Episode 1032 – Airing Down
Ask the Mechanic with Zach of Unlimited Offroad
Do you back into a parking spot?
What off-road map?
What mod have you not used?
– All right, let’s get this party started. I’m Tony, and I wanna welcome all you new listeners and our regulars to the Jeep Talk Show Roundtable. I’m your host and excited to have you here for this very special gathering of passionate Jeep enthusiasts. Some are more passionate than others. Yes, Travis is with us tonight. We’re gonna start tonight with Zach from Unlimited Off-Road,
and this is gonna be another Ask the Mechanic segment. If you haven’t been to the Roundtable in a while or watched or heard one, this may be brand new to you. Zach is a local to Houston shop owner. He works on Jeeps and it’s Unlimited Off-Road. So Zach, let’s just jump in there real quick. And actually, I’m sorry, we’ll get to you in just a second. I’m just getting too excited about Ask the Mechanic. All right, after our segment with Zach, we’ll be asking you the following questions. Do you back into a parking spot? I suspect that we’re gonna talk an hour on this subject.
And the three questions we didn’t get to last week, what off-road map or maps do you use? It could be paper, it could be electronic, it could be both. What mod have you not used? So what modification have you made on your Jeep? I guess even your tow vehicle have you done and you have just never used it. So, and I think we ask this every so often, I’m just kind of taking the pulse of the Jeep community. Is Jeep ducking dead? So we already know what Greg Henderson’s response is. He’s got a mutilated duck handy there at his shop. Did you know that you can submit your questions for the round table? Just go to jeeptalkshow.com slash contact to find out how. Are you ready? It’s time for the Jeep Duck Show with hosts Tony, Josh, Wendy, and Chuck.
All righty, so do all our round table meeting attendees. Please introduce yourself with your name and location the first time that you speak tonight. This helps the listener know your voice when you speak. So hello, Zoom people.
Hello, hello, hello, hello. Giddy up.
Hi.
So I think we’re missing, I don’t see John Lee. Is there a dance thing going on? I don’t see John Lee. I don’t see Steve O, which is really strange.
We should do a welfare check on Steve O.
I think he’s been off driving around with his top off and his toenails shining.
Don’t know the story behind that. He’s got a heart today.
He’s in Oregon, Illinois.
All right, let’s get over to Zach for Ask the Mechanic. Zach, thank you a lot for being here with us tonight.
Tell everybody about your shop real quick and your website information. So let’s get you started with that.
Great, yeah, thanks for having me. My name’s Zach. I own Unlimited Off-Road, unlimitedoffroadtxatg.com. Sorry, unlimited off-road TX. You must’ve been working today. Yeah, yeah, it’s been a long day, sorry.
Yeah, we’re in Houston, we’re on the west side,
on right at I-10, the Beltway, a nice large facility, focused mostly on Jeeps and other off-road vehicles. And Zach was the gentleman that welded in and helped me install the skid system, the motor built skid system. And Zach, correct me on this, I think you’re kind of impressed with the motor built stuff. Now you’d never seen it before. I hadn’t seen it before. We were not a dealer for it. I think they are direct on the dealer,
meaning they don’t have big distributors.
So not something I’d seen before, but it looked very well made, it went together nice and easy.
We didn’t have to bang our head or… There was no bending, there was no heating up metal and moving around. All right, well- Yeah, I mean, I’m sure that’s gonna change after you use it and smash it around. Well, now that it’s on there, it’ll just stay in there as long as the something doesn’t pop out of place. All right, so let’s get to this. Now, I mentioned earlier before we started the show that we are going to limit the number of questions that Zach is answering tonight, because we don’t wanna take up the whole hour in it.
So does anybody have a ask the mechanic question? And it’s okay if you don’t, but it seems everybody always has a question.
– Well, the first question we asked last week was what do you look for before you go off-roading? So Zach, I guess if you were doing, if somebody came to you and said, hey, I’m going off-roading to Moab or Rubicon, or I’m taking a week and I’m gonna be off-road for five days,
can you check my deep out? Are there four or five, six things that you would just immediately look at?
– I mean, so the big thing,
as I’m sure all of you know, is getting through the trail,
keeping your rig in one piece. So things that we look at and things that we focus on is largely the drive train.
We deal with a lot of JKs, so I’ll just use a JK as a great example of this.
You joints in the front axles, inspecting them, making sure they’re good.
Play in the Dana 44s in the rear.
Your drive shafts, checking the CV joints in the drive shaft if they’re old or if they’re the new, or if they’ve been replaced with the U-Joint styles.
Checking the fluids in your diffs and transfer cases, all the transmission for that matter.
Just making sure your vehicle is in good order from a drive train perspective, because you’re gonna be putting Marr, Wear, Tear and Strain on those things out on the trail than you ever would just cruising down the road.
So if you get a… As long as the motor stays running and it stays cool, you can have some issues with the air fuel.
But once you start breaking drive train components and you’re running, I don’t know, one wheel drive, then you really got problems if you’re out on the trail. – Right.
Well, thank you. – I don’t wanna jump in and ask the mechanic, but myself personally, so me and my buddies, we put my lift on, rock crawler two and a half inch lift and torqued everything down, had it set and good. I drove it, wheeled it, came back, we torqued everything down again. And then this month ago, month and a half ago,
my rear track bar, my upper bolts were coming loose and it was just shimming on the way home, left and right.
Check, check if yourself is doing it, if a shop’s doing it, either way, regardless, re-torque these bolts down, make sure they’re set up and good. You know, and it’s not just the track bars. I mean, it’s… – Make sure you actually get some crunch, not a Oga Oga wrench. – Correct, correct. And that was, I’m not gonna lie, that might’ve been initial reason for myself.
– 98% of the time, that’s the reason.
(indistinct) – The standard procedure on torquing and torque sequences is always going back,
torque wrench in one hand, paint pen in the other. So anytime you torque a nut or a bolt, mark it with a paint pen, that way you can go back and give it a good visual inspection, see if anything’s moved. – Which I did not do, and that’s actually, I still have not done, but that’s a very, very good point for me. I’m a YouTube mechanic, or I’ve got my buddies that are much better than I am. I love hearing that. – I make my guys do it. That way when something’s done and it’s leaving, I’ll go out and spot check almost everything my guys do.
But sometimes, I don’t get to see all of them, so they don’t know what I’m gonna look at or not. But if there’s not marks on the bolts that I know that they touched, I’ll make them go back and torque everything. – Oh yeah, it’s a good idea. – Standard procedure. – If there’s not a mark on it, you don’t know if it’s been torqued or not. – Exactly. – And it’s good punishment to remember to mark it next time.
– Do it right or don’t do it at all.
– Zach, I have a question for you. This is last year when I went to Eastern Jeep Safari, I was out on Hell’s Revenge, and I started hearing a whining noise. I was hoping it wasn’t the transmission, it wasn’t. It took me a little bit, and I realized what the noise was. Brand new to the Gladiator, but it’s the same noise I’ve heard from the XJ. The power steering fluid was low in the pump, and I was really confused by that because it was even newer last year when I went to EJS,
and I had not had any power steering fluid noise before. Could it be that I was using the power steering so much that it got hot and evaporated or overflowed the power steering coolant? I know that was the fix. I went to O’Reilly’s there in Moab and got some fluid, filled it up, and it was fine. It was fine this year too.
– Yeah, I mean, it certainly could be an issue.
Going sideways, overheating it.
I know a lot of vehicles do have power steering coolers. I personally have not been into the front of a JT personally, so I don’t know if there’s one on there off the top of my head.
My guys would know because they’re in there every day.
And then you’re overworking it. When you’re working, you’re power steering a whole lot more, which is why a lot of guys put those PSCs on there.
And then there’s a great new product. Give me just a minute. Oh, I have it right here. It’s called a steering boost kit from a company called Apex.
This is really supposed to help the JLJTs and they come with a cooler and everything.
It’s kind of like a middle of the road solution between just your regular power steering and your go-to-a-PSC kind of system. – Yeah, the Apex opens the flow up. So basically it almost doubles the amount of flow that your factory pump can put out. The problem with the doubling the flow is then you need the cooler, but Apex also supplies the cooler, which is really important. But essentially if you do that on your Gladiator or your JL, it will feel just like you have a hydro assist on an XJ or a TJ. It increases the flow that much. So it is pretty exceptional, but there’s no replacement for displacement of a Ram.
– Yeah.
– All right, we got time for one more question in this ask the mechanic segment. Anybody got a question?
– Hey, Zach, I’m gonna ask this for Travis because he won’t do it for himself. Say you have an 89 YJ, how long should it take a mechanic to replace your A8s 15 in years? – He’s putting an AW4 in that.
(laughing) – Yeah, that’s a good question.
– Did you just say he’s putting an AW4 in? – Isn’t that right, Travis? – The AW4 is waiting long for a YJ.
– But I pulled, I went from the 600 to the 4.0 fuel injected.
Yeah, it’s a Frankenstein Jeep and he’ll fix it as soon as I give him money for it. – Yeah, what I’m saying is that the AW4, because it’s physically longer than any other transmission that was ever in a YJ, the only way that you can make it fit and have good driveline angles would be to move your rear axle backwards at least four inches. – I’ve got a new rear drive shaft. I didn’t do this work, so bear with me. – Oh God, I hope it’s done well. – I know I have a new rear drive shaft that I purchased and bought and had built to fit what was done. – Well now, since Greg has told you this, you can check with your mechanic to find out if they understand that things are gonna have to be moved back four inches. Boy, I sure hope they took that into account when they told you how long the drive shaft was. – The driveline angle will be really steep and you’ll spit your joints out all the time.
– I’ve never had to replace it, because again, everything was working great, going good. – It’s not an AW4, it’s AX15. – I thought you said– – Oh yeah, if you’re AX15, you’re fine. – I thought you said it was an AW4 that you were putting. – I don’t remember, no.
I may have, Tony, I was drinking a lot back in the day. – I was gonna say, you drink and I don’t, so I probably remember him right.
– I wouldn’t disagree with that. – I know that’s a popular upgrade for TJs, to get an automatic in a TJ. – Can anybody correct me on that if you need to? Because I think I’m remembering that correctly. – Why would somebody do that? That’s crazy. – So for rock crawling. – Well, mine isn’t automatic. My YJ isn’t automatic.
– All right, well good. – What did the transmission come out of?
– The Comanche.
– What year Comanche? – 92.
– That’s not an AW4. – Okay.
– So you’re fine. The AW4 didn’t come in until the later XJs.
And it is, it’s just physically longer. So it’s a phenomenal transmission. It can handle up to 700 horsepower, but yeah, in a TJ or a YJ, it’s just too long unless you’re stretching the rear axle.
– Which I have not done. – All right, very cool. That’s good information and I apologize for getting the AW4 wrong. – I was quite sure I remember that correctly. – Good job, Charlie. – Thank you. So Zach, that’s it for tonight. I’ll remind people where they can find you. I guess I can tell everybody. Unlimitedoffroadtx.com. And Zach, you guys work on Jeeps, but what else do you work on? – We work on Jeeps. We work on Hummers. We work on Toyotas. We work on pickup trucks. And we work on your general, I also have guys that work on just your general automotive vehicles.
So anything you need from engines to oil changes. – And I don’t wanna speak for you, but last week you said if you have a question, give you a call, is that still open? I mean, I think you field a lot of phone calls. – Oh yeah, I mean, if yeah, you got any questions, you can always call the shop.
Oops, sorry, wrong way. Yeah, 281-272-6671. You can ask to talk to me, just say, “Hey, I got a question about my Jeep,” or whatever the off-road thing is. And if I’m there and not in another meeting, I will gladly sit and talk to you or get back to you if you shoot us an email or leave a message at the shop for me.
But yeah, always happy to talk off-roading or building race cars, Jeeps, and anything else that has four wheels and a spond.
– Sometimes six, because you had a Mercedes in there with six wheels. – Yeah, the six by six bravest, yeah, that’s fun.
(laughing) – All right, Zach, thanks a lot. You’re welcome to hang in here for the rest of the show or consider a job well done and take a break. I can tell you’re tired. So if you need to run– – Appreciate it, and thank you for having me. – Yeah, thank you. – Thank you. – All right, let’s get to our first question. Do you back into a parking spot? – Always, because I’m better than everybody. (laughing)
– Is that so people can see the ducks on your dash?
– It depends on where you’re going. – Yeah, Rick from Arkansas.
Yeah, Rick from Arkansas, I back in unless I can pull across the curve and pull straight in.
– Yeah, I’m from North Carolina, back in skipping a spot as far back as I can get.
– Yeah, Dan from Chicago, depends if I need to get in the tailgate or not. So grocery shopping and whatever.
– It’s Jamie with Girls Play Off Road in Pennsylvania. I tend not to back in, that’s a little bit of a dangerous situation. But I leave that for the husband when he’s driving.
I don’t think anyone wants me to hit them. – So I don’t care if somebody backs in. What I do care is whenever I’m behind them and I have to wait for their dumb ass to angle in. I’m sitting there waiting, like why, just pull in straight or keep moving. Because there’s somebody that wants to get by you
and actually park and go to work or go to the store or wherever you’re going to do something.
– You say that, Tony, but yet if that person is backed in and they’re pulling out quicker as you’re coming around the corner, it’s quickly opened up because they exited quick and they’re out and bam, they’re your spot. – That doesn’t piss me off. – That’s what pisses me off is when I have to wait for them. – No, that excites you. – Right. – No, but that never happens. Or at least I never remember it.
– How long does it take them to back in? It shouldn’t take more than three seconds. – Oh no, it takes a lot longer than that. Because they’re eyeballing and they’re stopping, they’re backing up, they’re going slow. Well, you know what it is. – They’re not driving a Jeep then. – Well, they’re not driving a two-door Jeep, that’s for sure. – Right. – This is Chip from Illinois. Interesting, we got into this discussion this weekend. We were parking in my daughter’s parking lot at her apartment and she was complaining about how long it takes people to back in versus just pulling in. And I explained to her back, I don’t know, 30 years ago, I was working for Dow Chemical and they had a company policy that they wanted you to back into parking spots because they found that as people are backing out of parking spots is when a lot of accidents occur. So yeah, it may take a little bit longer to back in. And the other thing is, do we go to a Jeep show or if there’s other Jeeps and they’re all backed in, you got to back in too. – Oh, of course. – But personally, I don’t like to back in because I’m not a great backer and I don’t have all those fancy Jeeps with a rear camera. So. – That’s what she said. – If I’m hungry, I got to go to the bathroom, I’m pulling in so I get out of the Jeep quicker. – Did you notice that people used to be able to back up and now that rear cameras are mandatory, nobody knows how to fucking drive anymore? – Oh, it’s very difficult to back up with that camera. – There’s always been a theory, especially in trucking, that you can pull out of anything that you can back into, but you can’t always back out of something that you pulled into. – True.
– So that safety thing is real though. – Oh wait, sorry. – A few courses from work of where you have to take driver safety courses and that’s actually policy. A lot of companies, like you have to back into the spot,
many, many insurance studies and everything else that caught on have proven that it’s actually a much safer way, at least for work vehicles, utility vehicles that are bigger and have blind spots. – And you got to carry a cone with you. – Oh, you got to put the cone with you.
– Our company heads that policy back in the park because of shift change. People tend to drive like idiots. – People haul ass when it’s time to get off, yeah. And then two, the other thing was they always said if there was a tornado or an emergency and people wanted to leave, it’d be, you know. – Oh yeah, it’s an absolutely easier way to leave, but yeah, I just don’t like being inconvenienced. And a lot of times, and especially when you’re in a full-size truck, it takes a long time to back in. I mean, I don’t expect you to get in a hurry because I don’t want you to damage your vehicle or somebody else’s vehicle because you’re trying to get out of my way, but no, I just don’t care for it. And I don’t think it should be going on. – Just think if everybody backed in, they’d all be practiced at it and they do really good. – I tell you what, in a full-size truck though, if it’s a tight spot, I can back in fast-running pull it. – Yeah. – It’s gonna take me, because a 90-degree spot in a tight garage or something, it’s gonna take me more time to get it straight four times than it is in this back end one. – Well, driving a full-size truck, just pulling out of the spot forward is a lot easier to get out of there than backing up, especially for a long wheelbase full-size truck. – It should actually be easier to back it in than not because the point where it’s turning is completely different. So it’s easier to thread the needle in reverse than it is to thread the needle forward. – Yep, I agree. Still don’t like waiting.
– And myself, I’m always– – You should get a Honda Ruckus and then you can just drive around them and stop worrying.
You can even paint it red. – I need something with a really big bumper on the front.
– Or that, that’s even better. – And I’ll play a– – You should get a Kamatso. – I’ll play a song or a sound that has a Viking saying, “Raming speed.”
– Myself and life, I don’t wanna say I’m up and ready to go and on time, but when I’m ready to go, I’m ready to go. When I get there, it is what it is. I’m late, I’m early, I’m on time. I back in, I take my time. But when I’m ready to go, I’m ready to go. And it is quicker to get out having it backed in.
– Do you feel bad making people wait? – I do not. I did when I was younger, I don’t anymore. (blowing) – If they get pissed, just throw your beer at them. – Yeah, it’s on them. You know, I don’t care. I’m gonna get my job done. I’m gonna do whatever needs to be due.
They can live with it.
So yeah, I’m back in. Because when I’m ready to go, I’m ready to go. And I’m quick out. – We got a large action plan for what people say. You’re gonna say– – Well, I was gonna buy us. – They may help, and that’s gonna be your favorite, okay? – No, I’m new. – Can I get a mop for you as I know your diet, please? – I will say, I think Travis’s new facial hair definitely says that I battle him. – He’s a big fan of that. (laughing) – Lack of facial hair.
– That’s a Kyle, that’s a Kyle, well, good man.
– Or I pull out fast. – I pull, or not at all. (laughing)
– All right, let’s move on to our next question. What off-road map do you use? And this can be a program, this can be a paper map, it can be a wet finger and holding up in the wind. I don’t care. What map do you use, off-road map?
– I use Onyx.
– I think Dan and Steve will shoot answer this question, but Steve is not here. – Steve is not here. So I’m an Onyx guy too. – Bullshit, bullshit.
Trail’s off-road.
– And I got in, well, as soon as I already bought, I’m already invested in Onyx, but I bought it because we went to Kentucky,
where we were, Gaia had absolutely nothing.
So maybe for a map-tit tool, Gaia’s okay. If you want, I’m gonna go with you. If you want a forest service map, all that jazz, you can do your own. I’ll be good for that. But for finding trails and all that, we just went to Onyx, and with all right there, the lid up the trails, you click a button, navigate here, it takes you right there. Like a big trail in the front of your seat. – So I don’t know about the entire group that’s here with us tonight, but my general feeling for like the Jeep Talk Show regulars and team members, they’re kind of anti-Onyx. Anybody wanna speak to that?
– Really? So this is Matt in North Carolina, I’m a little different than that. So I run two.
So trails off-road is by far the best, turn by turn, what’s going on in the trail app, but it sucks for navigation, right? Which is okay. But so I run trails off-road on the phone, and then on the screen I run Onyx. And Onyx has, like if you’re in the middle of some public woods and trying to find a way out, it’s not through somebody’s farm, Onyx does a great job, but they don’t have the trail reviews and that kind of stuff that trails off-road has. So I think the combo is really great. They do two different things well, but they don’t do the same thing well.
– I agree with Matt. I use both Onyx and trails off-roaded. Trails off-road is on the trail, but then Onyx is in between the trails.
– So this is Chip from Illinois. I guess when I’m doing this, it really depends on where I’m going.
I really like trails off-road to access the maps. I use either Onyx or Gaia to download those maps onto, so I’m tracking it. If I’m prepared for the trip correctly, I’ve also got a Garmin going beside me that’s got a bigger screen. It’s a Garmin Overlander,
so that I can follow on two different screens and have access to the maps. But then if you go to places, I’m going down to the Daniel Boone Byway this weekend, most of their maps, their better maps are on a Venza.
So it kind of varies by where you’re going to on who’s mapped that park and there’s no consistency. I think that’s one of the frustrations we’ve talked about on the trail before.
– That’s amazing to have that many maps that you have to use to get everything the way you want it. That could be very distracting. – Well, not at the same time, right? If I’m going to Daniel Boone, I’m probably going to pull up a Venza and I’ve got some maps on my Garmin already. But if I’m going out to say Moab, the BLM, there’s so many out west that are really done well on trails off-road. But like the Badlands has no mapping system to it. There is nothing maps. So everything I’ve got, I did myself or some of my friends did, we’ve shared the GPX files and I’ve loaded it with Garmin.
– This is Andy in Southern Utah.
We usually out here, I help guide trails for Trail Hero. And out here, everything pretty much, they supply us with maps to guide through a Venza and Car2 tracks. And they just work splendidly out here because it’s just so accurate. Now Onyx is the, I’m not too familiar with a publicly sourced or whatever. And you’ll get twisted out here if you try to use Onyx.
– So it really depends on where you’re going. – Yes. – Great. – Yes. – That’s interesting.
– And the important thing is you have the right one for where you are. – Exactly. – That’s key. – And if we’re going out on the strip, on my backyard, I won’t use anything but guy out there because I can drop a cookie track. And if I get to the end and don’t like where I’m at, I can follow it back out or I just create a new route before I go usually.
So it just kind of a combination,
like everybody says, what works best for your general area.
– I don’t run maps.
I just follow who’s in front of me.
Two weeks ago, I’m running with Matt off road and we’re in URE, a place that I will often and should honestly know every trail out there front and back. And Matt was using Onyx. We had a bunch of new people with us and it’s me and him. He’s leading, I got two Jeeps in front of me and then I’m following up the rear. And I have zero idea where we are because Matt’s running at the opposite direction of what I’m used to following another group that I will with. And I was like, I have no idea. Just, I’m just gonna keep going and have fun. There were some main spots that I knew exactly where we were. And I was like, hey, don’t follow me on this.
I’m gonna go up the harder line. But there were so many, and that was one point. All the rest, I’m like, yep. I have no idea where I’m at. Let’s just go have fun. And I’ve said that before, I love it. I’m like, I’m gonna learn the hard way
or I’m gonna get successfully through it.
– Does anybody use paper maps or do you have paper maps as a standby?
– No, that’s what I have. I have a paper map in the G if need be. – Is that an Android app?
– Paper maps, that would be a cool app, wouldn’t it? Download paper maps. – So pretty much all the time, if there’s a paper map available for the trail, I’ll have it too, just in case electronics go down.
– I don’t know if they still do or not, but back whenever I was doing the private pilot thing, that was a requirement. You had to have a paper map with you. It didn’t matter. Yeah, because electronics can fail and it makes it difficult to pull over in the directions of the plane.
But they’re using a lot of the iPads now for flight planning and tracking. – Absolutely. Yeah, it’s a lot cheaper than the avionics stuff. – Yeah.
– All right, well, I think we got some good answers on the off-road map. Hopefully, if you are new to the jeeping and you’re thinking about going off-road, that will help you. I think it will probably just confuse you. So I guess the thing to do is, one of the things you can do is you can join us in our Discord server and ask specific questions of the gang, the Jeep Talk Show listeners and team members. And if you go to jeeptalkshow.com slash contact, you can find your invite for our Discord server. The Discord server is a 24 by seven texting, chatting type thing. So if you’re used to texting and sending pictures to people, not those pictures, but some Jeep pictures, you can use it, do all the same stuff on Discord.
That’s a great way to join the Jeep Talk Show community. All right, so let’s get on to our next question. Why are we really zipping through these things tonight? What mod have you done that you have not used?
– I think for me right now, it’s my brand new beadlocks I haven’t had a chance to.
(laughs)
– Have you ever had a situation where the tire was,
he had such low pressure in the tire that the tire spun? I mean, have you been in this situation where you needed beadlocks?
– Needed? No. I don’t think anybody for the average wheeler gets into a position where they absolutely have to have the beadlocks, right? So it’s more of a nice to have. I mean, if you’re going crazy with like some pretty substantial builds and trails and all that stuff, then yeah, you’re probably, you can justify them. But I mean, most like, for instance, I think method has one, it’s called bead grip, where it’s not a true beadlock, but it holds it really low. And I think for the most, I’ve seen people that aren’t running beadlocks are able to get between 12 and 18 PSI on the 37 inch tires, but which gives you a lot of flex. It gives you a lot of off-road ability without having to go the single digits. That being said, you know, it’s Jeepers. I mean, how often have you used your snorkel to get through stuff? Well, maybe this week with all the rain, but it’s Jeepers we like to have, you know, have more than we need, so to speak, right? Kind of an over-engineered setup to handle any all comings. So that way you’re prepared for kinda… – Well, and don’t take it. Don’t take my question wrong. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have got them. I’m just saying, because a lot of times we Jeepers, especially if we’re inexperienced, we go, “Oh, well, I gotta have this. I gotta have this. I gotta have this.” And I’m not saying that’s you, John, but people may look at it and go, “Oh, I need beadlocks.” And then they go and price them and they go, “Oh, holy crap, I don’t need beadlocks.” So I think it’s like getting a winch. A winch is a very good tool to have, but that might even be one mod that you haven’t used or haven’t used very often. And I think that is usually the case. You mentioned the snorkel. The snorkel was invented in Australia because of all the dusty environments, and it is a true cold air intake and it gets less dust into the motor. So yeah, you can absolutely use it for foraging, not foraging, going through deep water. But I think that the most common use is just actually having a cold air intake. – Yeah, I’m really proud of you, Tony, because most people don’t know that about snorkels. Most people think that they’re for water fording. – Oh yeah. – And for you to drop that little knowledge bomb, I’m proud of you.
I’ll also hit on the beadlock thing. You really don’t get a big tire footprint until you’re in single digits, especially on like a 37.
So I mean, like I typically run with a single beadlock which is what most people deal with. My usual off-road pressure is about seven with a beadlock like a Hutchinson or a Staun or an inner airlock. I’ll actually drop down to three to five.
So you don’t really get a big footprint until you’re in the single digits. So a normal wheel, like a normal street wheel, you can run at 12 PSI and you’re very, very, very, you’re very, very not likely to break a bead. And the traditional beadlocks that most people are used to only lock the outer bead.
And the funny part is, usually it’s the inner bead that pops, not the outer bead. – Oh, interesting.
– If you look at all the tests, it’s usually side-killing or in rough rocks and it’s the inner bead that pops first, not the outer bead. So the outer bead honestly is more of just a rock. – Rock rash ring and it prevents the tire from slipping on the wheel, but it doesn’t help for the bead pop because it’s usually it’s the inner bead. – When you said the pressures don’t until you get to seven or whatever, I mean, there’s a lot of variables that though, right? Because if you get a heavy rig and you’re running 12 PSI, you’re gonna flatten out pretty, pretty good. Cause I’ve seen a lot of rigs running in the 12 and they’ve got pretty, pretty wide footprints on theirs, mainly because there’s 6,000 pound four door Jeeps, right? As opposed to a TJ, I think you’re absolutely right. I think Chuck with his CJs, whatever, he was running like three and four with no bead locks with no problem. Cause of how lightweight they are. – No, you’re a hundred percent right. The only way to truly test it is to actually test your tires. I actually have a video on my YouTube channel called Tire Pressure Matters and it shows my 60, what is it? 6400 pound rig from 30 PSI all the way down to 10 PSI. And I’m on the very low single digits and the pattern, the tread pattern doesn’t get really big until you’re in single digits and that Jeep weighs the same as your, a fully loaded four door. You know, and I’m on Dana 16, Dana 70 and all the big stuff. So if you’re not in a fully loaded four door, if you’re the majority and the majority of people are in four doors that are modestly modified, they don’t have big axles, they don’t have big stuff. So they’re lighter than I am, which means they really need even less tire pressure than what I run. Cause I’m a very heavy rig.
So, but, but, but the only, and there’s a lot of other variables too. Cause John is a hundred percent right.
The make and brand of the tire might have a stiffer sidewall or a thinner sidewall. – Yeah. – You know, the, the, the type of stuff that’s in your rig changes and dictates which tire needs more. That’s why I did that. – Yeah. – And I’ve done a video called tire pressure matters because you’ll never know until you physically test it. And the best way to test it is with the Jack and a big piece of paper and you can test each individual tire.
And then for your street pressures, you should truck test your tires to make sure you’re using getting a full even wear. It’s, it’s really an important thing. And it’s almost a science behind it. And it takes a couple hours to figure out what your particular rig needs. But honestly, like I wouldn’t buy beadlocks if I wasn’t in single digits.
I use them, but I also use Hutchinson beadlocks because it locks both inner and outer bead.
So I mean, there’s, again, there’s a million variables and you’ll never know what’s right for you until you test them.
But honestly, you know, I’ve, I’ve been wheeling for 20 plus years. I’ve been all over the country and even all over the world off-roading in every rig I’ve ever driven. I really don’t notice a huge benefit to airing down until I’m in the single digits. That’s when it really changes because the tire can conform to whatever you’re on. When you’re still in the low teens or even high tens,
you don’t have the, the tire’s just not doing as much work for you.
So it’s, it, but every person’s different, every driving style is different. I like to go real slow. Sometimes I like to go fast, but when I’m in a crawling environment, I want to smooth out the trail. That’s why I air down. I also want my tires to conform and grip to everything so that I don’t squeak tires and I don’t spin tires. And I’m not, you know, leaving rubber all over the trail because my tire is actually working for me. And that’s why I go to the lower pressures. And it’s just my experience based. – So Greg, how does- – So some people, they might want something completely different than what I like. – Greg, how does the Hutchinson lock the inner bead? Is it another ring? – So the Hutchinson wheels are,
they’re essentially, they, they have the military contract. So they do all the military wheels, but it’s, it’s a three piece wheel. So you have an outer piece, you’ve got an inner piece. And then you actually have a hard rubber insert that goes in between. So, and then you bolt the entire thing together. So like a traditional bead lock, like what John has, those bolts on the outer ring, depending on if they’re five 16s or three eight, they’re going to be torqued anywhere from 21 to maybe 30 foot pounds.
The Hutchinson’s, they’re a half 20 and you torque them to 125 foot pounds. Right? They do not come apart. You can, you can do whatever you want. You’re never gonna, you know, your tire’s not going to fail on the wheel.
The cost, the cost is close to the same. The differences, the Hutchinson’s, they’re not nearly as pretty as most of the other feed locks. Like John’s wheels are gorgeous. The Hutchinson’s are not as pretty,
but they serve a little bit more of a purpose. You can even get run flats with Hutchinson. So you can, you can put the run flat inner piece in. And even if you got a 10 inch sidewall gash, you could steep keep driving down the trail. So it’s just a different, again, it’s a different breed.
– Is it, is it similar to the one is kind of like a, it’s got like a inner tube that’s on the inside that’s. – So yeah, the inner tube on the inside, there’s a company called inner air lock or Staun. And I know Staun was bought out by somebody else, but that, that takes a non bead lock wheel and turns it into a bead lock that locks both inner and outer beads with an internal inflatable bag. So it’s, it’s an inner tube with a Kevlar bag. And those are exceptional too. And those are also run flats,
but they’re, they’re not mechanical, right? So you’re not using nuts and bolts to secure them. You’re using air pressure,
but those you can take any wheel, right? Your factory wheels to any wheel you can buy anywhere and turn them into bead locks by drilling a hole.
Now the Hutchinson is completely mechanical. So it’s, he uses a series of bolts that bolt the three pieces of wheel together. And you torque them down, you know, for the love of God to 125 and they don’t move. They don’t shift. They don’t come apart, but they’re not, and I like the look of some of them, but they’re not as pretty. They’re not as easy on the eyes as like what John has. John’s wheels are gorgeous. – Well, the traditional. – Or some of the other wheels out there. – Yeah, the traditional bead locks are really cool looking. You look at that and you go, wow, that’s an off-roader. And then when you have the internal bead locks, it’s a much better situation because you’re, you’re locking both in outside and inside beads, but you don’t get the showy part of it. So it’s. – Yeah, you don’t get the showy part, but I will say another thing like that. If John makes a quick noise or anybody knows how to pull up his bead locks, one of the secondary features that a lot of people don’t think about is that ring that bolts to the outside of the wheel. It also protects the wheel. – Oh yeah. – So when you do rub it on rocks and stuff, it’s actually protecting the wheel. So it becomes a sacrificial piece of steel or a piece of aluminum that protects your big investment where like my Hutchinson’s don’t have that, you know? So if I dig too hard into a rock, I’m going to break a wheel lip. My tire still won’t come off. I still won’t lose air, but I will damage my,
you know, high end parts. So, so again, everybody’s different. Everybody has a different theory, but you know, back to the tire pressure thing,
if you really test it out or watch the video that I did called tire pressure matters,
you don’t get a huge footprint until you’re single digit. You just don’t. And I have a very, so, you know, my rig is heavier than most JLs and most JKs, even though it’s a TJ.
– Yeah. And that was kind of my point about the beat locks. And I want to make sure people understand that you do not have to have beat locks to be able to off-road. – Yeah. So here,
Yahoo just pulled up a screenshot, not that you guys can see it, but this is in the video and it shows at 17 PSI, I have 90 cubic inches of tire tread. And this is on my rig. At five PSI, I have 181.5 cubic inches of tire tread. Right? That’s a huge difference. But if you watch the video, it really breaks it all down.
But so that 10 PSI difference was the largest overall difference in the entire thing. – Yeah. I’ve watched that video a few times. I very much recommend that you guys go find that. It’s under unofficial use only, right? I mean, you just go to G-pop. – Yeah, it’s under unofficial use only. – You too, bonafiches. – But even the head of marketing for BFG called me when I made that video and said, I wish you would have used our tires because it was the, you know, he said it was one of the best explanations of tire pressure that there was. So, you know, I’m a little proud of it. And it’s a few years old, but tire pressure is a huge, huge thing. It, the more you play with it, the more you realize how big of a change it makes in your off-roading from smoothing out the road to, or smoothing out the trail to just giving you massive amounts more traction. And again, a few PSI makes a world of difference. Sorry that I went off on a tangent. – No, no, it’s all good information. I’ll just mention this, that if you are a technical type person and you like monkeying with things, the tune it, Jeeps are wonderful in that regard, whether it’s parts that you’re putting on there or just adjusting the tire pressure and seeing what it does, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s fidgety. It’s, it’s something to, it’s very technical if you like that sort of thing. And I think a lot of us, a lot of us do. – Greg, so you were talking about airing down and I agree, you know, going down 10 or below is probably going to optimize it, but then I start looking at, you know, what, what tire are you running? What pressure on the road, on the street? Are we running 32? I mean, a lot of times I like 26 or 28, depending on which vehicle in which tire I’m running. And then when I go off road, I’ll drop down to 12 to 16, which smooths out the trail a lot and still gives me some benefit of traction without having to go to full beadlocks.
– No, a hundred percent. And most, most wheels will allow you to go down to, you know, 10, 12 without a problem. You know, going below that, beadlocks are definitely going to help, but it doesn’t matter which version of beadlock,
you know, the more advanced you get, yet get a, get a beadlock that locks both.
But every single vehicle is different. And the way that we load our vehicles, and that’s one of the coolest things about Jeeps, every vehicle is different. And the way that we load them, you know, what, once you have somebody else might not have, or they might have something that different, they might carry a different tool load, or they might carry more camping gear. So every vehicle is unique. So, and the only way to justify what your street pressure should be is with a piece of chalk.
So, and anybody can look it up, there’s ways to do it, but you get some of that children’s play chalk, the big thick stuff. You draw like a two or three inch line across your tire, do it in a flat level parking lot, like your local grocery store,
click it into gear, don’t hit the gas, don’t hit the brake,
roll a hundred feet, click it into neutral. Again, don’t hit the gas, don’t hit the brake, let it come to a stop, because then you’re never loading it. You’re never loading a tire or unloading a tire via the inertia of the vehicle.
And then look at that tire pressure, or look at the stripe that you made on that line. If it’s worn off in the middle, you have too much tire pressure. When it finally wears off perfectly evenly all the way across the tread, that is the perfect tire pressure for that tire on the street.
And so for your normal daily driving, it’ll make your tires last usually 30% longer.
The tire pressure that they put on your door from the manufacturer is a government mandated tire.
And that happened when, who was a firestone and Ford got together and crashed a bunch of, whatever they were, explorers, because of the proper tire pressure. Yep.
So- – Good government. – If like the government says, and the government does some wonderful things and they do some really stupid shit, just like all of us. But the government says that all SUVs have to run at least 37 PSI. They don’t care what it really weighs. They don’t care the driving characteristics or anything else. They just say that SUVs have to be at 37 PSI. So every Jeep built since 2007 is mandated at 37 PSI. That doesn’t mean it’s the right tire pressure. It actually, 37 PSI in a stock JL or JK is way too much tire pressure. It’s gonna cause the tires to wear abnormally. It’s gonna cause them to wear out too soon. It also gives you a rougher ride.
And the only way to actually know what your tire pressure is, the way that you drive your car is to chalk test it.
Also, there’s been studies done about tire pressure. You don’t significantly lose gas mileage until you’re way low. If from the factory it’s 37, you can run 20 and you don’t lose any gas mileage. You won’t really lose gas mileage until you’re down into like sub below 15, sometimes even lower than that.
So it’s not driven by gas mileage. It’s not driven by anything else. It’s just driven by somebody saying that’s what they have to do. But if you take a piece of chalk and you test each one of your tires and you do that in a parking lot, it’s gonna take you an hour, an hour of your life that you’ll never get back.
But your tires statistically will last 30 to 40% longer than they do currently. And you’ll have a better ride and better traction. And even when little Tommy jumps in front of little Susie and you’re driving down the road, when you swerve to avoid them, you’re gonna have more traction, less chance of a skid, and you’re gonna be able to avoid that obstacle. So there’s only benefits to small amounts of maintenance like that.
Again, sorry, I went off on another tangent. – So Greg, I mean, so I just experienced what you’re talking about. My daughter, her tire was low, but the only way she knows her tire is low is her TPMS light comes on on her dash. So her Subaru has, her Subaru, sorry, not a Jeep,
had a TPMS gauge go off. So she said she had a low tire. And so I’m airing it up and I’m like, so what do you normally run at? And she opens her door and looks on her door panel to see what pressure is printed on her vehicle.
That’s what her boyfriend was telling her, is that’s what pressure you run, is what’s on your door frame. And I’m like, no, come here, look at the sidewall of your tire. – Oh yeah. – Here’s the size, and you really need to do the chalk test. And they didn’t know, and people don’t take time to do that. They just stay all– – Well, they don’t know because nobody’s told them. – No, there’s nothing. Yeah, and there’s enough people, even at the tire store,
I use the tire store up the street and I’ll have them mount and balance tires. And when I go pick them up, they’re at 55 PSI. And I’m like, why would you put so much air in it? Well, that’s what it says on the sidewall is 50 PSI max. – Max, yeah. – Max, yeah. – And I’m like, you’re wrong. – Yeah, right now. The following– – So it is, it’s really important to actually test this stuff.
– Yeah, you could be costing money in tire, like you were saying, Greg, and also to costing money in miles per gallon. – Yeah. – So here’s a question, Greg, you probably know the answer to. – So– – Probably not. – Probably? No, there’s no probably. – So I go up road today, I air down to 12. I get done with the trails. We’re gonna go out again tomorrow on similar trails. I’m gonna air down tomorrow, but supper, I’m gonna drive 30 miles of town and get a taco.
What are the challenges of driving on the road at a 12 versus airing back up to 26 for safety, cornering, traveling? – So safety, cornering, traveling, one, know your vehicle, know what it’s gonna feel like.
Legally, there’s nothing illegal about doing it. As far as tire wear, if you’re not driving a couple of hundred miles on the interstate, you’re not gonna over, you’re probably not gonna overheat your tire unless it’s 110 degree day out in baking sun.
So you’re really not gonna have a problem there because it’s 30 miles. Your biggest issue is gonna be in accident avoidance.
So if you’re running a very low tire pressure, like I would run three to 10 PSI,
if you go to corner, right, because there’s an accident or an event, right? Little Tommy jumps out in front of you and you need to turn real fast.
Your tires are gonna actually flex and roll under the vehicle, which is gonna cause a lot more body roll, which is gonna cause you to have to either oversteer or understeer to control the vehicle. So if you don’t know your vehicle really, really well and know what it’s capable of and what it feels like at those low pressures, I would say put some air in your tire. If you’re confident and comfortable driving at those low pressures, go for it. As long as you’re not driving hundreds and hundreds of miles at high speeds, like when we go to Moab,
I go to Moab a couple of times a year. When I get there, I air down and I air down to my numbers, which are usually between three and 10. I don’t put air in my tires again until I load it on the trailer or it’s time to drive home. So like this year with path killer, when I got there, I aired down to, I think it was 10 PSI because that did not have B blocks. And I didn’t put air again in my tires until it was time to hook up the trailer and tow another Jeep back to Michigan.
And I mean, I did a hundred miles an hour on the street.
Which is against the law anyway, so don’t do it. But I did that at 10 PSI with no fear of having ply separation or tread separation or anything else because they were in short stints. So I never had the chance to overheat the tire or overstress the tire in that environment.
– Closed course professional driver, don’t try it at home. – Yeah, closed course professional driver, 100%. But so the most important thing I can say is know your vehicle, right?
If you air down that low and you drive around a little bit and you get comfortable with it, play with it too. Go into a parking lot and do a couple accident avoidance maneuvers, right? Don’t do it at a light pole because if your reactions aren’t good enough, you’re gonna hit the light pole. But do it in a clean, safe environment and learn and feel what the vehicle’s gonna do. I mean, look at how many Jeeps are driving around with no sway bars. That’s way more dangerous than having low tire pressure.
Thank you. – Well, as I always like to say, the round table continues even after we are done with recording the show. We really appreciate the large number of people we get here on the round table, but we could use more. We could use you. You need to join us and be part of the round table so you can ask your questions, so you can share the information that you have like that Greg and Zach have shared with us tonight. So it’s always a lot of fun. I think we always learn something. I love learning stuff. And sometimes you have to ask questions and sometimes you have to say the wrong thing to find out exactly how it does work. So yeah, I mean, I’m hoping that you guys are getting something out of the round table. And of course you can watch the round table on YouTube. Just go to YouTube and do a search for Jeep Talk Show.
It’s kind of cool, especially seeing some of the Jeeps that are in the background when people are talking, you get to see Greg’s shop and you never know what Greg’s gonna have in his shop that he’s working on.
All right, and that brings us to the end of another exhilarating Jeep Talk Show round table episode. I wanna express my gratitude to all the Zoom members that joined us tonight. And if you would like to join, the best way that you can find out about how to join and be reminded of it is signing up for our newsletter. Just go over to jeeptalkshow.com slash contact and you will find out how to sign up for the newsletter, how to contact us, how to sign up, get a free invite to our Discord server and be part of the Jeep Talk Show community. It just goes on and on and on. There’s so much more to the Jeep Talk Show than just these little podcasts that we do. So we encourage you to make use of all of it because it’s fun, you get your questions answered. And did I mention it’s fun? It’s a lot of fun. It’s so much fun getting on the Discord and just cutting up with everybody.
So until next time, keep those Jeeps running strong.
Sorry, keep those Jeeps running strong, hit those trails with confidence. And remember, it’s not just a vehicle, it’s a way of life. This has been Tony hosting the Jeep Talk Show round table episode. And we’ll catch you on the next ride.
– Broadcasting Sense 2010.
(air whooshing) – You’re my friend, you’re my new friend. (chuckles)
