Rustys Fuel Tank Skid Plate for '84-'96 XJ

First off i have to say this is a nice chunk of metal. Its 3/16" steel on the bottom going from front to rear, and 1/8" for the sides. It has four mounting holes for securing it. And, i'm guessing recently, Rustys has gotten rid of the big obnoxious "Rustys" cutout in the rear and put a nice, edgy "R" instead. But... it doesn't really matter either way as most hitches cover it up.

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The finish is simply amazing. The box it came in was torn to bits but the powder coating was still in near perfect condition. The finish is so thick i cannot tell how good the welds were done though.

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Although one thing obviously overlooked by Rustys is there are no holes to allow you to bolt up the rear exhaust hanger. You will need to measure and drill that yourself, as i had done. Another issue is that the skid plate takes up a good portion of space where the rear exhaust hanger is positioned, completely blocking the left exhaust hanger mounting hole. So only one hole can be used, and only one hole needs to be drilled in the skid. I had to cut about half off the hanger (left side) so it would fit beside the skid plate and still bolt up on with one bolt.

The way this skid plate is made it will not work (as it comes) with most 2" receivers that i can find without modification.

The biggest problem is some hitches are mounted too far forward so the main cross bar contacts the skid plate. (In fact i had boughten ;) a 2" hitch from another member and it wouldn't work because of this, so i couldn't use it and found an old hitch i thought was MIA.) If its only a small amount and you have enough material you can enlarge the mounting holes on the hitch to move it toward the rear. I had to do this even on my second hitch about 1/4". Otherwise only serious modification would allow the two to live in harmony on some.

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Still only less than 1/8" between the skid plate and the hitch even after opening up the holes. Its hard to see in this pic but that's the front of the hitch and back of the skid.

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If you have a hitch with the side mounting plates that fold inward so the plate is on the inside of the mounting bolts you will most likely need to cut slits in the rear for the hitch's plates because they are narrower than the skid plate. But do your measuring first to make sure if and how much will need to be cut. It may very well work with a 1 5/8" hitch though, but no idea for sure.

The type of hitch i am talking about and the first one i tried.

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And the green lines would be the cutting that would need to be done so the side mounting plates slide down in them to make them fit in the same space. Just measure how wide and how long you need to cut. (I estimated the location of the cuts.)

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And if you have the type of hitch that has the side mounting plates that fold toward the outside of the mounting holes you won't need to cut the skid plate. Which i find they are not too common. The second hitch i finally installed.

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Because of this type of hitch i had to completely redesign the exhaust hanger, which now bolts up to the side plate on the hitch.

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I also feel that Rustys could have made the skid plate fit tighter to the tank. It seems to be 1-2" lower than the bottom of the tank. If they would have taken a little more time to design it higher that much clearance would not have been lost.

To go with the skid plate i also got the additional nutstrips (made by Crown), nice strips with good finish. I didn't measure them but i believe they're around the same as the ones from JCR as many know about. Although since i had the bumper off, after tightening the bolts down, i noticed the strips bending down in the holes a little.

The skid comes with two different sets of hardware, one if you have nutstrips and one if you do not (carriage bolts with small plates for this option). Each set has six sets of bolts and washers, and nuts for the option without nutstrips. Which seems odd because the skid uses four bolts and the nutstrips use ten, so where did they get six from?

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Overall, its a nice piece but needs a bit more work in the "fit & finish" department.

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I think i've covered most of it. If anything changes i'll add it in.

That skid looks awesome... I am kind of glad that they went to the R instead of the full Rusty's.. I have been looking at this skid as well as the one from JCR... so am glad to see a review of this skid from a fellow member!!

It is very sturdy, if i hit or kick it (lol) it doesn't even make a sound its so stiff. I haven't dealt with it specifically, but honestly i would probably try the JCR if i did it again. From the pictures i've looked at theirs bolts into more places and has the holes for the exhaust hanger. Although it comes bare, that is easily remedied.

Yeah from what I've read the JCR unit is a bit easier of an install too.. We shall see what happens in time as to which I go with...

Keep an eye on JCR for a sale too. Sometimes they have the tank skid about $50 off. Makes for a sweet deal.