Episode 1007 – Routine Maintenance
Thanks to John Lee, JTS Team Member for helping out while Tony was in Moab, EJS! We’re working hard to make sure you have great and consistant contect from the show!
All right, welcome. This is another episode in the Jeep Talk Show saga that we call the Roundtable Week.
This is another episode that I’m helping host this week because Tony is out in Moab playing and hanging out. I think actually tonight they’re at the Motobill Party, which is awesome for them. We’re all still a little bit, but heard about it for those of us left behind.
But hopefully we’ll be able to soldier on.
This Roundtable episode, it’s brought to you by Trails Off Road. Trails Off Road, they make the best off-road trail guides. The Trails Off Road team maps trails and creates highly detailed guides so you can choose your type of adventure. From the beaches of the Atlantic and the Pacific or the great American deserts, all the way to the highest mountain passes. If you’re going to Moab, they have the best information for the trails you plan to drive. You can find over-learning, backcountry roads, rock crawling trails, anything that suits you. Just visit trailsoffroad.com right now for a seven-day free trial. And if you’re a Jeep Talk Show Patreon subscriber, you’ll get a big discount to sign up for their subscription service. The promo code, not gonna give it to you, that’s gonna be found on Patreon. So go ahead and jump on over there and subscribe and contribute to the show that you love watching. So watching and listening. And I say watching because we are on YouTube. You can watch the episodes. You can see the smiling faces with Tony’s arguably hidden behind a microphone the majority of the time. But you can still check it out and kind of see it as it’s being recorded there. So tonight, as usual, we are gonna have four questions that we’re gonna try to get through. We’re gonna do a little bit different tonight due to the amount of people we have. We’re gonna try to go back to the old school fireside chat model and kind of give each one a chance to answer here. So the questions are gonna be, what do you do for routine maintenance yourself on your rig? And what kind of schedule do you keep to for that?
What tire are you running right now specifically? And what is your opinion of it? Have you ever fabricated something for your rig? And are you happy with the way it turned out? Do you have onboard air? What did you install? What kind of system did you put in? So these are the questions we’re gonna ask tonight. And right now I want to bring in the rest of the Zoom people. So remember everybody, I think I hit mute also. Feel free to unmute. And what does Tony say? Hi Zoom people or whatever.
Hello. – Hey, hello. – Hey, how’s it going? – All righty, ho. – Rest of y’all sad as I am, we’re not able to hang out in EJS where we’re rough here at our day-to-day jobs. – We have an EJS are here with us now, Dan. – Do we? Who joined us? – Holy shit, there’s Bill. – Yeah. – Was he? – Oh, thanks for slumming, Bill.
– Hey, Bob. – Hey, Bob. – You too, Bob. – You too, Bob. – How’s EJS going so far? – It’s awesome, yeah. – Was that 41 degree down angle or whatever on Vincent things you’re talking about earlier, Bill? – Yeah, do you like the commentary on that video? – Yeah. – She liked the comment. – Yeah, something about shit in your pants.
Jesus Christ, there was quite a few expletives I think I heard on the video. – Yeah, that was fun. – Awesome, awesome. All right, well, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of stories from EJS and coming videos that everybody’s gonna wanna go through. So I mentioned a little bit ago, we’re gonna try to go through and see how many answers we can get to these questions from folks. I may try to call on a few. So I wanna start off with the first question. What do you do for routine maintenance yourself on your rig and what kind of schedule do you try to keep to? So Larry, you wanna start us off with your answer there? What do you normally like to try to do yourself from a routine maintenance point of view? – Yeah, so typically what I’ll do is I’ll change the oil every three to 5,000, even though it’s all synthetic.
And usually every other oil change, I’ll rotate the tires and everything.
And then typical about every 30,000 or so, or usually about every four or five oil changes, all the diff fluid and all that stuff gets changed out, which sometimes that’s six months, sometimes it’s…
– You judge by how much wheeling you do. Like if you’re doing a lot of water crossings, somebody may kind of bring that schedule a little bit. – Yeah, if I was doing a lot of water or something like that, I would bring it in, but I don’t really get into a lot of the water crossings, but yeah, definitely if I was doing a lot of that, then like the diff fluids and all that stuff would be changed a lot sooner because no one wants to milkshake in the axle. – Just ask Rick, right? – Yeah.
– Awesome. All right, Matt, besides replacing the drums on your trailer every 5,000 miles,
what’s the maintenance that you do doing that four by eight? Anything different than oil changes and normal?
– So surprisingly, not really.
Other than my batteries last about 18 months,
the 12-bolt ones, but yeah, similar to Larry, just probably 5,000 mile oil changes. I think the times that I don’t do it myself is gonna be when we’re on a trip that lasts over that time period, right? And then you’re peering in on the five-minute oil change guy to make sure he’s doing what you want him to do. But yeah, and I just, every couple of weeks, I’m under the hood anyways, check to make sure all the fluids are there,
topped off and then making sure nothing’s leaking. I think a lot of it is, once you get it cleaned up after a trail ride, getting under it and making sure there’s nothing still wet looking once it’s dry. – Oh yeah, let it sit overnight in the garage and see if a puddle forms underneath it, right?
Yeah, awesome. So Andrew, what about you? I know you got the LJ, that thing just leaks naturally. So do you have to actually change the oil or do you just keep adding to it? – You just kind of gauge by the puddle underneath it to see the radius losing versus how much you need to add. But the most part I do in my own main is keep it on a notebook, top off oil, I really gas change if it’s needed. – That’s a good point though, keeping the log. I do the, so when I got a little notebook in the garage, I jot it down, but I also use Google Docs and throw a record up there so I can access it if I’m away from all, when was the last time I did a service or whatever, help some troubleshooting and diagnosing. – Absolutely. – Awesome. All right, Chip, what about you?
– Wow, I mean, like what Larry was saying, just the common things of oil changes and tire rotations, I think my biggest thing, I don’t have a routine maintenance, but if I’m gonna go on a week long trip, I’m doing a lot more checking, right? I mean, pre-season, I’ll go through and make sure all the bolts are tight, make sure everything’s good, especially maybe a month in advance of a big event where I wanna make sure, ball joints, view joints, all those things are in good shape. But once I get into season, if I just go out on a Saturday and go wheeling for a day, I’m not too worried about that. As long as the Jeep’s performing well, I don’t come home and go through everything all over again. I’m probably even worse, I don’t even necessarily wash it down. I don’t mind having a little bit of dirt and it looks like I’ve been out.
But yeah, I’ve got a bigger trip coming up, I’m gonna go out to the Black Hills with a group of friends and where we gone wheeling it for five days straight, going through a pretty good checklist of stuff just to make sure everything’s ready to go before I hit the trail. – Absolutely.
I had tightening bolts, checking paint marks, making sure that nothing’s kind of backed off, things like that. – Right, right, and marking paint, a lot of people don’t even think about that, it’s mark the bolts, so you can watch to see if they moved at all.
I try to do that whenever we do a lift, is put mark them and then after you drive it, a few hundred miles, check those, make sure they didn’t back off. – Oh yeah, absolutely. All right, Chris, I know you’re up there in Michigan as routine maintenance, just getting the snow off the top of it and knocking some salt out from underneath it. – Yeah, going through the car wash to get the snow out of the bottom, but yeah, to answer your question, I do all my own maintenance,
5,000 miles, oil change, tire rotation, pretty religiously, and then follow the recommended
service intervals for everything else. Like Larry said, I mean, when you get into the water, check at least check your diff fluids
to make sure there’s no milkshake in there, but typically just 5,000 miles religiously with the tire rotations and oil changes and then everything else pretty standard. – So when you say all, that’s interesting. So fuel service, coolant flushes, things like that, do you even tackle that yourself? – Yes, yeah, I mean, I did it for many years myself. I mean, I’m not the brag of myself, but I’m very competent and capable. And I just like a lot of us don’t want anybody else touching my Jeep unless they have to. I wouldn’t do any body work. I’m not a paint guy. I’m not a bump and bondo guy at all, but I don’t want anybody touching my Jeep except me. – Chris, you’re my hero. I’m one of the lesser mechanics, so things like monoclonal flushes and fuel system clean outs. I typically take in, but I’d like to try to do it myself. It’s just a big job. – The only thing I won’t get into is an automatic transmission manual, maybe. It depends on the time, but now just do yourself YouTube, YouTube certified mechanics, just like Bob, right Bob? – I was about to say, speaking of YouTube certified mechanic, Bill, Bob, y’all are kind of answering together here. So what do y’all, what do you like to tackle yourself from a routine maintenance?
– Synthetic, I go with synthetic.
– Synthetic, is that a, that’s much better than steel.
Is that like an inflatable doll? What are we talking about? – No, April 1st flashback. – Yeah, that’s shit. That’s 20 bucks is 20 bucks, Chip, don’t judge. – No, I mean, pretty much like everybody else said, right? Doing kind of the normal intervals. And then certainly before trip,
I’ll do something a little bit ahead of schedule or as soon as I get back, if I’ve been going through water or like this week or whatever, I may dump the dead fluid and check those other things just to make sure after the trip, everything’s good to go. – Cabin air filter?
(laughing) I mean, it seems simple enough, right? But I mean, that cabin air filter. – So on some trips, like on overlanding trips, I’ll bring a cabin air filter and an air filter with me. And at the place I’m staying just before I’m gonna make the drive back home, I used to just replace both of those, like proactively, like especially if it was like seven days of just nothing but dust on there. But I’ve learned from this week about the recirculate feature from our favorite YouTube mechanic. And so I’ve been using that. And apparently that keeps a lot of the dust out of your cabin air filter. – It’s just a button you put on the deck. – It’s fancy, yeah.
– When you replace that cabin air filter, do you put a little leaf or two of potpourri in there for your– – Oh, hell yeah. Oh, hell yeah. – I think I bit in the Jeep. I think it’s lavender is what he uses. – Yeah, okay. – Lavender spray. – Yeah, sometimes I do that or I’ll put a little bit of like pine salt on there. So…
(laughing) – You want to see it in the forest? – Yeah, it’s like Carolina pine forest. Yeah, man has something to talk about. – All right, thanks. Garrett, besides the normal oil change, anything else like that? Or is there anything that you do differently on your routine maintenance?
– No, I mean, on my new Jeep, I’m about to do my second oil change, but I’m taking it to the dealer for that so I can keep my warranty as much as I can until that’s up. And when that’s up, I’m changing everything over the end. – Garrett, Garrett, it’s bullshit. You don’t need to take your Jeep to the dealer to do the oil change. It’s– – I call bullshit on that. I call bullshit on that. No, I call bullshit on that.
(laughing) It’s upon the manufacturer, in all seriousness, this came up in the early 90s. It’s upon the manufacturer to prove that the modification or neglect caused the failure of a warranty component. It just really pisses me off because I worked in, I shouldn’t say this, but I worked in dealer sales or dealer service
on the old East Side for a long time and it’s just not a great place to have your vehicle serviced. – And Garrett, you’ve been on here before. You know not to trigger a Chris like that.
(laughing) – Thanks, John.
– But yeah, I need to get a TPMS sensor so I’m just gonna have them do it when they do that. And it’s only my second oil change and I’m doing it at 5,000 miles, but they want me to do 10,000. I’m like, no way.
So I’m not waiting that long. So while it’s in there, I’m just gonna tell them to rotate the tires and change the oil and put that TPMS sensor in there because they don’t put one in the spares on the gladiators.
But other than that, I do pretty much all my own stuff, diffs, transmission fluid, transfer case fluid. I changed it all to AMSOIL and that’s what I did in my TJ when I had it. – How are you rotating your spare and your gladiator? Because I just got a gladiator, I’m just curious.
– You just do a five tire. So like I think I did the rear passenger is… – Yeah, but my spare is a steel wheel. I’ve got the aluminum wheels and my spare is a steel wheel. – We can have… – Okay. – I have to have to market wheels in 30 seconds. – Ah, okay. Okay, you’re better than me. Jesus Christ, you’re better than me. Okay, Garrett, that’s fine. – That’s why you can do the dealership and give them off. – I did the Mopar lift. So whatever, I don’t, I’m just leaving it at that for right now. – You might wanna check on that first oil change because a lot of times they’ll extend the first oil change a little bit longer to make sure the rings are seated properly.
– All right, yeah, I’ve already had my first oil change. I did that already. – Nevermind then. – Yeah, I did that one already.
So just a quick question on the spare on the Gladiator
with a 37, did that fit in the stock spare location or did you have to put a different kind of mount?
– It fits in there. You have to put it towards the heat shield. The heat shield is towards the front of the bed. So you put that side in first and then you just kind of crank it up there and it’ll go in there. – Awesome.
Awesome, all right. Let’s see, Blaine joined us here. Blaine, we’re all going through answering the question about what kind of routine maintenance do you tackle yourself and maybe you’re working on how. – Yeah, hi everybody. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been on.
I pretty much do everything I possibly can myself.
Anything from the simple oil change, tire rotation, belts.
I’ve rebuilt transfer cases, you name it. I’m not afraid to tackle it too much. Don’t care too much, tear into the engines too much. And luckily now I don’t have anything that I need to do that to. So.
– Awesome.
Yep, you’re just sitting there right there with Chris. Chris does everything. And Chris actually welded his frame together and then he did all his own riveting on the body. I mean, he’s a super mechanic. – Nice. – Right Chris?
– No, no, no, no, just mechanical. Just mechanical. No welding, no riveting. No, I’m gonna lean on Larry for the welding and the riveting. – There you go. – All right. – I’m gonna add something back to the gladiator and spare tire thing. So as some of you know, I just got rid of my gladiator I guess about two months ago now. And I’ve been building up my Wrangler now. And one thing I learned there is in my gladiator, I had a 37 in the spare. It was great just bolted right here. It got bolted, but just mounted right up. No modification needed. Then I get the Wrangler and get my 37s and like, oh crap, where am I gonna put the spare? And then you have to get the reinforcement plate and all that good fun stuff back there. So just got that mounted this weekend, but. – Which reinforcement, did you go with the terra-flax or which one? – No, I’m a cheap bastard. So I go as cheap as I can for as good as I can. But I went with the Tiger, T-T-Y-G-E-R.
I’ve seen some on some other rigs that seem to be quite beefy. And so far I really liked it, but it was relatively cheap, but it replaced all of everything from the stock engines, the whole plate across the tailgate, pretty beefy and unstout. And it retained, and this is probably where it gets a little cheap is it retains the stock wheel mount
and such, but it seems to work great, holds it stable as can be. So we’ll see how long it lasts, but so far, Mappy. – Awesome.
All right, let’s see, I think Travis is the only one that, no, sorry, you got mic too. So Travis, routine maintenance, do you do it yourself or do you take it into the dealership or how do you handle routine maintenance? – The YJ, when I’ve got it in my possession, 100% everything’s myself, might be watching a shop now. The Forex E, 100%, everything’s at a shop. – Just the complexity there? – It’s a computer and I’m not one of you guys, that’s a computer engineer. Nope, not doing it. You give me an old six owner 4.0, I’ll handle that.
My Jeep’s in the shop for transmission issue, not for oil or anything along that line. But yeah, when it comes to belt changes, when it comes to oil changes, when it comes to brakes, when it comes to anything on the YJ I’ve done and do and will do, the Forex E, it’s going to the shop. It’s also under warranty.
So with that warranty, 100% gonna just take it to the shop. Even though I understand Chris and what he said and I worked for dealership, I 100% know it’s true,
but I just go to the shop.
– Gotcha, gotcha. All right, I think Mike, did you wanna add anything? You got anything on maintenance that you wanna add in here?
– Basically about the same as everybody else, as long as I can do it in the driveway, with the Jack and Jack’s hands,
I’m open up, you know, to do it all.
– Awesome, so that Jeep can do attitude there, right? So I think it’s kind of universal there. Well, besides Travis and his Forex E, that everybody likes to get their hands dirty and knock out their own maintenance there. So we’re gonna move on to the next question here and see if we get some fun answers on this one. So I’m sorry, I just kinda got distracted there, looked up and saw the background picture that Bob has on his little thing there. I don’t even wanna know what he’s doing with that hilt that he’s taking a picture of. – That’s disturbing. – That is very disturbing.
– 20 bucks is 20 bucks, shut the hell up. (laughing) If anybody’s watching on YouTube, they’ll get to see what everybody’s disturbed about there. So, all right, here comes the fun question, the one that’s, I think it could be controversial or it could be, you know, boring, but not necessarily what you think is right for everybody because, you know, where we wheel at and how we wheel is gonna change the answer across the board. But you personally, what tire are you running right now on your rig and what’s your opinion of it? Do you like it? Are you running it because you spent the money and you gotta wait until you can spend money on something else?
What’s your overall opinion? So I wanna start back with Larry again. So Larry, what’s your opinion of, what are you running and what’s your opinion of it? – So I’m running the Rodian,
the Nexen Rodian’s MTs, but South of Italy, you know, I’ve seen how they ran a lot out in California and other areas and, you know, we did pursue a sponsorship with them. So you can take whatever I save with that grain of salt.
But, you know, we were running the Milestars for a long time
and I never really had any issues with those randos for almost 80,000 miles. – It’s amazing out of an inch. – And then the Nexens that I run now, I’ve not had any issues. They seem to do very well even at really low PSI. So, you know, we’ve, the only thing they don’t, you know, and you’ve seen this, they don’t like mud
when we were all at Hot Springs. I mean, it was that suit that we were all kind of stuck in, at least I was. And- – I was about to say, I think there was some Nino’s and B of cheese at the top of the hill that-
– Well, you took a different line. I took the harder line. – Didn’t take a different line. Didn’t take a different line. – But yeah, that’s what I’m running right now. – Awesome. All right. Let’s see, Matt, what are you running?
– So a lot of BFG K02s. Actually one of the, embarrassingly enough, one of the reasons is because I wanna raise white letters. But we’ve got eight of them that we run in the rotations of the trailer.
And I think it’s a great on-road tire, which I think is awesome for, you know, putting 25,000 miles a year, we don’t want the Jeep in the trailer, but definitely lacking in several areas and off-road. So it gave you things a bit of a compromise.
It probably works out better for us overall to have a tamer tire, but definitely off-road
leaves a lot to be desired. – Just in mud, the rocks, all of the above or? – Yeah, I mean, it’s not awful in the rocks or anything. Mud, the mud is the worst. So not having, you know, it’s just not a big enough void to clear, which I think is the big thing. The on-road is great, but, and really in the rocks, we haven’t had a lot of traction issues, air and down enough, there’s a lot there. But the mud and like anything wet
tends to be rough here like out in the East Coast.
– Oh, sure. All right, I think BFG K02s though, even with their faults, I mean, I see so many of them. And I think like you said, there’s some give and take and, you know, in specific situations, like you said, putting a lot of miles on them or community or whatever, they do make a lot of sense. I see a lot of them being sold, so. – And you can, I mean, one good thing is, unfortunately we’ve had to get them a couple of different places in the country, but they’re normally fairly readily available. So, you know, within a day, you know, most people with a decent network can get you a set of 37 inch K02s, which may not be, you know, you know, it’s getting better now, but a year ago, that wasn’t the case with a lot of tires, right? – Oh, absolutely. I had to wait quite a while for my, my middoes back when I ordered them a couple years ago. So, all right, Chip, what are you running? I know you got like 17 different Jeeps, but on your, let’s say on your two door JK there, what you’re running? – So my two door JK, when I bought it, it had Nito Ridge Grapplers on it.
And I took it to Moab and it did wonderful. I think that when you get to an all train tire, it’s a great tire for Moab and some of those type situations or a lot of trails.
But when I got back home, the all trains just don’t clear out enough, right? You were like everybody saying that they’re great on rain, they’re great on snow, they’re good. It’s an all around good tire. But when I go out into some of the muds on a lot of the trails I’m going, I really need a bigger lug. And so I’ve been running BFG KM3s or I had KM2s, but I’ve got BFGs KM2s or 3s on all but one of them, well, all but two of my Jeeps. So my wife’s daily still running the BFG K2Os and I love those tires and they do well in general. But again, if you’re going out and wheeling in much mud,
I like the bigger lug. The little LJ I got’s got Yokohama and I don’t even know what the tire is. They look like- – Geo-enders? – Geo-enders, yes, yes. They look like a road tire, they look like an all terrain but I tell you what, I’ve been impressed with them so far. I haven’t taken them in deep mud and I’m not gonna really off-road that LJ for a while. So I did a little off-roading in Arizona, it did fine. It didn’t clean out real well when I went through some mud out there. I guess there is some mud in Arizona but I’m a big BFG fan and a big KM3 fan but I see a lot of what, Cooper SST pros, I’ve seen, so Jeep Jamboree just took on a sponsor of General Tire now. So I’ve got one of my buddies just put Generals on his that are MTs, they look pretty aggressive. I’m curious to see how they do, so.
– Yeah, I think that General Grabber’s, it’s up there with the BFG KM3s as just kind of a good stalwart, it’s a lot of people use it, a lot of people run it. So awesome, all right.
I think Andrew is up next. So Andrew, what tire are you running? – I run that BFG K02, run it all, my vehicle’s granted. I did switch over to a KM3, BFG, good wrench
for the LJ 35, 12 and a half.
So I’m excited to see how it does, because granted all I know is the K02’s wheeling, so hopefully it does pretty well.
– Well, I think a lot of people use it, but I do got a question. So you said good wrench, so is that made by Dale Earnhardt Incorporated or? – Sorry, whatever, whatever getting tired is. – P.F. Goodrich, so. – P.F. Goodrich, whatever, my apologies. But the K02’s are really good, especially like in South Texas on the ranch, minus when it’s muddy.
Other than that, they’re really good for sidewall protection when you’re running through thorns and brush and everything else. That’s mainly why I run the K02’s on everything.
– Awesome, it looks like Chris has stepped away. I don’t see him in the camera there. So Garrett, what tire are you running?
– So I’m running the Patagonia MTO2’s just because I had the original ones on my TJ.
But honestly, I’m probably not gonna go back to them after these wear out, because they have a tendency to unevenly, the lugs, one’s high, one’s low, one’s high, one’s low. So it causes a vibration and the center seems to be a little higher than the rest of it. And it’s just not wearing very well. So I think I’m gonna go with the Nitto’s whenever I change to the Nitto 38’s, because I saw that they had 38’s. – Wow, that’s actually, what I just put on mine is the 38 Trail Grapper. So I’m loving them so far, but I had the 37 in Trail Grappers before. So good tire.
All right, let’s see, Blaine, what tire are you running on the Wrangler that you’re building up there? – So I’ve got the Milestar Patagonias on this. I had them on my Latiator before, got a set on another old ZJ, and they’ve done us well. We beat the living crap out of them and have yet to have one fail us.
Garrett mentioned the crown to the tire. They’re actually designed that way. I don’t know if you’re aware of that, but it’s one of the rare, a few true crown tires.
So it does tend to ride on the center logs, which I think is what helps with the mileage that you get out of them, because you’re riding on that more solid block, if you will, instead of the outer edges, but I always air down considerably when I go off road.
But they were fine for me. I’ve never had any abnormal wear, but I rotate about probably every two to 3000 miles at best.
And as long as you do that, they seem to wear very evenly in my case, but I’ve never had any issues in that. I absolutely love them. – So I know the rotation is critical. I know, like you generally let people vinegar speak, he got 80,000 plus miles out of his Patagonias, but I know he rotates them, I think, like every 10 miles, I think.
(laughing) – I run a lot of air pressure in those too. – Another thing I like with them is they tend to run fairly true to size. Like the ones I’ve literally brand new is right now, probably don’t even have a hundred miles on them yet.
And they’re lightweight on my wheels I have, and the 37s, the 37, four, fives, they weigh right at 102 pounds fully mounted and measured, they’re about like 36 point, roughly 36 and a half inches mounted.
So that’s, I think that’s pretty good. Now that’s not mounted on the Jeep, on the Jeep it’s pretty close to 36, but you know, just sitting off the vehicle, but full of air and mounted, a lot better than a lot of tires, I guess, when it comes to the actual size. – And I think that’s something that not a lot of people realize when they’re shopping, they’re new to that is that if you’re ordering a 38 or a 37, if you pull your tape measure out with that thing, mounted to your Jeep, it’s not likely going to measure 38, 37. – Yeah, I’ve got a friend of mine that he’s got a newer set of the BFG K02s and the 37s, and when we pull up next to each other, you would swear I’m on at least 38s next to his BFGs, and they’re supposedly the same size, right? – Yeah, BFGs run small. I know that, but for pulling up next to, I think Bill’s got 37s on his 392, and I can pull up next to mine, they just, they look taller.
And yeah, you could tell they run small.
– You know, there’s another interesting aspect that you didn’t ask in this question was what tire pressure do you run at when you’re just going on the road? – So, and in my Wrangler, I’m still playing with it now, but I’m at pretty much 35, 36.
I like to stay up on that crown a little bit, only Patagonia’s just to keep the, that’s kind of what they’re designed for, but it seems to be tracking fine, and I’m pretty happy with it. When I’m a gladiator, I ran a little bit different pressures just for the lighter weight on the bed versus the, you know, the front side of the Wrangler, it seems to be a little more evenly, I don’t know,
to it, but again, 35, 36 is where I’m about. – You know, because on my BFGs, depending on what I’m doing and where I’m going, but I mean, I’ve been playing around between 26 and 32 on the highway for comfort, and if I get 40,000, I don’t know, you know, they’re trail tires, and my short Jeep is mostly off-road, and so really, I’m chunking out log pieces on rocks and everything else, and I’m not gonna get, oh, if I get 20, 25,000 miles
with the majority of that being trail,
I think I’ve accomplished a lot. Now, on the road, and my wife’s Jeep, and when we take her JL and to get changed, they’re always pumping it up to 40, and it changes the ride, so I bring this woman era down to 36 or maybe 34, and you just get a better comfort. Right now in the LJ, I’m running 26 on the GeoLander, that was the way the guy had it when I bought it. I could probably go up a little bit, because I upgraded the lift kit, but I think it’s an interesting aspect of what tire pressure you run at to either one maximize mileage on the tire, or look at also the comfort, and I guess a lot of it comes on suspension and shocks. – The way your rig plays a lot of that, too, right? Because if, you know, like, I know my rig runs about 6,000 pounds, and when I was running the miles, I ran 40 PSI in them. – Wow, really? – And to keep up on that center crown of that tire.
And I got a lot of life out of them, but I ran a lot of PSI on the highway, right? If I was on, if I was, you know, it’s like the rest of us, so you get on a rougher road, you take some air out of it, but when you’re running, you know, concrete, you know. – The tire size can play in pressure. I don’t know, as I’ve been going up in tire size, I’ve been kind of going down in pressure, because I do the chalk test, although I do a little bit differently. I just spray the, spray some, with the water hose, I hit the tire, get it wet, and then kind of drive a dry patch of concrete or whatever. And you can see the pattern of your tire, and I just try to get it as flat as I can to look at that pressure and then stay with it. So for me, it’s about 27, 28 from my 38s, but yeah, it’s, there’s not gonna be a perfect pressure that we can say on here that everybody should be running, because there’s so many variables with your, – Which tire, what you drive in, what weight, all those things. Every time I hear about the chalk test, it makes me think back in high school, our high school back in the 70s actually had a rule that girls could come to school braless if they could pass the pencil test, which means they, if they could put a pencil under their breast and it would fall out, they didn’t have to wear a bra, but if it fell out, if it wouldn’t fall out, they had to wear a bra, if it did fall out, they didn’t have to wear a bra. – So when they rode their horses up to school, because I’m assuming it was that long ago. – It wasn’t that bad. But here’s the real question, right? So this was actually a policy at school. Who in the hell, – Not many of us, not many of us. – Had to administer the test. That’s what I wanted to mention.
Who came up with the test? (laughing) – Probably his name was Weinstein. – Part of the PE teacher.
– You old Harvey. Hey, Chris, you’re back. – What tire are you running? And what is your opinion of it? – I’m embarrassed to admit this. – Jeff wants to know the tire pressure. – I’m embarrassed to admit it’s a 245 75 17 that came on my gladiator sport. And I just haven’t had the fun tickets upgrade yet. So yeah, it’s a street pedestrian tire, probably 30 32 PSI. – What are they coming with now from the battery? Is it good years or? – I don’t even know. I think it’s hand cook. I don’t even know. It’s they’re new. I don’t know. It’s embarrassing. I just. – So our 23 JL came with the FG K2Os. – Well, I got a – Depends on the model you got. – It’s a 20. – If you’re buying a sport to a lube car. – I do how to get the sport.
So that’s what it is. But yeah, we’ll change it. We’ll change that sooner than later. – Yeah, but I guess to go back to a tire familiar because you just recently got the gladiator. So yeah, I remember correctly, you were running Toyos on the JK. – Yeah, I was on my second set of Toyo AT3s, AT2, AT2 slash three. It was in the second set. Really liked the Toyos. Give a shout out to them. My only negative to Toyos, they’re just heavy. They run a true, we were talking earlier about, what the tire size is. They run a very true tire size. If they say it’s a 33 or they say it’s a 35, it is very close to that. Unlike BF Goodrich, BF Goodrich, like you said, John always runs small, but they’re just damn heavy. But love the Toyos. And I’m thinking about getting a set of Toyos on the gladiator pretty soon. The Nittos are very, Nitto and Toyo are kind of like cousins. So my Nittos are pretty heavy as well. So, and they, they’re kind of- – I don’t know if y’all know this or not, both the Nitto and the Toyo, they’re 100% American-made tire. They’re all made in white Georgia. – Really? I thought they were, most tire. – Yep, I’ve got a really big plan over there. I go there quite frequently for work. – Wow. – So you’re saying, – So Blaine, you’re saying you get John and I discount? Is that what you’re saying? – I don’t know. (laughing) Which is why I’m not running those.
(laughing) – All right, well, I think I know their workers get, I think they get like two sets a year for no charge. But they’re pretty restricted on, you know, what they’re supposed to do with them and stuff. But it’s a pretty cool process to see it all being made. But yeah, they’re all down there in Georgia being made there. – Who the hell needs two- – So after the show comes out, everybody’s putting applications in. – Who the hell needs two sets of tires a year for three after not selling them on you?
(laughing)
– Chris, haven’t you ever heard of like red label stickies or whatever, man? If you can get a set of red label stickies for your crawler. – Yeah, absolutely. – And Christmas comes around, you get a set of tires, you get a set of tires, I mean, it’d be awesome. So Travis, what are you running?
– I’ve got KM3s on the 4XC, I’ve got Toyo MTs on the YJ. Huge fan of the Toyos like Chris.
I mean, my YJ’s a wheel and rig, those MTs are impressive in the mud, like a lot of you guys were knocking mud and what your tires were running. Those are impressive in the mud. Those impressive on the highway, I will give them that as well. And the years and the length I’ve had, it’s on a daily driver, but from when I put those tires on the Jeep in 17,
it’s stupid how much tread I’ve got. I don’t drive the Jeep often, but I’m highly, highly impressed with those Toyos. My KM3s currently, I’ve been impressed with last season. I’ve got a little bit of time left with them. I bought everything for the 4XC used. So they’re not gonna last forever. And so I was excited to hear this conversation. I’m gonna be upgrading tires and I mean, they’re gonna go back to what I know or someone’s gonna stupidly impress me on something else, which I was leading to the next and from everything said here on the show to now, I’m like, “Ah, let me go back to what I know,” which is Toyo and Nitto.
So we’ll see. – I think one of the other advantages that Toyos and the Nitto is just speaking, because I’ve actually run on both. I had the open country MTs on my JK first. That was my first tire upgrade.
One of the reasons they’re heavy is they do run a harder compound, which allows them to get their life out of the tread on there and they have stupid, thick sidewalls. And when you see them kind of pinch up and take rockets straight off the sidewall and running low air pressures and everything else, it’s impressive. There’s a reason why when you look out there at a Ultra Four cars running and King of the Hammers and everything else, you see a couple of the same brands over and over again. The funny thing is you’ve heard them here tonight as well. I mean, Nitto, Toyo, BF Goodrich. I mean, these are, I think, Nexon even runs and every man challenge really limited them to 37. So, you know, that’s where they’re torture tested. So, awesome. I think, Mike, you’re the only one left there. So, Mike, what kind of tires you running?
– Hi, I noticed BF Goodrich came out with his K02 or K03?
– With the K02s are the latest on the all-trains. Although I think they are coming out with the K03 at its own point of time. – Yeah, K02. That’s the all-train for now. So, I’ve only had them for a year. So, I haven’t tried them out for a hundred yet or anything like that, so.
– You like them so far? – Yeah, so far. They did okay in the snow and all that. – Awesome. All right, let’s move on to our next question here. It’ll probably be our last one. Looking at the time thing, we’re gonna get through this one and we’ll save the next one. Because I think the next one, the last question about onboard air would almost be a whole episode itself. So, question number three.
And we’re gonna go back and start with Larry again.
And it’s fitting that we’re starting with Larry on this one. Because question number three is, have you ever fabricated something for your rig? And if so, are you happy with how it turned out?
– Well, I’ve fabricated a few things on my rig.
And so far, it’s like everything else you do. You get done with it. You wanna redo a few things. So, I mean, I’m no different than everybody else. But there’s been quite a bit of stuff we’ve built for the Jeep.
And, you know, we always wanna do a better job after you see it. Everybody is pretty much the same way. But I think that’s part of being a Jeeper too. You have the natural, want to build or change or do something to your rig constantly no matter when you’re theoretically done. – Okay. What is this word done? I don’t know. – That’s why I said theoretically. – Could you spell it? Country of origin? I’m not sure I understand that word.
Awesome.
So, Larry, I know just, just to help us wheeling with you quite a bit.
Just off the top of my head, rear tire carrier, skid plates, rear trail vines. – The rear tire carrier and
the aluminum pullout drawer system I built for the JL
and the dash bar to mount all your stuff on. And yeah, I always like to keep the torch, keep the torch running. – Control arms. I remember seeing a video on that. – Control arms and… – Larry. – Yes, sir. – Did you say pull out?
– That’s his rear. – But I said rear first. (laughing) – Cushion, cushion. – That’s a, so I think you fabricated so much for your Jeep. You had to go get bigger springs for the rear, if I remember correctly. – Well, I did say earlier it was 6,000 pounds.
– She’s a hefty thief. – She’s not light. – When you do something, I don’t know, just randomly I’ll talk in my head, I’m gonna throw out something. But like, say if you have a trailer and you have a problem with the hub or whatever. You kind of want to see that really pulling up because it’s got all these tools in the back of it. – Well, we have an expert here with that. I’ll let him talk about that. (laughing) – Matt, you’re up next, it sounds like. Larry called you out there. So, what’s your fabrication experience there? – So surprisingly on the Jeep, I really normally end up identifying an aftermarket part that is gonna end up looking better.
I don’t wanna play, but that’s on the jail almost everything’s available, right?
And I think, especially about an older Jeep that I was running as a trail rig, it’d be a lot different. But yeah, so instead of fabricating, doing a drawer system and rooftop system and stuff, I fabricated the trailer last year. And that was a huge learning experience. And really that’s what it is to me. We talked earlier about doing maintenance, but it really is about like,
set a target on something and doing it and learning what you need to be able to do that. So like, Larry, everything Larry’s done is because he’s learned the pieces to get there and then you challenge yourself as you go. And I think that’s the fun part of being a Jeeper, right? And whether that means you’re actually fabricating a piece or replacing the piece that you broke, I guess it’s a fun part of it. – Don’t skip over what you said. You built the trailer, right? We’ve seen from ground up. So that wasn’t a white feet, just build that whole thing. It looked like it was store bought. So kudos to that build. – Oh yeah, he laid right here on the, how many times on the Zoom calls? I mean, he’d be sitting there, we welded, laid out welded together the frame of it and had to mold and form the outside walls and the roof and the curves. And we saw quite a bit of frustration. A lot of beer here.
(laughing)
There’s a lot of beer invested in that thing. It may rival the cost of the parts.
(laughing) – Awesome. All right, Chip, what about you? – I am more of a bolt on guy. I can’t weld.
I really, I don’t, I mean, outside of being creative, like how I wire stuff, like when I, where I’m out on the radio or where I’m running wires or where I’m doing those kinds of things, which might be a little bit more unique and customized to me, but I really, I don’t have the skillset to fabricate. So I’m gonna search out and one, start looking at my buddies Jeeps, right? And what they’ve had success with, just like listening to the show, I think that’s probably been one of the biggest things that I’ve gotten off the Jeep talk show is listening to what everybody’s doing and then hearing what parts have worked for them and weighing it in. Is it in my budget or is it not in my budget, right? So are you buying the high-end stuff? You buying the low-end stuff or you buy the most functional? I’m leaning towards the most functional. I look at price secondary to functionality and durability and performance, but yeah, I’m a bolt-on guy. So I’d strap on guy, whatever you wanna consider it. – Well, I mean, I think similar to that, you can be a bolt-on guy, but how many things have you had to modify after you buy it? So like just as an example, I bought brackets and stuff like that. And then, you know, I’m chopping them up. I’ve got ones where I’ve kind of had to add a piece of steel to the outside of them because I needed to extend it or whatever it is. Not really talking about getting them scratched, but modifying. – Right, so you’re still getting a cutting wheel out occasionally and shaving off part of a bumper to fit the winch in that I wanted.
You’re drilling an extra hole for something to mount correctly or maybe my track bar mount.
I didn’t upgrade the track bar mount when I upgraded my track bar. So we had to, you know, kind of play around there to get it to fit right. So yeah, you’re adapting.
I don’t, I guess, is that fabricating is when you’re adapting? I don’t know, maybe. – I think if you’re modifying, I mean, there’s, I mean, you can look at fabricating at the level of Larry, which I think not very many of us are at that level. – Right, no. – I mean, you kind of got to get started, right? And what I found is the more I’ve adapted parts to kind of start to work on it, the further I’m willing to adapt, you know, the more I’m willing to go in and I think that’s close enough. So now I find myself at Lowe’s looking at parts that are not related to anything at all, but saying, “Oh, I could use that if I cut this, I’ve got that,” and you kind of put it in there. – You know, it’s a big deal to me. I’ve got some inner fender flares that I have not mounted yet, but it requires nutserts, right? So now I’ve got to drill holes in my Jeep that I wasn’t gonna, you know, I really have a struggle of, you know, newer Jeep drilling holes in it to mount whatever, what, you know, if you’re mounting body armor, if you’re mounting the inner fender flares and you’re drilling and putting nutserts in, taking a drill to my Jeep is not, I mean, it made me hesitate when I put the,
what was it, I was mounting on the rear tailgate.
I guess it was just, it was a pack. It was, I think it’s Smittybilt, but it was a pack that’s got three pouches where I can hold my winch controller and a jump pack and some different things that are secured on the, but that meant I had to drill into the tailgate. And I was like, “Oh, this is permanent,” right? I’m making permanent holes in my Jeep, but it’s my Jeep, right? And hell, I just got the title today in the mail. So it’s paid for it, whatever I got, you know? So it’s a great thing. You know, just, I’m like, okay, so I’m gonna do what I wanna do because it’s my Jeep. – And not the banks anymore. That’s even better.
Congratulations there. So, hey, Andrew, what about you? You got the welder out every once in a while, maybe a grinder or two? – I like to classify as Southern engineering. (laughing)
You know, cut a little bit here, well, a little bit there, you know, measure twice, but still do damn short, you know? – Go back to Lowe’s. – Yeah, go back to Lowe’s, you know? That’s my kind of fabrication. I mean, yeah, I can absolutely do it, but you know, I also look for the parts that you can bolt on and modify as needed for your use. I mean– – There’s a lot of engineering that goes into that aftermarket. So, I mean– – Yeah, exactly. – If someone else can engineer it, and I can use half the part and cut it in half, and then, you know, if I would break the part, I got the other half still, so.
(laughing) – All right, what about you, Chris?
– No, I don’t fabricate anything. I’m like Chip said, I’m a bolt-on guy.
Or if anybody remembers back in the day, it might be a little dated, but Chip and Larry will appreciate this.
– Billie Jean King was the spokeswoman for Snap-on Tools.
(laughing) – Okay, this is, it must be inside. I mean, Chip and Larry are laughing heavy here. What’s the joke? – They get it. – That was Woke before Woke was popular. – Exactly.
(laughing) – That’s identifying who’s the man or woman, right?
– I think I’m starting to catch it. – It’s like somebody who may have won a Special Olympics or– – No, no, no, no, John. Look up Billie Jean King and Snap-on Tools. – I will do that for the app for the show. – Not at work.
(laughing) – Not safe for work, so. – But no, there’s a surgery now called adedictomy. – Yeah. – It can get done, but it’s different. – Yeah, but no, I’m a bolt-on guy, just like Billie Jean King. – Just like Chip.
(laughing) I wanted to bring up the Billie Jean King joke when Chip was talking, but I didn’t wanna be rude.
– Blaine, you gotta save his man. Bring his back.
– So I’m kind of a combination of kind of everybody here. So I’ll do some fabrication when needed, but you know, bolt-on, especially in the Jeep world, it just seems like there’s already something made,
probably 10 of them, that will do what you’re trying to fabricate. And you can usually buy it, get a chip to you, and install it for cheaper, and better than what I can make it for in a lot of cases. I will say that prior to my Jeeps, I was wheeling pretty hard, a Prukav F-150.
And for those, there’s not as much of an aftermarket world like there are for the Jeeps. So you can get a lift kit, you can get tires, and anything from there, you’re pretty much on your own. And so like for that, I had a stock bumper on the front, but I wanted to run a winch. So I’m like, okay, I bought a winch. How the hell am I gonna get it on there? Because there was very few bumpers you can get without getting some really huge like ranch type bumpers, but for off-road. So I just built my own inside the bumper. So the bumper was still stock, but I had a 12,000 pound winch sitting inside of it. And it worked great. But it would blow people’s minds when they’d see that thing sitting there with the roller fairlead sticking out, like how the hell did you do that?
So, you know, you just basically, you know, get some metal and figure out a way to make it work, right? And not be afraid to break shit. – Yeah, just experiment. That’s fabrication, right? Experimenting. – Yeah, I’ve had other stuff where like I had an old Smittybilt winch once, and then when everybody started coming out with all the wireless winch controllers, I’m like, well, I want a wireless controller. And so I didn’t want to pay the ridiculous money this Smittybilt wanted to convert that to wireless. So I went to Harvard Freight and bought their cheap ass little $25 wireless controller for their winch, took apart this Smittybilt electronics and figured it all out and made them if they work.
(laughs) – That’s awesome. – So yeah, there’s always something you can do to make it work. It’s just how much dedication and time you want to put into it. But that’s part of the fun part of Jeepin too, is you know, you can just sit there and I enjoy working on this stuff as much as I do enjoy wheeling it, so. – Yeah, I think that’s a common theme in most Jeepers that they love tinkering, but they love making it their own, so. – Although I don’t enjoy fixing stuff that’s broken. – No, it’s not as much fun. – Modify it. – You want to put the fun parts on, not the repair parts. Awesome, all right, Garrett, you got any fabrication stories, anything you’ve done to DJ linkage repair in a parking lot or not?
Or anything like that? – No, I haven’t really done any welding fabrication to my current Jeeps, but when I was in high school, I took a bunch of welding classes. So I worked on my dad’s Jeep, and then a guy that we were friends with had an off-road shop and he would sell like eight eights with a swap, truss swaps on him, and I weld on them for him and stuff like that. But I haven’t done anything to my current Jeeps that I’ve had. – All right, Travis, what about you? – Yeah, buddy.
– My part. I mean, lights and electrical, thousand times over. I’ve figured out ways to do and what to do. I mean, to YJ, I’ve done a lot of work because I’ll see new items for new Jeeps and I get jealous of it. Therefore, I figure out a way to build it, make it happen. Is it welding? No, it’s never welding, I can’t weld. But if it’s bolting, metal bending, if it’s things along that to make things fit, I’m gonna figure it out and make it happen.
That stoplight that I currently paid ungodly amounts for from Oracle for my third brake light behind the rear spare tire, I made one out of a pizza pan at one time. I’d seen it one time somewhere. I mean, talking on the talk show, just search and Jeep forums and everything else, I saw that brake light. I built one and the next thing I know, the world, everybody and their moms got it, including myself.
But it’s just, I put under dash cameras or under vehicle cameras based on
what was truck night in America. They were running over logs and they had to just mount and balance and make sure they didn’t fall off. I’m like, I wanna do this for the trail just in case I ever need it. Do I need it or need it? No, I don’t. But I’m gonna fabricate, make anything electrical.
Hearing him say, it took a Smittybilt or a Harbor Freight wireless wind setup. I’m like, I wanna do that to my Smittybilt when some of my watch ain’t out. It just, you hear things, you can do it. There’s nothing limiting anyone.
The ForexE, now hadn’t done a damn thing. I did, I bought limb risers. I was gonna buy them and I went to Home Depot, I actually went to Lowe’s and priced out everything to do it. And I was like, yeah, no, I don’t wanna do this. I can buy them on Amazon for 40 bucks. So I went and bought some, but again, it was tap sets. I didn’t wanna tap set. So I was like, what can I do? And I got some ground screws. That’s ground screws into aluminum, but they’re holding solid as shit. If they rip out, I’m gonna find that one hit a limb. But right now, I’m like, they are tight set. I’m gonna drill in, I’m gonna do whatever I gotta do to my Jeep.
It’s just, yeah, make it yours, do what you wanna do, have fun. – Absolutely. – Did you run limb risers on your YJ? – No, on the YJ, no, on the ForexE, yes. – So, a lot of people look at limb risers and they’re like, they equated to like a snorkel for discussion, right? You’re like, okay, so is this a wanna be off-roader? Is this a mall crawler with limb risers on it? Why? But if you’re– – I very much agree. – If you’re running through woods, that’s huge. And unless people are running through tight woods, you’re running Moab, you don’t need limb risers. But you’re running out through Uari, you’re running through the Badlands, you’re running out East in AOA or Ouch Creek, some of these areas. Limb risers actually save a lot of scratches, a lot of dings, potentially your windshield.
– I think that goes to, when we’ve talked in the past, we try to talk about specifically what we would recommend to someone else, but that’s almost an impossible thing to do on a national level, right? You really gotta talk about kind of what you did and the choices you made and kind of why, because wheeling is so different. Like you said, Southeast wheeling to West Coast wheeling, I mean, they’re so different. And what you need to do to wheel in both areas is gonna vary greatly. I mean, you can make an all-around rig for sure. That’s called a factory Jeep. I mean, a factory Jeep is pretty dang capable at an all-around scenario. So when you start modifying, you’re kind of modifying it for your specific type of weight. So, all right, Mike, you’re gonna round us out here. What you, you got anything that you’ve done any kind of fabrication work with?
– Not a whole lot.
I have a JK, so, wow, that stuff is mainly bolt-on. There’s like a lot of the newer ones are,
a lot more popular and have more options on bumpers and everything else. There too, one, the auto models where you don’t really have the selection and all that.
So a lot of it’s, for me, a lot of it’s not bolt-on. – Yeah, I think that a lot of the fabrication really comes down to the availability, the aftermarket support. And a lot of our newer rigs definitely have a quite a bit more aftermarket support than a lot of the older rigs. So you talk to someone with, I don’t know, a quad-gab F-150, they’re gonna have a lot more fabrication experience just because they’ve had to. It’s a necessity item, so, absolutely.
– And that’s the YJ. I mean, the YJ, anything I want that I want to adjust, build, or do, I had to, I’d buy a new product
and then I would have to adjust. And again, that’s why I like that brought up. You have to adjust it to fit an older model Jeep. Everything can be done on those old Jeeps. My YJ, I wanted CMM mirrors before he designed and built those for those. And I wanted upper raised mirrors because I saw it on a JK and I was like, I like that design, I like what it is. I fabricated and maked it.
I wanted a, what was one thing I love? My flagpole mount. And I wanted it built and designed like one I’d seen on a JK. And I was like, I’m gonna build this, I’m gonna make it. You know, it’s just, you see something, you like it, you can figure it a way out because the Jeeps have it, they’ve changed a lot over the years engine wise, but body dynamics haven’t that much to where something can’t be adjusted, can’t be fabricated slightly majority wise. I mean, it can be fabricated, it can be done to fit and work.
– Yep, absolutely. – I think everybody needs to look at doing a passenger side under dash cam like Travis’s idea.
– Just go post the video online.
– Only fans, baby, make some money. (laughing) – All right.
All right, so that’s the show today. Just to kind of add in a little bit there at the very end, I’ll do a little bit of translation for that Deep Southern speak you heard. So when Travis said I’ve maked it, he meant he made it. So just everybody was curious about that. So that was it for tonight’s episode. Hopefully you didn’t mind me substituting it here for Tony and the format change up just a little bit. Next week, Tony will be back. He’ll be back in charge. He’ll be back running the show. And I think all of us will be happy, right? Glad to have Tony back. So I wanna say thanks again to Trails Off Road for sponsoring this episode.
Support the sponsors that support the show. Make sure you get out there and visit trailsoffroad.com and take advantage of that big discount. And like I said before, Patreon will get you a good discount and always love the subscriptions. Thanks again, everybody. And we’ll catch you next time.
– You’re my friend. You’re my new friend. (laughs)