They’re saying this podcast is mostly about Toyota trucks and SUVs. That usually means they’ll talk about Toyota-specific problems and fixes, not just general off-roading tips.
“Wrenching” is off-road slang for doing hands-on mechanical work—repairs, upgrades, and maintenance. In a Toyota-focused off-road podcast, it usually implies practical DIY guidance and troubleshooting rather than just driving impressions.
The hosts discuss how episode numbering will be organized into a “700 series,” effectively creating a new cataloging system for the podcast. This is useful as a chapter-style marker for long-time listeners tracking episodes.
They’re talking about a membership “gift box” that people get as part of certain tiers. You won’t know what’s inside until they reveal it later online.
Company
irate four by four
They tell you to use the “irate four by four” website to pick the membership tier you want. That’s where the options for the gift box and giveaways are listed.
Onyx Elite membership sounds like a paid upgrade that unlocks extra app features. In this case, it includes the ability to share and track your group’s location while you ride.
This is a feature that helps you stay connected with other people on the trail. If your phone has service, it shows where everyone is so you can regroup if someone falls behind.
Cell data is your phone using the cellular network to send information. On trails with weak signal, the map/location sharing may not update as reliably.
The Bugatti Divo is an expensive, high-performance supercar made in limited numbers. It’s built to be very fast and to handle well, especially when driving hard. The podcast mentions it because there’s a group buy or special event connected to Divos.
The Light Ranger 500 is a small camping light. It’s meant to help you see what you’re doing up close—like around your tent or while working at night—rather than lighting a whole campground.
The Ford Ranger is a pickup truck, meaning it has a cargo bed for hauling tools or gear. People talk about it a lot for off-roading because it’s built to handle rough roads and towing. This episode mentions a sale/discount on a specific Ranger package called the “Light Ranger 500.”
A motion sensor means the light can turn on (or change behavior) when it senses movement. That’s handy at night so you don’t have to fumble for a switch.
The Light Ranger 1000 is a bigger version in the same light line. The hosts say it’s better for lighting a whole area, like a campsite, rather than just close-up tasks.
An area light is designed to spread illumination over a wider space, like lighting an entire campground. The hosts contrast this with the smaller Light Ranger 500, which is positioned as more of a personal/nearby-use light.
They’re saying the light always starts back up in white mode. So if you like a colored light (like yellow), you can’t leave it there permanently without reselecting it.
They’re talking about extra lights for off-roading. These help you see better at night or on dark trails, and the episode is mainly about getting a good deal on them.
A group buy is when a bunch of people agree to buy the same product together. Because they’re buying in larger numbers, they get a better deal, but it usually ends after a deadline.
A discount code is a special word/number you use when you buy something online to get a lower price. They’re saying there’s a group-buy deal for a limited time, and then there’s still a smaller discount code afterward.
An e-locker is a switchable traction aid. When one wheel starts slipping, it helps both wheels on an axle work together so you can keep moving over rocks or mud.
OnX Offroad is a map app for off-roading. It helps you see where you are on trails and plan routes so you don’t get lost.
Concept
four wheel drive club
A four-wheel-drive club is a group of people who like driving off-road. They often plan trail days and share tips so members know when and where to go.
Company
Pacific Northwest four wheel drive association
This sounds like a local off-road group in the Pacific Northwest. They usually help organize events and get people connected for trail driving.
Topic
skills day
“Skills day” likely refers to an off-road training or practice event where drivers work on techniques. In 4x4 circles, these days commonly cover recovery basics, traction management, and trail driving skills.
Recovery gear is the stuff you use to pull or tow your vehicle out when it gets stuck off-road. It usually includes strong straps and connectors made for heavy loads.
Soft shackles are strong, flexible loops used to connect recovery straps or winch lines. They’re safer and easier to use than hard metal shackles for many off-road recoveries.
Spartan ropes is a company that makes off-road recovery gear like straps and shackles. In this episode, they’re specifically mentioned for soft shackles.
Concept
recovery strap vs. shackle hardware
Off-road recoveries use more than one piece of gear. A shackle (soft or metal) connects things, while a strap is what actually pulls—so choosing the right combo matters for safety.
A quick recovery strap is a strong strap used to pull a stuck vehicle out. A “duty” version usually means it’s built to handle tougher recoveries and heavier loads.
Jagged X off-road is an off-road company that helped put together and ship a gift box. The episode mentions them because they were starting to do gift boxes for their business.
A multi-tool is a small tool that combines several functions in one. It’s useful on trips because you can handle small problems without bringing a big set of tools.
Speedstrap sounds like a strap product used for off-road situations—either recovery or securing something. The hosts are basically saying it’s a specific brand of strap, not a generic term.
PRP is a company that makes or sells off-road-related products. In this segment, they’re connected to Speedstrap and show up at off-road events like KOH.
Topic
KOH
KOH is an off-road event where companies set up booths to show products. The hosts mention PRP having a booth there, which is why they’re talking about their gear.
They’re talking about the 10mm tool size—something you’d use on common bolts. It’s treated like a “go-to” wrench size, so they kept putting 10mm tools in the gift boxes.
Deep and shallow sockets are two different lengths of socket tools. Deep ones reach bolts that sit farther inside, while shallow ones fit more easily in normal spaces.
They tried to ship the gift boxes using UPS, but UPS said the outside wrapping paper wasn’t acceptable. The solution was to remove the extra wrapping and put the gifts into a proper shipping box.
Fully collapsed means the shock has compressed as far as it can go. If the bump stop isn’t touching yet, the shock is running out of travel before the suspension hits its intended limit.
Term
upper islet of the shock
This is the top mounting point of the shock. Moving it up changes how the suspension moves, so you can get more useful travel and better control over when the bump stop engages.
Term
shock hoops
Shock hoops are custom brackets or mounts made to help the shocks fit and move safely. They’re often needed when you build a suspension that flexes a lot.
They’re using “articulate” to mean “let the suspension move through its full range.” They want to make sure that as the wheels move up and down, parts don’t bump into each other.
They’re talking about raising the truck higher off the ground. That can help with clearance, and it can also change how the suspension moves—so they’re making sure nothing rubs when the wheels droop and compress.
They’re talking about a Toyota Land Cruiser that needs front-end work. “Knuckles” are part of the steering/suspension system, so rebuilding them helps the truck steer correctly and stay reliable on rough terrain.
Car
LX450
They mention a Lexus LX450, which is basically a luxury version of the Land Cruiser. It’s built on a very similar foundation, so many parts and repair jobs overlap with the Toyota 4x4s from that era.
“Knuckles” are part of the front axle/steering system on many older 4x4s. When they’re rebuilt, it usually means replacing worn parts and seals so the truck steers smoothly and doesn’t get sloppy or leak.
That seal is like a gasket that keeps the oily fluid inside the axle/differential. If it leaks, the fluid can spread around and mess with other parts nearby.
Parts cleaner is a chemical cleaner that removes greasy oil and grime from car parts. Letting it soak helps get everything clean enough to work on properly.
Trunnion bearings are the bearings that help the wheel-end/steering parts move smoothly. If they wear out, the steering can feel loose and seals can start leaking sooner.
A full rebuild means you don’t just patch the problem—you refresh the whole set of parts that wear out together. That helps prevent the same issue from coming back quickly.
Your power steering uses hoses and lines to move fluid around. If one hose or connection is leaking, you can lose fluid fast and steering won’t work right. This segment is about finding the exact leaking line and repairing it.
Power steering fluid is the fluid that makes your steering feel light and easy. If it leaks out, the steering can get harder and the system can wear out. Here, they notice there’s almost none left in the reservoir and then track down where it’s coming from.
Teflon tape is a sealing tape that helps stop leaks where two threaded parts screw together. If the connection isn’t sealed well, fluid can seep out. Here, they re-taped the fitting to try to stop the power steering leak.
Pucks are small spacer pieces that lift the front of the truck a bit. They’re often used to fix how high the vehicle sits after suspension changes. But lifting can also change how parts move, so you have to check for rubbing.
Term
hydraulic ram
A hydraulic ram is a part that moves using pressurized fluid. As the truck flexes, that part can end up in different positions. Here, rotating it changed how it sat when the suspension fully moved.
The Toyota Supra is a sports car, not an off-road truck, and it’s designed for speed and handling. The episode mentions a situation where the car’s oil pan was damaged after hitting it, which can happen if the car scrapes the ground. They’re discussing what caused it and what parts or setup might be involved in preventing it.
Bleeding brakes removes trapped air from the brake lines so the brake pedal feels firm and braking response is consistent. If brakes are “super squishy,” it often indicates air in the system or old/contaminated brake fluid. The owner performs a brake bleed after other work to restore proper pedal feel.
They’re talking about a really bad mechanical failure where the axle basically came loose. When that happens, it can break a bunch of parts because the axle is what connects the wheels to the drivetrain.
Concept
rig back to the same shop
The host’s comment about never taking a rig back to the same shop (with an exception) reflects a common ownership strategy: if a shop’s work doesn’t meet expectations, owners often avoid repeat visits. In off-road builds, repeat trips can also indicate incomplete diagnosis or the need for follow-up corrections after complex installs.
Concept
three, four swap
A “three, four swap” sounds like a drivetrain or axle swap involving two different axle assemblies (often discussed as swapping front/rear or different gearsets/ratios). Without more context, it’s likely a project where parts are removed and replaced to change gearing or correct a failure.
Suspension work is a common 4x4 upgrade and repair category because it affects ride height, wheel travel, and how the truck handles off-road. After a major incident (like axle separation), suspension components are often inspected and replaced because they can be bent, worn, or misaligned.
The rear differential (“rear diff”) is the gearbox in the rear axle that allows the rear wheels to rotate at different speeds while also distributing torque. In this segment, they’re discussing a specific failure/condition inside the rear diff related to pinion play. Excess play in the pinion can lead to accelerated wear and driveline noise or damage.
The pinion is a gear inside the differential. “Play” means it can move more than it should, instead of staying tight and controlled. Too much movement usually means the axle setup is worn or not adjusted correctly, which can cause expensive damage over time.
A crush sleeve is a small spacer inside the rear axle that helps tighten the bearings correctly. During installation it gets “crushed” a bit to lock in the right tightness. If you’re doing hard off-roading and putting lots of twisting force through the axle, that setup can get stressed more than it would in normal street driving.
Binding up the drivetrain is what happens when the wheels/axles can’t move smoothly because traction is limited. The vehicle keeps trying to twist the drivetrain, so the parts inside the axle/differential get hammered with extra force. That’s why some setups that work fine on-road can struggle off-road.
A differential is what allows the wheels on the same axle to turn at different speeds, like when you’re turning. If something inside it gets worn or damaged, it can cause problems or make repairs more complicated.
The rear axle is the big assembly at the back that includes the differential and connects to the wheels. If the axle’s internal setup is different, it can change what parts you need for repairs later.
When you rebuild a differential, you usually need more than just the main gears—you need the right bearings and seals too. A “master install kit” is basically the correct package of those parts for that specific axle setup.
The carrier is the part inside the differential that holds the gears and bearings in place. If you use the wrong bearing or parts for that carrier, the differential may not be set up correctly.
A shave kit is an aftermarket gear solution that needs careful modification of parts to make everything fit and work right. In this case, they had to shave the ring gear, and that step was the biggest reason the job was delayed.
Ballistic Fab is the company behind the aftermarket kit they’re using. Since it’s a specific kit, it comes with specific requirements—like how the gears must be modified—so you can’t treat it like a generic swap.
The ring gear is one of the main gears inside the rear differential. If you’re changing the differential setup, the ring gear may need to be modified so everything meshes correctly.
Term
bearing preload
Bearing preload is how tightly the bearings are adjusted inside the differential. Too loose or too tight can cause abnormal wear and lead to failure over time.
The ring and pinion are the big gears inside the differential that make the wheels turn. If they’re wearing oddly, it can mean the differential isn’t adjusted right, even if it still drives for a while.
Gear whine is a noise that can happen when the differential gears aren’t meshing correctly. If it’s not whining, the gears might still be working okay for now.
They’re saying the repair might work for a short time, but the problem is still there underneath. Eventually the differential will likely fail again because the setup isn’t fully fixed.
Re-shimming is adjusting thin metal spacers to get the gears lined up correctly again. It helps the differential run quietly and wear evenly instead of chewing itself up.
Friction welding is a way to fuse metal parts together using heat from friction. In this case, the bearing parts effectively got fused to the pinion/housing, so they couldn’t be removed normally.
“Pumpkin” is what many people call the big housing in the axle that holds the gears. If metal shavings or dust are left inside, they can damage the new gears. Cleaning it out is important before reassembly.
LIVE
Oh, welcome one. Welcome all to the Snail Trail 4x4 podcast. If you like going off-roading
in Toyotas, wrenching on Toyotas, camping in Toyotas, and maybe even poking a little
bit of fun at Toyotas and of course, hearing about how to fix a lot of stuff in Toyotas
than this is the podcast for you. That's right, ladies and germs. My name is Tyler and joining
me for another episode of the Snail Trail 4x4 podcast. This is shit. What number is this?
701. 701. This is the first episode of the 700 series. Yeah. So I think that's how we're
going to name the H hundreds now is a series series 700 series. Okay. The first episode
series, series seven, episode one. Yeah, sure.
Anyways, the person joining me as always is that guy right over there, Mr. Jimmy Jet for
701 numbered episodes. Right. How the hell are you, man? I'm good. Good. A little tired. A little
tired. Yeah. You know, 700 episodes, spent a long day. Has been long. That's that's how
long. How much time is that? Like just what would be 700 times 1.5 hours? As I say, if our
average episode is like three and a half hours long, three and a half. No, well, it's 700 hours
plus 350. So 1,050 hours roughly. Sure. Well, if every if we're I guess if we're at one and a
half hours average. Yeah. Okay. 1,050 hours. Yeah. So how many days is that? 44 days. And
that's just numbered episodes, not snail males, not TTTs, not any of the other bonus episodes
or anything we've done. 43 and three quarter days nonstop. You could listen nonstop and listen
everything. So we wanted to start a, what was that? Satellite radio station and just put us on
24 hour repeat. Yeah. And we would go for 43 days, 44 days, and then it would start over. Yep.
That's crazy. Yeah. And that's not including the other podcast either. So I mean, we've got 20
some odd episodes of there now, just like kind of random stuff. We're like 25, 26. Yeah. Wow. And
then if we, and then we could include Jays Johnson, if that ever started, right? And then, you know,
if we really want it, because we were talking about it with possibly getting wheeling on a whiskey
and on there too. Yeah. Who hasn't released an episode in like two weeks. What? Yeah. I think
they're at 14 days when I last looked. Uh-oh. Yeah. So we'll see how that goes. Let me see. That'd
be interesting, man. Cause we have, I mean, we have rovers after dark. We've got botches. Yep. Us,
we really want a whiskey. Well, there's tons of off-roading podcasts too. But there's like
cheap show podcast, Toyota garage podcast. We could do the newfound dirt drive, dirt drives. Yeah,
there's a lot of off-roading podcasts. Yeah. But there's like, there's a bunch of them that like,
we're all kind of really tight buddies with. Yeah. Right. There were not tight buddies with
all the podcasts out there. Like, I don't know, that, that Land Rover one is questionable, but
um, that'd be, I still think it'd be a great idea to put together an off-roading podcast radio.
Maybe. So radio station. Yeah. Anyways. All right. So let's see. What do we got going on?
It is Thursday. It is Thursday where we talk about what the hell we've been up to and what
we have on our mind, which we've already kind of started. But we do have, we're getting close
to the end of the month. So we've got a lot of stuff coming up and a lot of stuff coming at
pretty much a due date at the end of this month for a few different things a week from today.
When you guys listening on the day this released, we've got the gift boxes. Yes, we do. So let's,
those are essentially April and October. We open up the gift box tier for you guys to get in on.
And then Jimmy and I take essentially $60 that you supply over that six months and we try and
turn it into roughly 80 bucks. And like 10 of those dollars is your box and shipping to you as
well. So we're really taking like $50 from you and turning it into at least $80 value worth of
stuff in a fun little present from Jimmy and I. And so that's kind of how that works. And we only
have that open for April and October. And otherwise we lock it all down because you really need to
pay the full 50 bucks in order to get in for the releases each time or the 60 bucks to get into the
releases each time. That way we make sure that it's fair for everybody and like somebody's not
getting in the month before it comes out and then they're only paying 10 bucks in and they're getting
a full gift box like that doesn't make sense. So anyways, April and October is when that happens.
And so it's open right now for you guys. It's been open since April 1st and it'll be open
through the end of the month, just depending on when Austin decides to go and close it down.
Now he is in central time. I think central. Yeah. I just forget which one is two hours
if it's mountain or central. It's central, right? I believe so. Yeah, that's right. So
mountain time just nobody really cares about. It's nobody knows what it is. So central time,
so he's two hours ahead. So, you know, if he shuts it down at midnight, his time, it could
be 10pm here on the West Coast. So just be aware of that, that it's up to Austin when he
shuts it down on the last day of the month. So you don't necessarily have until midnight.
Don't procrastinate. Don't put it off. Go do it if you wanted to change anything around because
now is the time all the tiers are active. They're all available. So if you want to change anything
up, now's the time to do it. Absolutely. We're going to dive into gift boxes a little bit later
in the episode, just kind of give you guys a hint about what they are, what, how they work,
what the scenario around them. We're not going to talk about what's in this gift box,
which we kind of traditionally do once everybody gets the gift box, but because
just the planning, our poor planning really of it is these gift boxes are going to come out
pretty much the last week of April here. So we can't tell everybody what's in it.
That's just going to be a surprise online for everybody that shows it off. So yeah,
we're going to jump into that in a little bit, but we do want to reiterate that if you are
signing up or changing tiers, you don't go, you have to go over to irate four by four. You need
to go down to watch, listen, discuss section, click on snail trail four by four. All your sign
up options are there. So if you want to get into the gift box tier or the giveaway tier or the
give us a coffee tier, you can do that. Now, if you're changing tiers, if you
not want to move tiers in any way, then you have to go over to your PayPal subscription
that you're signing up with, and then you have to go in there and you have to cancel the tier
that you don't want to be in anymore. You can sign up on irate four by four, but it won't cancel
the other tier that you're on. So you'll technically be in two tiers if you're changing
tiers. So if you want to cancel one of them, you have to go over to PayPal to do that.
We will, at the end of the month, we usually go through everything for the giveaway items and
all that. And if people are in multiple tiers, we'll make sure to reach out to you and let you
know. Cool. Sounds good there. For the month of April, we have the giveaway, we have the gift boxes.
We've got reviews that we always kind of do giveaway stuff for. So once we're coming up on
800 reviews here shortly, so once we reach 800, we will be giving away an onyx elite membership for
you guys and which they have rolled out kind of officially. There's still being a little hush-hush
on it. The group rides feature. So yeah, we need to get them on the podcast again. Talk about that.
It's a really cool feature that essentially you can tie everybody into a group that's out on you,
driving around on your adventures. And then if you have cell data, data service on your phone,
then you can see where everybody in your group is. It's a really nice, really useful feature.
So you don't necessarily have to keep track and make sure somebody's in your rearview
mirror all the time because you know where they are on the map. But just keep in mind that if you
go away from them, if they have troubles, you've got to go all the way back to them. That's kind of
included with onyx elite memberships now. So we'll have that giveaway at 800 reviews and again,
at 850 reviews. And then at 900 reviews, we've got a $900 or more.
Is anything like how I did that?
I see.
A giveaway with more flight. So we'll have a nice fun package for you guys with a bunch of
really cool stuff from more flight, some new stuff coming out. And we'll get into that more as we
get around to launching it and having it available for you guys. So leave reviews.
Every time you leave a review, you are automatically entered for all the upcoming
giveaways we do from reviews. So it's the gift that keeps on giving. You just do it once.
And it really goes a long way to getting us in front of more people. The more people we're in
front of, the more people we have listening to the show, interacting with the show,
the more really cool stuff we get to do with you guys like the group buy with Divos,
right? Which is another thing we got going on right now. It's 25% off the new Light Ranger 500.
So normally there's 70 bucks. That brings it down to $53 and some change. And it's a really
sweet light. I think that everybody, if you go out off-roading and camping, even just camping,
like tent camping and a campground, you're not really off-roading. You're just driving to a
campground camping. This will be one of the most utilized tools for overnight trips,
in my opinion. I agree. It's got the motion sensor, the three colored lights on it. You can put the
lights in on coming off of three different directions. It's an area light. And so by changing,
I don't say three different directions, three of the different sides of the light.
It goes four sides, two sides, one side, right? That's what it is. Yeah. And it's really for
power consumption. So you can get the power to last a lot longer by just running one side instead
of all four sides on the LEDs. So there's magnets in it. There's a built-in clip to it to hang it
from stuff. There's a quarter, 20 threaded insert on it to screw it into a stand. A lot of really
cool features built into this tiny little light package that Divos came out with. So
there are other lights, the Light Ranger 1000, the 1200s, sorry, 800, 1200s, the 2000s.
They're awesome lights, but they're really big area lights. They're to light up your whole
campground area, right? Whereas this is to light up your immediate vicinity if you're working under
a vehicle inside your tent at nighttime. In my opinion, it's a personal use light, right?
Which is fantastic and I think could be used more than just kind of a white area campsite
light up light. So I found my first flaw with it, which is probably the only flaw with it.
But if you turn it on and you go to a color, then you have to wait because it'll cycle through.
But if you turn it back off and then you turn it on, it's white. It goes back to white.
It always goes back to white, which is, that means not a good or a bad thing, but that's,
you can't just leave it on yellow all the time. Yeah, you can't just leave it with yellow the
whole time. It defaults on startup back to white. Okay. Yeah. Spencer, what are you doing, man?
What if that's the flaw? That's the flaw, right? Yeah, big deal. But no, it's a super cool light.
We're super happy to be working with Divos and do a big old group buy with them.
Far exceeded anybody's expectations of how many lights we're
signing up for with everybody. I think we're pushing 90-ish right about now. So that's pretty
amazing. We did talk to Divos and we weren't able to work a better deal out. That was the best that
we were able to do. But yeah, so that's still super exciting to get this good deal out there.
And I know, I believe Roger should have his light by now. And I know Roger put in an order for
another one already. There you go. So perfect. Yep. All right. So that's the giveaway,
not the giveaway, the group buy. If you guys still want to get in on that and reserve a unit for
yourself, you just got to reach out to us and make sure that you have, we have your name,
email contact for you and how many units you want. We'll add it to the list that we're keeping
track of. That is going to close down at the end of April. So on May 1st, we'll be reaching out to
Divos to start the logistics of putting all the orders together. So you guys have until the end
of April to get that number to us and show that you want one of these things. This is not going
to be an ongoing, like a discount code you can put in and buy something whenever you want. This is
kind of a one-time purchase and then the discount goes away. So make sure if you guys have any
interest in getting them, 53 bucks is pretty damn cheap for what these things are. Absolutely.
We do have a discount code with Divos as well. I think it's snail trial 12 and I think we get
10 or 12% off. I'm guessing since it's 12, I'm assuming it's 12% off. So after this group buy
ends, you can still go and buy some of this stuff online at a discounted rate, but you're not going
to get this wonderful rate that we're currently getting. You can always reach out to us like
Tyler was saying, tell us that information. We need your name, how many you want and your email
address you can email us, Jimmy or Tyler at snail trail four by four, or you can reach out on the
new discord and which is a lot of fun. We've had in having some really fun conversations. It's really
kind of become a faster question and answer than the snail males has turned into. A lot of people
are asking questions and then Tyler and I get to chime in, but it's a lot of fun seeing everybody
else chiming in as well. There's some fun conversations happening with chainsaws right
now versus a gas chainsaws versus electric chainsaws. There's been a lot of e-locker talk
on there. I don't know if WFO nine is Jeff from more Morgan.
It would make sense. He seems to have a lot of the same informational knowledge.
Yes. That's, that's my guess. I think he's holding back from telling us and trying to let us figure
it out. Very smart people on the discord, way smarter than I am. People know how to use a
multimeter, which is, you know, that's a bonus. Yeah. And so yeah, the discord is a lot of fun.
There's a link down in the show notes. You guys can click it anytime. It'll take you directly
over to the discord and then you either at the login or sign up and it's super easy to do both
of those. So please join us over there. And I think Monday's guest will be on there as well,
if you guys want to start asking questions to them. Yep. He's got some great information
knowledge on the topics that he's an expert at and he has some pretty fun rock crawlers too.
So there's some, some good questions and he'll get to show those off. I think over the listener
rig section. So let's see anything else, man. I don't think so. I think that's a good, good long
intro. Yeah. Cool. Alright, then let's take a quick break and then we'll be right on back with
what we've been up to. A lot of updates, a lot of stuff happened the past week. So
sit down, hold on, and we'll be right on back with today's not the campfire discussion. That's
Monday. What in the bud? What in the bud? Hey guys, I love going out wheeling and I love playing
in the outdoors. And one of the main tools I rely on for all of the activities is on X offer.
On X keeps me in the know. It keeps me on the trails and it keeps me from getting lost so
that I can make it back home to my family and friends. There's tons of tools and data available
for outdoor activities on the app that helps you play the next trip and it helps keep the
adventures rolling. Start your free trial over at on X maps.com. Welcome back everybody.
This is Thursday. Happy Thursday. Everybody out there. This is what is today's date?
Thursday, April 23rd. Thank you. TLCA or the morning. Sorry. Rising Sun,
four wheel drive club. Yeah. For that calendar. It comes in very handy because I forget the
dates a lot. It's very nice to have that right behind the camera. I know you can't even tell
I'm looking at the calendar. Strategic planning right there.
We're good at strategic here. Let's see, man. We got Thursday. So I have a bunch of updates on
the mule. Yes. I'm excited. Talk a little bit about gift boxes. Yes, we do. I wanted to talk
a little bit about Jeep talk show and Pacific Northwest four wheel drive association.
Okay. Anything else? I just have my normal updates for the most part. I got skills day.
You have a lot of updates. I say we just let's jump into some gift box talk just so we can get
that out there. Cool. And then we can sort of jump into like what we've been doing. Okay. Yeah.
Gift boxes. Yes. They're coming out and we promise eventually. Yeah. We promise they're
going to be released. Yeah. We have all the items together except for one. And that's the one we
just, we kind of had to do a little bit of a mass produce. There was a little bit more lead
time than we were expecting. So once it's in our hands, it'll be going out the door,
but you guys are not going to be able to open up your gift boxes before the end of the month,
which is a shame on us for not planning that out properly. I'm still going to say it's a scapegoat
thing and blame the vendor. Sure. I'm just going to do it anyways. Yeah. I mean, I think it's been,
was it a three-week lead time that it was? It was something crazy. I think we were originally
thinking it was like two to two and a half weeks. They're like, oh, yeah. I'd be like four weeks.
Like, oh, yeah. Cause I think we got everybody's, we got everybody's sizes in before the month started.
So, um, yeah, it's, and then I'm hoping fingers crossed that it comes today or tomorrow,
but I'm guessing it's going to show up sometime next week. And then, um, yeah,
we're going to rush to get those out before we go on our trip. Yeah.
So be, keep on the lookout. We'll, we'll kind of inform you guys probably through the discord.
Once we send everything that way, you guys know to look in your emails for the tracking numbers,
the tracking numbers and shipments will probably be, probably be coming from more flight
or my offered radio. I forget exactly what shows up on the labels.
But yeah, you'll see those come out and we'll give you guys a heads up once they're shipping out. So
some of the stuff that we've done in gift box before, like typically we love to do an episode
to talk about what is coming out in the gift boxes. Right. So that people that are receiving the gift
boxes, you guys have already received it. You've gotten to open them without the surprise being
ruined. And we get to tell everybody else what was included in the gift boxes this time. And that
way we try and do that before the end of April. So if people are like, Oh, I missed out. I really,
I'm tired of missing out on these gift boxes. I want to sign up and get the next one in October.
Right. Um, hopefully it gives you guys time to do that. Um, since the last item is not in yet,
and you guys are not going to get the gift boxes, we're not going to talk about what's in the gift
boxes this time, but we are going to kind of reminisce about a little bit about what's come
in and past gift boxes. Sure. Yeah. That's a great idea. Some of the items that we've done,
some of the themes we've done in the past, um, and, and what we really enjoyed about them.
Yeah. I got to say, I think my most memorable, my favorite gift box was the whiskey gift box.
Yeah. I really liked that one too. And I'm not a big whiskey drinker. Like I love my simply hard
lemonade. Um, and I just discovered, uh, white tails. What? White tails. Not white claws.
It's white claws cocktails. Oh yeah. Okay. So they're seven or eight percent. They're like the
strong claws. Yeah. Um, but they're like designed after actual cocktails. Wait, is strong claw an
actual thing? Or is it a drink that I just make? No, it's, I think it's an actual, like they have
white claws that are a stronger alcohol. Oh, I didn't know that. Stronger percentage. We just
usually add another shot into it. Perfect. Yeah. We're like, you drink it down a little bit and
then you pour a shot of vodka in it and you like kind of shake it up. And then now you got your
strong call. That's always been something we've done and made and called it. Maybe it's truly
that made the strong ones. The normal white claws, like five percent alcohol, it's the same as a
Coors light. Yeah. Um, but they have another one that's like eight and a half, nine percent. Oh,
okay. Um, and I've always called those strong claws. Okay. Yeah. Um, anyways, they have cocktails
now that are like made and designed to mimic a Moscow mule, a margarita, a daiquiri, whatever it
is. Um, and, but they're carbonated. Okay. Like a white claws, right? And so, um, they're flavored
that way, um, with a little bit of carbonation to them. And then they're like that strong claw,
eight to nine percent. Got it. I'm alcohol on them. Okay. So yeah, a few of those and you'll be
happy. A few of those and you'll be happy. Anyways, I forgot where we were going with all
that. We were talking about the whiskey. You said you liked the whiskey box, but you, uh,
you're not really a whiskey drinker. Yeah. And then you went off on this whole tangent. Yeah.
Um, the, uh, proof syrups are awesome. And I've been really enjoying the proof syrup. We've
gone back and ordered more. Yeah. I've ordered a few times. Yeah. Uh, from them. And so I still
have a stash of proof syrups in my bar at home. Um, and I use them often enough to be like,
these are fantastic. Yeah. They're fun. Um, I love the, what is the one I like? The pumpkin and
the almond old fashions. Oh, they have a pumpkin spice old fashion. And then an almond old fashion.
And do you combine them? I've never had to yet. No, we, I have the pecan old fashion. We should
go on. Maybe that's the one I'm thinking of is the almond. Yeah. Yeah. You should combine the
pumpkin and the almond and make like a Thanksgiving in a glass, right? Yeah. That'd be fun. I have
not combined any of them yet. So, um, I've kind of only, and I say that like I know what I'm doing,
but I've only, I've the ones I have combined them before, but I've combined the traditional and the
orange just to dilute the orange flavor a little bit more. Cause there's, well, there's two ways to
dilute the orange flavor. One you more whiskey. Yeah. One is more whiskey or two is you add the
traditional and so you can kind of subdue the flavoring where I like the sweetness of the way
it's made, um, but I wanted less orange. And so I added the traditional and to keep the sweetness
there. Okay. But if another way you could do that, yeah, it's just add more whiskey or a rye
whiskey, which would make it a little, a little spicy to the sweetness. So I imagine would a rye
with an orange whiskey, would that turn it? Um, I don't want to say give it like an
orange and nutmeg. It's turns it into a tangerine, a tangerine. Okay. Sure.
So anyways, I really liked that gift box. I liked the smokers. Um, I've used my smoker a few times
now. Um, and it's, it's fun. It's fun to, to light fires in, on your bar and get smoked to go
around all the alcohol. Exactly. Yeah. That was a fun one for sure. Yeah. I think we had some
proof syrups. We had the smokers. Um, and then I can't, there was something else small in there.
Tangible thing, but yeah, that was a fun one. Another fun one that we did, uh, was with some
summer, summer shine. Oh yeah. Yeah. Summer shine. Steve over there. Um, we got one of his,
or we got a few bottles from him. I think everybody ended up getting two bottles. I think
they got there like a traditional wash and then you got a random one of his, uh, cleaning supply
business thing that he was doing. And so yeah, everybody got some of those. And then I think
they got a towel and some other things inside that gift box. So that was pretty fun. It was a fun
little gift box to do. Everybody washes their car at some point, whether it's the rain or, you know,
it's a, you actually care about how clean it is. So that was a perfect pairing of a, um, and a
good, it was felt really good to support Steve and help him out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a fun
one. Um, I'm always a nerd when it comes to recovery gear. So anytime we get a gift box
with recovery gear in it, I'm always like kitty about it. Yeah. Um, so when we did the one with
Spartan ropes and got their soft shackles, um, we did the, the one, uh, was it two ago?
Was it a Jimmy's box? Um, that had the, the, the quick recovery strap in it, the duty one.
That thing's pretty rad. I've used it a couple of times now for, for lighter things.
And it had like a bunch of loops in it. You ended up taking it. Yeah. I didn't get it.
Yep. I wanted that one. Yeah. That was a box that we ended up doing with, um, Jagged X off-road.
Yeah. Um, they actually put the whole gift box together and sorted it out and shipped it out
to everybody. Yeah. And it was a good pairing because they were starting to get into the gift
box territory for their company. And I was like, Hey, let us help you promote. Yeah. And, uh,
I think we killed him for the most part. After that, uh, he changed his mind, didn't want to do
any more gift boxes. Yeah. So, um, I think it was either a good thing that we helped him out,
figure it out quick or, uh, yeah, or we just over did it. One of the other, one of the other.
Yeah. But that was funny. Um, and that was a good one. Uh, I can't recall. There was a lot of,
there was some other, um, smaller things in that gift box. I know there was a multi-tool
in that gift box and I don't remember what else there was. But, um, another one, did we, we did
one with, uh, Speedstrap, Speed. No, Speedstrap is the strap. It is. That's the strap that you
have. Which, uh, PRP owns that company. I didn't know that. Speedstrap. Oh, I remember, uh,
now that I said the name, I was like, wait a minute, I was talking with Junior at PRP about
Speedstrap because they had a bunch of stuff in their PRP booth at KOH.
Uh, it's fun, funny, small side story. Aaron, the PRP main guy owner, not owner anymore, but like
originator, uh, was on Trail Hero X or is on Trail Hero X season one. Oh really? Yeah. Nice.
So that's kind of fun. I started watching those finally and we're leaving in like a week or so.
So yeah. So, um, that's kind of fun. Uh, I know that we've done a ton of stuff with gear inches
in the past, but one of the fun things that we used to do in the first few gift boxes is we
were to always throw a 10 millimeter in and we got a, I don't know how many 10 millimeters we got
originally, but we got, uh, like a 10 millimeter quarter inch drive, three inch drive, half inch
drive. And then we got the same scenario, but with 12 points. And then, uh, did we get deep
sockets as well? Yeah. Deep and shallow sockets. So we had like a whole bunch of different varieties
so that we could just continue to throw these in the problem. Eventually we got too many gift boxes
or we, not what, that's not a problem, but we didn't have enough, uh, 10 millimeters to do
the same 10 millimeter in every single box. So we just, it turned into a random thing pretty
much until we ran out of 10 millimeters. So that was a fun thing for a while.
The 10 millimeter key wrench, uh, key chain wrenches. It was quarter inch or something.
It wasn't a 10 millimeter. Okay. Yeah. Every time I handed one of those out,
there's somebody was like, it should have been a 10 millimeter. Yeah. Maybe that's where I got it
from. Yeah. And then we had the little tape measures too for a little bit. That was handouts.
Yep. So people loved those. I remember handing those out on the trails too. Oh yeah. Yeah.
I carried around a little box full of the little tape measures and, uh, key chain wrenches. Yeah.
And I would, when I ran into listeners on the trails, I would hand out a tape measure and a
key wrench. Okay. And they're, they loved it. It was a great time. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's,
that was fun. Any other key things that you can recall throughout the past? Um, I liked,
I thought it was a fun touch, adding the candy. Yeah, that was the boxes, um, especially when
we would send a one of our box out to Sherpa. Yeah. We've talked about on the show multiple
times. He's been a little quiet lately. Um, but, uh, the people that, uh, we, he lives in Florida
and he would have a ship his box to the, the property in California that he stays at. Um,
and the people would open up his box and take all of his candy every time. Yeah. And so one time
dude, did we end up sending a full box of candy like a leftover bag of candy in a box for her?
That was funny. That was fun. The very first box that we did,
because I really wanted to make these like gift boxes. It was like my goal to be like,
you're receiving a gift from us. Like I made wrapping paper. Do you remember? Yeah. I designed
wrapping snail trail four by four wrapping paper, wrapped the gift box, all of the gift boxes,
hand wrapped them and like put everything in the box, had it wrapped in tissue paper,
then wrapped the box with wrapping paper, snail trail four by four wrapping paper.
And then I think I took them to, I took them somewhere and then I think it was UPS.
I took them to UPS and UPS is like, you have, you can't ship boxes like that.
Yeah. They can't be in a wrapping paper covered in wrapping paper. You take all the wrapping
paper off. Yeah. And I was like, no. And so I think I ended up just buying another box and putting
it into, putting it in another box and sending them out. We definitely did not save money on
that or did not make any money. Or I think we broke the bank a little bit on that first one.
But that one was fun. Definitely fun. Do you remember the box that Brian did?
Our old producer, Brian? No. He made a box designed a box for us that had a Bobcat and
Kermit on it. I still have one of those somewhere. Yeah. Those were hilarious. I loved that box.
That was limited edition. I think there was only like 50 or 40 of those made somewhere in there.
Yeah. That was definitely a fun one. So the boxes are a lot of fun. We were sorry that
they're coming out so late, but we did want to give you guys some insight on like our enjoyment
on the boxes and some of the items that usually show up on them. There's usually, you know,
there's just so many random things. Like we've talked about cleaning supplies to
whiskey smokers, to actual tools and everything in between has came into a gift box at one point
in time. The welding gift box. That was fun. Had some fun magnetic squares in there. Right.
Yeah. That was a good one. Yeah. We were trying to do themes on a gift box for a little while,
and then we kind of diverted away. So, yeah, we're excited for the gift box. We have a fun
little twist on the next one already kind of planned. So that's going to be, it's planned,
but it's not in the, nothing's in the works yet. Apple, what is that? The apple.
Yeah. The apple. What are they called? Fireball. Fireballs. Yeah. Somebody might get one of those
in theirs. But yeah, we have a little twist, I think on the next one. We're going to try something new
and see how it works out. Maybe we'll continue it. Maybe we won't. We'll see. But the, and that's
my box, Jim's box is going to happen. So if you're interested in getting into the gift boxes,
now's a great time because the actual tier is open. We talked about that a little bit in the
intro. You have until the end of the month to sign up for the gift boxes. They're a fun, random
present that we love to send out and put our rubber stamp on and give it out to you guys. And
hopefully that you guys enjoy 90% of what's in there. Yeah. Cool. So that's gift box stuff,
gift box update. We'll do a little bit of a quick go over the gift boxes. Once we're back from
Trail Hero X, so that'll be a second half of May. A lot of the stuff we typically do at the
beginning of the month is going to get put off until the second half of May. Yeah. So like
announcing the giveaway winners from April, getting you guys the final logistics on the
Divos Group by all that will be happening in the second half of May, just because we're
gone traveling across three states the first half of May. Participated in Trail Hero X,
if you haven't heard yet. Yeah. That'll be, I'm really looking forward to it.
It should be a lot of fun and you guys will get to watch us on TV
eventually, once ever, when it airs. And it sounds like the airing schedule will be somewhere
around January next year. Wow. So that long. Yeah. It spends quite a bit of time in production,
apparently. I guess. So what I'm excited to show on TV is how I'm not actually as short as Tyler
makes me up to be. They're going to, it's going to be, you know, a monster zinc when they're,
they're interviewing Mike Wazowski. Mike's the little one. I don't know. The big bear. Yeah,
the big dude, the big one and the camera's up on him. And then you see kind of like the top of
Mike's head. Yeah. That's how it's going to be on the show. Maybe quite possibly.
So yeah, that'll be a lot of fun. We'll get you guys updates. So we're planning on recording
one episode, at least while we're out there and they'll be kind of a fun. We have a fun idea of
some way we've never recorded a show before. I don't know if it'll work or not. There's
probably a reason why we've never recorded that way, but we'll see how it turns out. Yeah, for
sure. Let's see. What else do we got going on, man? Well, why don't I take over a little bit
here? Cause my week was a little slower and then you have a ton of updates. So for the most part,
I didn't get any Samantha work done. I wanted to lift the shocks up a little bit more. And
because I got them all on there, I talked about it last week where I built the truss and built
the thing over the top and mounted the shocks and then articulated it. And when I was at full
articulation, I still wasn't hitting the bump stop. So the shock was fully collapsed, but I wasn't
hitting the bump stop. So I need to raise the upper islet of the shock up so that I can get my full
up travel that I would like to acquire. So that's in a good spot. I need to raise it like half an
inch to an inch, I feel. And then I'll have a very good idea of where that is. So then I can
actually eventually build some actual shock hoops or have an idea of how to do that. I'll know
roughly where it needs to be, but I want to raise it. I probably could just call it good and be like,
yeah, I need to raise it about an inch now because I know right now when I articulate everything,
nothing hits. So in theory, I could raise it up and it should still probably be okay,
but I just want to be sure. It won't be hard to cut a few tax, lift the thing up,
tack it back on and then articulate it. So that's that's what I want to do. Okay.
But the reason I didn't work on Samantha this week is because I was working on our buddy,
Trent's Land Cruiser, who I heard you saw on Saturday. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Apparently,
I was walking into the bathroom and he called me and I was like, I got a pee man. I'm not going
to answer. So I did that and then I came out of the bathroom and I had a text message from him and
said, why don't you answer your phone when I'm looking right at you? I was like, I was playing
with myself. Okay. Yeah. I had priorities going on Trent. Yeah. He was over at per city while I
was there for skills. Yes. And I guess drove by me. He wasn't in the area where I was at. Oh,
they went over to the track to do some laps with Kevin's car. Yeah. Kevin Jones. Oh, really?
That's what he said. Kevin's car. I assumed it was Kevin Jones, but it could have been a different
one. I think it was his son's car. Oh, okay. Is the son's name Kevin? I fairly sure. Okay. Cool.
So I know that, well, he told me that he was out there and they were doing laps with the kid's
car and getting some photos. So I don't recall him ever saying it was a big boy car. I think it was
a little boy car. Nice. So anyways, Trent got a hold of me and he was pretty much like, hey,
I need these knuckles rebuilt on. He actually has an LX450, but pretty much identical to an FJ80.
And he's like, I need these knuckles rebuilt. Are you interested? Yeah. And I said, well,
let's talk about it. And so we talked about it. I came up with an idea of roughly how long it would
take and I gave him a price and he said, sure. Okay. And then it took me way longer than I
anticipated. But the thing was a lot of it came down to like, I really wanted to do it correctly
and do it, you know, because it was like, I'm doing this for somebody else and they're paying me.
It's like, I'm taking all these extra little steps that I probably wouldn't necessarily do for myself
just to make sure that it's done correctly. And it was down to the fact of like the side
that was bad. It was an inner axle seal was leaking. And so now it was
soupy, nasty gear oil, greasy mess, like getting everywhere and outside the knuckle and the whole
knuckle was like covered in it, you know, and the like the brakes were getting compromised
because they're all nasty looking. And so it's like, I went and like put it in my parts cleaner
and cleaned everything, you know, and so that like let it soak for like overnight. And so there was
just time periods when I couldn't do some things, you know, because it was just taking a little
bit more time. So it took me quite a while longer. Like I cleaned up like nuts and bolts and, you
know, like I went down and did a pretty decent job, I think. And we put in all new bearings,
had to repack all the bearings, we did all new trunnion bearings, everything. Right. So it was
a full 100% rebuild. The only thing I think I didn't change was like the brass little fitting
that's on the backside of the spindle. Like the kit came with it. And I'm like, you don't need,
I don't need to replace this. If it's in good shape, it's usually in good shape. Yeah. And
those have to be really beat up to really warrant. Right. Needing to be soft.
And then kind of the only thing that when we were diving into it, we didn't anticipate the brakes
being a little bit compromised, plus they're very worn down, getting to the point where they're
hitting the metal part that would make the screechy noises. And so I was like, I'm here,
do you want me to replace the brakes? And so the brake pads, so I did that as well.
Okay. Yeah. And so that took me... So you charged him actually like $300 to replace the brake pads?
Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and when I was there, he was like, hey, can I get a panel too?
And so I ended up doing a panel and some custom etching and stuff for him as well. So yeah,
so that took my time that I would have been working on Samantha and it took my Saturday.
Okay. So I was, I would plan to be like, oh, I'll be able to get this done on Thursday and
Hussman actually called me up and he said, I'm busy this week. I can't come in over. And I said,
no problem. I've got my hands full with projects anyway. And so I was like, I'll be able to work
long and be able to get this done. And then yeah, I just carried on a little longer than
I anticipated. But I mean, that's... My hourly rate wasn't great, but I think the end product
turned out rather well. So I also found some problems, other things that were going on with
his rig. And so pointed those out to him. And then he actually went home and he was like, yeah,
I did the one of the upper hoses or lines that goes into the power steering was leaking and
there was leaking power steering fluid everywhere. And so at first I was like, your power steering
is leaking and that's the obvious leak that you're having. And then when I was doing my
final check over, and I did the knuckles, right? But then I was like, okay, final check over, let
me check your fluids. Let me check a few other things, make sure that it's really good to go.
Power steering, when I looked at it, because it was leaking, there was almost nothing in the
reservoir. So I was like, okay, so I put power steering fluid in and then I figured out where
it was leaking from and I pointed at it. And so he went home and he took the power steering line
apart. He Teflon taped it, should stuck it back in there to see if that's going to prevent it from
leaking more. He wanted to, he bought pucks to raise the front up because he put an Ironman 4x4
suspension on there. And it's the rear is sitting still fine, but the front settled more. And so
he bought these like one inch spacers. So he put those on. He rotated the hydraulic ram a little
bit because it was the valve or the input and output were pointing straight up. And when he
really articulated up, he hit his oil pan. And so we were talking about, he's like, yeah, I got this
lower degree 90, not this like spacer and then a 90 thing. And I was like, well, why don't you just
rotate it at 45 and you won't have this problem. He's like, oh yeah, I could do that too. So he
ended up doing that. He did a whole bunch of work. He bled the brakes because I was like,
man, are these, did I didn't do, like I put, I changed the pads, but your brakes are super
squishy. And he's like, yeah, they've been needed to be bled for like years. I'm like, okay. And so,
you know, so he went home and he did it all. And I was like, cool, good for you, man. He's like,
yeah, it feels great now. I was like, perfect, glad to hear everything's working. So that took
all my Samantha time. But I got a few hundred bucks out of it, you know, for the work I did. And
I think I already have what I'm going to buy at the lamp. So that works out.
So that was pretty much my week. I did a little bit of yard work on Sunday. I met up with Trent
on Sunday after the guys were out on Saturday. So that was fun. We hung out, just shot the
ship for a little bit. Family came down. Family drove them down and then they took off and Trent
and I hung out for a little bit. Yeah. Nice. That was about it for the most part. All right. So
now that that's done. So I got to ride in the mule today, which I'm super happy that that has come
about. I'm stoked that it's here. I'm happy that it's driving. How, like, how did Jason do this,
man? That's amazing. I have no clue that that guy did all that work.
12 days, I think in total it was. I mean, if he, I'm pretty sure he took Sunday off, which
kudos he needed to. He was, he was put it in like 12 hour days, pretty much on that thing.
He, 12 days, I think 11 to 12 days in total. He worked on it and got it all back up and running.
A lot of work that went into it, a lot of work he did, a lot of shit got replaced. He fixed
quite a few different things that weren't even broken originally in the big disaster, right?
We talked about the disastrous event that happened of the axle falling out from under
and breaking a lot of stuff, but he found a bunch of other stuff while he was going through things.
Yeah. It's super meticulous. It sounds like so meticulous, which is great for her, for his
profession. Yes. And I've, I've, I've worked quite a bit with different shops, right? I don't,
I don't go around two different shops. I try to do more of the work myself,
but on the bigger projects, I've, I've, you just don't have the time. I still have the time.
Yeah. And I will say I've never taken a rig back to the same shop. Okay.
And that's for different reasons. I take that back. I took the Kermit to Ori twice.
Okay. So once do the three, four swap and then once to install the suspension.
Um, so, um, I would, I'm, I'm, I've pretty much made him up in my mind. If Jason will let me
that anytime I'm having a shop work on one of my vehicles, Jason's the one doing it.
Right. Um, OCD, OCD innovations. Yep. Um, it was, it was very impressive. I mean, the,
the list of stuff that he had to do that we knew about, and then the list of stuff that he also
ended up doing is just, it's so fucking impressive. Well, what was super impressive to me. Um,
which I think is a sign of that he's really good at what he does is that he was able to do,
get the job done. But he also inspected a bunch of other stuff on the vehicle
because he knew what you were about to go and do. Right. And he's like, Hey,
there's like multiple other problems going on that, uh, you don't, we don't have any idea about
that or you didn't know about, right? Like we talked about it last week where the question,
we left the conversation with, we don't know how the rear axle is, right? Cause the opinion on the
rear axle is bad. And we back at Nick from Montana and a few other people reached out and said,
like, I've got parts. Do you need parts? And I guess you were saying, you told me that parts
wasn't really the issue. Parts wasn't the problem. We could get the parts. So how did that all end
up? And why was parts not really the issue? Yeah. So, um, the rear diff, uh, when we were,
when he was just under kind of going through everything and just checking stuff, um,
he found out that the rear pinion had a quarter inch of play, uh, side to side in it, which is
really, really not good for, for opinions and differentials. Um, and so, uh, he opened it up
and turns out, um, the, the differential was installed with a crush sleeve. Right. Um, and
in low horsepower, uh, vehicle applications, off-road vehicles where you're binding up the
drive train, um, and really doing rock crawling things or like a super high horsepower, no,
I don't even want to say that. If you're, if you're in low horsepower environments,
low torque environments, you're not binding up your drive train, aka you're pretty much street
driving. Crush sleeves are fine. They get the job done, but anytime you're, you're applying power or
torque to a drive train, binding up the drive train on undercut rocks and you have to crawl
through it kind of thing. Um, there's just a lot of force put on a crush sleeve in opinion. Um, and
especially in a vehicle like the mule that has kind of a rowdy two UZ in it, uh, engine, the 4.7
V8, um, it's, it'll, it'll crush crush leaves quickly, right? In differentials. So, um, for
whatever reason, I don't know why I, I haven't talked with Demetri about the decision to put a
crush crush leave in that vehicle. Um, but there was a crush leave in it. The mule crushed it
and that's where we were getting all the play, um, in the, the opinion on the rediff.
So not the end of the world. Um, but I did learn something about that rear axle at it. No. Okay.
Which, uh, I guess I, I don't know if I would have been able to pick it out. It's a 99 to
04 super duty axle. So the 10 and a half sterling in the rear is a 99 to 04 sterling,
not the 05 and up sterling. Doesn't that have a different lug pattern? Um, it doesn't have,
I don't know. It doesn't have a different lug pattern, but it has a slightly different, uh,
differential setup than the 05 plus. Okay. So it requires a different master install kit. Um,
and this particular one, um, I didn't follow it exactly what Jason was saying, but it needed
like a specific bearing on one of the sides of the carrier. Oh, weird. Um, that was weird. And I,
I don't remember why it was. I got to go back and watch the video. I was kind of,
he gave sent me a bunch of videos on stuff and I was like, I don't need to understand this right
now. I just didn't know if it's going to work or not. Yeah, right. Um, so that, that rear axle, uh,
has something weird going on in the diff that I need to go back and watch the video because I
need to know in the future if I need to rebuild that diff, right? I need to be able to tell the
builder Jason, um, what's going on with it, right? Um, so anyways, the big issue with the diff
is that it's a shave kit, right? Um, that rear diff is a, uh, the ballistic fab shave kit on the
10 and a half. Um, so because it's a shave kit, you have to shave the ring gear in order to put
a new ring opinion in. Um, and so it was like, yeah, we could get the ring opinions. That's
that it's required to shave down a ring gear properly to fit in a shave kit, right? Um,
and so that was the big hold up on it all. Um, and whether or not we were like, I don't know
if it's going to work. Yeah. So, um, Jason opened up the rear. Uh, he took a look all the bear,
like the upper opinion bearing was shot. Um, of course, uh, the, uh, which yeah, of course,
if the crush sleeve is gone, it's not really supporting things anymore. Now the bearing
is doing all your opinion support and that's just going to go. Um, so that was out and, uh,
one of the, the side, the, the carrier bearings was also not looking too hot, probably because
it was getting a lot of push and deflection from opinion, not being in the right spot. Um,
and so, but the ring and pinion surprisingly did not look that bad. Okay. It definitely needs to
be replaced, but, um, it should be fine. Like Jason was like, it definitely could tell it has
a weird, a weird wear pattern to it. So this has been going on for a while, but it's good enough
where like the, and the gear, the gear set was not whining and going down the road. Um, so he said
it should be good enough to get you guys through the trip. It may last one to two years for you.
Right. But really it should be replaced. So it'll get us through here. Um, it's not a
permanent fix in the rear end yet, but it's good enough. He goes, I've seen way worse setups
on trail rigs. Yeah. He goes, this will be just fine. Um, and it may just last you one to two
years as a trail rig. Who knows? Um, but he said it, this is a ticking time bomb. It will go on
you eventually. Right. I was like, okay, fair enough. So, uh, new bearings, um, re shimmed it,
reset, uh, everything in the rear diff and use the same ring and pinion. Okay. Um, and no crush
sleeve, no crush. Yep. Solid solid spacer on it. So, um, that was the rear diff. Yeah. Front diff.
Okay. Um, I don't know if we talked too much about it. Well, we talked that it seized. It's
seized up. I have the pinion here. Okay. Um, so we've got the pinion from the front diff. Oh my
gosh. Yeah. Where are those chunks of muddle from? That is the inner bearing race for the
upper pinion bearing welded it on there. That's a friction weld. Yeah. That's friction welding for
you. Dang. Yeah. So the upper pinion bearing, the inner race was welded to the pinion friction
welded and the outer race was weld friction welded to the housing. Wow. Yeah. How'd you
get that out? Uh, they got it out, um, uh, with a torch, essentially. Okay. Which begs the question,
is the housing really good enough to hold opinion bearing there now?
Yeah. So, uh, Jason, probably, I mean, cause you torch stuff when you start welding to those
housings anyway. Yeah. Uh, but the question is that how, how much of torching and how much
do you have to abuse where the race sits? Yeah. Right. And is that race now going to hold in
its spot? Yeah. Or is it going to move? Exactly. Um, are you going to spin the race and then spin
the bearing kind of thing? Yeah. Um, so that, that's the question there. Um, how do I, how do
I go about this? Um, I got, when we picked up the axle and the, the mule and took it over to
Jason's, um, we gave him the axle and he, we set the axle down in his shop and he immediately kind
of shined his flashlight in and he goes, do you want me to clean this out for you? I was like,
what do you mean? Do you want me to clean? Yeah. I mean, it should be clean already. They just,
they just did the front. They just did it all. Yeah. They just put a locker in new gears,
new master install kit, everything they should have cleaned the housing out when they had everything
out of there. And he goes, uh, it's not cleaned out. And I was like, what? And he swiped his finger
in the bottom of the housing and out came a bunch of like metal dust. Wow. And metal shavings. Okay.
Um, and I was like, well, that has to get cleaned out. We can't put a brand new,
fully rebuilt gear set and differential in with a ton of metal dust and shavings in the housing
and the differential and the pumpkin. All right. Well, couldn't, yeah,
never mind. I'm just not going to, I was just gonna, I was going to say,
can't you put oil in, run it for a few seconds and then just drain the oil out and it would pull
all that shit out with you. But I mean, no, it should have been clean when you had the carrier
in the carrier, when it all got replaced, you should clean that. Yeah. Um, and so I was like,
all right, well pull the carrier. Yeah. Pull the carrier that has to get cleaned. Um, and so he
was like, okay, cool. I'll get to it. And then later that day, he met texted me and he goes,
Hey, there was no pattern run on this gear on the gear setup. I was like, I'm sorry. What?
Is seriously? Yeah. He goes, there's no pattern. Either, either they didn't run a pattern or
they completely cleaned all the paint off and got it back down to a polished ring gear
and pinion. I'm like highly unlikely. Yeah. If you can't find any paint at all on that ring gear
and pinion, um, run the pattern. We have to, we have to run a pattern on it. Like I don't,
I don't care who you are. You, you don't, I don't care who you are, how many diffs you've
installed, how many you've set up. The last thing you always do is to run a pattern to
confirm that everything is good. Absolutely. There's too many tight tolerances in differentials
and gear setups to assume that you did it correctly. Um, and so he ran a pattern and it was
awful. It was not ran correctly. It was not installed correctly at all. Um, and so, uh, we,
we as in Jason, we as in Jason, um, uh, took it out and completely redid the whole thing.
Yep. So, um, anyways, so he redid the whole thing, um, and got everything down to a good pattern,
good install, uh, turns out while he redid it and pulled the pinion out to, to double check and,
and redo the, the pin, the shim stacks on the pinion. Um, there was a crush sleeve put in the
front diff. Really? Okay. Yep. And there was no oil slinger in the front diff. Interesting. Yeah.
So every high pinion differential needs some way of getting oil from the differential up the ring
gear. You know, the ring gear helps spray it up the pinion, right? But you need some other way to
help distribute the oil that gets up into the pinion around that upper pinion bearing. Okay.
That way the upper pinion bearing gets good lubrication and it doesn't friction weld itself
to the pinion housing. Right. So no slinger oil slinger installed. And that was one of the
specific things when I was picking up the mule and the axle, um, from stellar that I asked him about.
I was like, Oh, and just, I just want to make sure because looking at the pinion,
I was looking at it with him, uh, there at the shop. And I was like,
this looks like there was no oil or oil was not getting to this pinion bearing. I was like,
okay, well, you guys got the oil slinger installed, right? On this time. Um, and he goes, I'm sorry,
what? I was like, the oil slinger and like, he just, he, he goes, I don't know, whatever was in
the master install kit. And I'm like, there's, there's an oil, if, if you guys got an O five
and up super duty front differential master install kit, there's an oil slinger in there.
It's, it's different from the Toyota oil slinger. The Toyota oil slingers
are kind of down at the end of the pinion. Um, they help fling the oil further up into the
pinion, the pinion bearings. The super duty one is almost like a washer up on the upper end.
And it kind of almost catches the oil and redistributes it on its way down
so that it comes down across the bearing from the top down rather than Toyota ways from the bottom
up. Good to know. Um, so anyways, he was like, uh, I don't know. Whatever's in this box,
he opens up this box and it's their spare box full of all the shims from all the installs they've
done. And I was like, I don't see an oil slinger in here. He goes, okay, it's probably installed.
I was like, yeah, okay, cool. No worries. That's all good, man. Thanks. And then when Jason was
pulling everything apart, there was no oil slinger in it again. Um, I don't want to say again,
I don't know if there was one installed the first time, the first time, but according to the way
the inner bearing race will friction welded itself to the pinion right there that we can see.
I don't think there was an oil slinger installed the first time.
Well, and I think we should also say that it was, and I don't really want to name names
so much, but stellar built did not do the ring gear install. True. He has, he has a contractor come
in from outside and do all the, all the, all the differential work. Right. So he, he approved
somebody to come in and do that work for him that, but yeah. Um, yeah. So anyway,
I'll leave that one where it is. We'll leave that one. Um, so anyways, uh, he redid the front
diff, got it all set up correctly. Um, apparent, I'm not going to get it. He redid it, got it all
set up up correctly. Um, it's getting a great pattern now. It's got the E locker in it. Um,
he rerouted the E locker wire, um, because the, the, the, it was not routed properly
to come out of the housing. Okay. Um, and it was just done in a very nonchalant way.
Very bad way. If you want to avoid leaks in your axle housing,
gear oil coming out of, if you want to keep gear oil in your axle housing,
it was not done the correct way. Um, so if you want to have a self lubricating axle housing,
it was done in a great way. So, um, anyways, uh, Jason well did that spot up, ground it down,
so it's a nice smooth surface again and drilled a proper hole for running the E locker wiring
through the housing and grounded it appropriately. Um, so front and front diff, all good, ready to go.
Rear diff, as good as it's going to get for the time that we had allotted.
When he had the front axle apart, uh, he double checked the, uh, uh, ball joints.
Okay. On the turn axis, right on the knuckles, uh, the ball joints are all super loose,
all four ball joints. All right. Yeah. So two per side, um, super loose and turns out the ball
joints were not bad. Just the bolts holding them in place were very loose. Okay. And he said,
what's going on is the axle is not hitting the steering stops properly. Oh, the knuckles when
they turn, he said, something is off in the steering box where it turns to full lock on
one side, but it won't hit the steering stops on the other side. And so what's happening is the
box, the box isn't centered. The box is not centered. Yeah. And he said, really, we, you
should, we should be pulling the hitman arm off the center of the box and putting it back on
properly so that it hits the stops on both sides. Cause right now it's not hitting the stop. The
box comes to the end of its throw and the ram pushes it further. Yep. And that's causing the
ball joint and ball nuts to come loose, the bolts to come loose on the ball joints. Okay. So, um,
I just need to remember that when I'm turning, not to go full lock for now, don't max out steering.
And, uh, I need to fix that when I get time. So that's next. So that's a high priority item on
the to-do list. Um, he built a new, uh, drag link and Panhard bar. Oh, wow. Um, yeah, of course,
the tie rod was fine. Uh, when the axle gave out and rotated around it, it ripped the drag link
and Panhard bar underneath it and shaped them like a wet noodle. Yeah. That was quite impressive.
Yep. Um, what was really impressive was the Heimstin brake. Yeah. The, the bars bent and twisted
before and the Heims, before the Heims gave out, before the Heims ever gave out. Yeah. Um, we did
find that one Heim, the FK Heim, that the inner race that holds the Delrin part in the inner race
popped out of it and like nobody's seen that happen before to a Heim. Uh, and so, um, that was
impressive. He got those all rebuilt, um, uh, painted, uh, the upper link bracket. He built a
really cool upper link bracket, very stout, um, tied in on one, two, three, four, five, six sides.
So it's all, it's very much welded to the axle now. Uh, and, uh, and he kind of played around
with the upper link and kind of moving around that upper link, uh, mounting position to see if he
could tease out, um, the change of caster during suspension travel. Um, and when he was playing
around and testing with it, he goes, dude, this rig only changes two and a half degrees
throughout the full 14 inch travel of the shocks. That's really good. So it's actually pretty damn
good. It's not really changing that much. It's not, it's at least not enough for road driving,
hitting a bump and hitting something on the road is going to cause, um, a caster change.
So, um, we might be changing a quarter of a degree when you hit a bump in the road, maybe
if that, if that, so it's not really enough to be changing caster. Um, so he just kind of
essentially built the bracket so that the upper link attached to the axle in the same
location just made a much, much stronger bracket, um, this time. So, uh,
he could have made the same exact bracket, just not had any holes in it and welding the front,
and it would have been fine. I agree. Um, but I really liked the way he did the other, this next
bracket. So I'm happy. I agree. I actually, I didn't even look at it. So I'll have to take
a peek this evening. He wrote something on the backside of it with a paint pen. You'll have to
read. It's pretty fine. Um, so anyways, uh, upper link bracket got completely refabricated.
I really liked the way he did that. Um, I have, I have no worries and concerns. Um, it's on par
in my opinion in strength and robustness of what it's going to be handled handle with the
forward underground bracket that's on Kermit. Oh, cool. For the uploading bracket. So, um,
uh, that's going to be super stout. I'm really happy with that the way that turned out. Um,
he said that he started playing around with the alignment and found out that, um, the toe
of the vehicle, it was at a zero degree. So not toad in, not toad out. And I, I thought I
had set it for about one 16th. Um, and that was that day that I took it on, took it off, took it
on, took it off to try and get it set to about one 16th toad in. Yeah. Um, and he's like, I was at
zero toe and I was like, all right. Um, and I was measuring that day. I was measuring off the tire
lugs rather than setting up my broom handles that I use typically for doing it. So I was like,
all right, I was just one 16th off on now. Well, now after some of this story has been
released, I think your ball joints might have been also giving you a false reading. That's
what I think. If, if both sides, if your knuckles are not firmly attached to your axle,
that would 1000% give you a darty, a darty feeling while you're driving. Well, no,
I think that is the darty feeling. Um, because especially now that we know that you're not,
your pinion angle is not changing a lot, but I think that was also messing you up for your
alignment. Probably. Oh, for sure. That would make sense. Yeah. I didn't think about that. Yeah.
So that's, but you led right into it is the ball joints being really bad and loose. I think that
is the majority and the like the big problem of why the vehicle was feeling so darty is because
your tires were able to wiggle around and drive themselves due to the bumps in the road pretty
much. Yeah. I agree. I think that was definitely what was going on. That was probably the leading
indicator. Um, he said that after he got the bulb joints tightened up and the, um, was driving it
around with the zero degree toe, it was still a little darty. Um, and he got it to be a quarter
inch toeed in. Um, and he said that the immediately eliminated any kind of dartiness
around the road. Cool. Um, and so you've been driving around a little bit now. Do you feel
it's really good or I think so. I think that the dartiness is gone. Oh, good. Um, and so the only
real thing left with the, the, the steering right now is just that the steering is still really
sensitive. Um, and he, we talked a little bit about it and he kind of agrees with what my
thinking was that there's just a ton of fluid going through that Ram. And so he goes, it feels
like it's full hydro. Like that Ram is operating full hydro by itself. Like, yeah. I was like,
I agree. I think it's the same feeling. Um, and he thinks that it's a larger bore diameter Ram
than your typical Rams. Um, and that's probably why it's getting so much fluid through there.
Um, but he said the best thing to do is call Eric over radio dynamics, which I've already
done. Um, and he said, just talk with him about it. He'll know exactly what to do. And I was like,
perfect. We're on the same, the same idea, the same wavelength here with, uh, getting in contact
with Eric. And I've already talked with Eric and had a little bit of chats and he goes,
Oh yeah, it sounds like you just have a lot of fluid. Um, and your fluid is not consistently
flowing. Um, he goes, I've, we definitely have some setups that would work awesome in there.
So I told him, okay, well, I've got a bunch of stuff going on. I'll probably reach out to you
late May and then we'll work on setting all that up. And he said no problem. So, um, Eric,
if you listen, I'll be calling you after we get back from trial here, X. Um, so the steering,
that's really the only thing left in the steering that is kind of like a road mannerisms. Um, is
that, uh, just a very twitchy steering. And that's just for, I think, from the amount of flow going
through the system. Um, let's see. What else did we do? Uh, we put new, uh, three new joints on
the suspension, uh, the front links are now held in with three out of four new joints. Um, the old
TMR forever joint, lifetime joint is still on there and it did great. Handled everything
just like a champ. That's really nice and tight upper link. It was on the lower link upper frame
side. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the metal cloak joints, we talked to them. They think a little bit about
it. Um, the housing of where the joint actually is wallowed out and contorted and then the shank
broke. Yeah. Which is very impressive. One and a quarter and shank broke before the joint broke.
Yes. Uh, which is very impressive. So, um, we, uh, we replaced the two broken shank joints and
we realized the third one was a wallowed out. Um, and, uh, went and got a third one as well. So
now it's running three metal cloak himes. Uh, sorry, met met three metal cloak joints and the
TMR lifetime joint on the other side. Cool. Um, so we got all that and those were metal cloak,
the ones that got egg shaped. We're all metal cloak joints. Yep. Those are all the metal cloak
ones. Um, so there's those. Let's see. What else did we do? He went through and checked every
little nut and bolt and he paint penned everything that he checked. Cool. I did that on trends
rig too. Yeah. And he goes, he goes, if he goes, I, I, he goes, granted, I'm a little delirious
right now, but if there's a paint pen on something, it means I've checked it and it's torqued properly.
If you don't see a paint pen on something, check it, just check it just to make sure.
And, uh, we'll go from there. So, um, it's all back up and running. It's, it's under its own
power. I do. Uh, he had the coil, the, the, the coil over shocks, um, in the front. He had those
gone through again, um, because the front diff was not done correctly. Oh yeah. And so we wanted
to make sure that the shocks were done correctly. So we sent those over to Greg at Rockin Road.
Oh, cool. Um, who's a genius when it comes to shocks. He's, he's like the secondary shock Jesus
in Northern California. There's Phil LaCardy and Greg, uh,
Rockin Road. But Phil's in Nevada now, isn't he? Yeah. Yep. That's right. Greg's, uh, Greg's the
local guy for sure. If it's, yeah, it's shocks. I was talking to Brad at hot metal fab and I was
telling him, yeah, I've got these shocks I need built. I want to go send them, give them to Greg
to check them out. And Brad's like, well, what are they? And I was like, they're Bilstein 9100s.
And he's like, Greg will tell you to get new shocks. He's like, he hates Bilsteins. Like, okay.
All right. Well, whatever. Yeah. Um, but it was, it was very, I was actually impressed. It was only,
he charged us 175 bucks to just go through and, and make sure everything was done correctly and
properly. Yeah. Um, I think that's a smart move. He found a couple of shoes. So I think it was a
smart move. Yeah. I don't, I think everybody will build their shocks a certain way too. Uh,
you know, a certain way, but I would trust 100% whatever Greg does. Yeah. Yeah. So we went through
the shocks. Um, the only thing that's really left is the ride height is actually a good spot in the
mule right now. It's not a spot. I like it. It's a little higher than what it was. Um,
which is kind of where I want it to be. Yeah. Um, but I can feel that it's
slightly squatting in the rear. So I know once we load it down with all the gear,
it's going to squat more. Yeah. Um, and really in order to raise the rear, it just needs longer
springs. Yes. There's too, but there's too much preload in it right now to really keep the rear
working. Okay. And try and add more preload to it. It just doesn't make sense. Right. So everybody
just needs longer spring. So we'll just deal with a squatting rig on this trip. Okay. Um,
but Phil owes me a shock tuning. So once we get back, Phil, if you listen, I'll be giving you a
call to, to, to rain in my IOU there. So sounds good. Let's see what else was done. Um, he swapped
out, Jason swapped out all the hardware on that holds the, the rifle case on the wrist swing out
to the brackets that swing it out or that, that lays down the rifle case. Yeah. Um, all the hardware
that was in that were these big thick bolts heads and they were rubbing on the mules body, the back
catch. Um, and so he replaced them with a button head Allen bolts. Okay. Um, and those now no longer
rub on the back. Okay. Cool. But the roto packs rub on the back and they're empty. So once they're
full, they're going to rub even more. So I really just need to take the whole swing out and move it
away from the vehicle about an inch. And how are you going to do that? Like, I think the way I'm
going to have to do it is add, cut the spindle off, um, and add a plate on top of it and just move
it out an inch and then guss at the back, the outside of the plate, I guess, or bend it down
and reweld it into the existing mount to that's there. Um, I think that's how it's going to have
to be done. And then on the latch side, it's essentially, um, a boxed in plate on top, right?
And then there's a, uh, uh, slot cut out of it that the latch connects into. Okay. So really,
I just need to, you might be able to cut the slot out a little further. So the latch can
grab it in our spot. You might be able to extend that latch too. You might be able to like make
it a longer latch like cause you had some of those, some latches you can fine tune and make it to
how you want it. So there might be some play available to you. This latch is a, I think it's
a billet latch handle billet aluminum. Um, so I really, I need to modify the slot that it latches
into. Okay. I think so, but that's not hard to do. It just takes time. It's not going to get done
before the trip. So, uh, we'll do that one after the trip. Um, maybe before the trip, we just like
glue on like three, um, sticky foam thing on the back door so that, uh,
the rubbing rubs on the foam, not, not on your paint or your wrap, the wrap. Um, so, uh, that's,
that's the current state of the mule, I guess. Okay. Um, new TMR lower links. TMR was awesome.
They got him out to me super quick. Nice. Um, I didn't realize that TMR was in Canada.
Are they? Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't either. And I'm like, that's actually pretty
impressive that the aluminum links, they made custom length aluminum links for, I think it was
550, 600 bucks shipped to my door. Um, week and a half, two week turnaround time from Canada.
Yeah. Like how I don't know how they're making money because they're having their,
I didn't pay the import duties on it. You did in the shipping. I didn't pay shipping.
Oh, they paid shipping. I guess shipping was all included in it. So I'm like,
I don't know how they're making money on that. Did you buy it as a more flight? Like, hey,
I didn't give me a discount. Yeah. I emailed them afterwards. I was like, Hey, dudes,
just FYI, you know, I really need this by like this week and stuff. And they're like, Hey,
sorry, we're moving the machine shop. Oh, and so that we won't be able to make them until next
week, but that's when we'll get started back on the machining, the custom orders. They said,
but since we know what you're going to be using, I kind of told them what I was using it for and
why I needed it. And they're like, no, it's all good. We'll just put you at the front of the
line. So sorry if anybody else got stuff later from TMR because of me, but they were cool about
everything. And I was super happy to pay for the extra service I got. Yeah. So let's see. There was
that. So if I remember right, well, is there anything left on the mule? I think that was it.
Okay. So if I remember right in a text message on a thread, I'm pretty sure that you said
you're working on three axles. I'm working on three axles. Okay. So maybe not because I was like,
are you, is Kermit also getting work done? I was doing a little bit of work to Kermit,
but not really. Was I doing anything with the axles? Oh, I was resetting Kermit's opinion.
Oh, and that turned out awesome. Okay. So yeah, Kermit at like 72 miles an hour. I started
getting a high speed vibration from the rear end. So I figured it was pinion, maybe a tire
balancing thing, but I figured it was more pinion. It was a very high speed vibration,
not really like a tire balance issue. And I've been noticing in Kermit like the rear diff is
the rear pinion angle is slightly up from where it really should be,
like maybe five degrees at most. Sure. Okay. It wasn't enough to be like alarming and make me
sit down and fix it, but it was enough where like when I walked by and looked down at Kermit,
I'd be like, that rear pinion's off. It was a little off. It was a little bit. I was like,
yeah, it still goes fine. So I was like, you know what? I've got an extra half hour here.
The kid was playing around outside in the front yard and I was like, let me just go grab some
tools real quick. And I keep my adjustable wrenches in Kermit in the center console that
I use to check the jam nuts on the links because my jam nuts like to come undone.
You need some Nord washers. I've just been red block tidying them. They've been working great.
Right. So I went down and adjusted the pinion angle so that it was at a perfect,
you know, straight pointing at the transfer case at the double carton because I run a double
carton instead of two U joints. And then I double checked and made sure that the rear links were
exactly the same length. That way I know it's not cockeyed, right? And I checked the Panhard bar
to make sure that the tires were centered under the vehicle. So I got all that reset and then
locked everything under the red lock type and then drove down to Prairie City the next morning.
And I was doing 80 miles an hour on the freeway, which is smooth. Nice. In Kermit, I was like,
okay, so it definitely was a rear pinion vibration. Five degrees was enough at really at higher
freeway speeds to not be entirely super happy. Got it. Okay. So Kermit's dialed right now. He's
driving great. Wealed him a little bit on a couple of the obstacles down at Prairie City for the
guys that are going to be driving him at Trail Hero X so that they can get used to how the
drivetrain works and shifters work. Okay. Where the lockers are, how that all operates. So
Kermit's dialed. He's ready to go. Sweet. Yeah. Good to hear. So why'd you go to Prairie City?
Skills day. Oh, metal cloak was putting on their skills day, which is the first one of the year.
Okay. And so this is where a bunch of brand new Jeep owners, people who are unfamiliar with
four-wheel drive, they maybe just got a new Jeep and they're not sure how to really utilize it,
what its capabilities are compared to what the person's capabilities are, right? So it's a really
cool event for people to go and in a safe, controlled environment with people guiding you
and helping you and giving you advice, get to play with their vehicles and kind of start figuring
out what these vehicles are capable of. It's an awesome event. Metal cloak does a really good
job with it. It's not as in depth as like the Asprey to Four Safety Clinic. Like they're not
necessarily teaching you a wheel placement and really going through and testing you on
wheel placement stuff. You're more just getting to do the obstacles with very close guidance,
right? Showing people what it's like to be aired up versus air down, on those obstacles,
that street pressure versus rock pressure in your tires and the difference there and why
that's so valuable for you to do. That's kind of why we're there as more flight for educational
purposes. I will say though it was a pretty low attendance. Really? Yeah. Which I don't think
it's any fault on metal cloak. They run a great event. People love it every time. I think it's
more of a state of the industry indicative of what's going on. Yeah. Normally it's like packed
and they've got to like rotate people through stuff and there wasn't really that this year.
Interesting. 30 to 40% attendance of what it normally is. Again, I don't think it's any fault
of metal cloak. I don't think it's any fault of the event. I think it's just indicative of what's
going on in the industry right now. Yeah. Bummer. Yeah. I think we're coming back to pre-COVID
times for the off-road industry and a lot of off-road companies that myself included with
more flight have been living nice and getting fat off of the COVID, go out and play outdoors.
COVID bubble. The COVID bubble. Yeah, the outdoor. Everybody in the off-road industry needs to start
looking at tightening up ship and evaluating expenses to make sure that you're going to be able to
operate on a normal scale now rather than the bubble scale we've all been experiencing. Sure.
But that was good. It was a great event as always. Yeah. They do a great job. The people,
they're all had a fantastic time. It was good. It was out at Prairie City, which is a fun venue
to be at too. Nice. Good. Yeah. Let's see. I also went and got to do an interview on the Jeep Talk
Show. This was a little bit ago, wasn't it? It was actually last week or the week before, I guess.
We just ran out of time to talk about it on the last week's episodes.
But I got to go and sit down with Tony the second time hanging out on the Jeep Talk Show
and just talking about more flayed stuff. The first time it was like we were talking more about,
you know, more flayed the product we have, the product lineup, why the products are so useful
for people. And this time we ended up into a fun discussion about business in the off-road industry.
Oh, yeah. And how AI is impacting businesses in the off-road industry. So it was kind of a
ton about more flayed products per se more. So it was just kind of talking about business
overall in the off-road industry. So I thought it was a kind of a fun little conversation.
Didn't really go where I thought it was going to go, but there's some really,
I think, cool little tidbits there for people. If you guys are interested, go check it out.
I have no clue what number episode it'll be released on, but it should be coming out soon.
I'll find it in the show notes. So that was Jeep Talk Show.
So I'm going to be doing another, another, I'm going to be doing a seminar on tire pressure
management with a PNW four wheel drive association. Okay. So that is essentially the Cal four wheel
or Corva of the Pacific Northwest. And so that's Oregon and Washington. Yep, pretty much. They
cover that area. My guess a little bit of Idaho too. Oh, maybe. So Oregon, Washington, Super
NorCal stuff, the PNW, and they're relatively new nonprofit. Okay. And so more flight is
supporting them now with the nonprofit organization stuff that we do for trail advocate advocacy
stuff. And they invited me to come on and do a talk about tire pressure management. Cool.
So that will be next Wednesday, April 29th at seven p.m. Pacific time. Okay. So you're
not going up there. No, it'll be a zoom meeting online. Yep. Okay. So anybody can attend now
they're opening up to the public on this one. Cool. Yeah. So we'll, we'll put out on Instagram
on the more flight Instagram when that's happening with a link to for you guys to register and get
on there. I can send, we can get a link in the show notes because you're supposed to register
for it, but you can also show up that night and follow the URL and get in the meeting.
But it should be a fun one. So cool. What else is there to do on the mule now that I have it?
Got it. Okay. We got the Dakota lithium battery in it. It's cranking the mule right over. No
issues. No hesitation. Good to hear. So that's good. I need to rip out the old electric fan
circuits that were left in there. I want to rip those out and get those relays out of there
because that circuit is not being used anymore. I'm going to be pulling the switch pro out of it
and putting it's an eight gang switch pro that's in there and I have a 12 gang other panel. Okay.
That I'll be putting in and then I got to design a mount for it to put the switch panel on the
center console by the shifters rather than hidden behind the steering wheel next to the steering
column. Okay. Yeah. So I got to do that. Once I do that, then I got to rewire everything
to the new panel and put on all the lighting package from Baja designs and mega whips.
Oh wow. Sent some four foot RGB LED whips for the mule as well. Okay. So I got to fab up and make
brackets for those. Forgot where I want to put those on the vehicle. Figure out how to run
the wires electrical to them as well. And I need to get the blinker circuit fixed as well because
I really want to get the rig, the registration started and going before we head out to Trail
Hero X. I think that's smart. Mainly because the smog is coming up on 90 days here. I don't know
exactly what the date is, but I need to get the register submitted before the smog certificate
expires after the 90 days and then I have to do it again. So I need to get that done. And so my
goal is to get the blinker circuit so that I can get the registration done. That's like the next
top priority at the moment. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. A lot of things happening. Yep. A lot of
things happening. Jason kicked some serious ass. Yes, he did. Major, major kudos for getting
all that done in 11, 12 days. And now it's on me to get the rest of it done. So in theory,
we could probably take it the way it sits right now on the trip and be just fine.
But I want to do right by Baja Designs. And I want to get the other couple things set up and set on
it. So see if I can get that done before the trip. Sounds good. Yeah. Cool. Well, that's a lot going
on for sure. Let me keep me informed. Okay. I should have some free time to get down here
and help you a few if we need to dive into some stuff. All right. So yeah. Cool. I'll keep you
up to date on that. All right. Cool. I think there's one last thing. Okay. I finally got your
birthday gift in. Oh, okay. Probably should have done this a little earlier in the episode,
but we've got time. Yeah. We're not even at an hour and a half yet. All right. Let's see. What is
this box here? All right. Let me, it's already Amazon box.
One of these cute little things over here that actually makes sense. Yeah.
Can use a mic stand. So
that's good. Wait, hold on. What's going on with this? Why does the bottom fully unzipper?
So I've heard a few hints because I know Iceco is making something. Okay.
I don't know if it's released. Is this like an ice chest car heart backpack? And I remember
you mentioning some things on our Thanksgiving Black Friday special. So I had my AI team go back
and look at the Thanksgiving Black Friday special and find things whenever you said,
I want that. I wish I had this. Okay. And one of the items that you said a few times in the
episode supposedly was you wanted a cooler backpack. You wanted a Yeti cooler backpack,
is what you said. Okay. And you're a good guy and I really appreciate our relationship and
everything, but sorry, I'm not going to buy you a Yeti cooler backpack. Instead, I bought you the
big brother to the coolers that we have when we hand out them to our five year listeners.
This is a 24 can car heart backpack. That's pretty cool. There's a spot up here to put
ice packs. It's a pretty, I mean, that's, yeah, that's a 24 can compartment in the bottom there,
shown it on the video. Super insulated on the bottom and car heart and the straps like stout.
Yeah. So there's cooler, cool on the bottom and then you could put dry goods and stuff up on the
top. And I guess there's, there's two patches up there. There's a big pouch and then a front
little pouch and then a bunch of little, a few pockets on the inside. Hey, thank you. Yeah,
you're welcome. That'd be really cool. Literally. Yeah. Yeah, seriously. And it's like, I like my
backpack I have now, but I have it loaded out for like my everyday work stuff, right? Okay. So when
I go camping with it, it's just, I don't want to go hiking with it because I have all my shit in
there. It's heavy. It's like having a different bag. That's great for hiking because it's a,
the top pouches have quite a bit of space in there, but like,
I'm not going to put the Starlink in my laptop in there and then be like, God, I got to take
these out and put them back in after the hike and everything. I'm just grab this, throw lunch towel for
swimming, whatever and throw drinks in the bottom and call it good. There you go. That's awesome.
Thank you. You're welcome. That's funny. The AI team figured that all out and gave the suggestions.
Yep. That's great. Yep. So you have, you have Sierra to thank for that. Thank you, Sierra.
I wonder if she'll see the transcript of this episode and be like, tell Tyler, I said you're
welcome. Oh man, that would be so weird. I will send it to her and see if she says anything.
Hi, Sierra. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's funny. I have had a couple people asking.
Yeah. That's rain again. Yeah. Holy crap. I can get through the headphones. Yeah. I have had a
couple people asking about the, the AI stuff and what we're, what we're talking about,
all about the AI things. And I'm like, every time we keep thinking about or bringing it up,
we're too far gone in the episode. Don't really go over it. We, maybe on our, our fun, one of our
fun episodes that we record while we're out, we will, we'll do an AI breakdown bonus episode.
Yeah. Or you have to find, we'll record it and put it on the other podcast and you have to find
the other podcast. There you go. It's still out there. We've, I think we've only had two people
find it so far. So it's looking. It's not as, we're not updating things on there as
regular as we update things here. So it's probably not showing up as often. This one's
definitely the priority. So like we're not, we're not putting a ton of time in the other podcast,
but you know, the interesting topics that come into our heads and we have fun conversations with
that don't really, don't really have a place on snail 12, 4x4. That's where you find them. So
yeah. Yeah. All right, man. Thank you for the backpack. You're welcome. Yep. And I'm looking
forward to getting everything done on this vehicle and going out and having some fun on trail here
X. Yeah. I'm super excited. We've, we've been talking a little bit about it. Some things that
we have planned for the episode. I am still working on some good ideas for the drinking game
version. So we'll make sure to keep everybody updated before that happens. We won't tell anybody
the rules until the videos start getting released. Okay. That's the game plan. All right. Now,
because I, I mean, you, me and Isaiah and Carson, we'll know the rules. Yeah. And then that's
little things. Our game that then also is to try and do it, try to get into the videos as much as
we can to get these rules implemented. Yeah. So that the listeners are going to start drinking.
Yeah. Hopefully Rich isn't listening to this. I don't know, man. That dude's busy. I don't know
how much he sits down and listens to podcasts. I know. Yeah. Awesome. That does it for today's
episode. Lots of updates for you guys. Fun stuff out there. And hopefully you guys enjoyed it.
If you have any feedback for us, feel free to give us a call over and leave us a message on
snail mail. The phone number there is 916-345-4744. That's a good time. We love hearing from you
guys. We love interacting with you guys. There's the discord server we're reaching or about to
reach 100 people on there. I did check the Jeep talk show discord has 328 people. Oh, so okay.
What that means is we need to beat them. Yeah. How many reviews do they have? I don't know.
That's a good question. I didn't look that one up. Yeah. Well, no, next time. Yeah. So anyways,
jump on discord, have some talks with us. And I did have a question for people. Maybe I should
be really be focusing this on the discord, but if you guys are listening, you can leave feedback
on the discord. I kind of asked it and nobody really replied and it kind of got buried really
quickly. There's a couple other conversations going on. Okay. But would you guys want a separate
channel for me and Jimmy just to update our vehicles and pictures and videos and stuff
going on with our vehicles within the discord? Yeah. I was thinking about that, making a whole
Samantha build. And then I was kind of like, well, how far is this going to spiral? Like,
is everybody, are we going to be like creating a forum where people are going to have their builds?
I don't think so. We have the listener rigs channel. And people, I feel like there's been a
different place where people have asked us about the vehicles and somebody was like,
can we just, can you like post or pin anytime you guys are talking about your vehicles so
we can follow along with your vehicles? I'm like, that can get really messy quick. If you're pinning
the post within the channel, maybe we can do a thread underneath like listeners rigs or something.
Maybe that would be the way to do it. Yeah. Anyways, if you guys want to see that,
I don't know if you do or not. We just had one person ask about it and I replied and then
there was no responses and it got buried really quickly in the conversation. So
if you want to see that, speak up on discord and we'll see what we can do about what can happen.
So yeah, sounds good. Anything else, man? No, just I'm curious how tomorrow is going to go
when we have our meeting about trail hero X. So that's really what I'm kind of looking at next
and figuring out what our next steps are going to be to start getting legitimately ready for
this trip. Yep. Yeah, I think it'll go really well. There's a couple of unknowns, but like
between all the gear that the four of us have, the only concern I have is that we're supposed to
for the six days that we're kind of out and about traveling. We're supposed to carry all the food
for six days for four guys minus dinner, right? Is it minus dinner? I thought it was all of it.
I think it's so we need to figure out how four dudes, we're going to carry the food for four
dudes for a week at the beginning of the trip and have it all. Well, you know, I'm super easy. So
chips and peanut butter. Yep. PB and J's. I could do that for a week. Yeah, I think so too.
PB and J, PB and H, PB and B. Peanut butter and butter. Yeah, I was thinking banana,
but then I was like butter or just more peanut butter. Yeah, double peanut butter. Yeah, peanut
butter on each side. Got it. All right. So we'll figure that out. Hopefully you guys have a good
rest of your week. We'll see you guys on Friday for snail mail and then have a good weekend from
there. Anything else? I think that does it. Any final words? No, I think that was sort of my final
words was just looking forward to the trip, getting everything ready, figuring out some of the
logistics of what's to come for us in the next few weeks. Yeah. Sweet. And with that, my friends,
keep crawling.
I got one for you. Okay. What do you get if you eat beans with onions?
This is right up your alley.
I'm trying to think of a nationality that relies on onion flavoring.
I can't think of one. You're going the whole wrong way.
Go console yourself more with the beans. Well, I was going to, okay. I'm going to guess
when you fart, you cry to your tears farting tears. Oh, you're so close to your crying farts.
I didn't do that. Be weird tear gas tear gas. Okay. That's a good one. Okay. There you go.
That's what happens when you eat beans and onions at the same time you get tear gas.
Got it. I like that one. That's a good one.
About this episode
The hosts kick off the 700-series with a big community update: gift box tier signups are open through the end of April (with shipping/tracking delayed by a lead-time issue). They also cover review milestones and giveaways, including an OnX Offroad Elite group-ride feature, plus a Divo’s Light Ranger 500 group buy ending April 30. The bulk of the episode is wrenching talk—Jimmy details a massive knuckle/axle rebuild for a friend’s LX450, while Tyler celebrates getting the Mule running after Jason’s meticulous 11–12 day drivetrain and steering repairs, including diff rebuilds and alignment fixes. They wrap with Trail Hero X prep and a surprise Carhartt cooler backpack gift.
Jimmy spent most of the week working on Trent Roberts #4811 Lexas LX450 (fancy FJ80). He did a complete knuckle rebuild kit on the front axle, and it took way longer than he expected. Tyler was off doing everything else this week. Jason at OCD Innovations finished the Mule so Tyler went to get it. Tyler went out to Metal Cloak Skills day at Prairie City OHV, and had a crazy week at work
SnailTrail4x4 Discord: https://discord.gg/yFyFFkQbuy Come hang out with us on the SnailTrail4x4 Discord — it’s the easiest way to connect with Tyler and Jimmy directly, chat with fellow offroad enthusiasts, and get first access to Group Buys and Treasure Hunt token drops.
Group Buy for the Devos LightRanger 500 We reached out to Devos, and they are in. Here’s how the discount tiers work:
MORRFlate Giveaway at 900 Reviews on Apple Podcast. But our next giveaway is when we reach 800 reviews; we are giving away an OnX Elite Membership. We will also give away an OnX Elite membership when we get to 850. However, when we reach 900 Reviews, we are teaming up with MORRFlate for a $1000 MF Product Giveaway. Go over to Apple Podcasts to leave your review now and become eligible to win. Congratulations to A13XMONT, who won a set of tires from Yokohama Tire!
Call us and leave us a VOICEMAIL!!!
We want to hear from you even more!!! You can call and say whatever you like! Ask a question, leave feedback, correct some information about welding, say how much you hate your Jeep, and wish you had a Toyota! We will air them all, live, on the podcast! +01-916-345-4744. If you have any negative feedback, you can call our negative feedback hotline, 408-800-5169.
4Wheel Underground has all the suspension parts you need to take your off-road rig from leaf springs to a performance suspension system. We just ordered our kits for Kermit and Samantha and are looking forward to getting them. The ordering process was quite simple, and after answering the questionnaire, we ensured we got the correct and best-fitting kits for our vehicles. If you want to level up your suspension game, check out 4Wheel Underground.
SnailTrail4x4 Podcast is brought to you by all of our peeps over at irate4x4! Make sure to stop by and see all of the great perks you get for supporting SnailTrail4x4! Discount Codes, Monthly Give-Always, Gift Boxes, the SnailTrail4x4 Community, and the ST4x4 Treasure Hunt! Thank you to all of those who support us! We couldn’t do it without you guys (and gals!)!
SnailSquad Monthly Giveaway
For the Month of April, we are giving away Gift Boxes. Its Gift Box month and two luck indiviuals will win a one of our gift boxs. These are jam packed with goodies from tools to whiskey smokers. They are always different and always random. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Congrats to Roger Lutz on March’s Giveaway. We gave away the new Devos LightRanger500. This little light is jam-packed with features, from red, orange, and white lights to a motion sensor. It would be perfect for inside a tent, under a canopy, or just general use around the vehicle. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Listener Discount Codes:
SnailTrail4x4 –SnailTrail15 for 15% off SnailTrail4x4 Merch MORRFlate – snailtraill4x4 to get 10% off MORRFlate Multi Tire Inflation Deflation™ Kits 4WheelUnderground – snailtrail 10% off Ironman 4×4 – snailtrail20 to get 20% off all Ironman 4×4 branded equipment! Sidetracked Offroad – snailtrail4x4 (lowercase) to get 15% off lights and recovery gear Spartan Rope – snailtrail4x4 to get 10% off sitewide Shock Surplus – SNAILTRAIL4x4 to get $25 off any order! Mob Armor – SNAILTRAIL4X4 for 15% off SummerShine Supply – ST4x4 for 10% off Backpacker’s Pantry – Affiliate Link Laminx Protective Films – Use the Link to get 20% off all products (Affiliate Link)
