I believe an aluminum skid plate will work for my 4/4 to help provide protection, however If your mission is hardcore rock crawling you expect to drag/slide and bounce your Morgan over rocks, then steel plates may still be your best option.
The reduced weight of aluminum, the shear strength and improved hardness and toughness over not having anything to me is far better than having no protection at all.
I’m not entirely sure its worth the extra cost vs. steel, but I will say an engineered aluminum solution does offer protection and an overall weight saving and with a lower weight, ease of install is a nice thing too.
In the end though, its a tough call and more of a personal choice.
In some respects, the steel seems to win hands down when it comes to overall engineering properties on paper, but in reality, it may be better to have a skid plate fail in some cases rather than have that potential energy transfer on to the cross member, for example it may be better to shear off a part of your skid plate at EXTREME stresses with an aluminum plate than it would be to absorb said forces on a steel plate and potentially break off bolts etc........ In other words, the failure of the skid plate may, in fact, be the skid plate doing its job...
I’m not a trained engineer, I’m a carpenter and joiner by trade.....
