Radiator Guard and other Brush Defenses

After the drive up the overgrown shelf road at Slate Mountain a few weeks ago, I started thinking more about protection from brush and tree limbs. It was something I’d not had to worry about much in the past, other than the nice “pinstriping” my Jeep has received.

I’m not sure how I can better protect the radiator where it is exposed at the grill, other than perhaps by some mesh wire or something, like you see on the older Series Land Rovers. I think the risk there is relatively low though, so it’s not a high priority

My radiator’s tank is plastic, which has never given me a a warm fuzzy feeling as far as durability goes. I opted for the relatively inexpensive Skid Row radiator guard to protect the exposed lower portion of the tank, and I just added a brief installation overview on that.

I’d never given much consideration to limb risers until that shelf road, because I’d not been on overgrown trails that often. They sure would have been useful there! Then this last week a friend of mine pointed me to the website of some other local offroaders. Reading their site, they mention that “… We have used the limb risers on many occasions. Especially on narrow overgrown trails in the Sierras.”

So now I’m thinking of installing some, and at least having the attachment points in place so I can put on the riser cables before a run where I might need them. The question there would be where to put the forward attachment points, since I don’t have a hight brush guard to use, and I’m not sure that attaching them to the fender is a good idea. I’ve been hoping to get a new front bumper (probably a Warn) at some point, so those mods might be tied together, literally as well as figuratively.

I wonder if I could raise the limb risers to help protect the lights up on my roof rack as well. Probably not. I’ll have to give all of this some more thought, which is fine since I don’t have a pressing need to get it done quickly.