Larger oil pan, frame change and skid plate

[Guest Lenny]

I have done a number of things to my Trooper over the past months and am now trying to get caught up on posting. As we all know, hot oil seems to drop the oil pressure considerably leaving us concerned for our engine. To help the oil stay cooler I built a larger aluminum oil pan and now hold 9 quarts and has a drain plug that reaches out where I can easily get at it. The oil pressure does stay much better. It still drops down but not as far. I also removed the frame tubing that runs front to rear under the right side of the engine. I wanted to convert it to a bolt in frame section so I can remove the oil pan without removing the engine. Now I can do a lot of work to the engine lif necessary because I can completely dismantle it while it's in the Trooper. The new frame member is part of my skid plate. The plate is a piece of 3/8" thick aluminum with another 1/2" aluminum plate welded to it directly under the diff. The plate bolts on real tight and becomes a strong structural part of the frame. Prior to this I had a piece of 1/4" thick aluminum plate under the diff. This worked fine until I went through a dip with a rock sticking out of the ground. The Troopers diff hit the rock quite hard as the suspension compressed. The hit put a hexagon shaped hole in the plate from the drain plug on the diff. It took the hit but I decided it needed more. Now I can do the same dip and the skid plate bounces over the rock without damage other then a gouge in the plate. The one pic shows the top side of the plate with the frame replacement bar as part of the skid plate. Also where I placed the strip of steel shows where a bracket goes that holds the lower side of the differential. When the plate is removed, the bottom of the engine along with the diff have nothing under them. Makes for easy servicing.

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Lenny