R.Montgomery96

Just received the skid plate wheels from West Coast Corvettes. The instructions say to drill a 5/16 hole in the skid plate, bolt it on, and then weld it. I believe the 2006 skid plate is made from aluminum. Will be difficult to weld to that. Has anyone mounted the skid plate wheels on a C6?

I called West Coast Corvettes technical dept. They told me that welding is not necessary on the C6. Just drill the whole and bolt it on. That sounds simple enough but how stable will the skid plate assembly be with only one bolt holding it on? Looks to me like it would want to pivot since there is nothing solid that it will be resting against.

All help/suggestions appreciated.

Bob

shopdog

The C6 doesn't have a skid plate in the front. It does have a pair of radiator core supports that stick down through the lower fascia. The WCC wheels attach to them by drilling a hole and installing a bolt.

Note that the radiator core supports aren't very strong, a good lick will break them away from the front frame rails and let the radiator drop. I don't think adding wheels to them that hang down even lower is a good idea.

What this car needs is a real skid plate, or nerf bars, solidly bolted to the frame rails, and curving forward to protect the radiator lower supports and the lower fascia. If I get some shop time this winter, I'm going to look at fabricating a set of nerf bars to do just that.

davidfarmer

The radiator supports/nerf bars are quite strong if no abused. They can handle "driveway" forces, but if you hit something hard enough to break them off, then you are abusing your car

VET4LES

Wheel's are not a good idea.

shopdog

An American car driven on American roads shouldn't put its radiator supports in jeopardy by forcing them to endure impact loads from the roadway during the course of ordinary driving. That's just bad engineering. The supports are not that strong, I've already seen 3 with broken supports, and none of them were being driven any more "abusively" than any other ordinary American car when it happened.

I raised my car 1 inch, and I still have scrapes on the radiator supports from roadway contact. That's not acceptable. I didn't expect the Corvette to be an off-road vehicle, but I did expect it to be able to function on the roadway, driveway, and parking lot without dumping the radiator in the road. The car is very low to the ground, and it does need a real skidplate to avoid damage when it bottoms at a crossroads, crossing a speed bump, entering or exiting a driveway, or parking in a parking lot.

Gearhead Jim

FWIW, there are residential streets in the Peoples Republic of Chicago that have big speed humps about every 1/2 block, I don't think a C5 or C6 could make it across even the first one without getting hung up.

I don't plan on actually raising the car like shopdog, but GM could have given us another inch of clearance without degrading the handling a noticeable amount.

DANNOV

Gearhead
I think you exaggerate. I live in the city and we do have speed bumps, but getting hung up on a bump is not a problem, they are not that high. The problem is the jarring sensation if you hit one at night because you fail to see the warning markers. I think the problem of scraping the front end is overstated, in most cases you are really scraping the rubber air dam. That happens a lot in the city, but it is not as serious as it may sound.

shopdog

I really feel that I need to amend my response to DavidFarmer. He is right that the nerf bars on the car are strong. But they're tucked up behind the fascia while the sheetmetal radiator supports hang down vulnerably and are what contact the road first.