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Class III Hitch

Skid Plate

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I slammed a rock pretty good and although my stock skid plate did the job, it had become just bent up enough that removing and reinstalling it was too much hassle.

After some online research, I decided on an aftermarket skid plate from Skid Row Offroad; specifically, their TA-0002 for my 2004 Tacoma.

If I had known how fantastic this was going to be, I would have dumped the stock skid plate right away. This is not some kind of nonsense for a soccer mom's SUV. This is serious steel! I would absolutely recommend this skid plate to anybody.

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Here's a front view of the skid plate, obviously unmounted. The "Skid Row Offroad" is a pretty slick way of providing ventilation / cooling for the lower radiator.

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Here's an "inside" view of the skid plate. The brackets in the middle will be used for two of the mounting bolts.

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Here's the skid plate mounted. The blue circles indicate mounting points. The left front yellow circle is for the coolant drain and the rear, center yellow circle is for the oil drain.

You will either reuse the bolts from the original skid plate or get replacements. Being somewhat of a nut, I guess, I spent $1.00 each and got OEM replacements. The bolt size is M8-1.25 x 20mm, which I know you can get from Home Depot, etc.

I had my truck up on ramps, planning to grease as long as I was under there anyway. The plate is fairly heavy and my shoulders aren't that great. I found it easiest to lay on my back and use my legs / knees to push and hold the plate in place while I threaded in the bolts.

I found it worked out best to loosely thread in the two center mounting bolts, (the ones that use the tall brackets), and then loosely do the 3 front bolts followed by the 2 rear bolts.

Once all the bolts were threaded in hand tight, I snugged them down in the same order: middle, front and then rear. I'm not sure what the correct torque spec would be for these - I just cranked them down pretty good.