Is the belly pan absolutely necessary? I have a 98TJ. No lift. 5-spd manual. Its a daily driver. No off roading. Nothing strenuous. The belly pan is rigged on one side being held up by u-bolts. The frame is rusted to the point where the belly pan can't be bolted back on. I see the options as welding it on (horrible for future transmission work), removing the belly pan or getting a new frame. Anyone riding without a belly pan?
Is the belly pan absolutely necessary?
- Thread starter maxlemons
- Start date
Yes it holds the transmission mount. Don’t try to operate without it.
It's only necessary if you want to keep your transmission in place 
You have frame rot, better fix it.
You have frame rot, better fix it.
I never understood why Jeep decided to do that. I mean really why not a bolt in cross member and a separate skid? Cost savings?It's only necessary if you want to keep your transmission in place
You have frame rot, better fix it.
This is the janky crap the previous owner did to my Jeep when the repaired the frame. Those are wheel studs and nuts probably from a semi. It's solid but redneck as hell. Only a matter of time before I catch one or all of these on a rock and rip the plate off altogether.
Now you know why I love the Savvy skid so much. Separate cross members and skid.
As someone who just removed the skid plate it is incredible how much weight rests on it with the trans. I would absolutely not run a rig without one in. before jacking up my trans it had significant amount of sag without skid plate.
Double adjustable control arms, expensive aftermarket skid plate, frame repaired and they used lug nuts to secure it...unbelievable
Replacement frame in the works, but yes this is what was used to secure the stock skid before i did all the mods. Those are 27mm conical lugs lol
lol..its only stupid if it doesn't work so I'm not going to judge...but I couldn't sleep at night
Believe me, I want this frame in scrapyard as soon as humanly possible. I've put a lot of time and effort into this build and I fell in love with the TJ platform along the way. Its well worth the $2k price tag.
A separate crossmember and transmission mount, like the one Genright makes, would hold up the transmission fine, but you'd have to move everything up higher, as in, do a tummy tuck. But if you did you could tuck the TCase up real high and have a flatter belly. Just no skid, so if you went off-road, you'd have to not scrape that area.