I bought a piece of flat stock from from homer crapot. Cut 2 pieces from it each 15". Used the lower hole that is pre-drilled on the skeg but made a complete new hole in the skeg for the top bolt. Was able to drill between the circular factory cutouts in the skeg to get the best angle. Too much angle and you start limiting yourself in sand, gravel or hard bottmed areas. Too shallow and you risk your guard bending up and into your skeg after a hard impact. I have bent my guards up about an inch, which I anticipated being the stock wasn't that hard of a grade of steel. After all the impacts It's taken it hasn't moved since last season so I guess it reached a point where it is not gonna bend up anymore. However, when I sideswipe a rock it will bend out to the side a 1/2" or so. Only issue that has had on performance is increased tiller torque. I simpy unblot the guards hammer 'em out straight again and re-install. Prolly have to do that a half dozen times a season. My buddy runs a single bar of the same flat stock on his 35 balanced. His impacts are less severe due to the slower speeds he runs compared to what I run. I also use SS bolts and haven't broke one yet after some serious rock impacts. I saw where Glenn runs one on his rig when I went hunting with them back in Dec and it handled the rocky river well.
As you can see I drilled too high( created to steep of an angle) for the top bolt and had to re drill just beneath, but I did use the pre-drilled hole on the bottom. Just drilled both out to 3/8".
As you can see the rock guards have bent up about an 1". But I anticipated that with the softer stock I used. I still have about an inch of clearance from the Big Blade prop I run.
Here you can see that they are double stacked. Like I said, any side swipe at full throttle and they will bend out about 1/2". Nothing a hammer can't fix once back at home. They always bend away from the direction of the factory skeg bend. They've never bent with it.
