No idea.....I just tightened the crap out of them and haven't thought about it again.
Lol, yea that worked. Just finished. Some tips/observations for others are below.
I did it without a lift or ramps….just out in the driveway. If you’re doing this without a lift, you absolutely need a second set of hands, which I had my neighbor luckily, and we still used a jack-stand. Also a good time to check and fill your front axle which we did. Search for Potters post for the YouTube video. I’d already done the transfer case and rear diff.
There was no hardware provided by Foutz so I just reused the stock bolts. Although after looking back at post #37, I'm likely to go to the hardware store and get some additional bolts.
Order of operations -
1 — remove the stock skid plates (3 total), leaving only the front skid and the fuel tank skid intact….requires taking off the 4 rearward bolts on the front skid plate. The two inner bolts are coated in blue (locktite?), and the outter two are slightly different then all the rest. All of them, including the other stock skid bolts took a 5/8ths socket.
2 — Using a 19mm deep socket and a corresponding wrench, remove the nuts from the 4 crossmember bolts. Leave the bolts in place.
3 — Attach the black Foutz crossmember brace. Not sure how to explain this, but if you were standing facing the driver side of the truck, the brace would be an “L” shape. The pics in post #37 above show.
4 — the rearward most skid that attaches to the outside of the driver side frame goes on top of the crossmember brace from step 3….attach the 3 bolts to outside of driver side of the frame….loosely put a bolt in pace on the crossmember to hold it in place.
5 — this is where we used a jack stand to hold up the front of the large skid plate, which goes next. Attach the rear of the large skid plate on top of the rearward skid from step 4 across the crossmember.
6 — Attach the front most Foutz skid plate to the stock front skid plate….this is just to hold it in place.
7 — now the front of the large skid can be attached, but it has to be done in order. Large skid touches truck, then small spacer plate, then front Foutz skid from step 6 ….then run the bolts through to attach.
8 — tighten the crap out of all bolts
Would’ve preferred to do this with pictures and as I went, but doing this from memory should be close enough of a guide for people to follow. Took about an hour and a half. Probably would’ve been much less if I had instructions.
Hopefully this is helpful.
