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Bigwalton's LJ - Formerly "The LJ gets some big tire love"

wheel spacers

With the tires finally supposed to be in today, I did the wheel spacers.

Pulled the tires and cleaned up the face of the rotor from the surface rust that was all over them, this was mentioned in the instructions that came with the spacers. You can also see the factory disc retention clip on the lower right lug, this is for the discs to stay on during assembly, I pulled all of them out to ensure they didn't cause the spacer to sit crooked:

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Put a thin coat of anti-seize to keep it at bay, careful to keep it off the wheel studs:

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Installed the spacers, apparently I failed miserably and forgot to take a shot of the spacer installed before the tire went on. I'll get one when I check the torque on the studs next week or so.

The instructions on the spacers said to torque the lugnuts on the spacers to 95 ft-lb, so I used a torque wrench and stepped up from snug to 50, 75 and 95 ft-lb in the standard star pattern.

Here's where it started:
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Here's a shot with the rear one on, front at stock (stock tires):
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Here's both on:
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Tires!!!

Got the call that these were all finally in. The guys at the shop actually turned out to be really cool. The one manager had a stock TJ and was all kinds of curious on the lift. The other manager actually rolled one of the tires all the way out into the waiting room to show me what they looked like and talked to me for a while about them. He said that the Duratracs were were designed for commercial use, but have taken off with Jeep/4x4 folks. He said they're selling tons of them.

Here's it is coming down from the lift:

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Redid the shots out in front of the house for comparison:

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At the very end of the steering throw, it's rubbing on the control arm (the adjustable ones would probably clear :banghead:

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Just need a touch more on the steering stop:

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Nice improvement:
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I was shocked that I managed to get the new spare and all 5 of the take offs into the back of the LJ with the rear seat out (and the window zipped just fine) :eek: Forgot a picture of that, you'll have to trust me on it... Goes to show how immense the cargo area is on these when the rear seat is out!
 
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Beauty shot:
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Driving impressions:

They are SO quiet!!!! I had high expectations and was still impressed. The change in the RPM range is exactly what I was hoping for for road driving. First is finally useful and the shift in the other gears in the RPM range is AWESOME!! :smokin:

BTW, the tailgate is dang light with no spare. Slammed the crap out of it when I shut it the first time out of habit. :rotfl:
 
NICE!!!

question... why no anti-sieze on the wheel studs?
 
I put a smallish amount of blue threadlock on the stock studs because those are hidden behind the wheels and I can't easily check the torque on them like the outer lugnuts. Since they won't come off nearly so often, I don't mind if they are nice and tight.

Moreover, I figure that the rim completely covers the holes in the wheel spacers and the studs and will keep out the salt and crap. For example, you can see how sparkling clean the center of the axle shaft is where it went up inside the rim (the nuts on the front stub shafts are also pristine), so I'm more worried about those inner nuts staying tight than coming off cleanly/easily when I go to do the brakes next time.
 
oh yeah... wheels spacers. forgot about that. makes sense.
 
See, :banghead: I failed horribly on taking that picture or it would have made sense! I'm such a moron!!! :eek:
 
The work was worth the looks.
Hope you have permision from the wife to at least wheel it a little. After all it is her jeep right. :d
 
cchambers said:
The work was worth the looks.
Hope you have permision from the wife to at least wheel it a little. After all it is her jeep right. :d
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Funny you say that, I IMed her at work that I'd gotten the tires and when she walked in the door tonight I asked "So????"

Her comment was "Looks like you need to put on the body lift to get some more room."

Knew I marrried her for good reason :D
 
Now that looks good, Eric. Bravo! You probably know this, but the Duratracks have a "Snowflake" rating which means they pass for snow chains when chains are required. Right now, I think only the BFG A/T's, General Grabber AT2's, and Goodyear Duratracks and Silent Armor Kevlar have that rating.
 
I don't plan on ever running chains (don't own them) but the snow performance was KEY for me in selecting tires after dealing with those MTRs up here. I don't have a ton of experience compared to a lot of folks, but those things were easily the worst tire I've ever seen on snow. Not surprising with no siping at all I suppose. It was so bad I refused to have Kate drive the LJ in snow.

I did A LOT of reading before picking tires since I keep them so long on this thing with as little as it drives (only 49k miles on it). There's a long thread on JeepForums with a lot of driving impressions for these things that was real helpful in the decision.
 
Driving it this morning (just HAD to go to McDonalds for breakfast :D) and tonight, I found out for the first time since I've owned the LJ, that it actually has a nice little exhaust note at speed! :cool:

I literally had never heard it over the howl of the MTRs. I can't believe how loud they were compared to these. :huh:
 
Perfect stance...Tire package and lift look just right. MTR's look badass but they are a lil loud and are a little expensive vs others.

Think you guys made the right move.
 
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