Thread: Defender Sump/Steering guard

Hi all,

looking at getting a sump/steering guard for my Defender.

I've seen various brands which all look basically the same but with different thickness of the bash plate or mounts.

Are the only differences the thickness of material or are there other differences such as shape ie: where the folds are?

I'm interested in peoples advice, opinions, experience speciafically whether the extra thickness makes any real difference?

thanks in advance

I ran a Terrafirma 841R (8mm thick aluminum alloy with steel brackets). Wheeled it hard four or five times on very nasty rocks. Repeated hits eventually gouged and scraped the surface, and put a huge dent in the center of it, warping it dramatically. This caused the steel brackets to bend as well.

I ran it that way for another trip before I changed it out for a hardened 3/16" thick steel plate. The hardened plate hasn't dented at all, but has gotten quite a few very shallow scrapes across the surface instead. The hardened steel plate is still doing well - I imagine the brackets (which are 1/4" mild steel) will buckle before the plate does.

Mind you - this is pretty hard rock crawling. If your application is for protection against soft targets - trees, stumps, animals, etc. I imagine any number of steering guards on the market would suit you perfectly. But if you're constantly pummeling rocks with the guard, steel beats virtually every alloy (except 7075-T651, but even that suffers for hardness and stiffness) for the same thickness. Add in heat-treatable steel alloys and subsequent hardening, and you'll be moving even further up in lifetime for the steering guard.

But in the rock crawling game, nothing lasts forever.