3. Wheels and Tires
- 17" Stock FJ Alloys
I kept the stock wheels because I can't really justify the cost of new wheels and find them to be more than adequate for wheeling. On one occasion a rock outcropping went into the side of the rim and I literally lifted the truck up an obstacle by the side of rim (tire off the ground, rim pressed on rock)... it left some deep gouges, but the rim is fine. These days my rims are completely mutilated on the outsides and have given me no problems.
If I was running larger tires I might benefit from a rim that had a better bead holder thingy, but for now with these tires I have yet to pop a bead.
I always liked black wheels and in an attempt to have some cool looking wheels without breaking the bank, I painted the insides of the rims.
I like the way it turned out, but the whole process of prepping, taping, and painting is a little time consuming... over the course of about a year I still have only done two of the five rims.
It looks great when the two painted ones are on the same side...
...or one is on the back...
...but not so good when they're mixed and matched and on the same side one is painted and one is not.
- 275/70/17 Goodyear MT/R
It's hard for me to give a really thorough review of these tires since it is literally the first mud terrain (or offroad tire in generally, really) that I have ever owned. Having worn them down literally to where there is NO tread left on them over several thousand miles of mixed 4x4 action, I can say...
- Extremely durable on the trail (especially side wall on rocks)
- Frequently explode on the road (have had three huge holes in sidewall, all on road)
- Uneven wear (though probably my fault)
- Not too noisy on road, nice ride compared to what I was expecting
- A bit on the expensive side
I picked the 275/70/17 size because it's juuust a little bit larger than stock and when I purchased the tires I had no body chop and no lift. My friends
The R2's had exactly these tires and experienced no fitment issues so I gave it a shot.
The gains in mud performance was incredible... the mud walls on the sides of the river at Table Mesa could no longer hold me, despite exceeding my clearance in the front (mud wall visible in background).
4. Suspension
- Front: FOX 2.5 from All Pro
This is another cool story of All Pro really helping me out with some great gear. Basically at the time of the Summit, I was running OME mediums and a 1" spacer up front and a spacer lift with mysterious springs (long story) in the rear. My front shocks exploded in the middle of the Summit and I found myself in a huge pickle since the Summit was just a stop on a much larger trip!
Terry and Jon cut me a mad deal on the FOX system (front and rear) and I installed it right there in the parking lot of the Best Western during the raffle.
Read more about that story here...
Install time...
Thar it be!
The performance out of this system is completely sick... there is a
50-mile section of really nice dirt road between Tucson and Phoenix that I have driven dozens of times with different suspension. The FOX coilovers blow everything else I've tried (OME, spacers, stock) out of the water. There are a few nice airborne parts off cattle guards, big whoops, and fun curvy sections that are really fun to blast through. I bottom out much less and can do the whole thing much faster now.
- Rear: All Pro Springs, 2" Spacer, FOX 2.0 shocks
Basically I have All Pro's FOX 2.0 3" lift system in the rear with a 2" spacer thrown on top of that for fun. It leaves me with something like 4.5" of lift in the rear. The truck is raked forward a little (about as much as stock) since there is obviously a bit more lift in the rear than the front. I don't think there's any benefit to the rake, but the extra lift in the rear is nice and I don't want to go any higher on the IFS to level it out.
I am able to get massive amounts of flex out of this setup and absolutely love it. I've yet to detach the rear sway bar, but will likely experiment with that in the future.
Some rear flex pics:
- Front Swaybar Removal
I ditched the front sway bar in early 2008 when that was sort of new/controversial thing to do. At that time, I wasn't very confident recommending for or against doing so but since then quite a few people have taken theirs off and now there is a larger body of experiences to go by. There are some drawbacks, but overall I think it has been a very good thing for me.
The good:
- Increased flex (not necessarily greater travel, but difference side/side)
- No sway bar links to break!
The bad:
- Possible UCA ball joint damage from contact with spring
- Greater flex = greater danger of CV/steering damage (lay off the throttle!)
- Increase in body roll on road
There are some good discussions on the forum that can easily be found with a search for more details.
In the following picture, you can see that the down-travel is limited by the UCA crashing into the spring. That doesn't seem like a problem to me, but on the other side the winds of the spring happen to line up differently such that it's the ball joint that crashes into the spring... which is obviously bad! What parts will make contact depends on your individual setup, picture is stock UCA's and stock springs with a spacer.
Some quick examples of the flex benefits:
I'll pick on JEEBUS for this one... look at the position of each wheel relative to the truck in this shot - pretty flat, and one wheel is up off the ground.
With swaybar and nice coilover suspension:
Now look at me in the exact same spot. One wheel is stuffed, the other is hanging down. There is massive side to side flex and both wheels are on the ground.
No swaybar, stock suspension w/ spacers.
Another example...
No swaybar, FOX 2.5 system...
Swaybar, OME Heavy...
I had more flex than this Jeep!!
