Tomken skid woes

I have a tomken gas tank skid on my 96 because the po did a real number on the stock skid mount area of the frame. The problem I'm having is when you land on a rock it knocks the hooks out and the skid and tank get knocked loose.

Any suggestions on how to keep it from happening short of taking the tank down and cutting out the fubar'd section of frame and welding in new metal?

My other ideas are adding metal to the side and welding them or simply welding the hooks to the body

you mean the slots for the j-hook in the crossmember are damaged? any pictures?

The spots for those are fine. The j hooks pop out when you take a hit.
Where the nut strips are messed up. It looks like there was a hitch and instead of breaking the bolts and removing the nut strips they torched the dang thing. Will get pics soon.

If the j-hook moves then the straps need to be tightened down more. The tank should be fully compressed against the floorboard. You should have nuts on the straps, then the skid, then nuts on the skid. The pics here including the install instructions which can be made out

Waiting for the other pics

I just remembered the reason I got the skid in the first place was because I dented the tank right where the strap is. Im going to get a new tank and j hook from a friend and I should be good to go! I'm surprised it didnt fall down sooner ts been like that a year or more. Thanks ehall

I have that same skid on mine that the PO installed. It's definitely a crap design. I've had to jack mine up a couple of times now to rehook the driver's side hook. The problem, obviously, lies in the fact that there's absolutely ZERO support for the front of the skid other than the fuel tank itself. It uses brackets that attach to the factory tank strap bolts on the forward end, and bolts solid to the rear x-member out back. I suppose their thinking was that you're more likely to land on the aft section than the forward, but that's in a perfect world and we all know that's not where we live. The problem is that if you land hard enough, you can still compress the tank enough to allow the hooks to come out of their sockets (I'm sure the OP knows this, I'm just throwing it out there for those don't know about its design flaw). This is a terrible, terrible design for anyone that actually wheels their XJ on anything rougher than a #2 trail.

I've looked mine over, and the only thing I can think of to remedy the problem is to weld on side supports that will bolt to the bottom of the frame rail like the factory skid (and every other aftermarket skid) does.

If you have a better idea, I'd be glad to listen!

I have that skid but have had no issues with attachment. The powder coat didnt last long, however...

I ended up getting new "hooks" and "compressing" the tank with a trans jack while I gunned down the nuts. I'm going out next weekend and I'll go to the ledge that always gives me problems.

I'll let you know how it goes