I've caught the Jeep thing, now what?

[Nuclear Redneck]

Final Tire Choice...Maybe

I can get 5 BFG AT in 235/85R16 mounted, balanced, and out the door for $860 through the Navy Exchange. I think that is a pretty good deal. I have not been able to find Rubi takeoffs for less than $1100 in my area. I'll run them at around 30 psi on the street and do the chalk test to verify that I have them properly inflated. I also plan on incorporating the spare into the rotation plan.

 

[pilosopo]

I can get 5 BFG AT in 235/85R16 mounted, balanced, and out the door for $860 through the Navy Exchange. I think that is a pretty good deal. I have not been able to find Rubi takeoffs for less than $1100 in my area. I'll run them at around 30 psi on the street and do the chalk test to verify that I have them properly inflated. I also plan on incorporating the spare into the rotation plan.

Expand your search.

I'm in Orange County and just sold my take offs with 20k miles on them for $450. Or are you looking for new?

 

[JIMBO]

:sombrero: Don't forget Hankook Dynapro MTs, but you're probably gonna have tirerub, with any ofem-

You're probably gonna need new wheels with at least 4.5" backspace and/or wheel spacers !

Good luck

:costumed-smiley-007:wings: JIMBO

 

[Nuclear Redneck]

Expand your search.

I'm in Orange County and just sold my take offs with 20k miles on them for $450. Or are you looking for new?

I was looking for fairly low mileage, not new. Ebay is consistently running at 1100 to 1300 for a set of 5. I'll look in a bigger area.

 

[nwoods]

ebay for tires? No, use Craigslist.

 

[Nuclear Redneck]

ebay for tires? No, use Craigslist.

I'll try Craigslist. Or better yet, have my wife do it she has had good success on Craigslist before. And she's more persistent than I am.

 

[Nuclear Redneck]

:sombrero: Don't forget Hankook Dynapro MTs, but you're probably gonna have tirerub, with any ofem-

You're probably gonna need new wheels with at least 4.5" backspace and/or wheel spacers !

Good luck

:costumed-smiley-007:wings: JIMBO

I know I'm going to need new wheels eventually. I just don't know exactly the direction this build is going. I figured to get some better tires on there now and a bit bigger, then wheel it and see what I want.

 

[nwoods]

I'll try Craigslist. Or better yet, have my wife do it she has had good success on Craigslist before. And she's more persistent than I am.

Just for context, I just bought a set of five 33" BFG KM's that were nearly new, for $650. I sold my old tires, that were much more worn for $100. They seller of my new tires told me his ad had been posted less than 10 minutes when I pounced on them, and within minutes of my posting my own add (11pm on a Saturday night) my phone started buzzing with texts and calls. I don't know if there is a service you where can set up search parameters and be notified upon someone posting, but my recent experiences would suggest that people are doing so. Either that, or there is a ton of people searching constantly. BTW, I received a tip from a friend about the tires I bought, so I have no direct knowledge on he found them so fast, but boy am I grateful. Saved me at least $500!

 

[Nuclear Redneck]

Tire Question Settled for a while

I got a set of 5 2013 Rubicon wheels and tires with about 5000 miles on them. I've put the spare into the rotation. I've kept the stock wheels and tires. They may go on a future trailer project.

 

[Nuclear Redneck]

Car Seats reinstalled

The kids' car seats are reinstalled. They both fit on the 60 section of the rear seat and the 40 can be folded up or down with them installed. I can fit on the 40 section and would ride an hour or so that way. The car seats are Diono Radian RXTs.

 

[heehawhardy]

Love those seat covers.

 

[Nuclear Redneck]

I've added a few things to the Jeep:

ACE bolt on sliders:



I trimmed the rear ends of the Jeep Rubicon rock rails about an inch. They were sticking into the wheel wells a bit and I just wanted to make there were no problems.



I think the sliders look nice and they seem beefy. My kids like them because they can get up into the Jeep easier. They bolt to the three body mounts.

I also added a Dirty Dog divider:



Seems solid. I've yet to test it. I bought it to contain soft, light items like sleeping bags and duffles. You can also see the hothead liner kit I installed. I'm pretty happy with them. They do seem to moderate the noise and heat.

I'm working on an install for my iPad mini and my ham radio using the Vector Off Road dash bar. No pictures yet, as it is still in the messing about stage. Wires all over the place.

 

[Nuclear Redneck]

Regear and lockers

I've been looking at regearing. Currently I run Rubicon takeoff wheels and tires, BFG KM2s in the 255/75R17 size. I'm fairly happy with the size and I don't see going to a much bigger tire for a few years. My Jeep has the 3.73 gears with the factory limited slip in the rear.

My stock tire size was 225/75R16. Using Grimm Jeeper's gear ratio calculator; I should regear to 4.10 to regain factory RPMs. Around town the Jeep feels fine. Loaded with the family and pulling our camping trailer, I can definitely feel the loss in power. I know that I'd feel that load anyway, but I think moving to the gear ratio Jeep uses for all manual Rubicons makes sense. Cost to regear and add lockers will be about $2200 at my local shop (M.I.T Drivetrain Specialists)

I do not think that I want to go down the trail of running 35 inch tires on a daily driver. The extra mods to safely run that size tire quickly add up. A small lift (2") is in my future to offset the front bumper, winch, rear bumper, and interior storage I plan on adding. It's a bit vain of me, but I like the 2013 Rubicon wheels and don't intend on moving to a tire size that would require me to change wheels. Most likely will switch to the new BFG AT tire when I need to jump.

Question for the board: Should I regear to 4.10 or do you think I will regret it later? If there was a 4.25 or so I'd think about that. The next ratio after 4.10 is 4.56 and I think that is too big of a jump.

On the subject of lockers. I was thinking ARB, but the shop is recommending Eaton lockers. Does anyone have experience running these lockers? preferably someone who's run both of them. I will be putting some type of on board air compressor anyway.

Thanks, Tate

 

[mrchips]

As for tires I would recommend looking at Nitto Trailgrapplers, quite on the freeway, great off road.

For lockers go with ARB, they are super strong, I have no experience with the Eaton, but you don't need to deal with air compressor,,, I run a separate air source for the ARB lockers, as to the tires.

As for gears, as you add bumpers, tire carrier, winch etc, all the wieght adds up, plus you tow, if you are ever thinking of going to 35's, do it now, and I would go 4.88, otherwise 4.56 is probably good.

 

[oldnslow]

"Question for the board: Should I regear to 4.10 or do you think I will regret it later? If there was a 4.25 or so I'd think about that. The next ratio after 4.10 is 4.56 and I think that is too big of a jump."

Your tires are about 32", same size as I run on my TJ. I had 3.73 and re-geared to 4.56 a few years ago. That really woke the Jeep up, it accelerates and climbs much better now. I didn't lose much gas mileage because I don't have to downshift for every hill.

Since your JK has a higher-reving engine than my 4.0 I would recommend going to at least 4.56 gears. The stock gearing is too tall for anything beyond a really light load on flat ground.