I will post pics of this just as soon as I have enough posts on this website to do so...along with a build thread. But anyways, this is probly gonna be a fairly long winded post, but here it goes....
I found another method to mounting these skid plates (or at least the engine plate), though perhaps not on purpose. and perhaps slightly ghetto.
When I tried to explain to the various auto shops in the area how I intended to mount the plates based on Gramps write up they looked at me like I had 3 heads :facepalm: oh wellll. So last resort was to go to Jeep dealership to see if they had any mounting hardware kits to go along with their skidplates (I already had Mopar skid plates in my possession). What they told me was frustrating, but nonetheless helpful. I had hoped, that being all the way in the year 2011, Jeep might have gotten around to such things, but apparently not. So the deal is you can buy an FDII patriot with skid plates, and you can buy skid plates, but you cannot buy mounting hardware for said skid plates :brickwall BUT the guy did give me a picture of the engine skidplates and a list of exactly what bolts I needed for that. Which are things I already knew thanks to Gramps post :salute:
So I went and bought the 7 bolts that I needed, and crawled under my car to see what to do next. I discovered, that thanks to already having the bull bar mounted on the front of my Jeep, the front 3 bolts already had a place to screw into [these little metal tabs that slid into factory created holes in the frame]. Pretty excited about that. The middle bolt was easily accessible. But the 3 bolts towards the middle of the Jeep presented more of a problem.
SOLUTION: Perhaps ghetto...but it worked. I placed the washer around each bolt, and I tired a wire around it. Thankfully, each of these holes had 2 slightly bigger holes around them. I threaded the wire through and pulled the bolt through the hole facing downward. Next, slapped the skid plate up, and put another washer and the nut on the end of the bolt! Magic! And required no drilling. I suspect, from looking at the other pictures in this thread, that I can use a similar means to do the gas tank skids (which I have yet to do). But, it seemed like a decent method, given enormous patience. The bolts do not hang down hardly at all past the skid plate (perhaps 1/12" at most), so I don't suspect they will actually catch on anything. Anybody see any problems with my solution???? I know I'm still kind of a newb to the whole Jeep thing, but I'm learning a little bit every step of the way