I believe they are in Israel.
Considering the length of the Gladiator's wheelbase and all that expensive and vulnerable emissions equipment under there, I went ahead and bought MetalCloak's full belly pan system. My fuel filter skid cover was already mangled despite only taking the truck on a couple easy trails so far. Full skidplating is expensive, but it'll pay for itself on the first difficult trail with all the damage it prevents.
What you described is almost exactly what happened to me... busted bolt, skid plate bent, etc. etc. Couldn't agree more about placement. I was aware of it going into the weekend of wheeling and left scratching my head that not one person thought "maybe we shouldn't put a critical system component below the frame of a Jeep meant to climb rocks." Crazy.Same thing happened to my wife's JLURD last year on the waterfall at Gold Mountain....
Panicked when someone yelled FLUID... it sheared one bolt off completely, bent the housing and flipped the draincock... we got lucky...
I pounded it out, still need to buy a new one and I plan to weld a slider plate to it...
Jeep screwed the pooch on placement here, better design or location wouldn't have created a below frame snag point
You can see it's still bent and the sheared bolt
I recently got the Asfir skid plate as well. Thought it would be easer to unbolt the transfercase skid and the two bolts on the frame side removing all as one piece for oil changes but my transfercase skid is welded on in two spots. Is yours similar?Finally got around to purchasing and installing the skid from Asfir. From Israel to my house in 4 days.
Will make draining and replacing the filter more difficult (skid has to come off) but well worth the added peace of mind. Will see how it holds up on the rocks next week.
Couple months late to the party but did you ever sort this out? I’ve been looking to purchase a skid for my fuel filter and our AZ trip is 6 weeks away. The problem with asfir is they’re in Israel and I just can’t see them putting planes in the air at this particular time if you know what I mean.
The skid plate fits fine, it's just a PITA to take it off to do fuel filter changes. There are 6 bolts that attach the skid to the factory transfer case skid and then two that bolt up to the frame. It's a tight fit between the transfer and the skid plate so it's very tedious to remove but it's a good skid plate.
Good to know ??
Ya I'm pretty sure mine shipped from Israel.Good to know ??
I’m just Leary of purchasing right now due to the fact that Israel is in a bit of a crisis. Even though the address on their website says Spain the item shows it being shipped directly from Israel ?‍
Can I borrow yours for a week in December ?
