Jeep Talk Show: Wheels, Sliders, and Knuckles – Expert Off-Road Insights!

Welcome to another thrilling episode of the Jeep Talk Show! 🚙💨 Join host Tony and expert Greg Nickel from Platinum Drivetrain Works as they dive deep into the world of Jeep modifications. This episode is packed with must-know info for every Jeep enthusiast, whether you’re hitting the trails or cruising the streets. 🔧 What’s Covered in This Episode? Wheels & Tires: Learn the critical differences between steel and aluminum wheels, backspacing, offset, and why beadlocks matter for serious off-roading. Greg breaks down how wheel width and tire choice impact performance, especially at low air pressures. Rock Sliders: Discover the pros and cons of bolt-on vs. weld-on sliders, and why proper installation is key to protecting your Jeep’s body on rugged terrain. Steering Knuckles: Aluminum vs. steel knuckles—Greg explains why factory aluminum knuckles may not hold up under intense off-road conditions and recommends upgrades for durability. Rockwall Rubber Duck Regatta: A fun shoutout to this charity event where you can adopt a duck for a chance to win a modified Jeep! Visit RockwallDuckRace.org for details. Jeep Gladiator Trim Levels: Get the lowdown on the Jeep Gladiator’s trims and features. Read more at realtrucks.com/blog by searching “Jeep Gladiator trim levels explained.” 🎙️ Special Guest: Greg Nickel from Platinum Drivetrain Works in Hutto, Texas, shares his expertise as a tech and installer. Contact Platinum Drivetrain Works at (325) 248-4000 or find them on social media for your Jeep build questions! 🛠️ Sponsors: RealTruck.com: Gear up for adventure with performance parts and off-road accessories built for the wild. Explore deals at realtruck.com. Windshield Defense by Racing Optics: Protect your Jeep’s windshield with triple-layer, race-tested protection. Installs in 20 minutes! Use code JTS20 for 20% off + free shipping at windshielddefense.com. 🔥 Why Watch?This episode is a goldmine for Jeepers looking to upgrade their rigs with confidence. From avoiding common pitfalls like improper wheel sizing to choosing the right sliders and knuckles, we’ve got you covered with practical tips and expert advice. Plus, hear about the latest Jeep community events and charity initiatives! 📢 Get Involved! Drop a 5-star rating and review on your favorite podcast platform to help grow our Jeep family. Got a question or topic idea? Send it to us at jeeptalkshow.com/contact. Follow us on social media and join our newsletter for the latest updates and reminders about our Wednesday Round Table episodes! 🏞️ Keywords: Jeep modifications, off-road wheels, beadlocks, rock sliders, steering knuckles, Jeep Gladiator, aluminum vs steel, off-road tires, Jeep Talk Show, Rockwall Duck Regatta, RealTruck, Windshield Defense, Jeep upgrades, off-road accessories. 🚗 Stay Connected: Website: jeeptalkshow.com Instagram/Facebook: @JeepTalkShow Charity Event: RockwallDuckRace.org Thanks for cruising with us! Keep your Jeep adventure rolling, and we’ll see you on the trails! 🌄 #JeepTalkShow #OffRoad #JeepLife #JeepModifications #RockSliders #Beadlocks #JeepGladiator Rev up your engines, Jeep lovers— the Jeep Talk Show is here to take you on a wild ride! For 15 years, we’ve been the ultimate pit stop for Jeep enthusiasts, delivering off-road thrills, insider tips, and a whole lotta Jeep passion. With a powerhouse crew of hosts and team members, we’re dropping five action-packed episodes every week to fuel your Jeep obsession! Buckle up for our fan-favorite Chic Chat, a women-centric, women hosted episode that’s all about empowering female Jeepers. It’s the perfect space for women to dive into the world of Jeeps and off-roading, hosted by fearless ladies who live for the trail. But that’s just the start—we’ve got over 1,200 episodes waiting to rev up your day, whether you’re tearing down the highway, mowing the lawn, or pumping iron at the gym. Watch us on video or listen audio-only—your call, your adventure! Join the Jeep Talk Show family and become part of the ultimate Jeep community! Jump into our Discord chat at jeeptalkshow.com/discord, support us on Patreon for ad-free episodes at www.patreon.com/jeeptalkshow, or catch our live Round Table every Tuesday at 7:30 PM CT via Zoom (https://jeeptalkshow.com/roundtable, password: jeep). Stay in the loop with our newsletter at https://jeeptalkshow.com/newsletter and follow the action on Instagram @jeeptalkshow (instagram.com/jeeptalkshow). Head to https://jeeptalkshow.com to explore our world of Jeep madness, subscribe, and let us make your day a little more rugged and a lot more fun. Ready to roll with us? Let’s hit the trails together!#JeepTalkShow #JeepLife #OffRoad

No, that’s the other way. So the wider it is, the more likely you are to have a bead pop.(…) Because even at low air pressures, if the rim is fairly narrow, it’s actually forcing the beads to stay where they are because the physical stature of the tire wants to do this. Because your bead bundle has steel cords in it. It’s still a cable inside the bead bundle. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bias tire or a radial tire for tread and sidewall. In that respect, but a wider wheel at lower air pressure is more likely if you side hill it or side load it or curb check it to push the bead off.

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Alright, here we are for another flagship episode. I am Tony and welcome to the Jeep Talk Show. On tonight’s episode, Greg and

(Explosion)

last on last Tuesday’s flagship episode and on the round table, which was Wednesday.(…) It was it was an interesting conversation and we’re going to Greg and I kind of chatted about it on the next day after the round table. So we’re going to bring you up to speed on kind of that chat that he and I had. And wheels what we’re going to be talking about on this week’s round table. And so we’re going to talk about it tonight. Wheels what’s important before you buy some and also on coming up on tonight’s episode and on the round table. Knuckles Steel versus aluminum. What the hell?

(…)

That’s a hot one for debate. Yes, I think so too. But you know, it it saves you nickel over 20 years. And you know, it’s a lot of fun. It saves you nickel over 20 years in gas mileage. So you got to do it.

(…)

Pass.(…) Greg, tell us about you.

(…)

Hey, guys, it’s Greg, Nicole Lee, tech and installer Platinum Drivetrain Works and Huddo, Texas. Satellite shop to the ever so famous and popular Platinum Off-Road up in Rockall, Texas, owned and operated by Mike Etherington. Happy to be here and with everybody this evening. Do you go to the the duck thing, the duck festival in it’s it’s where Rockwall it’s in Rockwall, right? Yeah, it’s in Rockall. And I think originally that one, if I was memory service, because I know we’ve discussed it before, it started out as a non-jeep related event. Yes. And somebody said so and somebody suggested I think it was Mary. But Mary, you know, there’s there’s a thing with with ducks and jeeps. Did you know about that? Oh, yeah, it blew up.

(…)

Yeah, they were doing this. No, they basically have like a little stream system manufactured manmade stream system there. And they raised they put your duck with it with your with a number on it. You can adopt a duck. You can’t buy one because that’s just wrong. But you can adopt a little toy duck and floats down the deal. And whoever makes it to the finish line first, when this is recent to over the last like the last two or three years, you win a jeep. I mean, they’re literally given away. Oh, you don’t know about this. They’re literally given. No, I didn’t know about that. I’ve never been to one. I’ve only heard about them. I’ve never attended one. So that’s you actually you actually don’t have to attend to win. So and there’s there’s third second and third prizes, too. But yeah, it was really funny. I think it was three years ago that we interviewed Mary and one other person from from the group because it’s a charity thing. And they it was their first year giving away a jeep. And we had her on the roundtable, which we we have guests around table from time to time. And several people from the on the the Jeep talk show folks, the listeners, the team members and stuff, bought adopted some ducks and one of them we call it going right for the adoption fee. What do they get for that? 10 bucks, I think is for see. Yeah. So you got a chance to win a whole jeep. Yeah. One of the come on. It’s kind of a no brainer. One of our cheap talk show team members. I think he bought a 10 pack for like 90 bucks because, you know, you buy 10, you get a little discount. And and so we now call him the bastard because he won. So one of the G won the G. Yes. One of the cheap talk show. Oh, my God. One. Yeah,(…) he had just bought a Ford Raptor. He had a he has an LJ and his name is and then one of the best.

(…)

So Andrew the bastard. OK, well, I mean, congrats, Andrew, at the same time. No, no, no. You lucky duck son of a bitch. And then last year when they were given away the jeep, they didn’t just give away a jeep. They gave away a modified jeep. I think I think Platinum Off-Road is one of the people that put one of the sponsors. Yeah, made made the modifications to it or at least bought some of the modification stuff on it. And yeah, so a young lady got the one, the Jeep, and she never had a Jeep, has been interested in Jeep. And not only did she get a Jeep, she got one that was off road, more off road capable, can’t say offer capable, but had been modified with tires and a little bit. That’s still pretty damn cool if you think about it. Oh, it really is. And they’re doing again this year. Also another modified Jeep this year.

(…)

So OK, well, I can I can share 100 bucks for duckies. I might have to get in on this.

(…)

It’s hard to wait on my V8 swap. I need something else to drive. You know, I’m teasing this. I’m teasing this thing and I don’t have the information. This is just off the top of my head that I was talking about this wasn’t in the show notes. I think it’s like Rockwall Duck Regatta or something.

(…)

Sounds right. Sounds close. I’m just looking it up really quick so I can tell people where to go.

(…)

Rubber duck regatta,(…) adopt ducks, when a Jeep, adopt ducks, now and you go to Rockwall race.

(…)

Read it without reading glasses.

(…)

Rockwall Duck Race dot org, Rockwall Duck Race dot org. So that’s where you go. You can buy the tickets now. I think it’s coming up in October when they’re they’re having the event. So and it’s in Rockwall, Texas. Tell tell everybody what the charities are that they hold.(…) Because that’s that’s kind of the no, they don’t have it on there. I figured they’d have it on there. I see something here at the bottom that says Grace Clinic.

(…)

Grace Clinic.(…) Did I mention I don’t have my reading glasses on and you’re asking me to read stuff?(…) Yeah, you want me to look it up? Boys and girls clinics.

(…)

Yeah, anyway, just go over the website and you can see what charities that are there. So it’s a charity for kids in need. Yes. Like, OK, that’s enough said. If you need any other details than that, then just yeah.

(…)

Adopt some duckies, win a Jeep. Yeah. And then say you’re doing it for the kids. All right. So anyway, let’s let’s talk about the the sliders thing. So I’ll just say I think you crawfish a little bit on on the roundtable. You were all this is how you do things last last Tuesday when it was you and I. Hopefully it was like, well, you know,(…) don’t crawfish man, tell these these people it needs to be well on. I think I think you had a very good point. And I mean, it’s not that the people in the Zoom room, the people in the roundtable didn’t have a good point. But I mean, it’s like I told you on that show on the roundtable. There’s a right way of doing it. Do you want it to protect your Jeep or don’t you? And I think that’s that’s where we are with this, isn’t it? I mean, if you want to protect your teeth, it needs to be well built and it needs to be attached to something that’s going to hold it in place, not bend up into your right.

(…)

That was why my really wasn’t so much crawfishing. It’s just trying to delineate the difference between like if you just say well done versus bolt on, the key thing that’s being left out is where on the vehicle it’s being attached and how do you think you can have a little that’s not going to bend up? Um,(…) I have this like in the roundtable and I’ve seen some of the newer styles that like the other guys are talking about where you actually have the rocker armor that’s affixed in the correct places, like the Moto built system or the generate system where it provides additional mounting surface for the slider assembly, not just the pinch welder, the body mount bolts. So like that’s the main difference between the newer versions, like what we were showcasing on my old crappy ones.(…) They don’t have that additional support on the body so that there is a definitive lack of structural support there. And they pivot on the pinch seam and bend up. Whereas a set that’s welded properly to the chassis and the guys had, there was really good points made. Like we don’t ever just take a piece of square round DOM and stick it to the chassis by itself. You have to have a fish plate, some gusting. There has to be something else there because the fact remains as was pointed out during the roundtable. The frame material thickness is normally significantly thinner than any aftermarket quality rock slider assembly. You’re going to get your hands on for reasonable money. We’re not talking about, you know, just all the really crappy ones made out of exhaust tube that are strictly for looks. I’m talking about ones you’re going to use. So if installed properly, yes, body mounted ones can hold up to a fair amount of abuse.

(…)

Does that change my stance on like how I use my personal rig? Absolutely not, because I don’t want the body being the foundation for anything that’s that level of structural need. It’s again, I’ll stand by what I said because I don’t feel like I’m back peddling your Swiss cheese in the sheet metal to put the armor on to protect the sheet metal.

(…)

Yeah, you’ve destroyed the thing you’re trying to protect. So when you say fish plate, what’s a fish plate? Is that that square rectangular looking thing that you? It can be you can shape it however needed. I’ve seen them all different ways. So if any time that you’re like butt joining two pieces of steel together this way or you’re like, say this is your frame rail and we’re coming in with a piece of D.O.M. I don’t want that one well to be the only contact surface I have. Of course, I’m holding my hand. This way would be this way coming out from right. So you take a larger piece of thicker metal and weld it to whatever your substrate, your foundation is going to be. So in the case of a frame rail on a JK, like my three link mounts that are all frame side mount, they’re not just brackets welded straight to the frame. They have pre-bent encompassing pieces that fit into the frame or around the frame. So you basically you’re it’s just like with body armor, you’re spreading the load, your welds go around the perimeter. Some of them like if you’re doing a butt to butt like guys that do C notches on on pickup trucks to do drop airbags. You don’t just weld, you know, the C truss on there. You have to it can’t just butt weld. I mean, I guess you could, but that’s not ideal. You want to spread those loads and that weld out because of all the structural stress that’s being important on it. It’s the same thing with your rails. It’s the same thing with if you’re attaching a roll cage directly to the chassis and there’s different ways to do it.

(…)

One of the and I believe it was was it Greg Greg one that mentioned that he makes a male female socket for his sliders.(…) You can do similar just like an engine mount. You do the same thing for roll cages for for trail use rigs. There are competition use where you have an attachment point that’s off the chassis with a spar or an outrigger. And then you have a place where you can either plate or round which or whatever for the rest of the cage at that point. So in that case, if you want or need the body separation frame separation like the guys were talking about, or you need to remove it to do something with the body, then it’s fun. You can just simply unbolt the thing. Now, that’s kind of a mix of bolted and welded.(…) Not personally, how I would do it on mine. If I’m doing it on mine for what I’m doing. And again, I have to stress what I’m doing with mine is not the average jeeper that’s trying to go out and do good time fun stuff. I mean, I’m I’m really pushing my rig a lot harder than your average jeep owner ever would.(…) But that being said, my life and my ability to get home both depend on it. My family depends on that safety factor. So I’m going to over engineer and overbuild whatever I can. No fuses, no weak links. But that’s, you know, for me, you don’t need to go to that much extra effort and expense if you’re a weekend warrior over landing. Yes, as we discussed, shit can happen and you want to be prepared for that. But I think what was taken out of context that, you know, it’s a couple of the guys were like, well, you’re saying if it’s not done your way, then it’s just bad. Well, no, that’s not that’s not what I was saying. I’m good with my preferred. That’s the Tony. My preferred method. I don’t want it bolted on there. I just don’t. I mean, and again, the cheap ass post, you know, slay poison spider sliders that I have are some of the worst ones you can get because they’re not first gen, they’re not second gen. These are post buyout shitty. It’s such a shame. We talked about that. It is a shame. Because poison spider to me was a was a really good name. I never bought it. They were. I mean, poison spider avalanche, insta-gree, Rubicon Express. There’s there’s tons of them that all were there at one point or another. And since since then either don’t exist or been bought out and they just are there. They’re selling parts based on a previous built reputation and a name. That’s it. So again, buyer beware, do your own homework. Don’t just pick it because it looks like it’s the most expensive or because it’s the most cheap or even if it has a name that you recognize, you need to check and find out what’s going on with the company because things have changed. And there’s there’s lots of them out there that do really good stuff. We talked about a lot of the different brand names on the round table that are all very respected, high quality components that will fit almost any budget, you know, from medium to high. So you don’t have to feel like you have to skim, you know, go cheap on that. You don’t need to. You can get quality stuff for not a whole lot of money. It’s just for for for purposes of hardcore intense use, that’s not something you want attached to the body. And my rig is like the poster child for that right now. Unfortunately, I really do wish I had never put those things on there. Well, I mean, but you’re in a situation where you can change them anytime you want to just depends on what you do. You have a pipe bender at the shop. Can you actually build your own? I do not have it. I don’t have a tubing bender currently at the shop. I do have access to one. So that helps. Um, you know, between Mike and I, we can, yeah, the D.O.M. is still very expensive though, isn’t it? I mean, it probably still the cost of 300 bucks.

(…)

Uh, it varies depending upon wall thickness and diameter and stuff. I mean, all those things contribute to what the cost is. I think the last time I priced, you know, a decent one 20 wall or something better, one 34 wall, it was 20 something bucks a foot,(…) but you know, so again, you know, actually we’re diving into a realm where there’s a lot of cheap owners that aren’t going to be like Greg one or like me that are going to fab our own stuff, you know, like you, you mentioned people want to be able to do it themselves. They don’t want to pay somebody extraordinary amounts of money to install things that they can bolt on with simple hand tools.(…) I mean, the fanciest tool you need to do any of that’s going to be the rib nut tool. That’s it. The rest of it’s just basic tools. I would feel, I would feel awkward about putting on sliders that had rib nuts though. It’s like, no, I don’t think so. So let me ask you before we get too far away from this, let me ask you, um, wall thickness. So if somebody is looking for sliders, I didn’t even think about this before. You mentioned the wall thickness of the D.O.M. If you’re looking at sliders online, I mean, I think if you go to motor built, that’s a safe place to go. Uh, but maybe you don’t want to do a motor built. Uh, what kind of wall thickness would you be looking for? Or rocks? Yeah.

(…)

Minimum of one 20. And that’s probably not enough. One 34 would be where I’d start and then go up from there. I mean, the stuff that I was using for my lower control arms was quarter walls, you know, 0.2 50. So, yeah, I mean, you’d build it however thick or thin you want. Just long as you understand 0.25, you’re talking about a quarter of an inch. Quarter of an inch thickness. I can bend two inch diameter quarter wall, D.O.M. Lower control arms at will. That’s why my lowers have been swapped out for a quarter of a 70, 75.

(…)

Yes and no. Cause it’s like, if you, you think you’ve built it tough and then you go out and really beat on it and you find out where the weak spots are and you go, okay, well that’s how you learn that idea. Cause you know, the, everybody that gets on social media to want to build their own three link or four link suspension without buying a kit or something that’s pre-engineered. That’s like the go-to, you know, for buggies and aftermarket or, uh, home built stuff. So, oh, you need two inch quarter wall, D.O.M. That’s, that’s all you need. And then guys figured out, legit guys figured out, you then that stuff easier than you think, you know, and it depends upon how you’re using it. The links, et cetera, et cetera. Anything’s bendable. You just want to do the best you can do. Oh, you know, we were talking about, we were talking about before we got started about questions for the show. This is a good question for the show. This, this ought to piss off some of some vendors out there. Uh, you want to ask us what a Jeep talk show recommended or a Greg recommended slider. So this end of the question, what, what would we recommend? There you go. Let us know what Jeep you have, uh, make your own model. Of course the make will be Jeep,(…) but let us know if it’s a gladiator or a TJ, anything. I mean, this is stuff that, uh, the Greg Greg, say your last name for me. Is it nickel?

(…)

Nickel nickel. It’s an Irish German thing and I CHO LL. So it’s pronounced like coin, but it’s spelled different. So if I had a nickel for every time that happened, that would be you.

(…)

That’s how you say that or spell or nickel or Nigel or it’s, I’ve heard it all different kinds of ways. It’s on the, on the round table. We’re going to call Greg one Henderson,(…) and we’re going to call you nickel. So I want to make sure I was pronouncing it correctly. I don’t get to be Greg two anymore. If you want to be, you can. I just thought it’d be better. And so it is Greg one, Greg two stuff. Cause somebody’s going to say Greg, uh, and you’re going, and then both of us are going, what, what, what?(…) I’m thinking ahead. All right. So yeah, send us a, send us a question. If you’re a concerned about what sliders you should put on your, uh, your Jeep or really anything, cause we could talk to any part of it. I’ve got opinions on everything. Uh, nickel here has a actual information, good information can do information times, uh, which is different from me. I just kind of go by what I think sometimes it’s good. I think most of the time it’s good, but, uh, always good. We’re supposed to do it, right?(…) Uh, no, I’m not going to go there. All right. So, uh, was there anything else more anymore? Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was, uh, I was watching a thing and it was actually the guy that, uh, forget the name of the show. It’s a, uh, a kind of a British show is about, uh, it’s a comedy about them being on a cruise liner in space.(…) And there was an American astronaut on that ship and it had a lot of problems, kind of like a Titanic type thing. And, uh, they were talking about sex and he makes kind of this under, under a handed comment. He goes, well, a hole is a hole. So that’s why I say, whenever you say,

(…)

whatever you say, if it feels good, do it. I draw the line, you know, he was, he was a little more free thinking than I was.

(…)

So anyway, uh, was there anything else you wanted to add? Not, not to the holes, a hole, but to the, uh, the, the whole slider thing, but before we move on. Yeah, no, it just, it really does come down to, you know, what your budget can tolerate and then what you honestly intend to do with the Jeep. If, if you know that you’re going to be going out on certain types of terrain, that those chances are higher than not, that you’re going to get into it, you’re going to side check into it or slip off of it. You know, I mean, don’t, don’t waste your time with the piddly stuff, get something substantial and get it under there. Otherwise, if you’re just going for style and you don’t off-road the thing, I mean, yeah, you put it on there with sheet metal screws, I guess and don’t worry about it because it’s a step at that point. It’s not really a slider.(…) So I think the, a lot of people are saying getting anything with steps, you don’t want anything to hang. So if it, yeah, if it’s hanging down that far, it’s a hindrance. It becomes something to hang up on a rut or a tree root or a rock or something else, or just unnecessarily tear up. Cause you don’t realize that it’s sticking off a bottom of your slider like that. And some people like that look. Some people actually need them. You know, if you’re a person with physical limitations. Yeah. Well, yeah, that’s, I mean, honestly, to me, that seems like that’s more often the case than not, because if you don’t know, if you have it taken the time to research it and you’re depending upon the social media experts, you’re looking at pictures and you see it, or you call one shop and you talk to one service advisor. That’s just trying to make that commission sale. Like he’s not going to spend the time to try to educate a customer one at a time on the ins and outs of the different styles. He’s going to sell you what you think you want and go on. So it really does come back to us as consumers,(…) understanding what we’re asking for, what we want versus how we’re going to use it, how much it’s going to cost. So I remember before I had my first Jeep, I wanted a Wrangler. And I think, I think at the time it was like YJ’s back way back when, and I wanted a YJ with, and I didn’t know what it was called, but a friend of mine that worked told me it was a Nerf bar. So I wanted a YJ with a Nerf bar.

(…)

That’s the, so, you know, you don’t know, you don’t know. Yeah.

(…)

So then the look, it looks the part and that’s about it. It’s like you said, the muffler, the muffler tubing. Yeah. I mean, you guys are like three or four inch diameter exhaust pipes, all they are. Yeah. So the muffler tubing is not, it bends very easily. It’s meant to be light. And all it has to do is keep the gas inside of it until it gets to the end. So it’s a very lightweight stuff. All right. Good conversation. All right. So now we’ve, we’ve talked about the bolt on versus a weld on sliders. And let’s talk about wheels. You know anything about wheels?(…) Oh yes. A little bit.(…) And boy, howdy. That’s a, that is a rabbit hole waiting to happen.(…) Wheels. I mean, really, when you’re modifying your Jeep from me personally, that is the two wonderful things to do. Your Jeep is wheels and tires. It makes such a radical change difference to the look. It goes from pedestrian or civilian look to hardcore off-road vehicle. More purpose built. Yeah. Yeah. It really, really stands out. There’s, I mean, with all the options that are available these days and have been for quite some time, it really is just as much for a lot of people in aesthetic value choice as it is an actual component performance choice. So, and you can mix and match those up. I personally run KMC beadlocks. I’ve got the two 35 grenades under mine. They’re a 17 by nine and a half.(…) I’ve had them for what? Six or seven years now. Other than replacing the ring gear bolt or the, excuse me, the lock ring bolts a few times over the years. I haven’t had any issues out of them. Are there better ones out there than KMC? Yeah. If money were no object, I’d have some custom trail readies or Hutchinson’s or something like that. But you know, at the time when I bought them, it was the best that I could afford to fit in my budget for what I wanted to do. And they have worked out beautifully.(…) Um, I know a lot of the factory wheels, you know, it, it seems like most people either dislike the factory wheels because of the styling itself. They’re just like, eh, it’s, it looks like everybody else’s factory Jeep. Like you said, um, I want to set my Jeep apart. And a lot of times it does come back to the actual physical specs of factory Jeep wheel under a JL or a JT is going to have a whole lot more backspacing than an aftermarket wheel would normally have the option for. And where people get confused when they start looking at those numbers, cause you hear about offset, you hear about backspacing, you hear about this,(…) really it boils down to two simple numbers. Backspacing is where the wheel flange where it actually mounts to the hub and they measure from that spot to the inside edge of the bead, you know, out there at the outside, that is your backspacing. Okay. Offset is where the amount of distance between the front or the back of the wheel from the wheel mounting surface.(…) So you can have negative or positive offset with different backspacing can mix and match, blah, blah, blah. Like in my case, my particular wheels are three and a half inch backspace with a minus 38 millimeter offset. And what that equates to is basically 3.61 inches or so worth of backspacing overall because of a negative offset.

(…)

So you make those decisions based on clearance. You make those decisions based on how wide a tire you’re going to run versus how tall, obviously a like a 35, 12, 50 series tires, 35 inches tall with a 12, 50, 12 and a half inch section width. Remember kids section width is not the tread, it’s the sidewalls on the designated, you know, approved rim widths. 35, 12, 50, no problem on a six inch wide wheel, seven inch wide wheel, eight inch wide wheel. How you could shoehorn them onto a 10 inch wide wheel if you really want to. Bear in mind, the wider the wheel, the more you’re pushing out the sidewalls and pulling the tread down because we’re stretching the beads out wide. So you want to balance that. The general, I don’t want to call it rule of thumb because nobody likes that these days, but the general idea is we don’t want our section width of the tire to exceed four or five inches of whatever the rim width is. So on a eight inch wide wheel, you really don’t want to go much more than like a 13 or 13 and a half inch section tire. That’d be about as wide as you’d want to stuff on an eight inch wide wheel ish. Again, there’s so many caveats to this. What are you doing with it? What style of tire is it? What kind of air pressures are you running all the time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I am a big fan these days. I mean, you have to be really careful about the size of the wheel and the size of the tire. If you get them too far off, if like, if the wheel is really skinny and it’s pulling the tire in where the beads are, now when you air down, you’re more likely to break a bead correct or incorrect.

Hey, when Jeep unveiled the return of the Gladiator in 2018, fans rejoiced. The returning model, which pulled significant inspiration from the JL Wrangler was Jeep’s first modern attempt at a pickup truck. Before the JT Gladiator, Jeep’s previous truck offerings, like the original Gladiator and the follow-up XJ-based Comanche, met their fates in the late 80s and early 90s respectively.(…) Officially released in 2019 for the 2020 year model, the Jeep Gladiator met initial success with solid sales figures. Though interest in the truck has dropped to an extent, a diehard Jeepers still respect the Gladiator for filling a void in the previously untapped, off-road centric, mid-size truck market. If you’re interested in purchasing a JT Gladiator, but aren’t sure which model is right for you, real truck as you covered. In this feature, we are covering everything there is to know about Jeep Gladiator trim levels, including what they are, what they represent, and the standard features of each of the offers. Now you can read more about this over on realtrucks.blog.com blog. realtrucks.com.blog just do a search for Jeep Gladiator trim levels explained.

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(…) Um, no, that’s, that’s the other way. So the wider it is, the more likely you are to have a bead pop because even at lower pressures, if the rim is, is fairly narrow, it’s actually forcing the beads to stay where they are because the, that the physical stature of the tire wants to do this because your bead bundle has steel cords in it. It’s still cable inside the bead bundle. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bias tire or a radial tire for tread and sidewall in that respect, you know, but a wider wheel at lower air pressure is more likely if you side hill it or side loaded or curb check it to push the bead off. Again, some aftermarket wheels that if you’ve ever had a wheel, you know, a tire off your wheel and you notice there’s a little hump right next to where the bead normally rides, that’s called the safety bead inside the wheel.(…) Um, a lot of aftermarket manufacturers make that, that safety bead where it’s made into the wheel more aggressive than a standard factory wheel to help stave off inadvertent pushing of the bead bundle. The 2003 TJ Rubicon was one of the first ones from the factory to offer that. And that’s why those 16 inch alloys, the five spokes on the Rubicons were so special. That was one of the reasons it had a more aggressive bead bundle that would allow for lower air pressures without having to go to aftermarket wheels. Of course the backspace was really cool.

(…)

It was really cool. And that’s one of those little details that your average Wheeler didn’t think about, have any idea about, didn’t even consider. Um, you know, dual bead lock versus a single bead lock. If you, what’s a bead lock, Greg? Okay. Bead lock in the simplest of terms is the wheel has a face on it with bolt holes and threaded inserts and there’s a ring you put the tire on and instead of the bead of the tire going over the lip of the rim and seeding with air pressure, it gets clamped between the bead lock ring and the face of the wheel. And you have a seriously, it’s physically clamped. Yep. And if done properly, that tire ain’t going nowhere. Now that doesn’t handle the inside bead. You have to get into a double, a true dual bead lock. And there’s different versions. They’ve got ones that have rings on both sides. You’ve got some that are split like your old Hummer wheels, the Humvee wheels and different flavors. Um, Hutchinson, um, there’s a couple others. I can’t think of all the names are off top of my head, but the rim actually splits in the middle and there’s an O ring in there. And so you put the two halves through front back of the tire and then it bolts together with the O ring and the bolts in the middle.

(…)

And that’s just like a Humvee wheel, you know, and you can run an insert if you want to. That’s the run flat inserts that you see from the military spec wheels. It doesn’t look as cool because you don’t say you don’t have the ring of the bolts and stuff and it’s not all, look, that’s off roadie. When you have the insert,(…) you realize what it is, basically,

(…)

it’s basically an inner tube for your tire and you inflate it and it presses against the bead on the inside. Well, here’s the like the coyotes. Yes. The coyotes are that style that are inflatable. Um, but then you’ve got like the, the, the, the regular ones like from the military star, it is literally a hard rubber molded piece that has, it’s kind of a funky shape. So it’s got shoulders on it. Oh, they’re not. They suck. Um, the shoulders push against the inside bead bundles of the rim. And then the center portion of it is the run flat portion. It has like a raised part like this. So if the tire goes all the way out of air pressure, like a bullet hole in combat, that’s the military design. Or if you’re running from the police and they use one of those spike strips, yeah, the spike strips, that hard rubber piece inside of there lets the tread of the tire right against it. So you just keep on trucking, you know, it’ll trash the tire eventually, but you can still move and at speed. Um,

(…)

like there’s, if you do some of the aftermarket ones that you use the, the military design split rims, they have just, it’s a piece of PVC pipe, the blue, like sewer pipe that you see on the road construction sites. They literally cut sections of that to your spec for whatever rim width you’re running. And you have to shoehorn that sucker in the tire and then put the two halves of the rim together with the O ring in there and torque all your bolts. And that big tubular piece of plastic forces the inside of the bead bundle against the outside edges of the rim and locks it all in place. No rings. It’s all in the middle of the week as far as your hardware goes.

(…)

Some people like, I’m not a huge fan of steel wheels anymore. I’ve, I’ve seen some really, really cheap, shitty ones. That was a go-to thing. You always wanted steel wheels cause you can bend them back. Field repair. Yes. Super easy. The problem is the quality of them has declined to the point that it’s just not worth it anymore. If you, if you’re going to drop 50, 60 bucks on a steely, that’s not even a beadlock when you can get into an entry level alloy, non-beadlock wheel, um, you know, for 90 or a hundred bucks lighter weight. Yeah. They’ll, they’re not always as easy to fix, but again, that, you also have to ask yourself how much, what air pressure, you know, if I trash one of my alloys, it’s not that big a deal to replace it. Whereas, you know, I’ve seen that the really bad thing that I don’t like about the modern crop of steelies, if they’re not like super high quality name brand stuff, like Stockton wheel or one of those trail masters are shitty. The, the knockoff, they’re not Mickey Thompson, but like Pro comps got some knockoff stuff that looks like the Mickey Thompson ones, but it’s not. They just copied the designs. Those things are so, so the runouts horrible. They don’t balance well. They’re not as beefy. Like you and I are old enough to remember like legit steel wheels from back in the day, they’ll wagon spokes, your rally wheel, stuff like that. You know, the solid ones were forward. Those things were stout. The steelies you see these days are junk. They just are. It’s, they’re not made to the same standards and the same quality materials that they used to be. So you’re really not saving anything by,(…) let’s spend $60 a wheel instead of 90 or a hundred, you know, when it gets to beadlocks, again, I am not a fan of steel wheels for that kind of abuse because you, it’s if you look at any of the aftermarket ones, the big option for doing it is the reinforcement ring that welds into the outside. Okay. And like trail, uh, trail, right? Is it trail ready or yeah, I’ll make sure I’m saying the right one. I think it’s trail ready. They’ve got, their style is like the Humvee. It’s the two dishes that bolt together and they have reinforcement rings that you can, that they’ll weld in there for you. And those are cool because you can get them different wits, different patterns. They can laser cut out, you know, like the, Jeep talk shows that logos all the way around. You can do whatever you want. I mean, I’ve seen them with the, what is it? The trucker mud flap girl, you know, the laid back girl on the trucker mud flap. So, you know, you can do all kinds of stuff with those things. And, but again, the price point goes significantly up for one of those in a custom flavor, a set of those versus an off the shelf alloy beadlock. And they always, they’re, they’re different. Um, I’ll give you a great example and I’m not picking on anybody, but the dirty life beadlocks and the alloys, I’m not a huge fan of because the way the beadlock function works versus where the tire bead ends up, how it centers and all that stuff is not as user friendly as something like a KMC or a Hutchinson or something there. I’ve done several sets for customers and I’m like, you know, the price point’s good, but from an, from an installer point of view, I don’t care for them style wise. I’m indifferent. I mean, the grenades under mine look cool, but I didn’t buy them because they look cool. I wanted beadlocks. That’s what counts. You know, I want the, the bead bundle retention. I don’t, you know, they were really shiny and pretty for the first couple of months. And yeah, after that, I don’t care. Let me, let me loop you back a little bit too far away from this, uh, this point you were talking about, uh, the backspace and the offset. Is there is, I mean, I think that the general way of finding out what you want to put, what kind of a backspace and stuff you want, uh, is to go on, uh, onto the online thing, go to Google and do a search. And you put in the year, make a model of your Jeep and the size tire that you want to do. And, but, but that’s not really, I mean, just because of the brain trust thinks it should be that way, doesn’t mean that’s initially true. Is there any kind of calculator or anything online or how would you recommend for people that are really concerned about getting the right size wheel before they do maybe a $300 investment in just one wheel that they get the one that they really want.

(…)

So there are some out there. Um, there are actually tools that you can buy and they’ve got them in all different varieties that you can attach to the hub and they’ve got little arms and pointers and stuff and sliding bits on them and you can mock it up. And that’s like the guys that are doing custom one offsets of wheels, you know, like for race cars or whatever, you bolt that thing to the hub and you have all your deals and you can check for your clearance for rotation and how much is going to fit inside the fender well. Like if you’re doing a mini tub or a full on tub job or something. So there’s ways to do it like that. A really simple effective way is just knowing what you already have. If it’s a factory wheel and tire, you just simply take some reference measurements at different steering positions and kind of go from there. So if, if my factory wheel has six plus inches of backspacing on a 245, 70 and my tires this far away from the coil bucket on the frame, you know, I can use that as a reference point and do my math that way. It takes a little bit more doing and you know, notes and stuff, but you can, you can look at it that way and go, okay, well if I changed to three and a half inch backspacing, my side wall is going to be out here now. But if I do this much offset,(…) you know, whichever way, and you can kind of play with it like that,(…) but it’s not just fitting in it while it’s sitting there. It’s got to be lock to lock steering and then considering your articulation, how much can you stuff that tire into that fender well and how much will it drop out and where’s it going to move? You know, leaf spring trucks are going to react a lot differently than, you know, fixed control arm vehicles will. A triangulated four link is going to flex a lot harder than a standard parallel four link will with a track bar. So again, you have to take time to all of that has to be taken in consideration. It can’t just be a, there’s no such thing as a one size fits all, right? You know, I see it a lot. This is the danger to looking it up online is cause it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s right. Except if you’ve done this or accept if the, and that may or may not be involved in what you’re looking up. Uh, so yeah, I mean, it’s a gotcha. So, um, I’m assuming based on what you’re saying is, is that if you, if you’re looking and you’ve got, you know, yay, much room, and now you know, you have the back space that you currently have with the stock wheels and your tire is going to be X number of inches wider, take half of that. And that’s how much room that space is going to take. Now you can pretty much go. Okay. Well it’s, it’s a, it’s two inches wider, but I’m still within that area of space that I have. So I should be okay.

(…)

So, and your fender liner, I mean, and you can, if you want to get real creative with, you know, popsicle sticks or a marker or whatever, you can leave your factory wheel and tire on there, you know, put the thing up on a jack stand and cycle your, your steering back and forth and make sure that, okay, if I go from my two 45, 70 to a full on 35, 12, 50 or 37, 13, 50, and then in that imaginary space, where’s that edge, that shoulder going to land when I’m turned all the way is my, is my rock slider poking out too far? Is the flare going to be in the blah, blah, you know, you got all that stuff that you can kind of eyeball it and look at that and go, okay, what’ll fit, what won’t. Fortunately there’s been so many Jeeps built and modified over the years recently that you’ve got plenty of reference material with most of your local, you know, Jeep enthusiasts. If when in doubt, just go look at one that has the size tire wheel you want already on it. See what’s right is this control arms got bare spots where the tires are rubbing at full awkward. It’s knocking the paint off. Is this tread cut up from getting into the peach weld inside the fender? You know, you can, you look and see really easily if you just take a few minutes to poke. So there’s this and this, there’s a saying that we have here on the show. No modification goes unpunished.

(…)

None.(…) One of my, one of my biggest pet peeves for a lot of off-road shops is they will sell you an aftermarket set of wheels with brand new big tires and they will purchase you factory spec, backspace and offset.(…) And then they’ll sell you a set of wheel spacers because all of the sudden those wide ass tires won’t fit with all that backspacing because it’s all pulled under the fender too far and getting into everything. So now that you’ve laid out three or $4,000 for wheels and tires, you’re going to spend another couple of 300 bucks getting spacers to be able to drive the thing home. Well that’s just good business. That’s continuing business. I mean, there may be a lift involved. There may be the correct backspacing for the application the first time. That’s what suckers do. You can’t make, you can’t make continuing business like that.

(…)

No, I, trail masters are one of the worst. Both their alloys and their steelies, they’re, they’re like, it’s the team of the wheel world. They’re, they’re, you can find better stuff on, no name stuff on eBay and Amazon than what I hate. Trail master to me is, is like for wheels is like Yukon is to me for gears.

(…)

I’ll just leave it there. Cause everybody knows how I feel about the sand polar.

(…)

Yukon used to be so nice. It was a go to. And that’s one of the, one of the things we want to explain to you guys. So, uh, the search in the internet is a good idea. Uh, asking the Jeep talk show, uh, what, uh, what you think we should, you should put on your, uh, your Jeep is also another way you can go. So you talk show.com slash contact. I forgot to mention this earlier, jeep, talk show.com slash contact over there and find out all the ways to reach out to us. All right. Was there anything else that you had on the wheels? And I know there’s about another three hours of stuff that you have. And it was anything you wanted to mention before we move on to the next subject. For the folks that are questioning whether or not to get me locks, do I need them? Is it worth it? When we air down, we are doing so to increase the contact patch, the tread of our tire, to better, you know, like increase our traction and to help the tire encompass certain obstacles to form to the rock, to form to that tree root, whatever it is. There is a limit to how low you want to go. Beadlock or no. If you go too low, you’re either going to bash into something and lift the tire on the rim and cut the sidewall, or you’re going to damage the rim because there’s not enough air pressure in there to cushion the impact.(…) So it’s very important to know. And then again, there’s no one size fits all when it comes to the tire,

(…)

depends on the tire, depends on the curb weight of the vehicle. It depends on what kind of terrain you’re on, what you’re doing with it. Um, with a beadlock, it allows you to run lower than you could with a non beadlock, but you’re still, we’ll use mine as much as I hate to as an example, at this point, my tires are so thick and so big and so heavy that you can’t tell the difference by looking at them. If I’ve got street pressure or no pressure,(…) just because they’re so burly,

(…)

a normal radial is not going to do that. And you have to keep in mind that ply rating on radials is very important for jeeps. I see a lot of jeeps these days running around on D and E and F range ply tires.(…) We’re talking eight, 10, 12, 14 steel, belted ply radial tires. Those things are way too much for your average jeep. Again, they get sold that way because metric sizes that are comparable to the standard sizes. Everybody wants 35, 37, you get it in a metric size.

(…)

They’re more available that way, more styles available that way. But the problem is those tires are designed to be used under full size trucks, heavy vehicles,(…) a jeep, even a heavy jeep like mine doesn’t need more than a D range regardless of what you’re doing it. Now my tires are bi-supply. So this is what I’m fixing to say doesn’t apply to a bi-supply, but on radials you have to remember when you’re airing down, that steel belting is only for the tread portion of the tire. That steel belting ends where the shoulder begins and turns into sidewall. That’s all polyester Kevlar, whatever mix they’re using from that brand.(…) It’s the tread only that’s the steel belting.

(…)

If you have a 10 or 12 ply steel belted radio and you’re trying to run 10 or 8 PSI in that sucker, you’re forcing all of those steel belted plies into that shoulder area and trying to really make that tire wrap and flex. And what people get into when they’re doing that is they realize, well, 10 PSI had enough to make them really squat. It’s not going to run them down to like six and you do that and you do that and you do that. And before you know it, you have caused inadvertently that portion of the shoulder of the tire is going to be the first thing to go.

(…)

So you keep that up over and over and over again for extended periods of time over, and it could be months, it could be years, whatever. But the point is, is that that, that juncture in the tire construction becomes the failing point. That, that wants to separate right there. So it’s very important for the longevity of the tire, what we’re using it for and for cost.(…) A C range radio is going to be significantly less expensive than a, you know, E or an F range.

(…)

The guy behind the counter at your local shop that doesn’t know any better is going to sell you the one that costs the most because he makes his money off a commission.(…) If you know better, it’s just like with the sliders or anything else. You need to understand the whys and wants and educate yourself before you lay down big money on a set of new tires to go with your fancy new wheels, because you could very well end up getting something that you think looks great, but it’s not going to perform the way you expect it to. Right. You know, and a lot of people get hung up on brand names and not so much the actual specs of a given tire. So I actually have, and I’ll just drop this in here real quick. I was just looked it up really quick to see, uh, and I believe this is the right information.

(…)

Uh, for the tire that I have, I have the, uh, the Nexon Rodeon MTXs. Um, it’s not a tire I would have normally gone with, but I got invited out to a Nexon event, California, which I got to drive around on some Nexon tires and I was really impressed with them. Uh, and I’ve been very happy with them on the Gladiator. I got them on the XJ as well. Uh, 33 is on the XJ, 35 is on the Gladiator. It is a 35, 12 and a half by 17. And, uh, which, you know, that’s good cause that 17 fits the factory wheels, which I have, I’m able to turn lock to lock, no rubbing, no rubbing on anything,(…) uh, with those. So I didn’t have to buy new wheels when I went with the 35 inch tires. Um, it is, it has a speed rating of a Q apply rating as 12. Um, and, uh, I think that might be, that is a heavy tire. Yeah. I think that might be the reason why, um, that I can, I can air down and you can’t look, it’s like through your situation. I can’t see it. Yeah. I can’t see it. Uh, because, uh, I mean, I think I take it down to 14 PSI and it does, it does, uh, not deflate. It does conform to surfaces when you’re going over it, but just sitting there, you really can’t tell that it’s there. Well, and it’s like, that’s why we don’t like seeing an aspect ratio as big given the rim diameter. If you’re one of those guys that wants to run an 18 or a 20 inch wheel on your off road rig, you need to make sure that you’ve got enough sidewall to put up with that because a given diameter tire on the 20, you’re talking about three inches less. We depend on that sidewall for so many things when we’re wheeling, that it’s really easy to forget that a rubber band tire on a big, fancy, pretty rim is great for the street. Not really anywhere. It makes the ride so much better, especially on those watch forward situations. Yeah. And you’re, you’re more likely to damage the rim itself, the wheel itself. If you’ve got a sidewall that’s like this versus like this, and you’re rubbing up against rocks and roots and stuff.(…) I mean, you might as well just put them up against the curb when you bring them home, because they’re going to get scratched up your first outing and there’s nothing you can do to help that. Get this in your head, folks. If the factory wheel is 17 inches, stick with the factory size wheel, unless you’re upgrading the brakes and you need the additional room, which I don’t, that’s the, yep. See the domino effect, bigger wheels and tires, brakes, you’re steering all that. But if you do steering, it’s just like what you’re talking about. If you go with a larger wheel, you need a taller tire so that you can have that ratio of rubber. So when you air down, we air down a lot, we’re not going to cover it on this, this show, but we’re going to be covering airing down here in the future. Cause that was one of the things that you wanted to talk about, Greg. And I think it’s another critical piece of information. So future episodes, stay tuned for that. But I recommend highly staying with the size wheel that you have, unless you’re going to spend a lot of money and putting a much bigger tire on need that. Think of that ratio. If I’m airing down, am I going to have any, is it going to have any effect other than running on wheel? All right, Greg. Yeah. So talking about steering, we’re going to be talking about this again. We’re talking about all these things on the, the Wednesday’s round table episode, just covering them here. First we’re kind of getting a series of things. We want you guys to hear from Greg, the expert that we’re going to hear from the people on the round table, multiple experts potentially. And, and then, you know, I just think it’s a good idea to get a lot of input on these things that are important to you. And if you’re buying wheels,(…) that’s a lot of money and it’s, it’s important to you. So another thing that you may have to purchase. Yeah. Another thing you may have to put up with is especially if you have a new JL or JT is aluminum knuckles.

(…)

So Greg, what do you, what do you think about aluminum knuckles? Uh, and first off, tell people what, what knuckles are. I mean, all of them should be brass, right? If you, if you, okay, if you don’t know what the steering knuckle is and just go look under the front of your Jeep, you’re going to see your wheel and tire. You’re going to see your brake assemblies and all that stuff. And all of that attaches to a component that’s called the knuckle. You’re steering attaches to that, the hub and all the brakes and everything attached to that. And then the knuckle has your upper and lower ball joints, unless you’re running ball joint eliminators that attaches to the C, which is the outermost portion of the actual rigid axle housing. And that knuckle pivots as you turn on that. It allows you to go something other than straight.

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Exactly. That’s how your steering works.(…) Um, I, I, it was very obvious out the chute when they introduced those things that they were not going to hold up to sincere off-road abuse, mainly because the tapered bores for the steering and the upper and lower ball joints.(…) It’s just, it’s, if you’re driving around on the street, if you’re occasional once in a while, really, really, really, really mild wheeler, it’s not a problem. Don’t, don’t stress. If you just bought one and it’s got those under it and you’re still rocking all your stock setup and you’re not beating on the thing, don’t worry about it. You’re fine. Going about your business. Enjoy your Jeep.(…) If you get to a point where you’re ready to start getting into significant off-roading and I don’t care if it’s light or hardcore, those knuckles are subjected to all kinds of harsh forces while we’re wheeling. I’m not talking about payment use. I’m talking about being on the trail. You have to think about it. Every time you smack into something, go over something, turn into something, turn out of something, those knuckles are being put under a lot of stress. The aluminum as an attempt to lighten up things on the Jeep and save, you know, rotating or not, excuse me, save moving mass. They were trying to save weight and it’s just not ideal for off-road. I would see, ideally, aluminum knuckles are great for racetrack, you know, that, that kind of controlled scenario where it’s, it’s not subjected to what we do to our Jeeps.(…) And I’ve seen too many of them in the last few years where those tapered bores have suffered immensely and created all kinds of issues. And there’s texts out there that don’t know to look for that because they’re unaware of the issue and they’ll, they’ll be chasing death wobble or some other kind of steering quirkiness, not realizing that that’s what it is. Like on the highway,

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weird alignment specs, weird drivability specs, death wobble, shimmies, all that kind of stuff. Anything that you would expect from a worn out ball joint or a worn out tie rod end. And the ball joint may be perfectly fine. It’s just the holes to be.(…) It’s that tapered hole that’s in that knuckle is just, it’s taken a beating and it comes undone. They wouldn’t put it, wouldn’t sleeve it, you know, they make aluminum blocks and then you put a metal sleeve. Yeah, I know. I know. Well, I mean, if you’re going to save the weight, if that’s really the reason why you’re doing it, well, it goes back to the number of people that actually off-road their Jeeps, which, you know, at that point, they’re, they’re doing the additional expense for very, very few people. Uh, but fortunately, uh, there are, uh, complete, nice metal, heavy duty, uh, no, that you can get. Now, the ones I always think of is read, uh, read racing reads one of the most famous ones and they’re, their stuff is awesome. It’s, it’s proven over and over and over again in real world competition use and enthusiast use. It’s really hard to mess up one of their knuckles really hard.

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So whenever you put them on, people can see them and go, Ooh, you can get them, you can get them raw if you want to, or you know, strip them down. But no, those definitely,(…) yeah. Any, any of the, like anyone like that that’s doing it, they, there’s some other brands out there that are just as worthy. Um, but Reed is probably one of the most well-known. Um, they’ve been around a long time. They’re very dialed in on what they’re doing. They’re, their components are awesome. Um, again, if you’re, if you’re doing any kind of what I would consider sincere wheeling, um, it’s definitely a worthwhile expense to get rid of the aluminum and put, put some aftermarket. Even if you find somebody that’s doing a one ton swap and they’ve got the steel ones on theirs, just grab their steel. So the rubicon, you can probably get them saying this earlier, the rubicons, the Mahavis, uh, are, uh, are the ones that come with from the factory with the steel. Uh, so you, maybe, if you were, uh, if you, I mean, you could probably maybe go to the junkyard and pull some, uh, all the, the steel ones off of a damaged Rubicon.

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And I honestly, a pick and pull is not going to give a shit about that. Cause they don’t, it’s not like a four to one transfer case or a differential locker or some, you know, they’re not going to give a show. It’s a knuckle. They’re not going to carry it. Don’t ruin it for us people. Don’t don’t inform them.

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I’ve been looking for these everywhere. This is all, this is so great. Just shut up and get it and give them the 25 bucks and go, I’m sure it’s not 25 bucks. Um, so, uh, so yeah, I mean, oh, I was going to ask you as a differential, uh, shop, cause you do multiple things, but as primary differential shop, would you say that’s the time whenever you’re doing something maybe Yeah.(…) If we’re, if we’ve got the gears out, if we’re doing a locker, all of those components have to come apart to get the axle shafts out to remove the carrier. At that point, you’ve got the steering’s disconnected. Your hubs are off the wheels and tires with brakes or everything’s off. It’s an upper lower ball joint to get that knuckle off at that point. You’re literally four fasteners away from having those knuckles off. That would be a beautiful time to do it. I mean, if you’re doing very, very much leaving the axle, if you’re putting a truss on, uh, I mean, all kinds of things, and maybe you’ve got, uh, maybe you’ve got lockers already, but you’re doing the trust. Hey, you’re going to slap in some RCD axle shafts. You know, that’s the other thing on the outer years. Yeah. If you’re just putting in shafts in the front and say you’ve got a Rubicon and you want to upgrade to the reeds and get rid of the factory ones. I mean, if that was an issue, the boom, there you go. You know, you’re right there. You’re going to do it. So definitely worthwhile. I like to, yeah, we’re definitely predominantly at my shop gear and actual related work, but we also, anything related to the axles as far as steering upgrades and repairs, brakes, upgrades and repairs, all that kind of stuff. We’ll tackle that all day long. Easy peasy. You probably don’t care for this who, who, uh, what steering components you use, but is there one that you favor? I mean, there’s RPM, there’s a steer smarts. There’s, um, they’re one that you like over the other or dislike. Um, RPM hands down, we’re RPM dealer. Um, those folks have been so awesome over the years and there are a few, there’s very few small business owners alike. And I don’t like even calling RPM small business because they’re, their reach is so big right now and they’ve got so many products available, but in, in their hearts, they are still small business. And when John and Michelle come around, that’s like, they, they make it a point every year where they will go to different parts of the country and visit all their dealers in person. And they came and saw me last year when they were in the area looking, you know, at some of their other dealers. And that, that means the world to me as a small business guy, you know, this before the shop changed up when I still owned it, that’s, that’s huge and their components, their products, both, uh, drag link, tie rod and both my lower rear control arms are all custom made pieces from RPM.(…) So they’re all one off parts that I had them put together for me. And I had everything under the rig that sees contact with the ground, other than the tires, those components have held up amazing. And their warranty is hands down, one of the best in the business. If you can bend one of their tie rods, they will replace it for free. No questions asked. And it’s really hard to find that anywhere else. I forget the gentleman’s name. I think you just mentioned it, but I’ve interviewed RPM before. Um, yeah, I can’t remember. Do they just have aluminum or aluminum steering components or do they have a they’ve got, they’ve got a hole. If you go on the website, they’ve got stuff for just about damn near any GPU and think of, and you have different options, but by far the most popular and the most famous and well known is their T six, 70, 75 offerings. And that’s the, the grade of aluminum that they use, my tie rod or my rear, like my tie rods, inch and a half, um, drag links inch and a half. And then my rear lower control arms are two and a quarter diameter solid when they’re threaded for the shanks on their control arm joints.(…) You can bend that stuff upwards of 30 degrees impacted and it has the memory to go back to straight.(…) You might maybe on a decent piece of DOM inch and a half quarter wall or two inch quarter wall, you might get maybe 10 degrees of flex out of it and it’s probably still going to bend. So that’s the main difference for me. Again, not everybody’s not their passion in this stuff, but damn, really, really nice. What’s your opinion? Aluminum versus steel. I’m a, I’m a absolutely 100% steel person. The only thing I would consider, it would be synthetic. So, uh, which is a common joke that I make because of steel cable and synthetic rope. I built, I custom made all of my own D O M control arms, my own D O M tie rod and drag link and my own D O M front rear track bars. And it did not take long to start bending the lower rear control arms and start bending the tie rod.

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I replaced that deal in tie rod three times before I finally laid down RPM money. Oh, interesting. And which isn’t a big, yeah, I kept, I, you’d be, again, it only takes about eight to 10 degrees worth of deflection on a, on a quarter wall piece of inch and a half D O M under pressure to bend it and have it stay bent and it sucks. Now there are ways around that. If you don’t want to do the aluminum straight and you can slug D O M, you could put, I’ve seen guys put aluminum shafts inside of them inside the D O M. I’ve seen them sleeve it with solid steel. I’ve seen them put smaller pieces of D O M inside to just help shore it up. And it works. But again, you’re adding weight, you’re adding extra expense. It’s extra labor, blah, blah, blah. So by the time you go through all of that once or twice, it’s like, well, I could just spend the money once on the RPM or equivalent style.

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Julian of the summit machine works. She, God dang, she turns out some really, really nice stuff. Busta knuckle, Berkey and the boys over there, they’ve got some really bad ass deal with, or aluminum stuff. Wide open designs, does their own stuff. And there’s a lot of them that do it in house and we’ll make it to your order. Whatever link. I probably would try aluminum if I had a lot of money. Um, because it’s not as bad as you think. If you’re not like buying, I’m thinking of more than just steering components, you know, bumpers, skid system, the whole thing. Cause I can see it would be nice to have, uh, the Jeep and weigh a little less.

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That that part, and that’s, that’s where I will pick and choose. Like you were just saying on the strength of steel versus aluminum, you know, a piece of T six rated 70 75 is going to put up with a lot more flexing and bending and stuff and stay true.(…) Then even a 300 M shaft wheel. Like, you know, I’ve seen, I’ve seen 43 40 steering Rubicon express had one that was real famous for a while for the JKs when the JKs started to come out, where it had press in one ton tie rod ends with drop forged outers, the actual tie rod end that the joint pressed into. And then the center was all chromoly steel 43 30. And those things were amazingly affordable for how they were made,(…) but they have their limits too. And I was running that particular version on my day to 44 before I did my ton swap and I finally been it, but to bend it, I, I had to really nail it hard. I did it at Wolf caves and I finally bent the thing. It didn’t pretzel, but I’ve been at enough that it toed in my tires and I can feel it when I was driving home, you know, but, but you were able to drive home. It’s a big thing. I was able to drive home. That’s the main thing. It’s like all this other stuff we’re talking about, no good deed goes unpunished and no mod comes without some sort of cost.

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How are you driving the rig? Do you want it? Like there are suspension kits out there from, you know, like RPM has some really nice ones. All the links are that nice polished 70 75. If you’re buying it all at once like that, it’s a, it’s a big pill to swallow.(…) But if you do it like I did mine where I bought tie rod drag link, and then six months later I had them do I think, and this is probably about three years ago now, at least maybe four.

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I want to say my lowers the two and a quarter solid, they were 36 and a half inches long each drilled out for the inch and quarter shank for my control arms, my home joints.(…) I think I paid two and a quarter to 50 a piece for them. That’s what I paid, which isn’t bad. If you think about the time it takes to machine it and thread it and do all that stuff and then ship it to you, you know, 500 bucks for a pair of really early, shipping is a nice thing. All right. So, uh, so let’s say that, uh, there’s a, somebody is like, wow, you know, this Greg guy, he’s really great. I would really love for him to be able to work on my Jeep. Uh, tell people again, the name of the company, how they can, where you’re located and absolutely. And maybe a phone number they can contact you at. Yep. Uh, phone number is really easy. 325,

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Erico 248, 4,000. That one’s pretty simple. Um, it’s platinum drive train works were located in huddle, Texas, or actually just outside the Northern outskirts of town at a big industrial complex. And you can find us on Google, just type in platinum drive train works. It’ll pop up. Um, we’re all over social media. I’m on Facebook. We’ve got Instagram and of course the parent shop platinum, you know, off-road. So it’s really easy to find us if you’re not sure about the name, there it is. So I’m happy to, but yeah, if you have any kind of technical questions, you just want to shoot the shit about your build ideas, anything like that. Monday through Friday, nine to five, nine am to 5pm. I don’t stop for lunch. I work through the entire day. So you can shoot me a DM on the social media. You can call me up. You can send texts to that phone number as well. Pictures. It’s a, it’s the shop cell phone. So we do all the normal related pictures, ladies. So just keep that in mind. Yeah. Well, no, I don’t, I don’t want to piss off, you know, keep, keep your scantily clad G picks to yourself. I don’t want to be okay. When the wife looked at your phone, Hey, what’s going on here? What are you, what are you, don’t, don’t send, don’t send me anything like that. She would think memes are cool. If that goes for guys too, or something, those scantly got pictures of, uh, I don’t want to see you in your Daisy Duke straight over the hood of your Jeep. Please.(…) I’m all right. So if I hope you guys are enjoying Greg as much as I am here on the, on the show, what a wealth of knowledge and it’s, uh, we really appreciate it, Greg. And I’m glad you’re here every week. Absolutely. So, uh, I think it’s kind of therapy for you because you get to talk without having to worry about saying the right things to the customer so that you don’t have to upset them because maybe they want to go a direction that you know is a bad direction, but it’s hard to say no. It happens. It happens a lot. And I do my best with those folks to just help them as much as I can to, to understand again, the wise, what’s in house.(…) And if they’re dead set on whatever it is they want, be it a particular gear ratio or a particular brand or whatever, um, if so long as it’s something we provide, like we don’t sell or, you know, we don’t retail or sell Yukon parts. Don’t ask me for Yukon. I can’t get it for you. I’m not going to get it for you. If you bring it to us, yes, we absolutely will install customer supplied parts. The one caveat is there is no warranty on anything customer supply.(…) If you buy it from us and have me install it, you get the warranty that covers parts and labor, both from the manufacturer and from us. But if you bring me your own stuff, I’ll gladly put it in. I just can’t warn you. For you folks that have never been through this, I’m going to just warn you about the nightmare, the finger pointing that goes back and forth between, this is like, I told you, there was no warranty on it. And you, but Yukon says it’s your fault, you know, and then you go back and forth, back and forth. And it’s just, I don’t, I don’t know anything. I don’t know that this has happened to you, Greg, but I have seen other situations like the expression in the world of it and

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routers and all kinds of things, depending on how you got it and how it was installed.(…) Anyway, so again, we’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to give us a question, there’s many, many ways that you can give us questions. I mean, I’m seeing comments in Spotify and we’ve actually had a few people that appreciated some of the stuff that we’ve talked about in the short time that you’ve been here, Greg, saying that they decided to go direction based on what we had talked about. And so there’s all kinds of ways you can reach out to it. So anyway, did this Jeep talk show episode, get your engine roaring, show us some love by dropping a five star rating and a blazing review on your go to podcast platform. It’s your way to help us expand our Jeep family. Keep the adventure rolling by hitting follow on social media and joining our newsletter for the most up to date information, including reminders for the round table. Got a burning question or a wild idea for our next episode fired over to us at Jeep talk show.com slash contact. Thanks for cruising with us and getting ready for more thrilling journeys ahead. Greg, thanks again.

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Thank you, Tony. We’ll see

Broadcasting Sense 2010

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You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.