I am making a skid plate and I basically have the design all figured out and stuff but I had a question reguarding the two coolant lines that are sticking down. They have a rubber hose that is coming out of the front and the back side is metal tubing. My question is, is it possible to cut the metal ones so that I can raise up how high the lowest points of these connections are.

Are they designed for a purpose to hang down like that is there a reason they hang down at different heights. what would be the consequences if I were to cut the bends out that cause them to hang down so low.

I will try to get a pic up and show what I mean to clarify any confusion

 

i know exactly what your talking about




My brother and I made that without any welding, its all just bolted together. It doesnt serve any purpose other than keeping water out of the engine bay.

anyway, I don't know if you would want to cut those lines because it seems to me that it would be hard to put the rubber hoses back on after because the metal ones have a "ridge" that hold on the rubber hoses. In my skidplate I just cut out a section for them to go through.

Those hoses have a lot of pressure running through them when the truck is on, they are the ones that I used to flush the coolant. I would not want to mess with them. But maybe you can come up with something that will work.

 

take your valance off and mount the top up higher by the tow hooks and your wont have to worry about the lines....

 

noah, dont you think that if you hit anything with your skid plate, its going to rip off your radator...

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^


I made a skid plate utilizing the top tow hook bolts. Two holes on the top of each hook. I didn't have any problems tucking the hoses under the plate either.

 

if you hit anything in the general area skid plate or not your going to **** something up, if anything with a skid plate it will hopefully slow down the force and you may be lucky and it wont do anything to your radiator or anything else important around there.....

 

lol of course

and i would of made mine use the tow hook bolts if i had tow hooks or the crossmember for that matter....

 

I have taken off the valance and my plan is to mount it up by the tow hooks but that is the problem. If I run the skid plate from the lowest point on the axle/frame up to the tow hooks the hoses hang about 1.5inches lower than the skid plate will be.



**Edit: I think I see what you mean now and I know how to deal with this too bad this means the peices of steel I cut tonight are going to be like 2 inches short.

 

hmm, when i test fit a piece up to my truck it covered up the lines no problem......

 

I wasnt worried about it not covering the lines the problem was my design took too steep of and angle. The lines were in the way of the skid plate angle. I am going to make the angle less and this will solve my problem but like I said it sucks that I cut the steel already oh well I will just have to cut some more. I LOVE GRINDERS

 

get some pics up when your done id like to see it.....and list out what your using materials and stuff like that

 

i want one.. but no reason other then to protect my radiator bc of the body lift. the radiator is just sitting there asking to get a rock into it haha

if u look up on the frame, behind the tow hooks almost. theres a few holes in the frame from the factory, im gonna try and tie into those.. i want to make a reciever for the front off the tow hook bolt holes

 

i cut the metal lines high and far back..and then added hose in place of the metal lines, so i could run it outa the way, and then there are no metal lines to kink and bend

 

I don't think it'd be bad to cut them and replace them with rubber, on my '04 they are like that stock... Though I don't know what type of ends the metal tubes have where they connect to the rubber lines...

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i cut mine and completly rerouted the lines around the radiator and not underneath it. I used hose clamps and overlapped the metal line with hose 6" with a couple clamps.

pics

before


after




works awesome. and no more worries.

 

^ werd to that zack..i did the same thing, keeps them outa the way really nice

 

looks like i know what im doing when i get home, i almost ripped one off the other night and this has never crossed my mind.......