What does your friend drive?

 

BFG MT, hands down. About the longest lasting mud tire plus will get you to the rocks where they also shine. A good all around choice for everything except sand.

 

Bias-ply Super Swamper TSLs. Goodyear MTRs. The BFGs are good too but have thin sidewalls that sharp rocks can tear up. The new BFG MT "KO" might be better about that...?

Down her in the FL forests we have Saw Palmettos, and those tear up BFGs real well to, but the bias-ply Swampers seem to hold up to them.

 

Yeah I guess I could mention what he is driving, Its a 87 wagoneer with the 4.0. Pretty much stock, NP231 and stock axles front and back dana 30 front and dana 35c back if we are correct. He is thinking of getting a dana 44 for the back but that won't be for quite a while, and someday some lockers. We don't know what the gearing is, if anyone knows what it was stock that would be great.

I can't wait to get the floor done so we can get back out on the trails.

We were thinking about the BFGs as we see them on everything so we figure they must be decent, there was a reason he was thinking of going with something else, but I can't remember what that reason was.

It might have been price, they arn't that much more then some of the other ones but when you add a fifth for a spare and the extra taxes it can really add up.

They are $190 at an online place in Canada.

What do you guys think about these tires, they are all cheaper and some look agressive, as much as we don't care about playing in the mud, we have to work with what our area offers, lots of muddy cutlines and forest trails with bits of the Canadian sheild poking out

K these are the candidates.

Bridgestone dueler MT $175

Dunlop raidal mud rover $145

General tire Grabber MT $144
These are my choice cheapest with a good looking tread.

Wild country RVT(AW) $146
He doesn't know about these cause we can't find a real pic only a drawing. If you know where theres a real pic that would be really handy.

Yokohama geolander M/T $175
He really likes they way these look, they are uniqe thats for sure, but I personally find them a bit over priced and they come in right and left hand so what do you use for a spare?

Uniroyal Laredo MT $165
Another tire that I think looks decent.

We can't find any Superswampers at the 2 sites we are looking at, and the Goodyears are $228 a peice which is way too high.

All these tire prices are for 31x10.50s. We are mounting them on those white or black generic steel rims, they are 40-50 bucks at the local Canadian tire. Tire wear shouldn't be a huge problem because he is keeping his old rims and road tires on it during the week, plus this truck really doesn't get driven much at all anyways.

2 more questions

I have read that the rear ring and pinon in the dana 35c isn't the stongest and that you shouldn't go larger then 30s with it. He figures 31s arn't that different and we should be fine cause we arn't doing any extreme rock crawling yet. I personally think we should play it safe cause we don't have the money to be fixing stuff. I think stick with 30s cause they won't be a huge size difference and they are slightly cheaper. About $20 bucks a tire for most of the brands, which adds up to $100 after you get 5 and then another $7 bucks tax, and then the weight difference for shipping. Plus we WANT to do rock crawling we just need the tires and lift to do it and I know if we saw some cool rocks we wouldn't stay off just cause we knew the rear end wasn't that strong.

I just talked to him on the phone and he said that he read on the net in reviews that the BFG doesn't clear mud all that great.

 

The weakness of the D35c is way overblown, it's not as fragile as many have stated. A lot of people have put 33-35" tires on it and wheeled it hard without any problems. With 31" tires I wouldn't even be concerned with it having any problems unless you had a locker in it and did some VERY abusive rockcrawling with tight turns on dry rocks. Look at Scott's rig, he's running the D35 and he abuses it hard. Granted he has upgraded axle shafts but still the ring and pinion have held up for him as far as I know and he does have a locker in it.

 

Ok thanks for the info, so what do you guys think of the tire choices and do you think we should go 30 or 31, is that extra inch worth the money? Will it be that much harder to lift to fit them?

We are thinking of just going with blocks in the rear and coil spacers in the front and some new shocks for the extra travel. 2-3 inches of lift, we want to keep it as small a lift as possible.

 

I ran my locked dana 35 hard and she didnt break with 34" swampers. I am now putting that axle in another XJ. SCRAm

 

Ok I get that I shouldn't worry about the axle too much, but what do you think about the tire size in general, is the 3 inch lift enough for the 31s? Is it worth the cost difference for an extra inch of tire? Do you gain much traction? Specially in mud which we find is usually easier to pass if you dig down to the hard stuff instead of trying to float on top, floating doesn't always work when the mudhole is 60" long.

Also what about the tires I mentioned? What do you guys think about some of those other brands? Anyone used them?

Also here is some pics of our area I found these on the net, its a local group that used to wheel around here.

How ya like that mud/pond, they are all over here.

Some more rutted trails

Some more, and check out this guys idea for his roof rack, I think thats a pretty cool idea, get a couple more of the rack things from a junk yard and use 3 for your tire and one for your lights, we are thinking of using the 2 we have for a full size spare, and then later making a real rack and keeping one on up front like this guy for a light bar.

 

As tires go Kumho make a good mt that is under 100, and rates better than bfgoodrich in noise, treadlife and in snow. Lost out just alittle in the mud. They roll in easy to. We sell alot at our service center. Kumho and Michelin.

 

3" should be fine for 31's

 

WILD COUNTRY!!!!!! hehehe...I run them and LOVE them, havent had much rock crawling but what lil I do they work great, Wild country also makes a TXR that is also a great off road tire might be better on the rocks then the RVT(mud) I paid $114us each with no tax( its nice having a tax ID# sometimes...lol) I will be getting a set of the RVT in 35s here soon and will run them only on the road and get a set of 33s for off-road, might try and get a set of TSls of boggers just for the hell of it, prolly not...lol...I run a Rustys 3" lift but didnt net a full 3" up front, I get a lot of rubbing with the front sway bar off on the inner front right fender well, the part thats right under the battery, just noticed that this past weekend...I would highly recomend not running a lift block over 1/2" in back, If you are going to do some real rockcrawling then you will want a full leaf pack and lift coils, Go with RE and you will be more then happy...andy

 

Yeah we won't get much in the way of articulation if we just use lift blocks and spacers I'm guessing?

 

Flex is what you want, more the better...I forgot to say that the Wild Countrys I run are of the 31x10.50 size, I think my rims have 4" back spacing. dont know, but they stick out about 2-3" from the truck, and they stuff real well except up front as I said before, but they shouldnt as soon as I stick a few more inches under it in front...andy

 

Ok so we covered the axle and the lift, what about tires.

Can I get more feedback on the tires I talked about

Thanks for all the help guys.

 

I say go with the wild countrys, but thats me, They make about 5 diffrent tread patters for each 'kind' of tire, like mine are the RVT(aowl) so if you can find a tire store that carrys them and see what kind you like best...andy
oh and they wear like iron too

 

personaly if your getting by on what you have right now I would save and get a really good tire and not have to worry about cost. I'm saving for the goodyear mt/r. Spendy yes, but an awesome tire imho.

 

Well we pretty much have to upgrade our tires if we want to go anymore places then we are right now, we are going to have to save up just to pull off any tires, I think any of the tires I pointed out above will get the job done, I'm just looking for other opinions.

 

I run Bridgestone Dueler MTs on the Wrangler (and Bridgestone Dueler APTs on the Comanche), and I abosutely love the way those tires perform. I haven't seen anyone with a stock Wrangler and BFGs go any farther than my stock Wrangler with the Bridgestones.

Still, no MT tire even begins to compare with a Super Swamper. If you can get them ordered in, do it!

I also wouldn't worry about an unlocked D35 with 31" tires. I beat the snot out of mine this way and it still works. Full-throttle mud, full-throttle sand, full-throttle under-water, full-throttle airborn (you get the idea

)

Your articulation potential will be the same as stock, but your shocks and brake lines will limit down-travel more quickly. Get Bar-Pin Eliminators to move the shock-mount to allow for more movement. Replace the brake lines with stock Wrangler ones, or bend the metal brake line down. Click here for a great XJ resource

3" of lift is the maximum before you begin needing a slip-yoke eliminator kit.
31" tires are the largest that you can fit with this lift, unless you trim the fenders enough to run 33s. I doubt the stock gearing and 33" tires would be a great combination, but torque converters are a wonderful thing....

If you've got the long-axle disconect front axle, I recomend welding the spider gears to the carrier, this is known as a "lincoln-locker".

 

Can you explain this lincon locker concept a little more?

Never mind, I did a quick google search and found out.

If ya do that your front drive shaft would spin all the time, even when your not in 4x4 mode right?

 

your front driveshaft spins all the time anyhow. Your Jeep doesn't have manual-locking hubs, so the driver's side wheel spins that axle-shaft, which spins the gears, which spins the driveshaft.

With a lincoln-locker, the inner passenger-side axle-shaft would also be spinning, but since the long-axle vacuum disconect isn't engaged, the passenger-side tire and outer-axle shaft spin seperately from everything else.
When you engage the 4x4 and the collar locks the two halves of the passenger-side axle together, it is just like having a spool up front.

It doesn't have any effect on the 2wd handling characteristics.

 

Yeah I guess your right, thanks for the info.

I told my buddy to do it but he isn't into it, he says its the micky mouse way, I said yeah but its free, why buy something that does the same thing when you could do it for free.

Ah well, I know when I get an XJ I'm going to do it to mine.