Jeep Trusses, Gussets and Armor Explained: Why You Need Them + Stellantis $2.7B Loss Breakdown

Join us in this explosive episode of the Jeep Talk Show as host Tony dives deep with guest Greg Nichol, the lead tech and installer at Platinum Drivetrain Works in Hutto, Texas. With over three decades of off-roading and wrenching experience, Greg shares expert insights on Jeep trusses, gussets, and armor – why you need them (or don’t), installation tips, and how they impact your rig’s performance and weight. We also break down the shocking news: Stellantis (Jeep’s parent company) reported a massive $2.7 billion loss in the first half of 2025. From US tariffs hitting imports to declining North American sales, we discuss what this means for Jeep enthusiasts and the future of our favorite off-road vehicles. Plus, hot takes on EVs, tariffs, economy impacts, and why America-first manufacturing could change the game. Whether you’re a newbie Jeep owner or a seasoned trail warrior, this episode covers essential mods like axle trusses for preventing bends, gussets for reinforcing weak points on Dana 30/44 axles, and body armor pros/cons (spoiler: Greg’s not a fan of drilling into sheet metal!). We touch on JL/JT specifics, one-ton swaps, and even body mount slider warnings. Don’t miss our roundtable shoutout – join us Tuesdays at 7:30 PM CT via Zoom for live Jeep chats, trail reports, and more! Head to jeeptalkshow.com/contact for Discord invites, roundtable links, and ways to connect with the community. Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro & Explosion Hook 02:30 – Greg Nichol Introduction 05:00 – Jeep Roundtable Reminder 10:00 – Stellantis $2.7B Loss Breakdown 15:00 – US Tariffs & Sales Decline Impact 25:00 – EV Mandates & Politics Rant 35:00 – Trusses Explained: Why & When to Use 40:00 – Gussets for Axle Strength 45:00 – Armor Debate: Axle vs. Body 50:00 – Installation Tips & Warnings 55:00 – Q&A: Body Bolts & Sliders 1:00:00 – Closing & Call to Action If you’re into Jeep modifications, off-road builds, or just love talking Jeeps, hit that LIKE button, SUBSCRIBE for more episodes, and drop a comment with your thoughts on Stellantis’ losses or your favorite armor setup! Share your Jeep stories below – we read them all. Connect with us: – Website: https://jeeptalkshow.com – Discord: jeeptalkshow.com/contact #JeepTalkShow #JeepMods #JeepTrusses #JeepGussets #JeepArmor #StellantisLoss #JeepOffRoad #JeepCommunity #OffRoadingTips #JeepJL #JeepJT #Dana44 #JeepBuilds #EVJeep #TariffsImpact Rev up your engines, Jeep lovers— the Jeep Talk Show is here to take you on a wild ride! For 15 years, we’ve been the ultimate pit stop for Jeep enthusiasts, delivering off-road thrills, insider tips, and a whole lotta Jeep passion. With a powerhouse crew of hosts and team members, we’re dropping five action-packed episodes every week to fuel your Jeep obsession! Buckle up for our fan-favorite Chic Chat, a women-centric, women hosted episode that’s all about empowering female Jeepers. It’s the perfect space for women to dive into the world of Jeeps and off-roading, hosted by fearless ladies who live for the trail. But that’s just the start—we’ve got over 1,200 episodes waiting to rev up your day, whether you’re tearing down the highway, mowing the lawn, or pumping iron at the gym. Watch us on video or listen audio-only—your call, your adventure! Join the Jeep Talk Show family and become part of the ultimate Jeep community! Jump into our Discord chat at jeeptalkshow.com/discord, support us on Patreon for ad-free episodes at www.patreon.com/jeeptalkshow, or catch our live Round Table every Tuesday at 7:30 PM CT via Zoom (https://jeeptalkshow.com/roundtable, password: jeep). Stay in the loop with our newsletter at https://jeeptalkshow.com/newsletter and follow the action on Instagram @jeeptalkshow (instagram.com/jeeptalkshow). Head to https://jeeptalkshow.com to explore our world of Jeep madness, subscribe, and let us make your day a little more rugged and a lot more fun. Ready to roll with us? Let’s hit the trails together!#JeepTalkShow #JeepLife #OffRoad

(Explosion)

and he’s going to be bringing us a lot of information on trusses, gussets and armor and why you should and why you shouldn’t. I’m going to say why you shouldn’t is probably weight, but I don’t mind the weight. I mean, I like the armor. I like that low, low center or gravity body armor.

(…)

Also, too, we’re going to be talking about the Jeep losses. Two point seven billion dollars. That is a billion with a B.

(…)

That’s a lot of damn money.

(…)

I mean, they lost it. I wonder if there’s going to be like a finder where you can go out there, get

(…)

you do not want to be the guy in that boardroom meeting that’s having to deliver that friggin message. No way to how get close as to where you can find it and spread it out a little bit. I’d put it all in Texas, but spread it out a little bit so we can find it. That’d be fun. Would that two point seven billion? You could do a lot of Jeep modifications for two point seven billion dollars. Oh, endless, endless. Jeep modifications. How many Jeeps do you want? How big a barn can we build and put how many Jeeps in it? Two point seven billion dollars. So, Greg, remind people who you are, where you work and what you do for a living.

(…)

Howdy, howdy. I’m Greg Nichol, local gear wizard, if you will, work for Platinum Drivetrain Works in Huddo, Texas.

(…)

I’m the lead tech and installer there, been off-roading with a passion and professionally turning wrenches, fabricating amongst other things for the better part of over three decades. So sometimes I kind of know what I’m talking about, even if my opinions are wrong. The important thing is that you act like you know what you’re talking about. Not that you actually know, because stage presence, baby. You can always tell people, no, no, you misunderstood me.

(…)

It’s not my fault. You don’t understand. That’s right. I’ll talk slower for you. All right. So I want to remind everybody and I want to remind you, Greg, because we had a roundtable last week that I know that you’ve been interested in getting in on the roundtable. You’ve been there once. You’re still bad. Yes, I got to get back. I got to get back in there because honestly,(…) it’s just like you’re forgetting because in my mind I’m thinking Wednesday, but that’s the air date. Right. The record. I got to I need to write it down somewhere Tuesday night for the recording because I’m I’m in. Yeah, I got so many things going on. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. It’s a lot of fun. You’ve been there before. You know how it is. But I’ll remind everybody else roundtable. We record on Tuesdays every Tuesday, 730 p.m. Central time. And that’s the pre-party. The show proper starts about 8 p.m. Central time. And we we use the Zoom meeting and, you know, the scourge of covid, the covid years. But I like I like Zoom. Zoom works out really fine. And you join in the Zoom meeting and then you can interact with the rest of the roundtable people. It’s we’ve had about recently we’ve been doing about anywhere from 12 to 15 people. But it’s gone as high as 25. We can support up to 100. So I think that once you try the roundtable, you’ll find out this how enjoyable it is. And it’s not just the part that we record.

(…)

The Zoom meeting continues after the recording. And then that’s when it gets fun. That’s when everybody unbuckles their belt and their pops are like after a big meal. And you just relax and have a good time. So I think we stayed on that first one I did with y’all. It was we stayed on, I think, almost as long after the recording was done as we did actually recording. Exactly. Because the station was so good and everybody had such, you know, great, great things to say to one. And I was like, this is fun. I need more of this. Well, it’s Jeepers talking about Jeeps. And it’s not always Jeep and stuff, too. It could be a bunch of other things.(…) Oh, yeah. Well, just I mean, little things to big things. Yeah, it’s not just what’s going on in the shop, what’s going on under the Jeep. I mean, trail reports and conditions, tow pick stuff, you know, just whatever the newest, coolest, latest, greatest gadget is. You know, there’s, you know, everybody gets to kind of compare notes and shoot the shit at the same time. And if somebody has like a legit question between all of us that are in there, you’re bound to get at least a couple of right answers. So oh, and I should add, because this is just I just know this because I got it all set up and we use it all the time. But we do the zoom meeting. And then when we want to share pictures or stories or links and stuff, we make use of our Discord server. We actually have a channel for the roundtable on the Discord server where people can post pictures and links and things and then our pictures of things they’re working on.

(…)

And it’s really good. So really the thing you need to do to get all this stuff, because it gets a little confusing trying to keep up a lot of stuff, getting it started. Go over to jeep talk show dot com slash contact, and you’ll see the link for the Discord invite. You’ll see the link for how to join the roundtable meeting.(…) So how to send us emails, all kinds of crap. So jeep talk show dot com slash contact is where you want to go to find out how you connect everything to be part of the Jeep community.

(…)

So I am. All right, Greg. So before we get started here on the fun stuff you want to talk about, I want to talk about some stuff that’s it’s news related. It’s it’s not fun stuff, but I think it’s it’s important for us Jeepers to know.

(…)

I mean, we all love Jeeps and we want Jeeps to continue on for as long as we love Jeeps. So Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep, reported a preliminary net loss loss of approximately 2.3 billion euros. Who gives a rat’s ass about euros? You know, you know what I call it? $7 million. You know, yeah. You know what I call the EU, right? You pronounce it you.(…) You.

(…)

So this was the keep in mind, this is two point seven billion dollars for the first half of twenty, twenty five.(…) That’s that is a significantly large amount of money in a very, very, very fiscally short amount of time. So that a lot.

(…)

So this is according to multiple sources, including CNBC, NBC and ABC News, which I think is all all under the fake news heading. But I think this one is actually correct.

(…)

This significant loss is attributed to several factors. And I knew they were going to go go this way because nobody likes it. Nobody likes the tariffs being a success.(…) So let me guess, the three ninety two come back in selling as good as they thought it was after bringing it back and discontinuing it, bringing it back again.(…) Is that it? This one is the number one thing is the US tariffs. The company faced an estimated three hundred to three hundred and fifty million euros in losses due to the new US tariffs.

(…)

So I have to ask because I I will. When I’m out of my element, I got one second. I’m waiting for the dogs to shut the hell up.

(…)

We’ll see what happens.

(…)

Yeah. So anyway, US tariffs. Hang on. I don’t want to start with that.

(…)

Yep. US tariffs impact. The company faced an estimated three hundred to three hundred and fifty million euros in losses due to the new US tariffs, which particularly affected the manufacture and shipping of shipment of imported vehicles. Now, let me just make sure I understand right. And I think this could this point could be argued.

(…)

The tariffs were not fair.(…) They were they weren’t equal between the United States and Europe. And now I don’t think they still may not be fair, but they’re closer.

(…)

And is it possible that the tariffs led to a part of this? But I mean, three hundred three hundred fifty million. That’s a lot of money, but it ain’t no two point seven billion. You know what I’m saying?

(…)

I like I said, I’ll admit when I’m out of my element and I’m not even 100 percent sure if I understand on a on a small, you know, like the detailed level of how tariffs even work.(…) So I, you know, I have to look at it in terms of from the layman’s explanation. It they have to pay extra to bring in stuff that’s not being made here in a nutshell. Like, yeah, they’re paying a tax to the they’re paying it. Okay. So if anything in your American assembled vehicle has to be imported from out of the country, you’re paying it and they’re having to pay extra taxes to get that crap in here, do you really think that one of the world’s largest car manufacturing(…) outfits is going to eat that money or are they going to pass it along to us as a potential consumer?

(…)

They’re going to pass it along. And you know what happens then?

(…)

Sales go,(…) right. So because people don’t want to pay extra. Yeah. So, oh, and of course that’s kind of the plan, I think, which is, uh, you know, uh, it’d be a shame if you couldn’t sell your vehicles here in the United States. Uh, they say, well, yeah, shame. You couldn’t sell your vehicles in our country. And it’s like, well, we got a lot more consumers here than you got over there. Uh, so, but maybe we could work this out with no tariffs, you know, so I think that’s the ultimate plan. And of course, uh, I mean, what are you going to do? Just continue to take over, bend over and take it, uh, or have some short term paint.

(…)

I think, uh, I think until everybody gets together and decides that the money is right both ways, you know, there’s good, what we hear and see on the news versus what’s probably happening behind a lot of those closed door meetings coming, come on. Oh, yeah. Capitalism one-on-one baby. Who’s going to walk out of that room feeling like they’re taking it and they asked the least or who’s going to walk out of there feeling like they’re getting ahead on the other guy pretty good. You know, that’s, that’s usually how those kinds of things go. Right? So I don’t know. It’s just an staggering amount of money. Even, even, I know that the, the,(…) what’d you say it was 300 and what 350 million Euro loss, 300 to 350 million. Uh, just based on the tariff impact. Was that over the six months too? Or was that just, what’s the timeframe on that one? I’m assuming so, since that’s what the story is based on is the first half of this year,(…) you know, that’s getting somebody’s attention that they’re not going to let that slide. So what do they do? And then I think it’s good from the standpoint of maybe we should make this shit in the United States. Uh, that way we can save 300 to 350 million euros.

(…)

I mean, that’s kind of the other point of it is, uh, what can we do for America and the American people? So, uh, I don’t know. I don’t fully understand it either. Uh, but I do like the America first, uh, attitude and, and frankly, it’s a Jeep. Come on. That’s an American vehicle and it should be American. And in all fairness, the land just encompasses a great deal of, of makes and models above and beyond Jeep. That’s just one in a very small pile of cars. I mean, we can’t like, it’s not that the G I was, you know, halfway teasing about the three 92s. You can’t, you can’t base what their, what their loss is just on like our little slice of the pie, you know, new Jeeps. I don’t think new Jeep sales have dropped as much in the last few years. It’s like full size SUV, full size truck. I mean, have you noticed the recent, I say pretty recent, uh, the prices have come way down very recently on the full size trucks because they couldn’t sell. Yeah. If you can’t, the prices got stupid and then they finally, the market flipped and now it’s a buyer’s market for those, but it’s just happened in the last six months or so, it took a while to get there. I mean, I’m not, I’m not spending a hundred thousand dollars on a Jeep. I don’t give a shit what package it’s got or what engine it’s got in it. I’m not doing it because I’m going to modify it up anyway.(…) I want to get into my Jeep platform as cheap as I can so that I can save the money for the upgrades. Oh yeah. So you mentioned the sales decline. That’s the number two here on the list. North America sales, sales in North America, a key market for Stellantis dropped 25% in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the previous year driven by reduced manufacturing and shipments of terrorist, a tariff, they’re going back to the tariff thing impacted import vehicles and lower fleet channel sales. Um,(…) yeah, I think, I think fleet channel sales, that’s a big one. If you think about it. Yeah. I think there’s just regular cars and trucks, nothing too damn expensive. I think it’s the biggest problem.

(…)

Yeah.

(…)

Or I mean, what was it when the, like the, some of the, the cooler additions of the Bronco started coming out, like the Sasquatch and some of those people are paying over six figures without that huge dealer markup and then waiting for a year to take delivery on the thing. And then you get it and you’re like, I paid $120,000 for this. It’s kind of a kick in the balls.(…) It’s kind of like seeing the people out there with a hundred thousand dollar tow rig, another 20, $30,000 for trailer. And then a heavily modified Jeep on the trailer. Uh, I don’t send a wife and kids. I don’t see how they could do it. I mean, um, it’s just a, I mean, there’s certain incomes that are better than others or we, we, you know, as well as I do, that’s either a bunch of maxed out credit or that’s, you know, somebody with a damn good job or generational wealth. I guess. Actually, I don’t think, I think it’s maxed out credit because I don’t think anybody has jobs. I think that’s a lot of it. Yeah. Because I mean, well, I think the same way you’re a shop owner and that’s one way if people own their business,(…) uh, which you did before you got joined up with platinum, that’s one way that you could have, uh, enough income to do stuff like this, but I don’t think that that’s, I think those are few and far between, I mean, I’m not asking you to go. I wasn’t, I wasn’t clearing that kind of coin. Right.

(…)

I wasn’t hurting, but I wasn’t clearing that kind of money. Right. So, and I, and I don’t think, I think there’s a limiting factor when you’re a one man, a shop, because you can only make, no, my production levels. Yeah. No, I’m, I’m, it doesn’t matter how many hours a day I spend there. I’m still one guy. I’m only going to get so much done in a given day. So it’s like, I kind of know what my max production level is. So, you know, until, until I get, you know, like Mike wants to add another lift, he wants to add some more warm bodies. We want to expand and we get there. Well, then yeah, you know, things are definitely going to pick up, but for the time being, slow and steady, you know, focus on the thing that I’m best at. So I, I think that people, again, it’s, it’s important to know which they probably didn’t mention in those articles, what types of vehicles, like it mentioned fleet vehicles. I mean, that takes a lot of the higher end stuff out of it. So you’re not going to blame like the high end sales. You’re not going to blame the regular average working man sales. If it’s corporate stuff, if it’s fleet stuff, those are much bigger hits to the manufacturer all at once, then a certain geographical location going, all of a sudden, I don’t want to spend this much on a Jeep, you know, or all of a sudden these, these new scat packs aren’t as cool as TikTok made them seen, so I’m, I’m not dropping that 80 K or whatever those things go for. So, and then, you know, the market doesn’t support the same thing with housing. I was going to say a minute ago, how many times have you been where they’re putting up a new housing development and they’re big, beautiful homes right on top of each other,(…) you see all the signs on the frontage road, home starting in the four hundreds, you know, whatever home starting in the low six hundred and I drive past those things and I go, you know, I’m a, I’m a Gen Xer. I’m a kid of the eighties. What the fuck are you doing to afford buying a brand new house as your first house for 600 plus thousand dollars?

(…)

I remember when I bought my first house as a very young adult, 64 is 64 large. That was it for three bedroom, one and a half bath of the single car garage and a halfway decent part of Emerald Texas, $64,000. And I thought it was the world of money.(…) I had no idea that he’s the same way. I don’t see how people forget how much they initially cost us. And you don’t factor that in. I don’t see the people can afford two and $3,000 a month house payments. Uh, that boggles my mind. Well,(…) it also too, uh, when my wife and I got married and before we had children, we made the decision that, uh, cause I wanted her to be able to stay at home with the kids. I didn’t want the kids to be in daycare. I wanted the mom to be there whenever they got out of school and we did that. So it makes things a lot more difficult when you only have one income. Uh, and there’s a lot more stresses associated with that too. You know, one person loses your job. You don’t got no money. So, uh, it all worked out okay, but you didn’t there. Yeah.

(…)

So, uh, and I think a lot of that has to do with these people, they have multiple incomes, so they have two people working. And, uh, so I could just, I could just, well, imagine the wife wanting to buy something and you’ve got the tow rig and the, the, I mean, she’s using it too. You know, she’s having fun with it too. Yeah.

(…)

You dump, you drop $300,000 for toys that you use on the weekend. And then you say, I don’t think you need to do stow. I don’t think you need this. I don’t think you need all these clothes. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’d be a really hard, hard, uh, conversation to have. Um, so I was going to add to this before we wrap this up. Uh, so I thought this was important to make note of the company. Uh, the Stellantis is under a new, uh, leadership with CEO, Antonio Filoso, uh, appointed in May of 2025. So we’re almost six months into the year before they got new leadership. So, I mean, this guy is saying, Hey, I just got here that 2.7 billion. I had nothing to do with that. Not on me. Blame the last guy. That’s right.

(…)

So, uh, Carlos Tavares, uh, who I am not a happy mayor Tony.(…) What does that sound so familiar? Don’t blame me. Blame the last guy. Exactly. It’s a politics. Where have we heard that before? Exactly. Oh my God. It is a politics thing. Well, I’m actually, uh, I’m actually, I’m actually hopeful that the new leadership will make a difference with Jeep. Uh, and, and I think it’s probably got to otherwise in three months, we’re going to have new leadership. Um, so, uh, anyway, Travares resigned and is focusing. Uh, now they’re focusing on new product launches expected to boost performance in the second half. How can you not do better in the second half? You got to just, well, you know, it’s going to have to be something big, right? They’re, they’re either going to go full tilt boogie on the retro inspired stuff and just go for big power numbers and, and you know, those kinds of features just rely on, um, what’s the word nostalgia, if you will, or they’re going to have to come out with some technology to, to, you know, debut, debut, like look at this cool shit and have it be something truly groundbreaking to bring people back into the fold because I think they need to get away from technology. They need to get back to the roots of Jeep.

(…)

I was fixing to say that’s the direction that I would personally go. Just, just knowing what I know about the market, knowing what I know about Jeep owners, um, as much as we all like cool, shiny new gadgets and widgets and stuff. Most of us can’t stand the majority of the technology that we have to deal with on later model Jeeps, unless it’s something cool like trail cameras or whatever stereo, but when the electrical gremlins pop up and programming problems start happening and sensors and computers and all that shit, then you’re just like,(…) if you’re like us, I shouldn’t say everybody. If you do like to turn a lot of your own. I think it’s those people that are that way. I think it is too. It’s, it’s, it’s too much. You’re, you’re forced, almost forced to take the vehicle to a specialist of some kind, it’s not like you can just pop the hood and go, well, what’s wrong with the programming here, unless you’re set up to deep dive into something like that. And so it kind of becomes a double whammy because you would think at this point in the game with all the years of development research and trial and error that they’d have most of it figured out pretty well, but at the same time,(…) you think we wouldn’t have to regress to having constant issues with the same old shit,(…) the start stop systems, the goofy aux battery systems, some of the traction control and speed sensory systems, the ABS problems, the transmission problems. The start stop and the aux battery is, is government influence. That’s a hundred percent our federal government that they call us that.(…) Yeah. I’m like, I feel the same way about the EPA and you know, all that stuff as I do about, you know, the ATF,(…) yeah.

(…)

Why is he quickly better off without it? Honestly. Oh yeah. No, this is Volkswagen under the Stellantis umbrella. If I’m not mistaken.

(…)

I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure Volkswagen is and they got in big, big trouble just a few years back for trying to go that hilarious.

(…)

Well, they said, you know, we can’t meet these EPA standards. So let’s do something programmed in its code. Is there anything plugged into my OBD too? Yes, there is a change the settings quick. There’s nothing to see here.(…) That’s awesome. You know, that’s like the ultimate, you know, somebody sitting around in a, in a room, a meeting or something was like, you know, we could just get this line of code in here, not have to worry about that. And everybody went.

(…)

Okay. Let’s do it. It’s great till he got caught. How do you know that secret too? It’s just, oh, that’s huge.

(…)

It was, it was, that was destined to blow up from when they started.

(…)

What’s it going to save us and what’s it going to cost us potentially? Right? It was all about money. Yeah. It was all about a business decision. And I understand there’s some people that get very upset about that type of thing because they believe that our environment should be pristine. And I’m all for that to a degree, but we need to be able to afford what we’re doing. We need to be able to get from point A to point B and have a little fun in the process. I mean, I, Oh, and if the government’s going to make it to the point between fuel prices and emissions and all this other crap, like the EV mandate that finally I think got did away with, or is in the process being done away with some of that stuff, as great as it sounds on paper,(…) as great as it sounds in a, in a little meeting in practical application is not, it really is. It was a California thing and California thought it was a good idea not to get rid of dead trees and brush.(…) And they thought it was a good idea to not have these big pools of water to fight fires because some, uh, the tech bird or something is going to not have a good home.(…) Well, it was just that somebody in some office on up on high wanted to save that money for something else. No, somebody’s somebody’s been watching too much. Star Trek is the problem is because that’s the way they’re approaching it. And in California, do you know, talking about the EV mandate, that’s a California thing and that’s what was gotten rid of. And, but when California did it, it’s like 13 other states that are following along. So it’s significant. So Newsom is talking about doing a new EV, EV mandate since the old one got, got scrapped by, uh, by Trump.

(…)

Oh my gosh. They’re, they’re not going to be able to, how are these people? The population of California, Tony, how many of those people, number one, can afford to go out, substitute your subsidy or tax break or credit or whatever aside, how many people can go out and afford to drop 65 to $85,000 entry level on a brand new car today?

(…)

I can’t. Right. Can you, you know, like that’s, and if you are being forced into that position as a resident and it has to be a certain year, I’m sure there’s all kinds of caveats. It can’t be more than so many years old. It has to charge this way. That I’m sure they’ve got all that crap all lined out and they’re all sitting at home feeling real good about themselves for the new mandate. They’re fixing to push how many hundreds of thousands of internal combustion engine driven vehicles are on the highways and byways of the great state of California that they’re just going to what throw them all away. I thought this was an environmental thing. I thought we were worried about the environment. So we’re just going to do what with those cars, dump them in the ocean.(…) You’re going to stick them in the San Andreas vault, hope for the best. I mean, what do they do? What’s the plan there? It’s it’s not, it’s virtually people can’t think they’re way out of a wet paper bag. I mean, they, they, they do not have the ability to think things through. And if they do, they don’t care because they’re making, uh, decisions for, uh, the political view of it, what’s, what’s people, what are the the millions of dollars in the bank account and all the good tax stuff and, you know, all the, the, uh, insider trading tips and stuff. I’m sure it makes it a lot easier to stomach when that poor little, whatever kind of bird it is they were trying to save out in the desert by not filling up their water reservoirs.(…) You know, they had a similar one. They tried, there’s a local wheeling spot and it reminds me of this. It’s up in the panhandle, Texas. You may or may not have heard of it. Uh, Canadian river gets north of Amarillo about 30 miles. There’s not a whole lot to do, but it’s still fun. And since it’s state owned, you get your little, um, the sticker, your off-road permit sticker, and then you just go wheel. And I’ve got mild trails and some riverbed stuff. And most of the time it’s muddy or dry, but nothing really in between.

(…)

There was some kind of minnow. It was the Arkansas Shiner minnow that got introduced into that river system. It was not native to the river. It got introduced and the local powers that be wanting to shut down everything to do with any kind of off-roading wheeling, cattle ranching, aquifer type stuff, like where they’re pulling water out of the river, whatever it was. They said, we’re going to shut it all down to save this minnow. Cause it’s an endangered species.

(…)

And it wasn’t even native to the fricking river basin. And you go, you want to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of agriculture and ranching that’s bases its lifeblood off of access to that water. So Greg, I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but there’s people out there that think people, and then by the way, they’re one of the, one of the group that people are bad, they shouldn’t be on this earth. Yeah. We’re the problem.

(…)

And with, with a little help, a little financial and political help, we’ll get it all straightened out. I’m sorry. I’m really surprised they’re not all for a nuclear war or even nuclear power plants. Oh, really quick. Um, I saw this the other day in our conversation and reminded me of this, uh, in an outburger you’ve heard of it, right?(…) Yes. You know, they’re based. I can’t stand their food. I’m not a, I mean, it’s okay. It’s a burger. Uh, but it’s all right. Yeah. It’s not better than water burger. Uh, but, uh,(…) but, uh, I saw an article that the, uh, Eris and founder or not for a founder, but the owner of in an outburger is moving, she’s moving out of California and she’s going to Texas. Well, Tennessee, which is one of the places, which is one of the places a lot of people in California are moving to. And she’s going to be moving the corporate headquarters out of California. So the spectacular California burger chain in and out is getting the hell out. I mean, how are they winning? If that’s not, I mean, you know,

(…)

man, that’s, um, that’s pretty intense. I mean, I’m not saying they’re not going to sell any of that burgers in California. I’m just saying that the people that started there that made their, their fortune there is getting out because it’s how bad it’s getting. They say exactly why, like did they, did they say why as far as like his operating expenses or the taxes? It’s just too hard to live in California anymore. I mean, uh, I may make God literally just said it too hard to live in California. Yeah. Can you imagine being in San Francisco and worried about stepping on needles or feces or both, um, or homeless people? Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s just a nightmare. Anyway, we’ve, we’ve gotten political here and I don’t mean to get too political about this, but there’s a lot of nine’s nonsense. And I think that politics have a lot to do and you can look at it either way. I mean, you can look at the stellanitis having these issues because of Trump’s policies, uh, or you can look at it like, uh, things are getting straightened out because more Americans are going to be working on things here, making the money in America to make an American vehicle, which

the tariffs, produce the stuff here, put it together here, sell it here.

(…)

No tariff. Super easy. So I’ll just mention this really quick. Uh, I’m a big futuristic type person. I’m, I follow Tesla and of course they’re doing the full self driving now and, uh, they’re working on the optimist robots. It is going to be terrifying to the rest of the world when we have AI robots doing things where the AI robot workers will be paid less, but I mean, paid, you know, the cause, their costs. They don’t really get paid, but they’ll be paid less than what Chinese workers get paid and there’s no shipping.

(…)

So it’s not even like you get a pay for the sharing to get it from China to here. So the United States is going to be producing, uh, high quality products, uh, consistently high quality because AI robots making it and it doesn’t get tired. It doesn’t take on a go on a break or anything. Things are getting ready to get a lot cheaper and a lot more abundant here. And we’re not going to be getting things from other places in the world, other than raw materials.

(…)

Yeah. Well, we still just get me started on that. There’s a lot, there’s a long list of raw materials and, you know, fossil fuels and energy, you know, stuff that we could not have to be dependent on any other part of the world ever again. If we were willing to just extract it for, for, you know, our own feet, it’s there. Oh yeah. It’s there. And I think that people are real easy to, it’s real easy. If you, if you’re not paying attention to that on a daily basis, because it’s not part of your, you know, day to day, week to week existence, other than what? Gas prices for most of us at the pump. That’s, that’s about the only time we pay attention to it. Your average Joe Blow’s not waking up in the morning and turning on his phone or flipping computer over saying, what is crude oil at per, you know, per barrel this morning, most of us aren’t doing that. We hear numbers sporadically from news and talking heads and stuff. Oh, it’s at this much this week or it’s dropped to this much. And you go, is that good or bad? All I know is that down the street at the QT, it’s still almost $3 a gallon and that sucks. Oh, I’m going to brag. I’m going to brag because I posted this up on the discord the other day. I took a picture of it and it’s still too high to me, I think, but I went to Sam’s club and of course they have a little bit of prices at Sam’s club for the, for the members, but it was $2 and 47 nine. So basically two to 48, 48 a gallon. And, uh, uh, uh, GM brain farting on the name. One of our regulars on the discord server, he lives in Canada and they’re at a dollar 19 a liter. So they’re at like four bucks, $4 in something, a gallon in Canada.

(…)

And so, yeah. And I just want to throw that out there. Cause I think it’s, I like tweaking some people like Steve in Chicago. Cause you know, the prices in Chicago are higher and California is super high. Uh, still, uh, you know, cause they don’t give a shit about their people. They they’re more concerned about how much money.(…) They’re trying like they’re doing it on purpose to try to price you out of driving a gasoline powered vehicle. That’s it’s they don’t, they’ve literally don’t want you driving it and they’ll keep jacking the prices up to you to stop buying the gas. Yeah. And then you get electric vehicle and you don’t have enough, they don’t have enough power to charge the electric vehicle and they’ll be able to handle that. Then they’re not going to get the tax revenue from the gas. So they got to start charging you about the mile that you drive with your electric vehicle.

(…)

Yup. Oh, have fun with that awesome EV mandate. Let us know how that works out for you.

(…)

All right. So that’s enough of that. I mean, I know we’re enjoying the hell out of it. So people out there are just getting so angry, typing in reviews about, I just couldn’t stand the politics. I had to get out of there, but I don’t really think this is politics. I think this is important stuff that we need to think about. Uh, it has to do with the hobby that we use and how we are accomplishing that hobby. And my God lower fuel prices for a Jeep. That’s a godsend. All right. So let’s get into the, the, the subjects that you wanted to talk about, the one you recommended for this, uh, this episode. I’m not blaming you. I’m, uh, I’m giving you the accolades for it because I think this is great. Uh, and, and we try to let the newbies, uh, understand this. And even if you’ve been jeeping a while, you may still have questions about trusses, gussets and armor. And, uh, I want to say, oh my, in there, you know, but,(…) so where do you want to start trusses, gussets or armor? I think the trusses is a real interesting thing. And I’m almost thinking that, uh, especially with the issues with the JL and the JT, uh, I don’t know if the 44s have the same issue, but I know there’s some, uh, thirties, uh, or maybe, maybe it is the 44s on the Rubicon’s where the front end, I mean the front axle breaks. Yep. All right. So let’s go down that road with the trusses.

(…)

So for those of you that aren’t up to speed, a truss can be applied to an(…) axle housing in a lot of different ways in order to support whatever it is you were attempting to do with it. And a truss is basically a formed multi-piece steel contraption, if you will. It comes in pieces and you have to clean it all up and you put it all on there. You’re paying someone like me to do it. And basically it welds on. It’s not a bolt on thing that we’re talking about the weld on kind. I don’t get into sport bars or bolt on those kinds of things. We’re talking about actually, this has to be welded, fabricated and done correctly.

(…)

What we’re trying to do with the truss on an axle is keep the axle tubes from bending or deflecting. Keep it straight.

(…)

Even it’s straight. We, that’s what we’re trying to avoid. So if you’re crawling down the trail and you pop up over a big rock or you hook into a rut or a tree or something and curb check that sucker, whatever the case may be, we’re trying to keep that assembly nice and straight and true. Oh, and all this is never ever go airborne.

(…)

No. Nope. Not unless you built it to put up with that kind of abuse, but the gussets work in basically the same fashion as a truss, but they install normally upper lower on your inner C, which is where your steering knuckle attaches to. And basically between that, cause most of the C’s on modern axles are some kind of cast steel material, whereas the actual tube itself is a carbon based steel, D O M of some kind drawn over mandrel steel tubing. And then of course the center chunk, the actual differential housing is usually some kind of cast steel or the older stuff was cast iron.

(…)

So you’ve got all these different, uh, types of steel that don’t normally play well together under certain circumstances because carbon steel is going to flex and return somewhat have some memory a lot more readily than a cast brittle piece will. But your cast stuff can bend without cracking. And if you try to bend it back, it cracks opposite because it’s already stretched one way. And so this, like, if you bend your legs to say, this is your upright on your C and you’ve got a ball joint out here in your knuckle and you take a hard hit and it bends the top of that C towards your spring or your shock is what it does. It’s way, when you look at the front of the Jeep and that’s smiling, the actual housing is smiling at you, that’s somebody had way too much fun and it’s messed up now. So that little sea gusset is what they’re called helps prevent that C from deflecting like that. It locks it into place by giving it some support and backbone and more welds tied in. Trust does the same thing. There’s trust is that you can put on the front of a housing. If you’re worried about banging into stuff straight on, most Jeepers opt for the ones that mount on high. They mount on top of the actual assembly and they also provide really convenient location spots and real estate for coil springs and shock mounts and control arm mounts and sway bar tabs and all that groovy stuff.

(…)

Very, very important if you’re doing anything as far as an axle swap where you’re changing from one version to another or a full on one ton swap, but we’re trying to reinforce the housing.

(…)

Uh, again, gussets do the same thing. Axle armor. If you’ve seen for like those lower control arms on a factory TJ, JK or JL, gladiator, whatever it is, those control arm mounts from the factory, pretty thin metal. They bend and get marred up pretty easy. If you spend a lot of time banging them into the rocks, well, there’s really heavy duty pieces that are usually laser cut or water jet cut that you can weld on in there to gusset that up and it becomes a little skid that helps prevent deformation or damage to those axle brackets.

(…)

And it goes from all the wall. There’s really simple entry level stuff. And then there’s some stuff out there that’s like full on race back stuff.(…) Again, all of it, that’s the good stuff, no matter what brand you’re picking, cause I’m not going to dog on brands. Although I will say TMR is one of my favorite when it comes to quality versus price, that’s real hot on my list.(…) Um, and they’re Canadian, eh?

(…)

So you’re just, you’re shoring up all the shortcomings of a factory assembly.

(…)

Well, what about if I do a one ton swap, it’s got thicker tubes. It’s got bigger housing. It’s got bigger C’s you’re putting bigger tires on it. You’re also putting more power to it. You know, you’re going to go out and beat on it a little bit harder than you normally would because now you have big boy axles. So all of these same techniques and tricks and stuff work.

(…)

So when do I not need it? Well, if you’re relying on the trust to keep your axle alive and you’re still wheeling on a smaller axle, then you’re wasting your time in my opinion, because you’re, that is your only, that’s it. That’s your only sense of security is whatever that trust is, because everything else is going to be destined to fail before that, if it was installed properly.(…) So if you’re wheeling, and this goes back to a lot of what we’ve discussed, if your wheeling level is exceeding what the factory components are able to handle.

(…)

Do I need a trust or I need gusts? Yes.(…) The gussets, I would honestly recommend to anybody. Yeah. Basically, if you, if you bought a Jeep in 2007 to now go get you in your, you’re doing any off road, go get you some gussets for the seats. He’ll thank me later for that one. It’s, it’s a notorious weakness on all of those axle assemblies. It didn’t matter if it was the 30 or 44 inches.

(…)

They skimped out. We’re actually talking about the weaknesses.(…) Like I know my 2021 Gladiator has the knuckles are aluminum.(…) And yeah,(…) I correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s no reason to gusset aluminum knuckle. We’re not talking about the knuckle. We’re talking about the C that that knuckle attaches to your upper and lower ball. That’s right. That’s right. I’m getting the inner C, right? Capital C. Yeah. So the gusset goes on the backside of the C down to the axle tube top and bottom is what it does. It just basically triangulates it. Right. To help prevent it from doing that on the end of the tube. And getting back to the aluminum knuckle, the best thing to do with that is to take it off and put a steel one on there. Yeah. Get, get the good steel ones. I’m not a fan of the aluminum ones. I’m really not, not for again. And there’s going to be caveats to any of this stuff. So it’s not like a one and done type deal, but it does come back to the level of wheeling, you’re doing the type of train you like to be on, you know? So if you’re spending a lot of time just milling through the back country roads,(…) you know, basic entry level stuff, your aluminum knuckles are fine. You’re not going to hurt them. But if you’re strapped at 40, 42 is on and what happens when you start getting serious about going off road and you didn’t, didn’t replace that. That’s what I’m saying.

(…)

There’s, you can save them sometimes. Like you were just mentioning earlier on the newer design M210s that have the center axle disconnect,(…) that casting is a weak spot. So it’s an outer C or inner C, a piece of tubing that casting for the disconnect, then another piece of tubes, then the differential, then another piece of tube in the other C.(…) Every one of those intersections, every one of those joints is a potential failure waiting to happen, either from separation or twisting. We got to shore all that up. It’s, it’s, they got away from the direct drive hubs with the center axle disconnect because it was less expensive and easier to manufacture than equipping all these Jeeps with selectable hubs. Like we see on the full size trucks and the older models and stuff, which sucks. I wish Jeep would bring back internal hubs. I really do. Well, you can, I don’t know, I remember that on the, the XJ and the TJs and stuff, you could buy, I think it was worn hubs, selectable worn hubs. There’s a conversion kit. Yeah. But it was expensive. But before that, it was just your full size, like a big body of magnier. It came that way from the factory. My 83, 83 Shiverley pickup, uh, had the lockers, but they were automatic. So you would, uh, put it in four wheel drive and, and go forward and they would automatically lock, but it was, and that was fine, but it was a real pain in the ass unlocking it because they were also automatic unlock. And I had to roll down both windows and back up straight and listen for two clips.

(…)

And if you weren’t sure, or if a dog farted and you couldn’t hear that other one, it’s like, okay, I got to do it again because you were going to mess something up if you, if you didn’t do it right. But yeah, I thought that was funny. Cause I think it would have been better just to get out and, you know, turn the thing there on the end of the axle and engage and disengage. Uh, so the lockout. Well, and they’ve got, you can even go so far. They’ve got for a lot of them, they have internal trust. It’s called a tube sleeve. Yeah. So it’s another piece of D O M that you actually install in the axle to, of course, you strategically drill holes in the factory tube before you put it in and you go in and rosette weld all those plug holes and you weld up the end. And now you’ve got it’s you’ve doubled the wall thickness of the tubing is what you’ve done. So that helps a lot too. Is that, is that better? Cause I mean, you got to remember everything to put the trust on anyway. Is it better to, to leave it? Well, if you’re doing it right, if you’re doing it right, you’ve got the axle housing, you preheat, you weld it properly, you post heat, all that kind of stuff, there’s a lot of places that don’t do it that way. And you can always tell because they’re you’ll, you’ll see it where their welds are cracking and stuff’s coming undone and there’s little rush trails where there shouldn’t be. And yeah, I’m not, I’ve not been a fan of ever seeing anybody burn a trust on a live axle that still got seals and bearings. And, oh no, I figured you have to remove all of that stuff. I don’t know why you would ever do that, but people do it. So, I mean, something to check before you ask the people that are going to be putting the trust on your, on your, your axle. So again, what do you think? Easiest way to tell us how much labor are they charging you, Tony? Internal tube or external trust or yes. Oh, both. Yeah, do both. If, I mean, if you, if you’re worried about it, do both, you know, it’s just like putting a locker in when you’re regearing, there’s no better time to upgrade that differential than when you’re already in there doing the gear. You’ve got everything removed anyway. Yeah.

(…)

You know, that’s kind of like a, an easy, easy one to, to go, yeah, I want that. Um, again, done properly with quality components there. The stuff is awesome. And as far as weight, it doesn’t add as much as you think it would on the average Jeep. Um, I know there’s a lot of the kits that are out there from like Barnes and, uh, what is it? Um, our tech, I mean, there’s a whole bunch of them out there, but there’s a lot of them that are actually a little bit thinner gauge steel and they’re formed pieces than some of the other offerings. And there it’s more of a, for lack of a better way to describe it. It’s like their sport entry version. So it’s lightweight and you’re, you’re still reinforcing the assembly, but just not like full on race trust reinforced, right? So you have different levels that you can go to to suit and accommodate what you’re trying to do with the rig without having to spend, cause it, let’s be honest, your average, average shop that knows what they’re doing with the welder, you’re going to spend what 130 to 160 or up per hour and labor plus your parts. And that was just, that’s what I said a second ago. If they’re only charging you a few hours per actual to install your favorite trust,(…) you know, they’re not pulling that housing all the way apart. You know, they’re not because there’s not enough time built into it. You go to a legit fab shop and ask them how much they charge to trust and actually get a quote from me on how much it costs to trust and excellent directly. You’re going to be Florida. How expensive it can be depending upon which boxes you tick. Cause it’s a lot of effort and time and prep involved. It’s not just the welding. There’s all the other pre and post stuff that is important to it. So, and I don’t want to go off into too much detail. Cause I know that’s, those are questions people ask when they finally get there and decide to make that modern upgrade, but do you want it? Yeah, everybody wants it. Cause it looks fucking burly and cool. It looks like you’re serious about what you’re doing. So you get those points checked, gets the ego check. Um, does it actually do what it’s supposed to? Yes. If you use quality parts and it’s installed properly, it’s a win-win. Um, like I said, the weight’s not too big of a deal in my book, especially on a half ton actually, you’re just not adding enough raw material to change it radically enough to go, Oh God, it’s, you know, it’s going to handle different. Now you’re not going to notice that. So body armor. I’m, I am my personal and professional thoughts on body armor, a little bit different than when it comes to axle armor. Um, axle armor to me is like good drive train skid plates, like your motor built system on your gladiator that worth every frigging penny. No matter what type of train you’re on. It’s just that level of protection is nice. There’s a lot of stuff there that you can break. Uh, you know, big gaping holes when you’re under your Jeep. You’re not having all of those. That’s expensive.

(…)

Yeah. You don’t have that little guy on your shoulder, every stinking obstacle going, watch out for this. Watch out. No, you’ve got the peace of mind. Now body armor, I’m going to say some things about body armor that might piss some people off or hurt some feelings.

(…)

Personally, from a, from a financial standpoint and a modification standpoint,

(…)

you have to look at it in terms of I’m worried about damaging sheet metal. So I’m going to install body armor or have someone install body armor on my Jeep. I don’t care if it’s steel or aluminum.

(…)

There’s only one or two methods for installing armor on sheet metal. The most commonly used methods for most of the kits I’ve seen in the last 15 plus years, you’re drilling holes in the sheet metal. You’re installing a rib nut or some kind of fastener. And then you, after you pick whatever finish you want for your armor, you’re bolting the armor to that.

(…)

So two key things.(…) Yes. Swiss cheese, the one thing you’re trying to protect and save. So you’ve effectively destroyed it. Because if you take the armor off, what are you going to do with all those rib nuts and holes in the sheet metal?(…) B you’re asking that sheet metal to be the foundation for your new found armor and subsequent new found confidence, because now you don’t give a damn about rubbing up against that gnarly old eight inch diameter salt cedar on the trail. Cause I got armor. And what you don’t realize is that the sheet metal is the only thing holding it up.

(…)

You’re just thinking about, I don’t have to worry about that scratch anymore. I don’t have to work haven in that panel anymore.(…) Yes. The weight can play a factor. If you’re one of those people that did all steel all the way around, like full on every panel, you’ve got the steel highline fenders, you’ve got, you know, the rocker protects, you’ve got everything you can think to throw at that sucker. Yeah. You’ve added hundreds of pounds worth of material to the vehicle. So that is worth taking into consideration. If you decide to go that path, it’s your, you’re adding an adult plus size passenger and with gear, you know, by putting all that on there’s same thing with aftermarket bumpers,(…) you know, some of them can get on the heavy side. If you go with the full tilt boogie stuff. So I’m not a big fan of it. My mantra has always been that paint is lubrication for the rocks and trees. And the sheet metal is just there to hold up the paint. Well, I know you’re aware of meek magnets because of Zabo. That’s me though. That’s not everybody. Yeah. I think the meek magnet stuff is a good compromise because it’s thin. And for the minor scratches that you might get, uh, it’s going to protect. Yeah. Yeah. Pin like cedar tree, pin striping, that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. If you, if you don’t want to have to deal with that stuff by all means, but once you go down the road, start punching holes in the body,(…) are you really that worried about body damage anymore? Yeah. Like if you’re one of those people that constantly is re-paint painting the rock rings on their beadlocks, cause you had them powder coated when they were first installed and then you go out and scratch them up and you realize, I don’t want to keep taking these sons of bitches back apart to have them recoded. So you just start rattle canning them every trip to keep them fresh. It’s like, if it’s not for your own personal aesthetic value, then who cares? It’s a rock crawler. It’s supposed to be scratched up. It shouldn’t be showroom pretty. In my opinion, if you’re, if you’re worried about tearing it up, it’s a lot of busy work. Don’t go on trail. It’s a lot of busy work. Let’s just say that. I mean, it is. If you’re using it, you know, each time I’ve polished my KMC since I put them on six years ago,(…) zero. I don’t care. It’s a beadlock. It’s getting beat up. I don’t give a shit what it looks like anymore. All right. So, uh, trusses, gussets and armor, never a bad idea, but it just really depends on how you look at the armor. I agree with you as far as drilling big, big ass holes into the, the sheet metal and the sheet metal being the basis for the, the holding and the structure, the, the, the, the critical structure for the, the body armor. Um, and I think sometimes people forget that whenever they’re putting fenders on aftermarket fenders, what’s that aftermarket fender attached to? Is it the sheet metal that’s holding it back? So what are you doing when you put that undamageable fender on there or the, uh, the, the flare, everything that’s holding it up? Yeah. So, uh, but then I believe this is true. I haven’t looked into it, but I believe you can actually get flares that are attached to the frame or something more substantial than the thin sheet metal. So, uh, keep that in mind when you’re looking at that direction. All right. So we talked about trusses, gussets and armor, uh, anything you wanted to wrap up with on, uh, on that, maybe something that, uh, we didn’t cover. Just make sure like we always talk about because there, there’s always going to be nothing’s free. There’s the trade off for everything.(…) My main thing is make sure that whoever you’re choosing to install those, or if you do, do decide to do it yourself, take plenty of time to understand what is involved and what you’re getting into. Don’t go based on price alone.

(…)

Don’t be shocked. If you do get a quote from somewhere like me, that’s a little higher than what you were expecting to see, because, you know, Joe Blow on such and such group page said he only paid 250 bucks on axle. I have his burned on at the local shop. Well, I’m sure those guys build exhaust systems like all day long, bad ass. It doesn’t mean I’m wanting them burning shit on my axle housings. You know what I mean?(…) So this is your homework. This is funny. Full-size trucks. Whenever I was like in my twenties, buddy of mine had a cool Ford pickup and he went to the exhaust shop to have a, a, a, a roll bar built for the back of his truck. It was really cool. It was a dual roll bar and it was all a pipe from exhaust.

(…)

So it was a light bar. It wasn’t a roll bar. Yeah, exactly. It looked cool, but it was just all muffler pipe. And so, yeah, it’s, and that’s, that’s the thing you got to keep in mind. I’ve seen roll bars for gladiators and they don’t mount to the bed. The, I mean, to the, the base of the bed where it attaches to the frame, it amounts to the railing on top. It’s that thing. Yeah. Nothing for roll bar. It’s a light bar holder. Yeah.(…) It’s purely decorative. And then, yeah, no, if it’s not tied, it’s like any kind of cage or, or like the, I guess anything you could do to shore up your, your factory cage is great. But the fact that it’s bolted to the body and not the chassis means that you’re going to get one decent hard hit on that cage and it’s done. It’s, it’s compromised at that point. Um, my factory cage has been through hell and back with nice little Thompson. I’ve never had a full on at speed like barrel roll or anything, you know, but it’s been over on its both sides numerous times and even the most aggressive one that I’ve had as far as laying over hard, wasn’t enough to damage the actual cage itself, it just tore up the trim and the cladding and stuff. So I know that with the LS swap, that’s going to change. So one of the things that’s first on the list after the LS goes in is that the factory cage is coming out and it’s getting a legit, uh, we’re doing motor built, um, it’s going to be a combination project between the drive train shop and the off-road shop and we’re going to customize it to fit in my bill. That won’t be your typical JK motor built cage. It’s going to be a little bit different. Plus it will be tied into the chassis and no less than six places, probably closer to eight by the time I’m done with it, but I’m shooting for eight.(…) That way I know I can attack whatever it is I’m going up against and I don’t have to worry about it. The same thing goes with your armor. If it’s installed properly and it’s of substantial quality, you can scratch that off the worry list. I don’t have to worry about dragging my control arms over those rocks anymore. I don’t have to worry about, you know, banging that axle tube into something. Or if I do pop off alleged a little bit too aggressively, I don’t have to worry about splitting my housing in half, you know, cause that’s, you got to think that’s gotta be a really, really shitty way to end a weekend of fun, either in the first day or the, you know, whatever day it doesn’t matter that you crest a dune or pop over a rock or into something, get a little froggy. And all of a sudden you’re, you’re literally looking at your housing split in half. Yeah. Just, that’s gotta be gut wrenchingly sick. And I’ve done some pretty gnarly damage, but I’ve never broken one that far gone. It’s scary as hell to see that whenever it happens. Cause you just see, you see Rubicon’s out there with 44s and what’s that happening? So, so we’re, we’re getting short on time here, but I want to ask you a question that one of our going back to the discord, the Jeep talk show community on discord. Uh, they posted up some pictures. He was a, he got rid of the sliders that were on his, uh, the four by E and he was putting on a new set. I forget who made our, so, uh, these were, uh, the body bolt attached, uh, the sliders,(…) so, you know, you had to pull the body bolts out to slide the thing. And the body mounts. Yeah. And, uh, so I did not know about this. I’m sure you do the JL and the JT, those front body bolts have red lock tight on them and you know what he did.

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He broke both of those and I started doing some investigation as far as, okay, now what, oh my God, what a horrible, horrible path you have to go down. So obviously the thing to do is either don’t, don’t do it, uh, or heat up. Uh, and I’m assuming this is correct. You have to heat up the bolt to get rid of the, You can either gently, there’s, there’s two ways to do it to ensure that you’re not going to tear it up. You either use mild heat and take your time. Cause you don’t want to smoke any body bushings or any of that stuff. I mean, it can’t, you just basically you’re just heating up the head of the bolt, trying to localize it. Like with the map gas torch or something. You don’t want to be into there with a full on and settling, cutting towards trying to heat that thing up unless you want to cut it out. Um, you know, even a really wicked heat gun would do the same thing, but the method that I actually prefer and still use to this day is just good old muscle power, if you go with a manual wrench and break it loose and just go nice and even and slow,(…) it’ll come right out. Really? The people that run into problems, try to zip them out with a big impact. And it, what happens is, is that thread locking compound doesn’t have a chance to really unset with friction and heat, which is why doing it by hand sets up that friction and heat on a more controlled level, softens up the thread locker so that it’ll come out nice and easy. If you start with, because the threads on those things are, those bolts are big, long bolts and they’ve got a lot of thread on them. And every bit of that thread, it seems like it’s got the locking compound on it. And it’s the same, it doesn’t have to be a JLGT and almost any of them. They’re like that with the full chassis.(…) Some, some of the earlier Jeeps are even worse. The Chevrolet’s, your cat-hide Chevy’s and the ones prior to that were the absolute worst,(…) the whole different story.

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If you’re going to mount something like a slider or a step or a Nerf bar or whatever to your vehicle for any reason, other than aesthetics.

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Do not use anything that mounts to the body mounts. Get something that ties into the chassis. That is my number one recommendation.

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A,(…) you have problems like your buddy finds out about, and that becomes a nightmare scenario if you do it.

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Second, you’re asking the body mount bolt and subsequent hardware to hold up the entire weight of the vehicle. If you lean over on that bar on a rut, a tree, a rut, whatever the case may be, they’re going to bend up every time. And then your doors are rubbing or you can’t put them back on at all. It damages the sheet metal. It’s, it’s, it’s not worth it. They may sound like they’re worth it in the short term because that version, the body mount version, like the poison spider ones that were real popular several years ago before they changed ownership, the body mount version was like 350 bucks and then for another hundred hundred fifty can have power-coating the well-done versions are almost twice as expensive because they’re a different design. And the way they tie in, you can use them appropriately. The body mount stuff, you can’t, it’s, it’s, and I, I personally experienced what that can be like because we had a leftover set of body mount ones that were actually pretty, you know, barely little bars. They weren’t like shitty little super thin metal bars. They were well, well made, but the way they mount was horrible because you’ve got basically the three body mount bolts is all that’s holding up that thing to the Jeep and every time I leaned up against anything, it didn’t matter how much pressure I put on them every time. So now I’m out here constantly with a high lift jack handle or winch or something. My buddy’s toe strap, having to pull them suckers back down every time I want to put my doors back on, you know, and God forbid if you have the doors on and bend one of them up, because then you’re not crawling out that door. You got to go out one of the other. Duka hazards that type of thing. It’s I mean, I, I’ve just, for the life of me, if anybody’s ever seen anything else I say ever again, please do not put body mount frame slider steps. Anything that you don’t have to worry about breaking the bolts if you don’t do it. So that’s, that’s great. Yeah. All right, man. Well, we went over a little bit, but great information. I really appreciate you being here and doing all this stuff with us week after week. And Greg is here week after week until he realizes his mistake and doesn’t show up. All right. So I have too much fun with this. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good. The deep, this Jeep talk show episode, get your engine roaring. Show us some love by dropping a five star rating and a blazing review on your go-to podcast platform. It’s your way to help us expand our Jeep family. Keep the adventure rolling by hitting follow on social media and like subscribe. And we’d love the feedback here on YouTube. I do all that stuff. We’d like to hear your input and your comments. Maybe, maybe we’ve got something wrong. Maybe you got a question about something you can reach out to us. And speaking of reaching out, you can go to Jeep talk show.com slash contact to reach out to us and ask those questions.

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Yes, please bring more questions. We like answering those dogs or barking again.

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So funny when we first got that dog, I think she was like really nervous from the pound and we were having discussions about is she mute because she, she would not bark. She would not do any, make any noise. And now you can’t shut the little bitch up.

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Newborns do the same damn thing, Tony.

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You quit cute and sweet and equate and everything until they really find their voice and you start learning how to talk. Cause it’s, there’s certain words that, that like are Aurora. She’s what 20 months old almost, I think at this point.

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Trying to remember. Oh, you never think so. Well, I mean, she’ll be two in November. So that’ll take it right. I know. I can’t remember the months cause I don’t, I don’t date my children how old they are. She’ll be two in November. They’re still alive. I know that. That’s the book. That’s what dad’s. Yes.

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She has certain words that she is really good about using. But when you ask her to use them, she won’t do it. Right. Even though she knows what you’re saying, she understands more than she can vocalize. Cause you can tell her to do something across the room and she’ll look you in the eye and be like, okay. And then go do it. You know, Hey, pick up that toy and put it in the box or blah, blah, blah.(…) If only Jeep people were so easy to explain things to when they come to see me. Because I feel like I’m having to undo all this programming from the interwebs and the social media that’s like, well, I heard this, I heard that. And it’s like, man, if you just, if you’d step away from those people asking questions and actually go to like a tech savvy site or a forum or just like you’ve been around long enough for me, like with the days of pirate four by four and all those type deals, a treasure trove of information. And they didn’t put up with the dummies trying to troll or flame or doing it. It’s like, if you’re going to come in and act a fool, we’re going to run you off. It’s not like that on face. Everybody’s included. It doesn’t matter how stupid you act or how annoying you are. People have to answer your question and you go, I see people ask the same questions in multiple groups about the same thing. And I read every one of them and I see the comments are as varied and different from all three or four of those posts as you can imagine. And there might be one or two people that responded that were anywhere close to getting a correct answer.(…) And I cannot imagine at this point in the game with the years I’ve got in that if I were to get dropped into the middle of this as a noob, not knowing what I know now, it’d be overwhelming. So this is, I think this is interesting.

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