where it connected to the cannister. I also found that if you take out the valve, some care is needed to replace the valve as I tore the o-ring when reinstalling the valve (then I had to take the valve off and replace the o-ring to fix the problem. The last problem (which I still havent fixed) is associated with the cable that goes from the cannister to the top of the gas tank. I think when I moved the cannister, I put to much tension on the hose and "cracked" the plastic nipple on the gas tank which is the cause of the 456 code I get intermittently.

I purchased a full set of steel skid plates (oil pan, transmission/transfer case, and fuel tank) as my other purchase for a couple of reasons. While I considered aluminum skid plates, I found the steel plates were less expensive and while prone to bending on hard hits as compared to the aluminum plates which were lighter and from what I read were prone to breaking instead of bending, I also read steel plates tended to skid over rocky terrain better then aluminum which per more prone to gouging and possibly causing the vehicle to stall if the gouges caused enough friction to prevent rocks from sliding beneath the jeep. While I am not totally sure either the breaking or gouging are true, the cost and additional low on the jeep were pluses in my decision. I wanted additional weight low on the jeep to off-set additional weight of a rack system or possible roof-top tent in the future. The skid plate was fairly straight forward and accomplished mostly solo. While I could have completed the installation alone, a extra set of hands when installing the fuel tank skid plate made the installation much easier. From a hard wear prospective, the kit provided by Metalcloak was complete and everything fit together perfectly. The most difficult part of the installation from for the kit was installing the front hangers for the oil pan plate. They werent really hard to install it was just more time consuming because of where the top hanger bolts had to be placed was harder to reach. The other challenges with the install were not due to the kit but instead do to some rusted bolts on the frame (which had to be removed) which were replaced by bolts included with the kit. The most difficult challenge was a bolt in the factory skid plate which was rusted in place (the nut for the bolt was in a low spot in the factory skid plate and that location collected more water/muck than the other bolts which caused more significant rust. I eventually had to drill the bolt and nut then, purchase a new bolt and nut before installing the new steel skid plate. Overall, the install took most of one afternoon of steady (not hurrying) work. I dont have good pictures of the new skid plates but then pictures wouldnt really show much since they are just plates of steel.