i want to manufacture skid plates for my gv2000. my question is what material would be better suited:
1. alouminium with thickness about 6 mm

or

2. stainless steel (inox) about 2 mm ?

by the my greetings to all !!

i want to manufacture skid plates for my gv2000. my question is what material would be better suited:
1. alouminium with thickness about 6 mm

or

2. stainless steel (inox) about 2 mm ?

by the my greetings to all !!

I think either one of those would be a bad choice for a skid plate and here's why. Both aluminum and SS but especially aluminum 'load up' when abrazed/scraped The effect of this is that they drag when being drug over rocks. This will try to stop your vehicle and stop your progress. I'd recommend a mild steel sheet metal piece. It will glide a little more smoothly over the rocks.

HTH and YMMV,

-Eric

so galvanized steel would be best ?

thickness i would assume approx. 3mm

have to agree totally with this 1 as a mate wasted hours beating aluminium plates up & he was getting stuck on nearly every rock pile we came accross. I made mine out of 3mm mild steel then got it annodised to prevent a bit of rust & I slide like on Ice..

so galvanized steel would be best ?

thickness i would assume approx. 3mm

3mm?  :eek:

I think I would go with something a bit thicker!  3mm = 1/8 inch - I'm thinking the skids on my Kick are 3/16 inch, so 4.5 - 5 mm...

I made mine out of 3/16 steel and painted it.  I will see if I can find a Pic and get some numbers  off it for you.
George

Hi, I'm new around here. I'm from Europe and I have the diesel version of the Grand Vitara (3 door).
About the plates, 6mm in aluminium or 2 mm steel is not enough to support the weight. I weighed mine at 810 kgs up front, anf 700 rear. In the shape I wanted, in 4mm steel I would get 13mm deformation if I held it up at the center with all the weight. In 8 mm aluminium 6,23mm deformation. It is very unlikely to have all the weight at one point (that point being the center of the plate), so I went for 4mm steel. In this case, the deformation would be 13,05 mm, whichwould be too much, but as I said before it is very unlikely to find the exact conditions for so much deformation.

Hope this helps!

sergi

I can jack mine up with 3/16 steel (4.7mm) and it won't bend at all !
George

blacknight, I bet I can jack mine up too, and it's 4mm. The thing is I suppose you don't jack it up from the center of the plate, but on the edges... If I jack mine up from the center it does bend, and quite a bit!
What I ment to say on my previous post was that if you hit a rock exactly at the center with all the weight of the car, it will deform, possibly damaging the front differential.
I forgot to say I calculated for my car which is diesel, so it weighs much more than than the gas version. It weighs 1510 kgs in all!

That's in the dead center on an XL-7  
George