Steel or Aluminum Armor?

Starting to do some research on what I want to add for additional armor to my truck. Right now I have steel rock sliders from Victory 4x4. I want to add a front and rear bumper as well as skid plates. My question is, do you guys run steel or aluminum on most of your armor? Is there a better place to run steel over aluminium or vice versa? I know there can be a large weight difference, but also a large cost difference. I am looking at these items from Victory 4x4, Mobtown and CBI. Any input appreciated. Thanks.

 

I have a steel ifs skid and rails and am adding a steel bumper. It's heavy for sure but I hit a rock 2 days after replacing the skid hard enough it lifted both front tires off the ground and was supported on the skid. And I was not playing in rocks. It was just a rock on a rutted dirt road. Not sure aluminum would have survived. The biggest issue with aluminum is that it doesn't bend well and it really doesn't bend back well. It tends to crack. There are pics of cracks at the welds on here. That said, it depends on what you plan on doing. If you doubt you will ever hit it, save weight. It you want to know that it will take a beating, go steel.

 

Mall or trail

 

1000% mall only

 

Steel skids for sure. Aluminum would be good for the front bumper because thats the least likely part you will hit. Steel for the rear bumper. I'm just going steel all around myself

 

haha thanks, but was only joking. thought the previous mall or trail comment may have been semi-troll. Don't think i'd be asking about armor if i was sticking to the pavement

 

Yeah skids are pointless for looks lol

 

I wanted and ordered steel for my front and mid skids. I got aluminum for my gas tank because it's less likely to be hit than the others and I didn't want the extra weight off-center.

If I add bumpers, I'll make them aluminum if they are available, but that said, the rear bumper I have my eye on only comes in steel.

 

Only piece I would ever mildly consider in aluminum is a front bumper. Reason being is it rarely gets hit, even with the hard trails I run. Everything else, go steel.

Rear bumper - I don’t think anyone offers an aluminum one

Sliders - same as above

Skids - you’re looking at maybe a 60 lb weight savings, down low on the truck and distributed over a large area. Won’t even notice that difference and aluminum skids aren’t as strong as steel.

Front bumper - you can save a bit of weight, and since all that weight hangs off the nose, it’ll be noticeable, which is why aluminum makes sense there.

My .02 on the matter.

 

Keeping weight off the nose of my truck is a goal for me because I drive on the interstate quite a bit. Removing a sway bar, adding hundreds of pounds of weight to the nose of the truck, and then getting cut off at 70 mph is a recipe for disaster.
I have Mobtown steel sliders. I also have Mobtown aluminum skids and they have held up well to pretty hard wheeling. Will be going aluminum front and steel rear bumpers.

 

I'm not a fan of simply taking a plate steel bumper and making it in aluminum, that would worry me if I were to put a winch in it. Aluminum is fine, that's not the problem.

I think most bumpers are simply over built and achieve their strength by throwing tons of steel in them. That's fine as far as it goes, wasting material and carrying weight you don't need, but otherwise not a major problem. But aluminum can't be stressed the same as steel and expected to have the same performance.

I'd personally consider aluminum winch bumpers engineered from the start to be made in aluminum. Really that's true of most armor, some applications are ideal for steel, others aluminum.

 

You should see how Demello makes their aluminum fronts. Extremely well engineered. That’s who I would refer OP to if he’s wanting an aluminum front.

 

I'm 85% on road and 15% off road. I purchased the RCI aluminum front skid after bashing up the OEM one and have steel sliders like you. I'm not a bro or looking to take my 30,000 vehicle rock crawling at MOAB. So, the aluminum made more sense for the weight savings.

RCI aluminum front skid: 22 lbs (Steel is 47 lbs)
RCI steel sliders: 130 lbs
ARB front recovery point: 17.5 lbs
Tools/safety/recovery gear: 80+ lbs

So I've already added 250 lbs, the size of a my neighbor's wife, semi-permanently to my truck. I don't even want to think about what a steel front/rear bumper weighs.

I'm surprised nobody is mentioning that a suspension upgrade is going to be recommenced after adding 500 lbs of steel crap to the truck or that steel will require yearly maintenance to prevent rusting in spots where the coating has worn. It's all, "GET STEEL MAN OR YOU"RE A B****". Lol

trade offs

 

Appreciate all the feedback on this

 

It is about trade-offs.

I doubt anyone will argue that aluminum armor is probably better than none. Also being weight conscious is something a lot of people are not, which is astute. I'm not running a full set of skid plates because I don't need all of it. I've worked my front skid and it's been worth every ounce of its 50 lbs.

But just because an aluminum plate is as thick or even thicker than a steel plate don't assume it's actually strong. You can get lulled into a false sense of security. When you have 2.5 tons of truck bouncing around a slider or plate needs to provide worthwhile protection and not become a damage multiplier. You'll forget that 20 lbs of weight savings when a slider doesn't actually hold up your truck or a plate bends into your suspension.

That's what I mean about using an appropriate material where you can. There's not many normal aluminum alloys that approach the strength of plain steel. Aluminum has higher deflection (it's not as stiff), lower fatigue resistance and tends to have a small elastic region (doesn't usually bend but just breaks). It needs to be made significantly thicker compared to steel in a particular application. Being about 1/3rd as heavy you have a lot of margin to add thickness before the weight is an issue. Since it also deflects about 3 times worse than steel so you really have to design to take advantage of it to get the weight advantage. Not to mention aluminum is more expensive, so it needs to be worth the effort cost-wise.

ETA: Wanted to point out Demello uses 1" aluminum in his bumper frame, 1/4" in the winch subframe and 3/16" skin. It's not necessarily a direct comparison but a steel bumper usually is using 3/16" steel for its structure and ARB is using 3mm (1/8") folded steel for similar rated bumpers. It's still lighter (and costs 2x as much for the weight saving) but that's the sort of thing I would expect to see in a bumper designed intentionally to use aluminum.

And it's not as simple even with rust. Here in Colorado the highways are treated in the winter with various salts. One they use is magnesium chloride. It's because the freezing point of mag chloride and water is lower than sodium chloride and water. If they used rock salt they'd create a huge skating rink when the snow refroze at night. Thing is it turns out mag chloride is more aggressive at corroding aluminum and copper than it is steel, so as a result it's our aluminum wheels and electrical connections that get hammered and steel less so.

 

Why not Titanium?

 

You got an orchard of trees that grow money? ;-)

 

That is what I am talking about. I didn't expect a rock where there was one. I was glad I had steel. I am not sure that aluminium would have held up to my one hit. It probably wouldn't have held up to a second.


Edit:
You sure it dropped you 1/2 over aluminium? I show a 20lb difference in RCI IFS skids.

 

Why anyone would buy (and pay more for) aluminum "Armor" is beyond me. There isnt too much weight savings. Its freaking armor. Its supposed to be strong, heavy and can take a beating.


I just got into newer toyota trucks from older land cruisers and mini trucks and 4runners. You guys are ridiculous some times. Yall are paying more and getting less for this shit.



Steel protection. Done and done.

 

Anyone going to address the fact that Toyota makes the OEM TRD Pro skid in aluminum and that members are paying $300 for them? Clearly aluminum skid plates aren't as useless as a wet paper bag. Otherwise, Toyota would have built the skid plate using steel and saved money.