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and I have power tanks and other air supplies. And I’ve even used shoelaces to stitch a sidewall back together and get me back on the road.
But as far as when should you change it? The factory specifically designed these, like the tailgate and we can go all the way back to YJ. So YJ, TJ, JK and JL, the factory specifically designed the tailgate to hold the factory tire and the factory tire only.
As soon as you change tire size and certain vehicles are more susceptible to it, like TJ, YJ, TJ or early JKs, but the spot welds that hold the tailgate together aren’t designed for the load of a larger tire. So if you drive with one for too long, and I heard somebody else mention, I think it was Keith, it’ll start popping and making noise. Well, that’s when the internal spot welds of that tailgate are snapping. And that’s usually when it starts to make noise.
On a YJ, a TJ and an early JK, there wasn’t enough structural support in the side of the tub to hold that extra weight either. So not only would you start to tear the spot welds of the tailgate and start to damage the passenger side where that tailgate hinges on.
So it’s always a good idea to upgrade
if you have a YJ, a TJ or an early JK. Now, when we talk later, JK and JL, Jeep actually reinforced the hinge location of that tailgate because they knew that they would be running up to a 35 inch tire from the factory. And they knew that before they ever launched the JL. So a JL’s structure is much stronger on the body side, but it’s still only designed for the weight of like the factory 35. Once you go larger than that, you can still cause damage. The difference with the JL is the tailgate is aluminum
skimmed over magnesium. So it’s very light and it has a very strong hinge. So you might not notice it until a little bit later, but you still can cause damage. So I recommend as soon as you upgrade your tire size, you should upgrade the tire carrier
to either one that’s more structural or one that takes all of that weight off and puts it on the bumper.
A couple of people mentioned the tire carriers that still just use the factory door as a hinge and or as a lock.
Hanson was the first company to develop that and they developed that in 2007. AEV was the second one to do it. AEV started doing that in 2008 when they unveiled their tire carrier.
The Hanson one and most of the tire carriers out there just use a trailer spindle as the guide where AEV actually built this huge chromoly base plate that attaches right to the frame.
So pay attention to the tire carrier mounting as well cause the ones that just use a trailer spindle, they are susceptible to braking. I’ve been on trails where a spare tire with its carrier came bouncing down the trail towards us when it broke.
So definitely pay attention to those. But as soon as you change tire sizes, you really should look at how to mount that spare if you’re gonna carry a spare.
Because if you don’t and you carry a factory size spare and you’re running a 35 or a 37,
you can cook your axle. So sometimes not spending $300 on another tire can cost you several thousand dollars when you destroy an axle driving 30 miles.
So that’s mine, sorry it took so long.
No, it’s fine. It’s a good thought, I appreciate it. All right, so I see Matt has his hand up Matt, go ahead.
So I’ve had a couple of, one definitely full size spare if you’re traveling anywhere outside of your home area. So I’ve had, I’ve torn two sidewalls on trails probably more than 500 miles from home. And one, it’s always good to have the spare to put on there for just completing that wheeling trip.
But you also have to get a little at home.
(Laughing)
Drive better.
So I did run, so I’ve got about a hundred pound combo wheel and tire, 37s on a jail. And I ran the factory set up in the rear. I’ve got a Rubicon so it’s a little higher for the actual carrier piece itself.
Ran that for about 50,000 miles, about two and a half years. And I ended up getting sag on the tailgate. So the tailgate would come off the latch and drag the bumper. And so I did finally get it to sag. So I went with the Teraflex’s Alpha HD set up, which replaces the hinge out and has the adjustment necessary, but I’ve been really happy with that since.
I’m not sure, you know, unfortunately I can’t tell exactly when the issue is, but I will say that your tailgate will fail with 37s at some point, no matter what. And probably most heavy 35s.
Yeah, I’d never heard that before. I mean, what Greg says makes sense. The factory designs the tire carrier for the tire that they come with a vehicle. And when you change the size of that tire and wheel, you need to get a better tire carrier, something that’s engineered for the larger tire and wheel weight combination. So that’s a good idea. All right, Rick, I see you got your hands up. Go ahead.
Right, I just recently upgraded mine.
I’m child lover.
(Laughing)
I just recently upgraded mine, literally within the last four to five weeks.
Previous owner had one of the swing out tire carriers on there. It was okay for the 30 inch. It rattled a lot more with the 33 inch and I tried everything. I stuffed stuff in there and tied it. And then it just became a big pain in the keister every time I had to get into the Jeep. So when I went to the 35, it was driving me crazy because of all the rattling. So I actually went with the Moride system and it’s heavier hinges. It’s got a bracket that ties into the roll bar in the back. So that it strengthens that passenger side corner. And then it’s got a big metal plate that goes on the actual tailgate itself.
And then you pass and all that. So far, I’ve been really happy with it. It lowered it down a little bit. It pulled it in closer. I don’t have all that rattling. I pulled the latch on the door and it opens. So far it’s been working great for me and I’ve been really happy with it.
Very good, very good. All right, Tony Mitten, your hands raised, go ahead.
Yeah, I do carry a full size pair with my XJ most of the time.
I just don’t wanna deal with the hassle of slowing everybody down like a trail repair when I have the tire and I can just, I have the rear seat deleted in my XJ too. So I literally just throw it back there.
I learned the spare carrier in the XJ will actually fit a 31 inch tire for the longest. That’s what I was running, but bigger tires gotta match.
Right. Well, it’s nice to have it centered, to have that weight centered as well in the XJ.
Oh yeah, yeah. I wanna really strap in it now. But one point I did wanna make with the Wranglers as far as this spare tire carrier.
A big thing you wanna pay attention to if you are running a bigger tire,
isn’t as much to do with, sorry, the cat came in to attack the dog.
It isn’t as much to do with the height of the tire because that just adds more sheer force to the hardware that’s holding it up. It’s the added width when you go with a larger tire. When you go to like a 12.5 compared to like a 285.70 where it’s a tall narrow tire. You’re gonna be able to get away with that more because it’s not putting that weight way outside. Same with once you switch to an aftermarket wheel with a big offset to it.
In this Jeep Talk Show flagship episode, Tony and Larry dive into the best tools for Jeepers, discuss Jeep’s decision not to sell EVs until they’re perfect, and explore custom 3D emblems for your Jeep or other builds. With five episodes a week, Jeep Talk Show keeps you informed and entertained. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode!
In this episode of Jeep Talk Show Chic Chat, Natalie and Janet share stories from their action-packed Jeep weekend and much more. Discover how women view Jeeps and off-roading, as they discuss the sport’s inclusivity for all genders. Tune in for insights, adventures, and inspiration from a female perspective on Jeep life!
You know, right.
I’m like, are you going to shift? But it was totally fine. Yeah. No. So which, you know, I mean, I can only really go about 65, which was about that’s pushing it anyway on New Year’s. Right. Yeah. So you have to have that 500 mile break in period. You don’t want to wheel it. You don’t want to go too hard, especially on the highway. And then you do a fluid change and have everything inspected. And then you are ready to go at that point. So we are so close. So, yeah, it’s a really great experience. There’s a vendor row. Summit Racing was there. So I thought that was kind of cool.
I love Summit Racing.
Yeah. So it was really neat. There’s just some great, you know, Riley’s like you can’t, I mean, they had such a wide variety of vendors. Yeah, that’s cool. So, you know, it was really neat. And this club, they I’m really, I was proud to be with them because if you are new to this, it is the club in the area to get involved in because they’re not just a club, it’s a community. There’s over 300 members, my understanding. Oh, wow. Okay. The board is fantastic. And it’s a great mix of men and women and partnerships and spouses and kids are all involved and that’s awesome. Great. Yeah, it’s a great family friendly atmosphere. And wow. I mean, this event’s all volunteer and they, they killed it. It’s two days and so good. So I wasn’t able to feel for two days. Got, you know, a little sunburn. I thought I was tan and then I took a shower. Nope. It was just dust. So here we are. We still shower guys, except for the hair. But, you know, it was so worth it. And, you know, I use the Jeep as actually a teaching tool to talk about sway bars because it was very basic. So we got you from when you arrive at the trailhead, what are the first two things you do air down and disconnect. So we talked about that and being able to actually show what a sway bar looks like to a person that’s maybe never even thought to look under their Jeep. I know I never did until.
Or what is a sway bar? And what is it?
What is a sway bar? Right. What do you do? What is a track bar? What does it do? So, unfortunately, doing what we do as a new and I Janet, we could fall down rabbit holes with these now. So I have to control myself from going way too far and like having to look at my watch like, oh, we’re already two hours deep. Sorry, everybody. I was supposed to only be 10 minutes, but, you know, we’re so passionate about what we get to do. So it was fun. But it was it was neat. And I got to ride with a couple of guests as well. They had like, oh, you just want to hop in. I was like, yes. And so I got to go to the course with them. That’s fun. Yeah. And, you know, talk to them through the obstacle from inside the vehicle. So it was a it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.
What about you?
Give me the clip notes version.
Oh, gosh, we are really going to dive in. So this past weekend I spent in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the off-road park there with the Outlaws Jeeps Texas group. They had about a good.
Like Jesse James and the gang, you know, like the gang.
And that’s I think that’s ready to go. That’s our logo. It’s like the little bearded, you know, are the the handkerchief. I’m terrible. I’m like the handkerchief.
You were the outlaw.
It’s like an outlaw. I love it. Exactly. They had about the best. I know. I love them. I love them. And I I love Hot Springs Off-Road Park. If anybody ever gets a chance to go there, it is. That’s where I started. That was my very first wheeling trip. It’s like going home when you get to go. I know. And so, you know, when I started wheeling, she was on 35s, a three and a half inch lift,
stock axle, stock gear, like everything was just stock, you know, beyond that. But it was super capable, wasn’t it? It was absolutely capable. I thought, you know, the badges and I did some obstacles that I thought I was never going to do. I still had my fender flares and I’m surprised I didn’t rip them off. You know, the stock ones. Did you ever rip them off?
I know not on a trail. I ripped them off in my garage. Did you really?
But you know what? Facebook Marketplace. Amazing. People are giving them away on there. I still have mine listed right now for free. Like you guys rip them off. Just get them out. Yep. Yeah. Please, please, please. I’ll just ship it or just come get it. Like one of the exactly exactly.
So I think they had about 12, 13, 14 Jeep show up. Most of them are gladiators. Wow. Oh, I know. I know. You know, I know. Tony and the Jeep talk to a regulator.
Here we go.
He was. I talked to him about it before the show and he was like, yes.
left the chicken chat and we had to get that replaced. The computer left. The computer left and went that way. So after that, we went with the Affusion, DragLink, Affusion, Tyrod and some TeraFlex Muggles. Oh boy. And she handled her business this weekend. I was so happy with the way she performed.
I am, other than my breaks, I think I’m done with her upgrades for a while because she
just– That’s good, enjoy it now, right? Just go wheel it, drive it, enjoy it.
Absolutely, she did great. And so after I did that huge obstacle, number one, I wasn’t gonna risk trying to break her on something else.
Well, and if you were done up here, that is one of the, I think the biggest risks that we don’t recognize in ourselves. We don’t take the time to actually think, okay, can I actually keep, it’s okay to be like, you know what, mentally I just can’t do any more. And it’s okay to be a passenger.
Well, and isn’t that what happened to you when you flipped or when you rolled?
I should have said to someone, you know what, I wanna keep going today, but can we just park me somewhere and I wanna keep enjoying the day with you, but mentally I’m just, I’m done. And, but there’s so much adrenaline pumping. You don’t have time to really think about yourself sometimes and when you’re in a group too. And it is okay, as I was telling, actually the guest this weekend, I was like, if you’re in trouble, honk your horn. Well, it’s okay to honk your horn. Yeah, absolutely. You can like, spiritually or mentally, because it’s just, why create a bad experience for yourself? Cause you only, you know what you can do sometimes. So I think that’s so amazing that you even did that because I think a lot of people would feel that pressure of a group without even the group applying the pressure, but just, well, I wanna keep going. I drove all this way or, you know, I wanna keep going and accomplish all these things. And, but what if you would have kept going and then what?
Yeah, and you get, I think also with experienced wheelers, you can also get a false sense of security with, I just did this giant obstacle so I can do anything. And then you go and do something stupid and break something. So it was better to just go back to camp, leave prayer, jump in somebody else’s Jeep and just enjoy being a passenger problem. I don’t call myself a passenger princess, I’m a passenger problem.
Not a passenger princess, passenger problem.
Yes, yes, we own our issues here at Chick-Cha. We own them.
This is the therapy happens everybody. Exactly, exactly. Woman, man, this is the therapy session on Monday.
Right, come and have a seat, lay down on the couch. Let’s talk.
You will have a cat from somewhere, either in Houston or Ohio, one of those.
An emotional support cat, yes.
Oh wait, you’re not in Houston, are you?
You’re in the Dallas area.
I’m in Dallas.
I’m so sorry, oh gosh. It’s okay. Look, because Tony’s dogs show up every now and then. Oh, that’s true. The Houston dogs, yeah.
We’re very pet friendly on the Jeep Talk Show.
We are, we are. So get your bingo cards out to see how many animals are gonna show up during our show.
We really should make one. I think we need to do that. Stay tuned guys. Yes, post on the Chick-Chat channel.
We will, we will. There was a lot of carnage on this trip and there was somebody that went mutting, it wasn’t a gladdy, somebody went mutting and was doing just the red limiter on their RPMs and their timing got off. So they had to be trailer back home.
Somebody else who also went mutting, their alternator was coded. And for those that don’t know, when you go mutting, it looks fun. And if you like it, you like it. But only if you’re gonna be responsible with it. And Natalie, you talked about this. We have talked about this. Great, the calipers, the mud coded the alternator. And sure enough, we went out on our night trail, the night run, doing some night wheeling. I was behind her and she yelled out to her husband, I have all these lights on my dashboard, what’s happening? Oh, Christmas tree.
Her alternator went out. So we’re on a trail at 9.30 at night thinking, we were almost at the end. Oh God. We maybe had two minutes to go before we got back to camp. Yeah. At that point, her husband ran and got a battery from another Jeep, brought it back on his side by side. We’re in the middle of a trail, obviously no lights, right? She couldn’t have her lights on. I turned off Charlie, cause I’m not gonna let her run.
You start hearing all these animals.
Oh yeah.
What? I’m like, what is that? What is that? So I did my best to keep her company cause she was pretty devastated. Kept her company, kept her laughing. They brought the battery back, switched it out. And so the thing is she still had one more good climb to do. And if she was going to slow down or stop, her Jeep may not have started again. And she maybe had like one good start left in it. So she gunned it the entire rest of the way. And she was just balls to the wall down this trail. She was like, I was not gonna stop. And you just see these tail lights just bouncing all the way.
That gladiator, there’s the hitch skid plate system on there from Nemesis probably.
Probably, right?
Who knows what she was dragging on.
I know. So it was fun. Somebody else had problems with their steering, but I think that was an installation issue by the op that they used. I think that’s what we figured out, but even have to be tailored home. So yes, things can happen, but I will tell you Natalie, like I haven’t been wheeling in a minute. Like I went to Colorado.
Yeah, it’s been a minute.
It’s been a minute. Colorado, I think was your last one, right? Yeah, and it was a couple months ago. So going back on this trail and I was thinking about you cause I knew you were doing your one-on-one this weekend.
Some things that I think we’ve forgotten to talk about with new wheelers, new people in the game. And I wrote them down because it’s something that we experienced this weekend. And I was like, oh, we haven’t talked about that yet. Making notes for Chick-Chad.
I love this so much. Oh my gosh, your notebook. Can we publish that because you take great time.
I know, right? We can make it a book. We can make it a book. So there was a story about, and I think we both know this, but we forget to tell people about it. When you’re going on an off-road trail,
number one, you don’t wanna hold the steering wheel tight.
Your steering wheel, your steering wheel is gonna do this. You just wanna guide it, don’t fight it, guide it, don’t fight it. And when you’re holding the steering wheel, keep your thumbs on the outside.
Absolutely, I love where your thought process is right now.
Because what happens, Natalie, if your thumbs are on the outside?
That could jerk and break a thumb. I saw it happen in San Hollow. It dislocated his thumb so hard. And I mean, that steering wheel just jerked and he wasn’t ready for it and didn’t even think about where his hands were. And I watched the thumb just break, and I was like, oh, yes, it happened.
Yeah, I thought about that while I was out there, because I’ve taught my daughter, just let, just guide it and just hold it from the outside or you’re holding it from the top.
And when you hit a rock on the trail, it will send your steering wheel right or left. And you will leave with your steering wheel crooked sometimes. Charlie’s is crooked coming home and pissed off the traction control, but we’re gonna get it fixed. Oh yeah. That just means you did something good.
Get the wrenches out.
The re, yeah, exactly.
Get the wrench out, start turning it.
Yes, so when you’re driving on a trail, keep your thumbs on the outside of the steering wheel, because if it jerks it enough, it can break your arm. It can break, like it’ll cause all kinds of, and then it’s gonna ruin your trip. Don’t ruin that in your trip.
It may ruin maybe somebody else’s, let’s be honest.
(Laughs)
Exactly, because then you have to hop. No, no, that’s such a good one. Yeah, and on that same note, keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times.
No, chicken wings, chicken wings sticking out. We don’t do that, no.
I’m guilty of it, and you’ll see my, and I’m guilty of it sometimes, and I’ll remember and pull it back in. Well, also because I’m super, I’m five four, and in a Jeep, the Jeep window comes up to here to me. It does, it does. And even with the seat jacked all the way up, I can’t see out, so I try to put my arm up to gain leverage to look up and over. Right, because then you’re balancing up on top, yes. And that is such a bad habit. Like I, we should not be doing that, and I have, I just changed my profile picture on Facebook, and I have my arm hanging out like this, because I’m trying to look behind me. So, do as I say, not as I do. Not as I do.
(Laughs)
But yes, and the reason– It’s really true, the chicken wing, it’s very true, because you just don’t know, it can all happen so fast, and when we get nervous or excited, the body, your muscles tense up, and so your muscle could freeze with it chicken wing, which this view is so, God, YouTube is so good, guys. This is a good one for YouTube. We are really, you know
what we’re talking about with chicken wing.
(Laughs)
Jeep Talk Show on YouTube, check it out. Yes.
So, yeah, it’s amazing. You did our makeup today.
So it is amazing what can happen, and that fast.
So, whether it’s you’re on a trail that has high walls, you know, you’re dug out in a gorge, and you don’t see a boulder coming, or you forgot it was there, and it can just tip you over. If you’re hanging out, it can, again, break your arm, do a lot of damage. If you’re close to tipping,
some people like to hold the outside, that’s also a bad habit. That’s a bad habit.
I was so happy when I did my flop.
My initial reaction was to grip the steering wheel, and like, click really tight, but a lot of people, you wanna stick your hand, wait, which way, this way, your hand out the window, and try to catch yourself, essentially. Yes. You’re not gonna catch, you know, thousands of pounds, dead falling, or, you know, up against a tree, or something like that. So, all hands and feet and heads inside the vehicle. Inside the vehicle, all times, at all times. You know, that’s a great segue, actually, because I learned something this weekend, I thought about, was about, when I was talking about spotting, one of the muddy buddy guides made a great point about having your radio turned down. So, radio down, windows down. Yes. As, like, a newbie, because there was a lot of people, especially on the obstacle course, they had their radios up really loud, just, you know, jamming, the weather was beautiful, clearly sunburned over here, guys. But, you have to still be able to hear your spotter, and we had spotters on every obstacle, and so, I think, you know, that was such a great phrase, about windows down, radios down, so you can actually hear and focus.
Loud music’s great when you’re, you know, going on those logging roads, I think, you know, to get to your next trail, that’s how windrocking, especially, but, that’s where we need to meet. That’s where we’re gonna– We do.
I’ve been talking to Zabo about doing a windrock trip, and he was like, “Wait, where’s Natalie?” And he was talking about you, and he was like, “She can meet us out there, “’cause I think he wants to meet you, so–”
I need some windrock redemption anyway, so, we gotta do it, there it is, guys. The Jeep Talk Show invades windrock. Tony, I know you’re listening. Yes. We’ll see what we can do.
We’re gonna make it happen, we’re gonna make it happen. Absolutely.
So, yeah, windows down, radio down, another great little key tidbit on our little, thank you, Wendy, for the newbie nugget. I think this is kind of like a Wendy’s newbie nugget. We owe it to her, so thank you, Wendy.
Here comes our rabbit hole. We’re so passionate, I think, both of us, about teaching women how to do this, and even if you’re a passenger, you’re going with brother, husband, partner, whatever it may be, and you’re in a passenger seat.
We talked about, I had a gladi passing me, and this was her first time being a passenger, and I saw that she had her seat belt on, and she was kind of pressed back in the seat, and I was like, “Can I give you a tip?” Just, if you’re open to it, let me tell you a couple nuggets.
That shoulder strap for us women that may be blessed in the upper upstairs area,
when you’re going down a trail, that seat belt will lock.
(Laughing)
It’ll lock, and it’s uncomfortable. It is, it can’t, yes. So, push the shoulder strap behind you. Always wear your seat belt when you’re wheeling. Always the last belt. Always, always, if you’re a passenger, always wear your seat belt. Keep the lap belt on, and that’s gonna help you, because this shoulder strap, what I always recommend, if anybody that’s written a horse, but even if you haven’t, I’m sure you wrote a pony when you’re little. At some point, you’ve been on a horse at some point.
When you ride a horse, you let your hips do all the work. You lean forward, and you just let the hips absorb everything. You have to go to YouTube to see these visuals.
This episode is so good.
Yes, and the Jeeps have a bar.
The Jeeps have a bar on the passenger side for a reason. Hold onto that bar loosely, and just let your hips absorb those bumps, and all that stuff. Your back will love you for it, and thank you for it.
Don’t fight it, just roll with it.
Ooh, just roll, ooh, I like that. So, when you were talking about spotting, that triggered something, and then I went off another side.
We’re riding horses at one point, so it’s okay.
Yeah, we’re talking about riding horses, we’re talking about animals.
We, in the spotting world and in the jeeping world, we don’t say right or left, right, when you’re spotting, and there’s a reason for it. Can you elaborate on that?
Yes, so, because everyone’s left and right is different, because if your spotter’s looking at you, it’s like being on stage right versus the audience right, correct? So, passenger driver is universal, no matter where you are. Maybe you’re behind the vehicle, and you’re trying to spot them from behind, because maybe you’re in that vehicle right behind them, and you’re on the radio, and you can see something that they can’t. It’s like, Janet, you didn’t know your wheels were off the ground at one point, because, oh, right, you’re driving.
So, even today, I actually got to do the trail ride with the 101 experience,
instead of just watching everyone leave from the classroom. So, I got to hop in, and I was in the lead vehicle, and a two-door was behind us, and we were kind of doing these like, top seat, herbie, terrain going back and forth like this, but she was a little, she was definitely a too hard passenger,
and so, we could see things that she couldn’t, because we were in front of her, but looking back, and the gentleman, Randy, who was driving with muddy buddies, instantly was able to yell, turn driver, and she knew exactly what that meant, instinctively to turn, of course, to her left,
but if we were looking at her, it would have been to the right. So, being able to use those terms so quickly, because you only have milliseconds, if that’s the right word, to react when, taking that responsibility, that’s something Matt and I talked about with the guests this weekend, there’s such a responsibility of this investment that these people have,
and to be able to have that, and respect that, it’s a big undertaking, so we want to get it right, 99.9% of the time, but no one’s perfect.
Pretty close.
So, when your spotter tells you, and you’re probably seeing me backwards, but when your driver tells you to turn driver, it is towards you, right? So, you’re on the left side of the vehicle, so you’re turning that way. If they tell you to turn passenger, it is towards your passenger seat, and there is the memes out there, that turn driver, turn driver, and everybody always turns passenger, they’re like, “No, you’re other driver.”
(Laughing)
Go that way, or they do a lot of hand signals, it’s this, and this.
Which do you prefer? Do you prefer the hand signal? Do you prefer the verbal? Which one is it?
Both, because if I’m looking out my window, I can listen, but the chance that I’m gonna glance up, I’ll notice the hand signals. And I think in the moment, especially when you’re doing bigger obstacles, your adrenaline’s going, and I think you need as much input as possible from your spotter, so I prefer both.
I think that also helped me this weekend as well.
It does, someone that is clear and concise, and one person.
One person talking.
That’s the key, one person.
An experienced person talking.
Yes, and also the person that you trust, so that’s something, ladies and gents, when you guys start going, especially like other groups, or you start finding your niche,
you will start gravitating to certain people that you listen to better, or you just understand their way of spotting so much better. And that’s okay, no one will ever be offended. I know there was always a certain person that when I first got started, I always asked for, Alan was always my guy. I always did my best, my newbie rides with him, because I just, for some reason, I understood him so much better than everybody else.
Yeah, and you’ll find that person, and they talk about something, and I’m trying to bring up terms that maybe new people wouldn’t, they don’t get it. So we talk about tire sizes a lot, right? 40s, 37s, 35s, that was a reference to how many inches? And there’s a true 40 and a whatever. That’s a rabbit hole we’ll get into on another show.
Another rabbit hole, but I get it. Another rabbit hole.
So they’ll also talk about seeing the lines. And so if you’ve ever driven a dirt bike on trails, or been off-roading, you see lines, and it means where your tires are gonna go.
Yes.
So to keep you safe and get you over the obstacle. So that’s what your spotter is doing. They’re spotting the line of where your tires need to come, because those hoods are hard to see over. You’re trying to look out your window. You don’t know what’s going on on the right side. You’re short like me, you can’t barely see out the window.
You can’t, you’re just kind of like looking out over, like your chin’s just resting on the door. Exactly.
And you may see the lines as you’re approaching your obstacle, but once you get in the moment, sometimes you forget, you slip or you kind of veer off, you really need your help, somebody’s help. So they can see the lines of where your tires need to go to keep you on the path that you need to go to get over the obstacles. So you’ll hear us talking about that, and that’s what we’re referencing. We try not, we not only are experienced, I say experienced, I’ve only been out eight times, but I’m doing pretty big stuff. You are doing good stuff.
When we talk about this, we’re trying to educate people that haven’t been out there and are trying to get out there, and so you’ll be better informed and better prepared when you go out and you start hearing these terms, you’re like, “Ooh, I heard that on the Jeep Talk Show,” and then tell people to watch Chick Chat, so definitely thinking of this.
So, and don’t forget to put gas in your Jeep.
Oh my gosh, full tank, everybody, full tank. That happens more often than not. I’ll get ready to start a trail ride, and I’ll double check, does everyone have a full tank of gas? And it always never fails, one or two. You know, I don’t actually, because you drive in, right? You’re the most, I’m gonna say, I’m just throwing this percentage. I think it’s 98% of our easy medium groups, we’ll just call them easy medium groups. It is a daily driver, and it’s what they will drive it there and drive it home, and you get so excited on your way into town, and a lot of times, where these parks are and trail heads, it’s very limited services, so always, always stop, guys. You gotta have that full tank of gas.
And even if you’re trailering in, while you’re stopping to put gas in your main, your tow pig, don’t forget about the vehicle on the back.
Yes, oh, tow pig, I like that. There has been many times I have, literally, the diesel pump going, and the regular pump going. And I’m just been looking at it, I’m like, oh my gosh.
The numbers are just flipping.
Do I fly, am I proud, all of it? I’m not sure. Right, right, it does cost one. I want to put the depth in there, too, so we’re just, I’m checking every box.
Yes, and what people don’t realize, when you go on a trail, it doesn’t use a whole lot of gas, because there’s a lot of stopping and idling, and you turn off your Jeep, but if you’re gonna go on an incline or a decline, and you only have a quarter of a tank of gas, your engine will stop.
Yes, it will. The sensor’s not reading it, you only have this much, so don’t forget to put gas in your Jeep. And then, my last thing that I wrote down, and this one’s funny, and I try not to talk about this too much, because I think it’s a given, but we have to use the facilities on the trail, but there are no facilities, right?
We need the bathroom segment, and I think in every Chick-Chad episode, because it definitely comes out, but it’s real life, guys.
This happens. It’s real life. So, for men, it’s easy, I mean, you got the equipment. For women, we need some kind of support. I saw some women with scrapes on their elbows from when they fell, because it was slippery. So we tend to, I know I do, when you have a lot, and it’s awful, right? You’re in a line, and you got Jeeps with big bumpers. You can sometimes use that for leverage.
I’ve held them on the floor.
Let’s not for– Full disclose. I’ve grabbed that toe hook in the front. Yes. Sorry, Michael Bailey, that you’re hearing this, but yes. It might’ve been on Big Twin recently, so.
Well, on these newer Jeeps,
on these newer Jeeps, and the J, you know,
the TJs, the Gladiators, they have cameras in the front. Oh my gosh, that’s right. Now. So, while we’re keeping everybody behind this Jeep,
I was chatting with somebody, and when her and I were just talking, I’m standing outside the passenger door, and they had their front camera on, and she had gone up there, and we’re like, “Yeah, we’re gonna keep everybody behind.” And I see something out of the corner of my eye, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, you have a camera?” So, and people put GoPros on their Jeeps all the time, or they have cameras, you know, do the run and something. Just look around you, and just be aware. If you’re not, I mean, if you don’t care, you don’t care. But I’m just trying to pestle on some nuggets. So, those are my notes from this weekend.
No, I love those notes. Oh my gosh, and you know, this was my first 101 I got to teach in quite a long time, actually. It’s been about a year really getting back into the 101 game, and that’s actually my favorite. I really, really love it when I was teaching horseback riding lessons. I always wanted to start with the little ones, or adults that were just getting started
I know, so red has been really good right now.
I know.
So he has my heart.
Yes.
So more rise to come and I think we might have a wind rock in our future, girl. 2025 is coming.
Absolutely.
Because winter’s coming and she’s gonna go in the garage.
Exactly, yeah. It is. Exactly.
Well guys, it’s that time.
I know, it’s always at the same time.
I know, I know. Well, that’s it for this episode of Chick Chat, Ms. Janet. We hope you’ve been inspired by our stories, insights and tips we shared today. Remember there are no limits to what you can achieve when you embrace your passion and fearlessly chase your dreams. Gosh, man, I love that. I know. That inspires me every time we do it. I know. If you enjoyed this episode and you feel like you wanna chase your dreams, be sure to subscribe to the Jeep Talk Show so you’ll never miss an episode. And remember, embrace the thrill of the off-road, embody your own unique style and always keep pushing the boundaries of what you thought possible because anything is possible with dust and dirt in our hair.
That’s right, you can do it too. Bye everyone.
Broadcasting Sense 2010.
Oh, that was so good. I love it, I love it. I love hearing about your weekend.
Oh my gosh, your weekend was so amazing and the cat was fantastic. I will try to grab one.
I just couldn’t do it. Look, he’s like wants to be the main star tonight. I love it. While you were doing that last little piece, he jumped on my lap and scared me.
I was like, oh my God. Oh my gosh. He missed me, I was gone all weekend. So he- That’s true, that’s true. The moment I opened the garage door, I can hear him howling. So he is my love bug and he has missed me. So he’s right here just-
Oh, I love it. Hey, oh my gosh, hey, buddy. Just a baby.
In this Jeep Talk Show interview, Chris from JeeTops.com talks about their OEM Plus removable clear tops for Jeep JK, JL, and JT models. Transform your Jeep into a luxury vehicle with this incredible Freedom Top modification. Enjoy the open sky while keeping the security of your Jeep hardtop. Easy to store and always on, JeeTops offers the perfect upgrade for your Jeep. Watch, listen, and then explore more at JeeTops.com!
All right, hi, do cheaper we’re back for another interview well, I love these interviews It’s so much fun to talk to folks and I get to talk to what has become a very good friend of mine Chris at G tops Chris and I talk wait, what do you think about at least once every couple weeks?
Yeah
You I I mean
Now that now
if it’s if it’s less than that or you never talked to me that’s fine You can help me I can you can you can tell me where I’m lying.
I don’t mind But you guys have been enthusiastic and actually have my product on your vehicles so that oh,
yeah Yeah, well, you know, I was nervous Initially, I loved the idea behind being able to have the clear top. That wasn’t a a big huge piece of plastic that to me was going to be problematic and This seemed to be a very good
OEM plus is one of the things I like to say about
Various products that I see it’s it’s something you would have expected for the Jeep manufacturer to put in there as an option Expensive option and add-on one of the things that they would do, you know like for a Rubicon or something But they don’t and I was just and and the cool thing is is that I mean I’ve been doing this this thing for 14 years now and I had never heard of your product and that that’s kind of a lot like The Jeep talk show we’ve been doing this for a long time and a lot of people don’t know about it It doesn’t mean it’s not great and I was just blown away about how wonderful this product is and especially now that I got to Experience it. All right, so let’s let’s get on I just told you we were gonna stay on track and I’m going off on a tangent
So that was that was kind of the gist right there that I really wanted to lead into because
OEM plus and Tony you did coin that and and I don’t it’s those simplistic kind of things that are like key and and
Back in in o-10 when we were awarded the first patent that that that was the entertainment back then We were going to do an OE run with Jeep We went through all the all the motions and we never got there and Mike Manley had had already Left and and maybe it will be re-approached soon because one of the things that I didn’t tell you I’m putting my wife in a new JL you and Of course the unit didn’t get in here yet because it was special ordered and She’s got a 23 JL you well, guess what and ironically, it’s a it’s a front a dealership friend principle of mine that I’ve known for forever and It was a loaded 23 and it’s got the folding power fabric Wabasko roof I
Know that roof inside and out because I’m one of the oldest Wabasko agents or I should say partners in the world, right?
and We used to repair tons of them Now now they changed a few things to do the adaptation that they did in the Wrangler But that is well, it is a Wabasko roof. So I know it intimately but what astounded me
Was how bloody loud the thing was? No, it’s windy here yesterday But even even my wife called to say that even when it’s not today, it’s not windy But on the front did come in but I mean I’m talking Obnoxious loud. I’ve been hearing that from people with the what’s the thing that clear
lids or no
Wabasko even made one for a while, but then they
come at the best top where they can run the thing back
Yeah, best ops thing. I mean that’s loud.
Yeah, and what’s like a drum because the air hitting on hitting that surface of that Yeah,
and I know you know the fabric and no construction when I used to convertible tops and all that highline stuff And I know what little engineering tweaks you can do But I was just I was blown away that that that folding fabric roof that everybody’s touting I mean just about every unit that that that Jeep builder that I’ve been talking to lately
Ruby tops is a Ruby Ruby
True me You have included me in the conversation. I don’t know Every bill will every bill they do they’re they’ve got the that OEM Top in there and I’m I’m the same and they’re saying how they’ve got all these plain Jane ones that are sitting out on The back lot and they they don’t know how to get them sold and I said well lunch with G tops in them So even more so now I’m I’m I’m Realizing that here these guys are selling, you know 135 on average $1,000 units all the way up to you know, almost 200 G’s and they’re putting that factory They they’re pushing that factory folding fabric room. I think sucks and I mean I I don’t I mean it’s doesn’t suck relevant to when it opens it is Fabulous, it’s huge. It’s all you the backs open too. So conceptually it’s wonderful, but bloody noisy I mean, I I don’t know how anybody can hear themselves think driving down the freeway
Well, I guess that is the neat thing. There are various options and that’s the wonderful thing about a Jeep There’s various options that you can get you can do it the way you want to do it And what I want to do is encourage you guys to get something that I think Checks all the boxes For being able to see out the top of your Jeep, but having so many conveniences like you’re talking about the noise The the Sun coming in is going to be very hot and very bright. But with you the G tops it is Not because it’s a little to get a little tint to it So it’s not as bright and it is cool It’s actually cool under the the the freedom panels and and that’s what I want to make sure people understand a G top is a modified Freedom panel so you’re not getting something that replaces the freedom panels. You’re getting a modification to the factory created Freedom panels that makes it a lot better
by federal law people need to understand We by federal law cannot Compromise any of the FM VSS, which is the federal motor vehicle safety standards. We cannot change Jeep specs at all What we have done with this is we have made the tops stronger. We have made them considerably Well, the the passenger side is Two ounces the driver’s side is like four ounces lighter They actually made them lighter but they’re in a crush test They’re about three times stronger being because we put more structure into the forming of that acrylic an impact modified acrylic aircraft acrylic piece that we put in So when we’ve computer designed it a lot of people say well, what’s the why is that shaped like that? That’s the perimeter, but why is it shaped like that? Well, it’s it’s for one it’s to bump out and make Optimize the viewing area you can’t you cannot make the viewing area any larger than what we’ve done because There’s the parameters of the latching system and whatnot, but there’s also the parameters of the structure so we had to Integrate ours with the factory to enhance the structure. So we’ve made it structurally more sound but
That and then there’s there’s the balance of the top that the weight has to be equally distributed to it You can’t just like those crazy guys that that are out of business now that panoramic thing that they were throwing household glass on you people don’t understand you can’t just take something and throw glass up on top because then if the Dynamics of it in a crash are entirely different You’ve got the weight to the top of the top top the weight has to be You have to keep the top uniform to the design that it was when Jeep designed it.
Mm-hmm.
So Yeah, you know me I get real wordy, but You’re trying to
convey this you’re concerned about this and you’ve put a lot of time and engineering into it that people don’t That they don’t know because you’re right somebody can come up What was the old thing? My dad’s got a barn Let’s put on a show and they just come up with a way of putting the something on the roof It may look cool, but they don’t but people don’t know the science behind it
Yeah, well and there’s there’s a lot to it that they are encapsulated in a lot of people who I’ve had people over the years kind of bomb grade well They’re there they are we use a bomb grade structural silicone. It’s not only it’s it’s structural Which means that it’s got really high pole and sheer it’s got the highest pole and the highest sheer
specs of any Goop that you’re right putting you but it
We do that because it’s extremely elastomeric so it has all kinds of you know There’s a lot of movement going on.
Oh and you have to have that especially in an off-road vehicle That’s so that’s twisting and stuff. You need that ability to Deflect so getting back to the original question. What is a G top in simple terms? It’s a easy
way It’s an aircraft window. That’s been
Retrofitted into the factory top with without without changing any of the Original factory top and would you say actually moving creating it so that it it’s optimal with a view
Yeah, it actually improving the the freedom panels to a degree Yeah, all right, so cool now This is another one because everybody’s concerned about how long things how long you’ve been in business So are you going out of business? Is this a six month deal that you’ve been doing and of course I know the answer to that But but I want to get you to answer how long has G tops been made?
Well G tops is a registered a
registered trademark We have a red R and and it is the real unlike the actually I just ran into a company the other day that
Yeah, you have to have a trademark for a specific amount of time before then you can go approach the patent office and then get A registered trade we and we are a registered trade That in itself we if anybody understands any of that you got to be around for a while to have but no I have been in the sunroof industry all my life. I put my first pop-top sunroof in when I was old 21
and Then became I I was a American sunroof cars and concepts
American sunroof Corporation if anybody remembers American sunroof, you know, that was oh yet Ford
GM Chrysler American sunroofs. I also was a Cars and concepts dealer cars and concepts teatops those came OEM factory back in the day and I’m dating myself It’s a long time ago and Hearst hatches If anybody is out at these car shows and they see these these cool the Hearst shifter and then then oh, yeah some Hearst hatches on a Camaro or a F body which is your Monte Carlos and your those but yeah, we used to put it on cars and concepts Hearst hatches and so way back then you had to be structurally
The the the fix during in the jigging
you you wouldn’t have been it you would have been in business this long if you weren’t doing It the right way because by now somebody would have died from a bad design So and you would have been out of business, but simply because of the lawsuit
the corporation Well, no, but but we carry a ton of you know, we kind of care carry a ton of Well, that’s another good question for a lot of you know, our product liability we got we’re proud of liability insured up the yin yang, but the Automation has been around since 1989 Wow It’s a Delaware C Corp, we’re not an S Corp. We’re not an LLC. We are a Delaware C Corp. You can look it up
September of 89
We All the way up until when GTOP started we were wholesale to new car dealers We did we service to service to all the dealers in Milwaukee Madison and upper Chicago We usually did about a million dollars a year in highline inbuilt power sunroof sales at big inbuilt and big panoramic roof, you know And I usually ran about six to eight guys and and our claim to fame was one of the things was the fact that we Were mobile but we you know, but we were wholesale. I mean and in that in in itself
You know, I’ve said this to you before you don’t brag enough but being wholesale you got a member that that Those vehicles were setting those up and getting them ready for delivery for and these dealerships used to live by us And and we used to never have any warranty because we were so anal and had these excellent systems in place but It was around 0 8 when I had a bunch of customers coming to me saying, you know you used to do teatops in the day and and I’ve got this new Wrangler, you know I can remember the first oh seven Wrangler came in and look at these darn things and can you do anything? and I’ve got a manufacturing background engineering background whatnot and started futzing with it and and and then Filed for patent after I came up with the first prototypes, but we showed at SEMA in 2010 was the first time that I Free it was either 9 or 10 But I but I you know saw everybody, you know walked around and it was old home week as usual when I go to SEMA Because I always know all these I kind of know I know all the old guard and anyway the first patent came and then the then it was about a half a year about a year later another patent came and You know at that point you’re kind of in it. I mean you’re vested. I mean we built prototype, you know I started buying tops up like, you know the our local mopar dealer, you know, just They used to shit when we’d order, you know, we get 20 20 front sets at a time They’d come in and
so let me read between the lines It sounds like you’re saying and correct me on this that the G tops have been around since 2008. Is that correct?
Yeah, yeah and and and on on dealer showroom floors Since so
it wasn’t a hard sell I can imagine that people seeing this for the first time. It’s like, oh absolutely
Wasn’t it wasn’t it was a no-brainer and it was and and more so for me
Some of the irony in there was that it wasn’t a hard sell for me Person, you know as as Automation at the dealers on a wholesale level because we had we had the stellar Reputation with with you know anybody in the Milwaukee Madison or or upper Chicago area let alone when you start going out because I know I I’ve trained everybody around the country and and I’ve I’ve been in this for so long. Thanks. Thanks and Chris Prechter with American Center of Corporation. They’re out in, California Hanks is dead now, but Chris is still alive and and They have their aftermarket shops and whatnot and I used to train people out there. I trained people on the East Coast I
I’ve had a few other operations Through the years. I mean we used to do I Had close to 300 people when carvolettes was a was a a company that my partner was from South Africa It was the only manual glass sliding sunroof in the world. It was it was made in but I had Christ I had close to 200 installers we it was all in house up and down the East Coast all the way out to the Mississippi in every major city and So I guess what the point is those people also calling on deeply but all that organization was wholesale to new We sold direct to the dealers. So So what you’re saying, you know here I get these apprehensions from all these retail people when they call up Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know me I get a little short fuse kind of when you’re trying to know I’m talking to you like you’re some kind of a backyard hack and I’m going like well I mean there’s so many of them out there. I understand why they would be concerned. No, you’re right There are but we we and I’m and I cried on your shoulder I’ve run into so many on the hell there’s this crazy guy panoramic guy up in Canada now people I mean, I’ve got I’ve got a counterpart up there who’s who sold all his stores to four-wheel parts
Who actually used to work for four-wheel parts after he sold his seven stores to four-wheel parts But now right now we’re working with the Canadian DOT to get this this backyard hack He’s got a nice website But it what he’s doing is completely illegal
And that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing this interview because yeah, I have I know you have a great product And it needs that people need to understand this and you shouldn’t be buying these I
mean, but the these these plastic units I designed one of them for for quadratec way back when and I said it’s not gonna work I said from a marketing standpoint But what’s interesting is now after a year of clear lids being out in the marketplace I get calls weekly now about all these disgruntled people there They go I keep scuba over 50 miles an hour and and it’s if this is you’ve stretched a drum over your thing But then they talk about the heat and they talk about the acid trip view Yeah, and in the irony is is why I just want to go. Why are you how can people be so?
And he had had it for like, I don’t know, two or three months and of course couldn’t send it back. And he said, “Well, the goddamnest thing is what I didn’t think about, there’s no drip rails.” So in a torrential rain, he says, “You get out of the vehicle, whether it’s that or the other.” And there’s the gusset up on top on the edge, but there’s no drip rail. So even if it’s pouring rain, the water is dumping off like crazy. So if you got to get out of the vehicle, you get out and of course, how do you get out of a vehicle? Especially a woman, you swing your legs out so your thighs get drenched immediately getting out and whatnot.
I didn’t realize that.
The irony…
And also too, I want to mention really quick, there’s nothing wrong if you like clear lids and if you want to have the clear lids and maybe those things that we’re talking about aren’t deal killers for you. I just want to make sure you guys understand there’s alternatives, an alternative where you don’t have to take it off. You don’t have to put it on. You don’t have to worry about anything other than just placing it.
You want to be chasing wind leaks and water leaks.
Oh, I agree. I agree. But there’s people that don’t understand Jeeps, how anybody would own a Jeep. So everybody has their own kind of craziness. So I’m just saying this is, in my opinion, this is a much better product and the only one that I’ve ever had on my Jeep. So now this is the thing, the critical thing. People go, “Oh, this sounds wonderful. Love the engineering, but I don’t want to pay $5,000 for G-tops.” And this was the important thing to me when I found out, and we talked about this in the past, the pricing on the G-tops, modifying your freedom panels, which you don’t have to modify them. Buy whole G-tops with freedom panels and everything, but it costs more money. But if you just have your freedom panels modified to G-tops, in other words, the clear piece put into it, how much does that cost? Ballpark, Chris.
Oh, no, it’s not ballpark. It’s written in stone.
And matter of fact,
I will also mention, we haven’t changed prices.
We’ve been eating it ever since COVID, just to be nice.
A lot of people, I don’t think, realize, because everybody else has been hiking prices about this. Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of people have been looking at center. We’ve been racing prices. Yeah, everything’s going up.
The site will charge you $11.65 to process a JK front set.
That includes one turn of shipping. And we did this because, of course, there’s no shipping platform that can do… Some people want loners. Some people want a box. Some people are really anal and they want to pack them themselves. So then we email them a return tag.
Oh, really? That’s dumb.
But $11.65 includes the first turn of shipping. We have a lot of people that say, “I want loner tops.” We ship out loner tops for free and free to use, which sometimes I really wonder if people… I mean, we’ve run into a lot of people that I really appreciate, and there’s other people kind of expected, and I’m going like…
That’s interesting to do.
I tried to explain this to a guy the other day because he somehow wasn’t tracking and it’s very clear on the site. I said, “We lose,” because this guy happened to be way out in Southern California. I said, “Between the shipping and everything in the packing, the repacking and eating up boxes and all the labeling and all this stuff.” So we don’t charge for any of that. We probably, if you want to really amateurize the labor out in the whole bit, we’re probably losing with you in particular, probably close to $300 by the time that the tops went out, they come back, and all the wear and tear on our loner tops that we got us. On the site, it specifically says, and I can’t remember the last time we have, we don’t charge a deposit on the loner tops.
I think it’s a pretty nice consideration that we do, and when you get the loner tops, the return tag’s going to be right in there. You pull them out, put them on, your rig, and put yours in there as they came.
The panels are encapsulated at the bottom, which is the inner under that you see the perimeter when you’re looking out, but they’re encapsulated around the top. And if people don’t know what the term encapsulation means,
the goop is filled and then the trim seal goes on and everything’s squishing out of the top and it’s squishing out of the bottom. It’s like way overkill, encapsulating something. That’s the way we do it. There’s about four times the material. I mean, if you want to compare it to, let’s say a front windshield,
we’re using about four times the material per the area that we’re putting it in.
There’s about an inch and a half of material versus in a windshield bead, when you put a windshield in a car,
it’s about a quarter inch is what’s sealing it. So we’re three times that.
So leaks are not an issue. What about the scratching of the…
Matter of fact, a gentleman by the name of Mike Crenshaw just called me today and he’s on his fourth G-tops.
You may have seen him on Facebook, Tony.
He’s with Shasta County emergency guy. He up in Shasta Mountains and all of their Northern California.
He’s one of a crew of like eight volunteers that are the rescue team that go and I mean, they get… I mean, this is the real deal. They are out in the wintertime. They’re navigating four feet of snow and lost people that were in one of the parks or outback skiing and whatever. Cool, cool guy. He wanted the G-tops because he’s got all his radios and all his stuff in there. A lot of expensive stuff.
He knows they’re unbreakable. You can’t break in. And he had called me because he had… They couldn’t get the ATVs in quick enough and it was a critical situation with somebody that they were found, but they were like an hour and a half up and out in the middle of nowhere. And Mike’s got some pretty extreme… Well, his Wranglers, his rescue Wranglers are really extreme. So he went bashing through trees and the whole bit.
And I said to him, I said, “Can you polish them off for me?” I said, “Yeah, you know I can do that.” So actually they’re being sent back probably tomorrow because he had also told me some good news. He said that there’s some lighting company that he has on this thing because they’re out rescuing at night and he’s got all this wild spotlights set up in the works. Sure.
His vehicles, we got to the SEMA show this year. So he said, “Yeah, it’s going to go out to SEMA and whatever.” And I said, “Mike, that’s cool because it’s not a pretty baby, but SEMA’s becoming where they kind of like the stuff that’s really used and that it doesn’t look so fake-ish and renditious.”
So anyway, I said, “Well, the trees shouldn’t really scratch.” He said, “Well, I really bangs.” Where’s the drill?
It wasn’t his relamp.
Well, no, I mean, he has the guide things. He said, “I even broke some pretty damn big branches that I thought would not break.” And they were banging up and over. So he says, “Yeah.” He says he’s got some light scratches. But yeah, all we’ll do is this material. It’s like a car paint to his ring. We’ll just wet sand them out and buff them out. And they will look new, tell… This material does not oxidize. And oxidation is from UV rays, from being on the sun. This stuff was invented in 1933, Roman Haas, a German company, but in New Jersey.
And it’s designed to be out in the weather. That’s the great thing about this material. It’s not like a headlight lens that once it starts degradating, oxidizes.
I think that’s an important thing to mention.
No, it goes to hell. You can buff your headlight lenses back out, but then you get more UV rays in about four months. They’ll look like shit.
And it gets more UV rays because it’s flat up against the sun. So it gets more UV rays.
Correct. I mean, you have a big enough issue with headlight lenses that are at about…
Most break 30 degree angle, but most… So the UV rays aren’t whacking them. So just think now how bad and quickly you see them get. Now they say, “Oh, let’s stick it right up on the top up here.” Anyway,
but our material, someone made that comment. Polycarbonates are pretty cheap compared to what ours is. This impact…
It’s aircraft window material. I mean, it’s not like something you can go to Home Depot or even go online and find it. It’s at a 65% mix.
It’s designed. You know, all in all, this sounds like it’s really… You’re selling just this fantastic product that’s installed very well. OEM Plus.
It’s infinitely refreshable.
It’s cheap compared to what all the stuff that you’re done to it. I mean, that’s the other… So you’re kind of doing the Elon Musk thing. You’re improving the process and keeping the cost down.
It’s pretty expensive. And I’m going, “Well, you get what you pay for,” which with us is probably… That’s a snarky thing to say to people. But honestly,
having been in the sunroof industry all my life, all these costs are completely optimized. I get these snarky asshole… Excuse me. That get on the Facebook and they go, “Well, I went on your site and I see these prices.” Well, you idiot. Do you know what a factory top costs? If you look at some of the prices and really shop the prices, quite honestly, we don’t make anything at all on the JLs and the Gladiators and the JTs. We pretty much sell those tops at cost. And a few of the savvy people have said, “You’re way below list if I take the price that you charge just to process mine versus getting this plus.” And I go, “Well, yeah, we technically really shouldn’t be doing that, but then you could… The Chrysler doesn’t get mad at us because then it’s kind of like that we’ve… They look at it like we didn’t stick to a map price, but we’re discounting our straight price.” It’s all kind of how you look at it. Yeah, I’ve actually entertained marking up the tops themselves, but
I optimize this all out to be the fairest as you can be, but these days, everybody thinks that somebody’s doing smoke and mirrors to try to tear your eyes out and go on like, “Well, if you know how long these things took to make and you know that we’ve got a five-year 50, you will not find anybody.” And quite honestly, we put a five-year 50 on it because
they will last the life of the top, as I started saying before, if you take the time to maintain them and just don’t put any funky… The funny part is these days, someone takes the time to call. I mean, you look for our warranty information and if you look for our maintenance information, it’s out there, it’s on the site and whatnot. But I’ve had people over the years, “Rainix.” I love Rainix. I’m an old racer from way back when. Guess what? Rainix, if you’ll read a bottle of Rainix, it says it destroys rubbers and plastics. They tell you that if you put it on your car, if you’ve got moldings, don’t get the Rainix on there because you get it on there more than once. Well, guess what Rainix did? They now make Rainix that’s meant for plastic.
But I started saying this, I had a gal out in Vermont who’s, oh my God, she’s an old, old customer now.
And Anne, what was interesting is she had a stained glass shop in that region up there in the Hoytee-Toyney, Vermont, in the mountains.
Everybody knows her in that region because her stained glass windows are these. Artisan sought after, she’s been doing it that long and she called me up and she said, “Hey, is it all right if my husband keeps putting the Rainix on these?” And we couldn’t figure out why they got funky. And I said, I still remember this day, I said, “Vicki, no, no, no, tell your husband, don’t put.” And then it was about four or five years later, now they make a Rainix for plastic. But yeah, it’s like anything, just use some common sense.
Well, I think a lot of people don’t know the difference between the polymers and glass. And that’s one of the reasons why a lot of TVs get destroyed is because it’s not a glass panel on your flat screen TV, it’s plastic. Different from the G-tops obviously. All right, so now I’m going to feel bad about this and you just tell me, no, we’re not going to do this. But we discussed it about getting a 10% discount. Oh, sure, let’s do it. Let’s pump. All right, all right. So if you’re losing money, now you’re going to lose 10% more. So for a limited time and thank you for watching all the way to the end to get to this point, you’ll get 10% discount. Was it 10, Chris? Did you say 10 or was it two?
And what will probably end up happening depending on how they do their shipping or whatnot, they’ll end up getting free shipping or they’ll end up getting some consideration. Right. All right. You know, the one thing we didn’t talk, how much time we got yet?
Oh, we got plenty of time. But let me finish this one. You get a 10% discount when you call in, because you have to call in and order a set of G-tops for your Jeep. And this is for JKs, JTs,
and JLs that enclose the JLU of course, and use the code JTS for Jeep Talk Show. G-tops is just really simple. JTS G-tops. All right, Chris, go ahead and say what you’re going to say.
Well, you talked about the tinting and we sell the shades a la carte. And the reason we sell the shades a la carte is we get, I’ve had some people in some of the hottest places in the world say that, you know, they get under them and they go, my God, the tinting is fantastic. And well, it is 99% of the UEB and the UVA is filtered.
So that the heat gain and whatnot, it’s not there like people think. Now, I don’t know. It really isn’t. Yeah, it’s not out.
Yeah, I mean, the efficiency of that, you know, or I should say the properties of that material, you try to get people to understand because right away they’re associating with some tempered sundress glass that they had in their Cadillac or their Lexus.
Yeah, they think it’s going to be just a horrible.
Which is a fairly different thing with any glass or even these idiots that are doing the these big plastic drums.
The coating is on the underside with this material, the UV inhibitors and the tinting is within the material. It’s inside of the material. So what’s happening is it’s filtering. So the ambient light coming in is much softer. It doesn’t have that squinty feeling, right, is the best way to describe it. But in some cases we get some people that,
and sometimes I think it’s kind of their perception more than more than anything, but we have the Tesla shades. And when I say Tesla,
if you get in a new Tesla, it is the identical fabric because it comes from the exact same manufacturer that makes them for Tesla.
And it mutes the light out
because it’s a fabric matrix shade. You can still see through them.
Right.
But it knocks down the light. So it kind of, it doesn’t block the light. It just makes it less. My wife, we went to meet her parents.
We can make them so they block complete. We have a template that we can take another piece of material and it’s a felt and it doesn’t make it any heavier.
I wouldn’t go that direction because they’re like feather light.
Yeah. The mesh, the mesh, it was really nice. You maintain the vision out the top, which is why you got them. And it does knock it down quite a bit, but we were going to meet my wife’s parents yesterday to eat. And she says, I’m going to put my panel in because the light has bothered me. And it really has to do with where the sun is. If it’s up above you and that light’s coming in, the sun can be very bright.
Yeah. Yeah.
And she pops it out.
On Tony, she popped hers in and you could still not pop your, you use.
Yeah, absolutely. And I figured why she got them. I’d put them in. Now I will mention this. When you get these tops, if you do get these tops, the panels, the Tesla panels, you need to mark them passenger
and driver because it’s a weird shape and they both look like they’ll fit either one, but they’ll only fit one way.
No, they will fit either one will fit either one. It’s just a matter of remembering to take the pop out the pop down tab, the little tab that you grab,
whether you fold it around this way that if you look Tony, they’re both identical.
Oh no, I understand. But I mean, yeah, if you want the tab, yeah, if you want the tab hanging down without folding it around anything, there’s a left and a right. That’s the way we do it. She actually marked it, but she put left and right. I told her it should have been passenger and driver.
Yeah. See, we made them only, see, you got the tab here. And so if you pop it in
passenger side, the tabs hanging down, right?
Now, if you go to put it on the driver’s side, because you just pull the tab around to this side when you pop it in. Because we didn’t bother to tell the solar to so one on one side and one on the other, because they’re, you know, they’re, they’re identical and people want to know how these things are there. There’s a, there’s a spring steel in here and that’s what keeps the shape.
Yep. They’re very light, very easy to install. I was sitting at a red light. Yeah. I was sitting at a red light yesterday when I, she popped hers in and I went ahead and popped the one mind in as well while I was sitting still. So this is a good time to talk about other products. We were kind of talking about it because one of the other products are the Tesla shades and they are not made for Teslas. They are, if you’re familiar with the Tesla shades, they’re the, the, the basically exact same thing, but made to fit your, your G-top inserts. So one of the things that I’m very interested in, and we haven’t talked about it all is you can get a, a G-top for the main top, which is a panoramic insert, which is just amazing to me. And if you’ve got kids and in some cases, one of your customers wanted it for their, for their dogs. Can you see it, Tony? Oh, absolutely. That is huge. That is a huge thing that you can see out of.
How does, I’m just trying to, I’m actually, this first time that you’re interviewing me in the shop, I’m in the, I’m in the office or I’m actually in the waiting room, but yeah. Okay. Well that worked good. Then you, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, and those things, it’s just amazing. And to have the complete treatment for your Jeep, I think would just be amazing. Just think about how it would look for people that were in the back seat. And I’m thinking about the, the days of drive-ins, that would be an easy way to get the, your date in the back seat. Wouldn’t it, Chris? Oh, you got to see the, the panoramic from the back seat.
Oh, and then, and then she’s going to have something to look at. She’s going to have something to do. Yeah. If her legs are in the air, she’s actually going to not be looking scary.
Yeah. And you tell them, just keep your feet off the, keep your feet off the Jeep tops, please.
See the stars. And if they’re, and if they’re that, if, you know, if you still happen to be at the drive-in and there’s some neon over there, maybe you can look out and see some neon up.
All right, Chris, I think we covered it all. We, we talked about what a Jeep top is. People should know what that is. We know how long they’ve been made since 2008, but you’ve been doing tops for a lot longer than that.
And we, we talked bad, we talked bad about other manufacturers. So we checked that box off.
We’re approaching, Tony, we’re approaching 6,000 units out in the world. Oh, interesting. And, and if people thought that they leaked, I’ll bet, you know, they, they, they, they would see people complaining online by now, I would think. Yeah.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
6,000 units out in the world.
Although we have been mixed up with a couple of these other snarky fly-by-night things.
Oh yeah. There was one actually using this, the similar shape too. So I, I know that was, that was a bit irritating, but I’ll just mention, I’ll just mention really quick. I have a set of G tops in the freedom panels and the 2021 Jeep talk show gladiator. I don’t make modifications lightly. I was lucky enough that Chris sent me a set of G tops to drive to EJS this year and just thoroughly enjoyed them. It made it very easy for me to decide to send my freedom panels to him.
And it was, and Chris has advertised with us here on the show a couple of times. So we do do, he has had paid for motion here on the show.
And, but I, I’m not number one. I mean, yeah, we’ll do ads. But if I don’t like something, I don’t care what it is. I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. And I am about these G tops. They’re wonderful. They’re OEM plus. And we’re not certainly not being paid for this interview, Chris, unless you want to send me a little, send me a little money or something.
And not, and not only is, is, is this in the Jeep talk show gladiator, Chris, the Jeep talk show, Chris has a set in his new gladiator and he is loving the hell out of them. I don’t know. I know Chris calls you occasionally, Chris, but I don’t know if he told you that he was showing them off to several people at Toledo Jeep Fest. And here recently in the wood, was it wood way park run or something? It’s up there in your area. The thing that Jay Leno and stuff goes to. But, but he was showing that off to several people and they were amazed. I mean, a lot of people aren’t aware of this product or if they are, they may be getting confused with the, with these other ones they’ve heard bad things about. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing the interview today is to make sure you as a Jeep talk show listener is getting the inside scoop as to why these things are really good. In fact, and I love dropping a Greg Henderson.
In this special flagship episode of the Jeep Talk Show, Tony is joined by Chuck, a fellow host from the show, and Greg, host and owner of Unofficial Use Only. Together, they dive into discussions about Jeeps, the Jeep industry, and the amazing products created by Unofficial Use Only. Don’t miss this episode packed with expert insights and Jeep enthusiasm!
Hi, boys and girls, it’s time for another Jeep talk show and we’re talking with Chuck and Greg. I probably should have started with Greg because you’re on the screen. If you’re not watching us on YouTube, you should, because it’s always fun to see what’s going on as well as hear what’s going on.
Greg, thanks for being here today. Man, so you sound like you’re right there by the road.
Yeah. So, and it’s hilarious because I’ve got 20, you know, 20 acres, which is nothing in Chuck’s world, but I got 20 acres and normally I’m in the shop or I’m way at the back of the property, but today Verizon was not fruitful and Verizon did not want to cooperate. So my internet signal was abysmal and I ended up driving all the way up and I’m sitting in the front yard about 50 feet from the road just to make sure that I have a good clean signal so that I can have a little bit of fun with the Jeep talk show today.
That’s great. And Chuck, you’re actually working today, but you’re out in your shop for lunchtime, right?
Yeah. I sent the guys to lunch. You and Greg reached out to me and said, let’s do a show right quick. So I said, hell yeah. I don’t, obviously I don’t miss too many meals. So missing a lunch is not going to be that big of a deal. So I come out here and had some learning experience. My hearing aid was not working right. And then the phone overheated and we’re having a blast today already. We’re halfway through lunch.
And just so people know, it’s not, you’re not, you don’t have the hearing aid because you’re old. You have a hearing aid because you were in the army defending us and our freedom and all the rifle shots and stuff took a toll.
Yeah. The joke is, is that I dropped my hearing and lost it overseas. So yeah.
Well, thank you for your service. I’ve told you that many times.
But it says important day for it.
Yeah. That’s right.
That’s right.
Yeah.
I’m looking in your background there, Chuck. And I got to tell you that I am envious of that Jeep you’re sitting on your hoist. I know your dad’s standing next to you, but the one on the hoist just gives me a warm and fuzzy. That’s the Jeep that not only won the war, but created the life that we all strive to live today.
A lot of new Jeepers don’t even understand what the hell that thing is. And that’s just beautiful.
I’m going to unplug my phone here. I know the YouTube thing is not going to like this, but I’ll actually show you. So that’s a that’s a 46 CJ two A and the Jeep that won the war. I don’t know if I can see it is that one that’s up there. That’s a that’s a 44. OK. So that’s called a nine slap. That’s a nine slap Jeep. And that is a Ford GPW. And they and that one that’s behind me on the horse.
That’s my son. They bought 336,000 of those Ford ones.
I don’t know how many they made.
I might be wrong. I might be wrong. But I think it was 336,000 that Ford was forced to make because Willys couldn’t make enough and the government told that you’re going to make them. And Ford was such an amazing dude. Like he decided he wasn’t taking parts from anybody. He made all his own parts even stamped his little ideal sized F on every nut and bolt. I mean, it’s a pretty cool thing.
If I if I may, Tony, I might walk off screen and I can show you what the grill of a 1941 looks like.
Go right ahead.
We love it because Ford because Ford Ford is the one that designed the Jeep grill because the Willy’s Overland grill was too hard to make. So let me let me come over here to the other side of the shop. I’ve got a 41 that we’re rebuilding over here. Let me let me snag the grill if I can. Boy, I hope I can find it.
Yeah, take your time. I’ll just mention it right real quick.
Chuck has recently embraced the plastic Jeeps as he called them and has a I think it’s a 2023 gladiator gladiator
Mojave.
Yeah. And it’s he’s been having a lot of time, a lot of good time modifying that. Hey, Greg, you’ve been helping him with that, right?
Yep, I helped a little bit. He’s got one of our prototype bumpers on it and we helped him with the winch and we’ve got some wheels on order. But for some reason, they’re not they’re not available to ship yet. But it’s a pretty cool wheel. It looks like an old CJ wheel. It’s made by Quadratec. So those are on order. But yeah, Chuck’s Chuck’s been having a blast. But honestly, those those original ones are so special. And a lot of people don’t realize how special they are.
I grew up in the same area as Mark Smith,
which is Mark Smith. Of course, the grandfather of jeeping was out of Georgetown,
which most of my dad’s friends were friends with Mark. And growing up, you kind of knew all of these guys, and I was privy to those jeeps back then, you know, and to be able to take dad’s jeep, you know, which is this black one. I don’t know if you guys can see it. To wheel with Chris at EJS was something special for an old farm kid like myself, right? Because those guys are really… they were my heroes, right? Mark Smith and those boys. It was absolutely amazing, tough as nails guys.
And I cannot find… Greg, I fucking lost that damn grill.
No, it’s there. You’ll find it. It’s probably under a jeep or it’s in the back of the one on the hoist or something. But yeah, so Edla, one of the cool parts and one thing that I love about it is the hoods absolutely caved in, right? I mean, it is just buckled.
Yeah, so I noticed that first thing when I saw that jeep.
And he debated when he first got it, should he replace it and should he straighten out the metal and bring it back to its former glory.
But that rollover happened on one of the expeditions, right? So it was on the expedition, it rolled over, it crushed it. I think it was when they were crossing the Darien Gap. But you just don’t fix that, right?
For anybody who’s watched the movie Cars, right? And Mater got little dents and dings and he was telling Lightning McQueen about how that made him who he is, right? That’s all Edla, right? It’s the whole front end’s caved in, but the thing still runs and drives and drives great.
Why would you change that? That’s like fixing one of these scars that I have. There’s no reason, every scar has a story and Edla definitely tells some stories.
I think I might switch this thing around.
So I mean, Greg, you’ve been in the driver’s seat of this jeep. This is a 1974 CJ5.
It’s a…
It looks like it hasn’t had a bath since it came home from Moab.
It hasn’t, it hasn’t. I parked it, I put new gas filler neck in it and we’re putting a new carburetor on it now.
So Chuck got famous with all the Jeep talk show listeners and I think the gone Jeep in people with the amount of fuel he was dumping while he was driving that thing around at the EJS.
He was just trying to wash the dust off the trail for the people behind him.
I was actually being considerate, it’s the same fossil different fuel and I heard that there was going to be dinosaur bones out there. Here it goes. I was just giving back their children.
But when I rebuilt this, this Jeep, it’s a fleet vehicle. There’s one upgrade in this Jeep. It’s a black on black CJ5. Everything is manual, but it came with a V8 from the factory. It was ordered that way.
It’s a single family Jeep. My dad’s been the original owner since 1974, but it’s been rolled a couple times, right? It did the Rubicon. It did the first one through 20 midnight Rubicons. Never missed a single one. It was there every single year.
And people don’t know what that is. It’s a Jeep event thrown by the Dirty Dozen Jeep Club. They’re out of Sacramento, California and they do the midnight or at night.
Excuse me, they do the Rubicon at night, which the Rubicon trail in the daytime is hard enough and these old bastards decided to leave the spillway at midnight Friday night and then get into the Rubicon Springs on Saturday, which is just a whole different thing of itself. But when I rebuilt it, I left the scars where he had rolled it and he actually got in an accident with it and rolled the whole windshield and everything down on the lap of the passenger.
And when I took it to the body guy, I said,
“Don’t get rid of the memories. Just smooth them out a little bit, right? Make it not so harsh.” And when I drove to surprise mom and dad, they were actually up on Loon Lake, which is the spillway of the Rubicon. I drove their Jeep all painted, new motor, everything’s pretty and they started crying as they went through and they were holding their hands on, “Do you remember when we rolled this? Do you remember when Willie Meyers hit us with this thing?”
The scars meant more to them than the fresh paint and the new tires and the new motor. It blew their mind that I didn’t erase 45 years of wheeling. And I firmly believe in, “Yeah, you want your Jeeps to be nice and pretty and pristine, but you can’t get rid of Edla’s hood.” Because that’s her, that’s her soul. And the same with this thing, it’s the Jeep soul to have all those trail remembrances.
Well, I think this is one of the things that people, maybe people don’t get about the Jeep thing. It’s the memories. It’s not necessarily the Jeep itself. The Jeep is integral into making those memories, but it’s the riding off road with people and having these experiences. We sat around a campfire there at EJS that was wonderful. That I guess really the only person we were missing was Greg.
And but it was a great time. We had about 10 or 15, maybe 20 people all sitting around the campfire. And I’ll remember that for a good long time. That was just a wonderful situation of actually being around an open fire and this bullshit with people about Jeep stuff that we’ve been doing at Eastern Jeep Safari.
Right. Yep.
Yep.
So Greg, you started you started with CJ’s. You said your first Jeep experience as a child was a CJ. What was this now?
Yeah. First Jeep experience as a child was in a CJ.
I don’t remember exactly who it was. I’m fairly certain it was one of my uncles had a CJ and we lived way up north in Michigan. So we lived right on Lake Michigan in the northern part of Michigan. And my uncle would come over and pick me and my dad up and we’d go to the beach and it was always a twofer. So we’d go to the beach because my dad needed to fill 55 gallon drums with sand so that he could sandblast on the cars he was working on. And my my uncle would have me swim out into the water and find the big Petoskey stones, the ones that you couldn’t carry out. And what’s up?
What’s up? What’s that? What is that?
A Petoskey stone is Michigan State Rock and it’s it’s basically, you know, medieval coral. Right. So it’s it’s coral from dinosaur period and it’s our state rock and they have some value to them. So we know some beaches up there where you can go out and you can find pieces that are the same size as the Jeep. Oh, shit. But but I’d swim out there, you know, like a lot of people pick up ones that you can fit in your hand and that’s what they find on the edge of the beach. But if you swim out to the water where the water is a little too deep for the average person, you’d swim down and I’d find the big ones and I’d wrap a rope around him and he’d use his 82 74 to winch him up the shore. And then he takes then we’d all gather together and put him on a car, hard jacket or whatever we had and load him into the back of the Jeep and then drive back to his place and he’d unload him and he’d polish him and sell him. But that was that was one of my first Jeep memories. And then we did the sand dunes, you know, back then when I was a kid, we’d go to Silver Lake sand dunes or we’d go to the oh, geez, what do they call it? Sleeping bear sand dunes before they stopped allowing cars on it.
You know, now everybody’s so particular, you don’t want to hurt the sand so you can’t drive on the sand.
You can’t bruise the sand.
But but yeah, it’s you know, so that was my first Jeep memories. And then as a as a teen, you know, my dad was always bringing it home. Cool Jeeps, you know, one of ones and one of twos and, you know, prototype things. And because he worked in those departments and but it wasn’t until I was in my early 20s, my wife and I got married and I was driving a 77 Ford F 350 with a big block. And 40 inch tires that it got three miles to the gallon. And the wife told me I needed to get a daily driver. They got, you know, good gas mileage. But I was in construction. And so I wanted a four wheel drive and I wanted something small and nimble. So at that time, I bought my first TJ, which it was a 1998 flame red TJ sport with the four liter and an auto tragic. And that was my new daily driver.
I fell in love with Jeep so fast. It wasn’t funny.
You know, constant, I don’t know, four or five suspensions in the first year and a half and different tire sizes. And like I still remember the very first aftermarket purchase we made and we bought it from Quadratec, which was kind of funny now that, you know, I’ve built Quadratec show cars. But the very first thing we ever bought, my wife purchased it for my birthday and it was a super winch, 9.5 Talon. And I still have that winch. That winch still functions, still works.
And I love it. But and then we bought a poison spider trail cage, which this is definitely weak to talk about poison spider because, you know, Hoot again, just filed Chapter 11 and Hoot again and Neil Perros and all them are all one conglomerate and they own poison spider. And we just found out yesterday that poison spider was just sold for one million dollars to a man who was best friends with Larry McCray, who used to own poison spider.
It sounds awful cheap.
Oh yeah, very cheap.
So, so Clifton Slay is who started Poison Spider and he’s also friends with that group. But and he’s he’s kind of a member of 1941 media with Chris and me and Payway and them. But yeah, so there’s a lot of history there. But but yeah, so my first two mods were Poison Spider Trail cage and the super winch Talon and then multiple suspensions and multiple iterations later.
I probably rebuilt that Jeep almost twice a year for the first six years of ownership.
Yeah.
And then I cut it in half when I started AEV. So professionally, I started working on Jeeps in 2007.
2008, I cut that Jeep in half. I stretched it. I did a bunch of stuff, changed everything. And it’s still in that configuration today. It’s still in Michigan, but I don’t own it.
I know who has it, but he wants way too much money for it. So it’s very hard for me to buy it back.
I wish I could buy my first Jeep back. I had a 59 Willy CJ 5, which is the short fender Willys that the short fender Willys ran all the way up to 1971 or 1970, depending on who you talk to. But God, I wish my first wife, she asked me to get rid of it because I had put a big V8 and a little, it’s like putting a V8 in that thing. You know, it’s like, wow, that’s a lot of horsepower, you know, and had a four speed and 538 gears and really done a lot of neat stuff with that thing. And I think the coolest thing with that Jeep is it had an offset Dana 44, which is a very old school tapered axle thing. But you remember these, Greg, where Willys actually made flanged axle setup for the old tapered 44s? Were you privy to any of that? Nope. Huh? So the old, the old Jeep’s like this one, everything runs right down the passenger’s throat. So your front end and your back diffs are right in line with each other.
And the big deal with these things is it has a two piece axle in the back. It’s a tapered axle with a little totter key, you know, that holds your wheel hub onto the axle, which is fine with a four cylinder and it’s fine with a six cylinder. But when you put a V8 in it and you get on the gas, the tires would stay, but your axles would spin inside of them.
And that’s a bad thing. So I didn’t really want to change, I didn’t have the money to change axles and stuff. So I started doing some research and there was not that much internet stuff, you know, where I didn’t have a lot of access to it. So you called and talked to people.
And Willys, or not Willys, but Warren made a rear hub assembly that turned it into a full floating Dana 44 and you can put locking hubs on the back end of your Jeep as well.
So that Jeep, because it had 538 gears and a four speed, I did have an overdrive in it. So it was eight forward gears and two rear reverse gears. But I can unlock the hubs front and rear and flat tow it because they were free floating tires, free floating wheels.
And it was just a neat as shit Jeep. And my first wife thought that I loved it more than her. So she had to sell it. She did. She did. And that, God, I’ve got pictures of it in my office, of course, but if I could ever find that Jeep again, just the neat shit that we did do it.
I mean, just having that overdrive, you know, a four speed and an overdrive was just phenomenal, you know, in a 59 short fender five, you know, and it had enough power, it could get the front driver side tire off the ground, you know, and it had 538 gears where it would crawl nice and slow.
So, so let me ask you guys a quick question and you can, you can pass on this. It’s probably a Greg question. So you mentioned poison spider and I feel that are, there are several big Jeep providers that are having issues right now. And I think it has to do with several things, not necessarily just the Jeep market, but Jeep itself is having, having problems. You’ve reported on the show that there’s somewhat of like a 21% drop in sales over this time last year. Do you Greg, do you think that the drop in sales for Jeep is affecting these, these third party manufacturers or is it just the economy as a whole?
I mean, honestly, and I’m no economist, but I think it’s the economy as a whole, you know, and we’re spending thousands of dollars more per household a year just for groceries.
Oh, good point.
Than we normally would, right? And everything, right? I have a small shop.
Everything I buy is more than it was a year ago and a year before that and a year before that, you know, all the way down to the steel.
You know, some people say that there’s, you know, we’re, what you see down the news that we only have, you know, five and six and 7% inflation. But you know, my raw steel prices are 200% higher than they were three years ago. So so all of that, you know, in nickels and times to death. And if you’re buying, you know, if your normal monthly expenses cost this much more, it’s a lot harder, even if you’ve got a good job that you’ve been at for a long time. And even if you’re responsible, it’s a lot harder to throw extra money at your stuff. So it’s it’s harder to decide that you need aftermarket wheels and tires when, you know, you need food on the table for you and your kids or your kids need back to school clothes. So I think in general, the because everything is more expensive right now, and you know,
we’re not all getting 40 and 50% raises at work where, you know, most people get their standard one to 3%.
So it takes its toll. And I think that’s taking its toll on a lot of businesses that manufacture stuff.
I mean, I have friends in the in the industry who they’re still making their bumpers and they’re still making other stuff. And even though the cost to manufacture has gone up so much in the last four years,
they’ve only raised their price, you know, 10, 15%.
And and even that is hard to do, right? It’s hard to charge the consumer more when they can they can look at an ad from two years ago and go, well, why was it $300 last two years ago? Well, because I’m spending $600 and more in steel.
Right.
You know, so so I think it’s a trickle down and it all affects. But I know some companies are having a hard time. And and I got to say it this way, too, because Poison Spider, right, it, Clifton Slay started it and he was a mastermind. He he designed and developed just some amazing products.
He wasn’t a great businessman.
He had too many skews. He had too many other things. And he ended up selling the company to Larry McCray, who turned it into an amazing powerhouse in a very short time. Right. In in four years, it went from high quality stuff to high quality stuff that you could get everywhere and everybody wanted.
And then he was going and I don’t know exactly why, but he, you know, he had some medical things and some other stuff and he sold it to four wheel parts and four wheel parts immediately changed. All the people got rid of 90 percent of the workforce,
90 percent of the American employees and started having everything manufactured overseas. And the level of quality went downhill really fast. So people stopped buying it. Right.
You know, so some of these big companies.
That most people don’t even know are owned by corporate corporate conglomerates.
You know, they shot themselves in the foot by taking good quality American made stuff and shooting it overseas to save a few bucks. The problem is, is the consumer realizes that the consumer picks up pretty fast that the part they bought four months ago is now completely different when their friend buys it. And now it’s a piece of shit because it was made overseas and it doesn’t have good quality control.
You know, and I mean, I use poison spiders as an example because I absolutely loved poison spider stuff. I loved it.
They were the crammed out of a friend. They were shit.
Yeah. When Clifton had it and when Larry had it, it was it was some of the best of the best armor and simple to bolt on and good quality.
And then the corporate conglomerate bought it and four wheel parts bought it.
Within six within six months,
it was garbage, right? It was it was low quality steel. It was shitty welds. It didn’t fit right.
And and that killed that company. Right. So but it’s still such a powerhouse name. And I really hope that the gentleman who just bought it for next to nothing gets Larry and maybe even Clifton involved in because it would immediately turn back into a powerhouse.
So and there’s other companies right in this market that,
you know, they stop going to the wholesale. They stop selling it to wholesale. They only sell by themselves. And and they’re still doing pretty damn good.
You know, there’s still companies that have growth.
JCR, which is a lot of people don’t even know, but JCR stands for Jesus Christ Rocks. And it’s a group of boys in Southern Michigan, boys and girls who started in their mom’s garage. And, you know, now they employ a bevy of people and they have their own lasers and their own machines and they’re building new buildings. And now they’re even starting to build some really nice workbenches. But that’s a group of boys, you know, a group of people who started in their mom’s garage, you know, 10, 15 years ago and now make amazing stuff. And they don’t sell to any of the wholesale distributors. They just sell direct.
They basically cut out all the middlemen.
But they’re still making it right here. Right. And there’s there’s a lot of stories like that. You know, they’re not the only ones, but you got to give credit to those guys. You know, yeah, they made mistakes in the beginning. They made mistakes in the middle. They’re going to make mistakes at the end, but they just keep moving forward and they keep doing good stuff.
They have good product, good solid products. And they were they were XJ fans as well. That’s how I got to know JCR is because of their XJ products.
And they still make great. They still make great XJ products.
Yep. And then then later for the TJ, I mean, I’ve got two things on my wife’s TJ that is from JCR.
Yep. And now, you know, like me, I’ve been building custom show cars and people know my name because of the builds that I do. But now we’re getting into manufacturing.
In this flagship episode of the Jeep Talk Show, Tony and Janet discuss the arrival of a new bob after nine months, the exciting Myrtle Beach Jeep event, and the recent halt in Wrangler and Grand Cherokee production. It’s just one of five weekly episodes packed with Jeep news, events, and insights. Don’t miss this engaging episode and make sure to catch all the others!
Two Dallas area nonprofits have partnered together to host the Rubber Duck Regatta and Jeep Festival on Saturday, October 12th at the Harbor in Rockwall, Texas. This family friendly celebration will include several fun Jeep events along with a rubber duck race where a lucky winner will receive a new 2024 Jeep Wrangler.
Mary Walker is here to talk to us about the festival and share with us how we can support these great causes, bring the family out to have some fun and how we can adopt our own ducks for a chance to win.
Mary is the Executive Director of The Grace Clinic which is a nonprofit family medical clinic serving patients in Rockwall County and the surrounding areas. They have partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Texas to host the Jeep Festival and Rubber Duck Race. All proceeds raised will go to help children access proper medical care and developmental programs.
Are you ready?
It’s the Jeep Dog Show Chick Chat with Wendy and Avana.
(…)
(Music)
(…) Well, howdy everybody, this is Wendy and I’m just gonna get right into it. We have an awesome episode of Chick Chat this time. So, Chick Chat’s a place where we celebrate the perfect fusion of style and adventure. Jeeps have long been synonymous with ruggedness, freedom, and the spirit of adventure. And who says women can’t embrace all of that and more? Well, let me tell you, I have a wonderful guest I wanna introduce, Mary Walker. And she’s gonna tell us all about the Rubber Duck Regatta and Jeep Festival in Rockwell, Texas. Coming up guys, you don’t wanna miss this, October 12th. Welcome, Mary.
(…) Thank you, I’m so grateful to be here, I appreciate it.
Yeah, so we wanna learn all about this wonderful Jeep event. So tell us a little bit about it. I know that there’s some ducks involved and some Jeeps maybe, so give us some clue, we’re really super excited.
(…)
Yes, so the Rubber Duck Regatta and Jeep Festival is held at the harbor in Rockwell on Saturday, October 12th. And it is a fundraiser for two nonprofits in the area. One is the Boys and Girls Club of Northeast Texas and the other is Grace Clinic. And they- And there’s both about those. Yeah, so both of these nonprofits help families in the community with both healthcare and educational type programs. And it’s a great way, this is our fundraiser that allows us to raise funds to continue that mission of both of these nonprofits. So it’s a really great fundraiser.(…) And we initially, it began in 2012, and it was just a rubber duck race, a rubber duck regatta. Yeah. And in 2022, we made the decision to take Jeeps and pair it with the rubber ducks, which seemed to be a really popular thing. Absolutely. And so we said, well, why don’t we go ahead and make our rubber duck regatta also a Jeep Festival.(…) And the giveaway back years ago was like a trip to Disney or something like that. And in 2022, we switched it and now it is a Jeep Wrangler.
No, wait a minute. You’re saying you can actually win the Jeep Wrangler? You can- Just for entering the duck race?
Just for entering the duck race. You can win the Jeep Wrangler, a 2024 four-door Jeep Wrangler.
And it’s beautiful.
That’s beautiful.
Now, do the people who are participating have to be there? I mean, could somebody listening from like myself from California be able to buy a duck or two and put it in the race and still win if I’m not there?
(…)
Absolutely. So anyone is eligible in the United States to win.(…) And all you need to do is find your way to Texas and you can pick up your Jeep.
(…)
I love it. That seems like a great deal, honestly. Yes. In fact, in 2022, when we rolled out this first concept with pairing with the Jeep Festival piece of it, one of the Jeep Talk Show listeners that lived in Midland was actually the winner. I remember that. Yeah. He flew in and we picked him up at Love Field and we drove him straight to the dealership and he drove home in his Jeep.
I mean, can you just imagine that story when you tell your kids how you got this Jeep? Hey, I bought this rubber duck. Maybe he bought 10. I don’t know. Maybe he bought one. You could buy as many as you want, right? There’s no limit.(…) There’s no limit. And then he wins. So, rubber ducks would definitely be on his dash all the way across, right?
Yes. He actually sent, I talked to him this week and he said he wanted to send a video just kind of telling us everything about his Jeep that he still has. And he said, it’s very dirty right now. And I said, well, that’s good. It’s supposed to be dirty.
(…)
You’re living it.
Oh my God.(…) So tell me, because I’m really curious, so how does this race actually work? It’s the day of the event.
(…)
You’ve got, I don’t know how many ducks do you have? Do you still have room for people to buy ducks?
Oh yes. So it depends. Every year we have a duck is $10 to enter the race. That’s it? To win a Jeep $10? Yes. In fact, the gentleman who won last year only bought one duck. And that one takes. It only takes one duck. It only takes one.
(…)
So the way that we work is the festival begins at 10 a.m. And it’s a full day of fun. We have two stages. We have live music. We have food trucks. We have this huge kid zone with all types of games and inflatables. And then we have a Jeep zone. And in the Jeep zone, we have obstacles. We have a show and shine. We have an RTI ramp. And we have vendors.(…) And it’s tons of fun. It’s a lot of fun. And then right around 4.30 or 4.45, we make an announcement to start working your way over to the race location, which in Rockwall, where this festival is held, is on the banks of Lake Ray Hubbard in what’s called the Harbor District. And there’s a big movie theater. And in front of that movie theater are these huge fountains. And there are multiple levels that go all the way down to the lake itself.(…) And so at the top of the fountains, we dump the thousands of ducks that people have purchased.
And then just, you know, just the logistics of getting all those ducks. It is interesting. I’d like to see that part. Like how many truckloads do you need to bring to dump these ducks in there?
We rent large trucks.
(…)
Well, and it depends.
(…)
You know, some people, we did this thing on our Facebook page where we said, can you guess how many, you know, what did you check,(…) basically? And one person had guessed over 300,000. And we said, well, we wish because that would be raising quite a bit of money for our organizations. But I will tell you this. In 2022, it was right under 10,000 ducks.(…) And then in 2023, it was actually even a little bit less than that. Wait, that’s not right. Come on now. So the chance is pretty
good for $10. So you’re saying that you don’t have that whole capacity filled with, there’s probably no capacity, right? As many ducks. Now, I also saw that you don’t have to be an individual. You could be a corporation or a company or a business. And you could sponsor probably multiple ducks. And then they could take that Jeep and do something within their own company and raffle it off or donate it back to you guys for next year. That’d be kind of cool too. Not really. That’s the option. And I don’t think so. If you win a Jeep, I think you’re keeping it. At least I think I probably would. Yes. As much as I’d want to donate and help a charity event. Yeah, maybe I’m going to keep the Jeep.
Just keep the Jeep. It’s okay. Just keep the Jeep and then send us lots of pictures because they help.
So once you load them into that top, I’m assuming like a pool, some sort of an area.
The huge fountain. Okay. A really big fountain. And then it pours into another fountain, which then pours into another fountain. And then it just goes all the way down. And then we create this tubing type of finish line. And so they all kind of start working their way into like a triangle, you know, a triangular shape to get into this tube. And then the first one out wins the new Jeep. And then we also have a second prize. Second place gets $1,000.
Wow.
A Visa card, $1,000 Visa card. And then our third place gets a $500 Visa card.
That is amazing. So I’m also curious, how do you, so if I buy a duck,(…) how do you put my name on it? Or how do you know it’s my duck? Am I giving a number? Am I giving a code? How does that work exactly?
Yes. So all ducks have a number on the bottom of them. And your number is not assigned until right before the event, because we don’t want to throw one through 100 in first. And then, you know, so we do, we close off the duck sales.
(…)
And then we do a randomizer and we randomly assign the numbers to all of the purchasers. And then at that point, we take the ducks that are up till that number. Because we have 25,000 that are sitting there waiting to go in, but we never know until the very end. How many do we have?
Well, I think we need to push for that. This would be awesome for 2024. I don’t care what’s going on in the world right now. It’s $10 people. We’re going for 25,000. So spread the word, let everybody know. You got to participate. I mean, no one would win a Jeep for crying out loud.
Yeah.
(…)
And so we have you, you would end up being assigned a number that coincides with the number on the bottom of that duck. And so once the, once the ducks go through the finish line, we grab them and it’s all videoed. Uh, we’re, we’re streaming live. So even if you are in California, you’ll be able to participate as if you were here with us. And, and we’ll see who the, who the winner is in live, live on streaming.
Yeah. Well, that’s gotta be super exciting to be there in person. If you happen to win too. I mean, can you imagine the screams? I would be yelling so loud that everybody would know that I want it. So I had this vision when I, when I kind of looked at this, your website and kind of saw what you guys were doing and all the different events, which are fabulous. I’ll talk about that in a moment, but I was kind of a visual like, how do you make the ducks move with somebody back there blowing on them to move them? Are you guys splashing water on them to move them? Or is it like you said, a fountain and then the water’s just sort of making it happen?
Yes. So the fountains features themselves push that water. They propel that water over each level. And so the ducks just go for a ride.
Yeah. They’re just hanging there.
They’re just hanging there. And we call it a race, but that’s being friendly to the duck.
(…)
I mean, they’re not racing. They are floating for sure.
(…) They’re just kind of hanging out. Hey, let’s go for a little, oh, look, I’m going on another level. This is so much fun.
Yeah, they kind of tumble, tumble, tumble and, and, and it’s fun to watch because you know, it’s, it’s, it’s lots of fun to see thousands of ducks go tumbling over the different levels of
the fountain. I bet. So how many levels are there?(…) I want to say there’s four.
Okay.
(…)
If I’m, I believe, yes, there’s four. That we use one more at the very bottom, but that goes into the lake and so we don’t, we cut it off.
Yeah. And then you collect all the ducks and all the paraphernalia and make sure that the water is clean and all that so people can rest assure.(…) And then are you, you’re reusing those ducks then I guess, right? If you have them already numbered. So that’s kind of cool.
Every year we, we clean up and we leave it better than we found it. And you repurpose. I love it. Yes. And we dry them out for a couple of days and then we put them back in storage for the next year.
That’s amazing. So this is on October 12th. You do you need to pay to come to see this? It’s a free event. Free event. They come and check out the Jeeps. Come and it sounds like you have a, is an obstacle course where they can drive their own Jeep on. Yes.
Or is it okay?(…) So we have, we have three different obstacles that they can try. And so they aren’t really all part of a course. So you aren’t, if you get on and you don’t want to try one, you don’t have to. You can just drive past it.(…) But it’s, it’s three small different, you know, just it should be what we’ve been told is that any Jeep can do it if they’re, if they’re comfortable with doing it. And so yes, we have that and the show and shine are all in one big parking lot that we call our Jeep zone. And then the edges of it are covered in Jeeps that are stacked on top of each other and
(…)
the live music and vendors and, and food trucks. It’s lots of fun.
Well, that’s amazing. It sounds like a really good event and family oriented because I noticed too, on your site, you had things for the kids to do. So tell us a little bit about what you can do if you’re bringing kids to this event.
(…) So because it’s close to Halloween, we have incorporated some fun new things this year.
(…)
Those part of our part of our show and shine, one of our categories categories is called booty fall. And so it’s an opportunity for the Jeepers to decorate their vehicles in the Halloween styles. And so the kids love that because I
can only imagine how crazy some of these Jeepers are going to be.
These Jeep owners are creative. We are. We definitely are. Oh my gosh. It is so impressive to watch and see, you know, these huge, just, I mean, there’s liquid smoke. There’s really 50 foot skeletons. There’s just, it’s so great. It’s insane.(…) So we have that, but we also have a trunk or treat. So those that are participating will also be given candy so that they can give that out to the kids that are coming around. And then we also have the live music and the kids tend to like to dance and play and have all of that. But then the best part is what we call our kids zone. And in our kids zone, we have huge inflatables. We have lots of games, things they can compete. We have a mechanical bull.
(…)
We have a face.
Find me up right there. I’m ready.
We have a face painter. And then we also have many Jeep races.
(…)
So we have five mini Jeeps and children with a helmet are allowed to kind of race around a track that we have created. So it just gives kids of all ages something really fun to do.
That sounds exciting. I think you need to make that for adults next time.
I insist on the mechanical bull because I said people like that.
That’s a lot of fun. But I could just imagine getting in a little sort of mini Jeep and going at it like little go carts kind of a deal. I don’t know. You could maybe start another section called the adult that wants to be a kid zone. Yes. Yeah. So fun. So now you’ve been doing this since you said when you guys started 2012, you said.
So the boys and girls clubs of Northeast Texas, this they began this event in 2012. Okay. And then we partnered with them in 2022 and incorporated the Jeep event at that point. So when I say we I’m the executive director of Grace Clinic. Okay.(…) When we partnered in 2022, we just added to an event that they were already doing for the last several years. It was their 10 year and we added the Jeep festival. So it was it was quite a party.
Yeah, but that’s quite an undertaking too. When you merge two organizations, plus you’re already doing an event. I mean, I’ve been involved in some different types of events and it’s a lot of work. So I applaud you. You must have a great team and you know, people that help you. And I’m sure you have, which is typical of any corporation in any kind of a setting of somebody wants something one way and someone else wants it the other. And then you got to come to the middle. It turns out to be an awesome event. But that like you said, the stress level of getting into it and you’re coming down to the wire here. You’ve only got a couple of weeks before this event. So it’s a minute. Get it going.
So it is where we’re game time now. And we’ve been blessed to work with each other. We get along fantastic. It’s just been it’s bringing two different skill sets as far as our team, the Grace Clinic team and then their team. And so it just works really well. And we kind of all have we kind of are a well oiled machine at this point. Yeah. But I will tell you this, we could not do this without the volunteers. So we have people that are in the Jeep groups that volunteer with us and they run different parts of the event itself. And so we just we wouldn’t be where we are without without the amazing Jeep groups and the other organizations that are in our town that help out.
So I can I can kind of understand that I belong to a smaller, much smaller four by four club out here in Big Bear. And we did an event to try to raise funds because we donate obviously like you guys do not on that same scale, but we still did. And it was all hands on deck. And it was you just need all the people that are in the club. And then you realize, wow, we need like a bigger amount of people for this club because you need people in all different spots. And when you’re doing a run, we did like a poker run. So you had to go to different locations stuff. So yes.
(…)
Anyway, it was it was amazing because you saw how the volunteers come together. You saw how everybody works together for that common goal. So I love hearing that people are helping you. And obviously, was the Jeep donated by dealership or something?
(…) No. Oh, that’s our goal. So if anyone knows anybody, that’s our goal. But at this point, our our title sponsor is Rockwall Dodge.(…) And they have given us a fantastic deal on our Jeep. And they’ve also they’re also a sponsor. They’re our title sponsor of this event. And then our Jeep this year is a little different than it’s been in years past. OK.(…) We have one of our other sponsors is Platinum Offroad.
(…)
And it is run by Mike Etherington. And he has partnered with TerraFlex and Nitto tires and Falcon Shocks and Rockwall Dodge. And they have modified this Jeep. And here we go. She began pretty and now she’s even prettier. Yeah.
Now she’s got some possibilities. And yes, I think she can do off road.
(…)
She has 35 inch wheels and tires now.(…) And then she lifted. She has Falcon Shocks. I call her a she.
(…)
That’s OK. You can do that.
(…)
So this Jeep is beautiful. And it’s a it’s a four door and the color is granite crystal. And it’s got pretty gray. Mm hmm. Black interior.(…) And now it’s lifted with a nice suspension and shocks. Can you tell I don’t really know a lot. You know what?
Because we want to send people to your site. Do you have a website or do you have a place where they can go to first off to buy ducks? I’m going to encourage everybody listening at least by one duck. You got nothing to lose. It’s ten dollars people. Come on. Yes.
Where do they need to go?
(…)
Go to Rockwall Duck Race dot org.
(…)
Rockwall is the town that we are in, which is the east of Dallas. So Rockwall Duck Race dot org. And you can adopt your ducks there. And we actually created a discount code for Chick Chat.
Yeah. I love that. We love discount codes. OK. All right, people. Listen up. Here you go.
So you can get 10 percent off of any number of ducks. So we have we have Quack Pack, which would be a five pack or an anniversary pack, which would be a 10 pack. And you can get 10 percent off of all duck purchases by putting in the promo code J.T.S. as in Jeep Talk Show. J.T.S.(…) Chick Chat. So that’s J.T.S. Chick. C-H-I-C and chat. C-H-A-T.
J.T.S. Chick Chat. Well, that’s such a great offer that you’ve done for us. So all of our listeners, we need to do it. I mean, let’s be supportive. We’re going to support both of these organizations. Let’s show them our support from the Jeep Talk Show. I love this. I can’t wait. Gosh, I wish I live closer. I would love to come watch this because now I’m so excited how those ducks make it all the way down. That’s just so interesting to me.
So it’s great. It’s a lot of fun. And the edges of the fountain become quite full. That are there. And then our Facebook and Instagram page becomes quite full of people that are ready for the streaming of what we’re doing. And so it’s a fun day. And the weather is beautiful.
(…)
And it’s, knock on wood, the weather will be beautiful.
I was like, wow, you can predict that right now? I am all going. I mean, come on.
I put it out there.
Well, it’s cooler in Texas by October, isn’t it? Yeah, you don’t have the humidity either, right?
(…)
Right. And Dallas, it will be a really, I mean, last year, if we were to base it on last year, it was October 14th last year and it was a perfect, perfect Saturday. So this year is October 12th and I’m putting it out there. It will be a perfect, perfect Saturday.
I think it’s going to be and we’re going to send that images. So let’s talk a little bit about what you do for fun when you’re not involved in this race. Do you have a Jeep yourself? Do you off-road a little bit? I know.
(…)
I wish that I did. I really, really do. In fact, I’ve got a 14 year old who we’re in the conversations now about his first car. Yeah. And I thought, I would really like to get him a Jeep. Yeah. And then I thought, or I could just give him my car and I get the Jeep.
I like that idea better.
I did too. I did too. So, but at this point I do not, but I am in all of the Jeep clubs and I know lots and lots of Jeepers and it’s just such an amazing group of, of just giving and kindhearted people. Yeah.
It’s amazing what the community does. I mean, from helping people to these kinds of organizations, like you said, you have people coming from all over to help you.(…) Do you get to go on any of the Jeep runs with these clubs that you belong to? Have you been in someone else’s Jeep and rode some of those trails?
I have been in other people’s Jeeps, but I have not been on any of the trails at this point.
Well, I think it’s time to up your game. I think you need to connect with somebody and say, I was told by this other girl from California who said, Hey, I need to go out on a trail run. I think I need to go on a trail and go experience it because once you do, I think that’ll make your decision that your son’s getting your old car and you’re going to get the new Jeep.
I think you’re right. I think you are right. And I’m not opposed to it. I’m very willing to do it. It’s unfortunately right here in our area. You have to drive at least about an hour and a half to get to anywhere that has some substantial. But that’s
pretty typical, believe it or not. Yeah. Most people even here in Southern California, I mean, we’ve got some great, great trails that we wheel to. I happen to live about five minutes from Gold Mountain, which always gets Tony because he loves that area.(…) Yeah. But most people are driving a good hour, hour and a half to get up to our trails. OK. And if we want to get off the mountain and go to the desert or some other trails, it’s a good hour, hour and a half. So I don’t think that can be an excuse anymore, Mary. I’m sorry. I’m just going to let you have an excuse.(…) That’s fair. That’s fair. I know. I just you pack a lunch. If you listen to the Jeep talk show, I do whole segments and newbie nuggets on when you’re brand new and what to take. So you’ll be prepared. So you can check that out. But for the most part, you’re just going to go and have fun. And if someone else is wheeling, you’re going to get out and watch them do so. And you’re talking major obstacles. You’re just talking about getting on and seeing some beautiful scenery.(…) You have a chance to go through water sometimes. You can trees. Maybe there’s mud in that area. I’m not sure. But you’re just going to have an opportunity to do and see things that you can’t see from the regular car. If that kind of makes sense.
I love it. I love it. I would love to try it. I’ll if anybody, anybody in this listening area is willing to let me ride along. I’m happy to well,
be careful what you ask for because it’ll happen. I know it will. And then I’m going to say, I’m sorry. I know I pushed you to try and you’re going to be like, I want my own Jeep now. I have to buy my own Jeep. Exactly. Well, especially if you bring your son along, he’s going to go, Mom, what are you waiting for? He will think about it, too. You know, you have the opportunity to go anywhere for the most part in those vehicles. Why not? Check it out. Why not? Very cool. So what else do you do for fun other than organizing this this event?
Oh, gosh. Well, I have three kids.(…) So I’m busy. Yes, I have identical twin girls that are nine. I like my kids. Yes. And then I have my 14 year old son. OK. And I play tennis whenever I can.
Good.
And, you know, I’m trying to talk my husband into joining me in a pickleball league.
So it’s fun and it’s very active, by the way.
It is.(…) I typically play tennis mostly, but I thought it would be a good way for he and I to kind of bridge the gap in the skill sets from from tennis to pickleball.
So it’s either that or you’re going to really love each other or not. What?
Right.
(…)
Right.
But I go either way with sports. You know how that goes.
It definitely can.
It’s especially if you’re beating him, it could go a whole other way.
It in the past, it has.(…) So I think your pickleball would be an easier option for us. Cool. But that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. And then we do a lot. I work a lot with the with Grace Clinic and we do this event and we do a couple of other events. And so it’s a it’s a very fulfilling, fulfilling role for me. And so I tend to spend more time here than I probably should.
Well, if somebody wanted to get involved, the Grace Clinic, how would they reach out to you for that?
(…)
They can visit our website at RockwallGraceClinic.org or they can go on our Facebook page or reach out to me directly, which I can provide all of my direct information
(…)
now or or later.(…) You let me know.
Very cool.
(…)
I love that. I just think it’s really nice that you guys are putting on this event. I’m recommending everybody that’s listening to please participate. Even if you live as far as I do in California, I can still buy a duck. And it sounds like I might have a really good chance this year.
So yes, yes, we have
(…)
this year, our duck sales are trending a bit lower,(…) you know, and that just tends to happen in an election year. And, you know, in the economy, I don’t you know, it’s a it’s a challenging time. And we understand that completely. And so things are trending a little lower this year. And so if you are interested, you have a very good chance. You have a very good chance.
I was just going to say, so you’re going to say we have a chance.
Yes, you do. I love your odds are great. Your odds are great at this point. And and with your discount code, you can get 10 bucks for 90 bucks. I love that. Yeah. And and it’s, you know, that’s 10 chances that you’ll have to get the brand new Jeep. I like it.
So is there anything else you want to say about your event?
(…) I forgot you mentioned a poker run and I forgot we have a poker run as well at the event. And so we we have vendors and sponsors. And so the event is in this big area. OK. We thought, OK, how about we do a poker run that is, you know, confined to the event itself and access the cards that you need for your hand, you just visit with other vendors that are on that.
And your vendors must have loved it too, because that’s what they want. They’re spending money to be there. Yeah. I want you to come by and check out their products. I like that idea.
That’s a great idea.
So we’ve got and we have prizes for all of the things that we do, the five categories of the show and shine, the biggest flex on the RTI ramp. Then we have, you know, the prize for the poker run. And so it’s it’s not just a Jeep that we’re giving away. We’re giving away hundreds and hundreds of dollars in prizes for people participating in the fun. So we’ve got some great vendors and some great sponsors out there. So it’s really if you’re in the, you know, the well, if you’re anywhere in Texas, it’s you know, what I’ve learned a lot about the Jeep Group is that they don’t mind driving. They will drive anywhere.
(…)
So we’ve got hotel discounts that are set up and we have it’s just tons of fun. And Saturday, October 12th, come and see us. Then why
don’t you give us the the link again so they can check that out.
OK, so to get to our website, you can go to rockwallduckrace.org and then you’ll adopt your deck there and be sure to put your promo code J.T.S. Chick Chat and you will get 10 percent off of your deck purchases. And you might be driving home in that 20 24 Jeep Wrangler.
That would be awesome. So well, thank you so much for coming on. I love having you. We love hearing about this event. We always want to promote any time we can do that to benefit other organizations. So thank you so much. Thank you. And you guys, thanks for this episode of Chick Chat. I hope you guys have been inspired. Please reach out.(…) Get a duck for ten dollars. You might win a Jeep. I mean, you can’t lose, right? And not you’re benefiting other people. So remember, there’s no limits to what you can achieve when you embrace your passion and fearlessly chase those dreams. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the Jeep Talk Show so you’ll never miss an episode. Remember to embrace the thrill of the off road, embody your own unique style and always keep pushing the boundaries of what you thought possible because anything is possible.
Check out the Jeep Talk Show’s exciting interview with Kim Swartz as she shares her incredible journey visiting all 30 MLB parks in her Jeep! Learn about her adventurous blend of Jeeping, baseball, and working remotely from the road. Tune in for inspiring stories of travel, exploration, and life on the go in her Jeep. Don’t miss this unique adventure!
I deal boys and girls, it’s time for another Jeep talk show interview. And tonight we’re going to be talking with Kim. Kim started planning this adventure, the one she’s currently on, on her way home from her 60th birthday celebration at Jeep beach in 2023. She planned and schemed until all the ducks were lined up. Oh, she got her ducks in a row. I get that one and ready to travel all 30 MLB stadiums, some, and if you don’t know, that’s baseball, some Jeep trails, some of the best sports, some of the Jeep trails, all 48 lower States and any side quests that popped up. It’s like a video game folks. Uh, it’s just her Stacy, the Jeep and her, uh, hammock out there doing the, the Jeep and baseball stuff. You know, it’s funny when I read that Stacy, the first time I was thinking your name was Stacy, but obviously your name is Kim Stacy is the name of the Jeep. Of course. So, uh, oh, and then Moab on her way home. So Kim, had you been to Moab before? Was that your first time to Moab?
I haven’t been yet. The trip doesn’t, my last baseball stadium is Seattle in September. And I’m, I live in Venice, Florida. So Moab is kind of sorta on the way home. So I took some time off work for a couple of weeks so I could do that.
Okay. So are you going back and forth between these things in work or, cause I got the feeling you were just traveling from place to place, uh, this, this entire time.
I’ve, I’ve done it in three legs so far. The first one I did the Texas stadiums and Florida to, cause I, we literally built the Jeep for this trip. And so for the first expedition, I wanted to take it out, try it on a couple of trails, get on the road, put a couple thousand miles on it and bring her back home to my mechanics, my freelance mechanics guys at home. And work out any adjustments that needed to be made at that time.
And, uh, then I took the second leg of the trip, which was up the East coast. And I had to be home for fourth of July. Cause I have family that comes on the fourth of July. And then I left for this leg of the trip, July 10th, and I won’t be home again until probably October.
So I’ve only been to a Moab twice, both times, Eastern Jeep safari. And I always bitch about the 20 hours it takes me to go from Southeast Texas to Moab. You being in Florida, what, what kind of a timeframe or yeah, what kind of timeframe is that that must be close to like 30 or something hours?
I really don’t know because the way I’ve learned so much over the last few months, but the way I’m doing the trip is in segments because you know, the way you eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And if I looked at this whole trip, I would just get overwhelmed.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
So all I did was I bought tickets to the ballparks on the days I was going to be there and I see it. I’ve not planned to drive. I’ve not planned a hotel or a stay or any of that until the day of.
Sure. Sure. Um, so, uh, you, you mentioned, uh, you’re driving your Jeep, you have, uh, the freelance mechanics, would you call them YouTube certified mechanics that, uh, when you said the freelance, because it sounds like they’re not necessarily certified, uh, legally.
No, they are actually the name of the company is freelance mechanics. And the heat is they are, they are actually real mechanics. They’re young and, uh, um,
but they’re, they come to the house and they let me help.
So we’re building it out, especially traveling back like that, because knowing how it goes together is really important for you to know if you hear a noise or you see a problem, how serious it is. And if you need to stop driving and tow it someplace. All right. So, uh, now we, before we got started, I asked you about your Jeep. Tell me about your Jeep again. What, what, what, what, which one is it?
Um, she’s a 2019 JL.
Um, Oh, wow. A very rare two door kudos on getting out. Yeah.
No, I, um, it was really funny when I went to buy, they were like, Oh, you need a four door and you need this. And I was like, you need a hard top. And I said, no, I know exactly what I want. Yeah. Listen to me. And that’s what I got. Yeah.
I may be a girl, but I do know what I want.
So, um, you knew, or was it a used one?
Um, she was used, uh, had it. She’s a 2019 and I got her in 2021.
Okay.
And then we started the build outs in 2020 to 2023.
Is it a, uh, 3.6 liter engine in that one?
Yes.
Okay. Uh, standard or automatic?
Automatic.
Yeah. The automatic is, uh, we’ll make it nice on those long trips. Um, so, uh, the, um, how many miles did you have on it when you got it?
Uh, when I got her, she had like.
Just under 50.
Oh, that’s good. That’s real good. Especially for putting all these miles on it because you want something that, uh,
relatively low mileage. So, um, how, uh, how has it been? Uh, where are all have you been so far?
Okay. So I started in Florida and I did, um,
the Ocala national forest, cheap trail. And then, um,
I did the parks, Miami and Tampa, of course, I’m a season ticket holder for the Tampa Bay race. So I was at all those gangs anyway. And so then I drove to Arlington and Houston and that’s when there were the floods of biblical proportions in Houston. And I’m from the land of angry water. So I was like, what is this?
People don’t understand the kind of flood in the Houston area.
No, we do not. We do. I do now from a personal experience. I really do now. And so then I went home and made a couple of adjustments and got, um,
some things together that I needed for the camping that I wasn’t, uh, two together on before I left the first time. And so then the second time I went up the East coast and I did Baltimore, DC, Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh,
Boston, New York.
Uh, I think that was the entire East coast. And then I came back down and did Atlanta and then was home for a couple of weeks and now I’ve done 23 of the 30.
Have you done this much driving in your, in your life in the past, or is this really some lot, really new long distance stuff?
It’s some new long distance stuff, but I’m trying to, the way I’ve got the parks spread out and my timing between the parks, I’m usually keeping it between six and eight hours of driving a day, if that much.
Yeah, that’s a good idea. So, uh, being in Southeast Texas and again, uh, actually the furthest I’ve ever driven, uh, is, uh, is Moab, Utah, which is like I said, 20 hours earlier. Um, and, um, uh, fortunately, uh, one of the Jeep talks, your team members, uh, was going and he rented a house like for the night. So he, he picks about halfway or about how long he wants to drive the second day. And we went, uh, I think it was Amarillo, uh, last year. And it was, uh, somewhere in New Mexico, uh, this year was that the quote unquote halfway point, it’s a little closer for him, uh, because he’s in Austin, so it’s like a two, three hours closer for him. So that, that first day, my wife and I drove up there, um, to the, uh, to the rent house that he got, and it was, it was a long drive. I think it was like 10 hours and, uh, I drove the entire way and it was, it was a very long drive. Um, but, uh, the other thing I learned, and I don’t know if you do this or not, the other thing I learned again from, from bill was, uh, the, the team member that we had the, they had the rent house, um, is, uh, he only goes, uh, till he gets to half a tank and then when he gets to half a tank, he finds a place to stop and, uh, and get fuel. He says that’s about as, uh, as long as he can go, uh, kidney wise too. So it’s, it makes a good break for, for using the bathroom and getting fuel. And cause I’m the type person where I get down to a quarter tank before I start looking for fuel, uh, and
it can and I have learned this is a tidbit that, you know, I’ve been driving for 50 years. Did you know that gas mileage is affected by elevation? Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, see, I didn’t know that. And so I was like,
leave them Florida. I’m getting 15, 16 up in the, uh, Boston area. I was got like 17, 18 miles to the gallon and I was, I was okay. I can’t trust this. I don’t know how far it’s going to go. So the Jeep has, um, this function that tells me exactly how many miles I have left in that tank. So when it’s get, when it gets to a hundred miles left on the tank, that’s when I started looking for a gas station.
Yeah. Um, I don’t know if you noticed this or not. Uh, this was last year, uh, Bill was in his three 92. I was in the 2021 Jeep talkshow gladiator. Uh, and of course we both, and I think you do too, I have the, the tire pressure, uh, sensors, uh, in the, uh, in the rig. So, uh, we were talking back and forth on the GMRS, uh, about the tire pressures. Cause the, your tire pressure of course goes up as you go up in altitude. Cause there’s less pressure pushing on the tire. And, uh, gosh, we were getting up to around 40, 45 PSI on these off-road tires and I usually run mine at 35 PSI. And it was really funny. And I wonder if that is part of the reason why the gas mileage goes up because effectively your tire is getting harder. There’s less contact patch on the surface of the ground and it, it allows the, to run a little better. I don’t think that’s just yet, but I think that might be part of it.
Well, I talked to a guy cause you know, we’re always talking to guys and he’s about, you know, talk to that guy about the Jeep. And he said that a lot of it has to do with the, the quality of the air and the air pressure and the intake somehow. And I’m like, yeah, whatever. I just know I need to keep it closer out on my gauge.
All right. So anytime anybody is in New York or they went to New York, I have to ask this question. Did you eat any pizza while you were at New York? Cause the only reason I want to go to New York.
It is, it is the law as in when you go to Wisconsin, you have to eat cheese curds. When you go to New York, you have to eat pizza and I’m not a big pizza fan, but I was like, okay, I have to do a New York slice. So at the Mets game, at the Mets game, I did a New York slice and it changed my world.
New York pizza, New York pizza is different. Well, they say it’s the water. It says that they say it’s the water and the dough. That’s what I hear, but it, it hits, it hits way different. So yes, I did.
Yeah. It’s funny.
I got a slice in New York.
Uh, I was up at, uh, EJS last year and I was at the Tyree lights booth and Cole was there and we got on the discussion cause they’re in, you know, they’re from Wisconsin. So I had to talk to him about cheese. I’m a big cheese fan too. Uh, I’m a fat guy. How could I not be excited about cheese? And they were talking about, Oh yeah, you gotta have the cheese curds. You have to have the cheese curds. I went, really?
It’s the law. It is the law. And for some reason I, and I texted several of my friends and I’m like, why does Wisconsin smell so good? I mean, I kept the windows rolled down the entire time because the whole state just, Oh, this is, Oh, you gotta love this. So I’m thinking it’s the cheese.
If, if on your way to someplace, if you go through Amarillo, I don’t think Amarillo has a, a baseball park, maybe they do. Uh, but if you’re, if you go through Amarillo, keep your windows rolled up. Uh, we went through, we went through there twice. It is not a good smell, but it does smell like there are places.
Yes, there are places that you have to keep the windows rolled up and the vents off. So yeah, I found a couple of those too.
So this Jeep isn’t just a Jeep taking you to baseball parks. It’s a, you take it off road as well, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, like I said, that’s what we built it for. I told the guys, I was like, look. This is what I’m doing, but I’m also doing all this too. So I need to do the trails and I’m, and the reason I’m doing Moab on the way back after I finish everything is because I need to finish everything. And I don’t know what I’ll get into in Moab. So if I break down, then that’s where I want to break down and they can just come and get me and haul me home, but I want to get on my baseball parks. Yeah.
So I didn’t do much wheeling this year. Uh, I hated that, but I primarily went to help promote the show and get interviews with people and stuff. So I love getting off road, especially in Moab, but the first year, uh, I did do a lot of off road stuff and, uh, I didn’t have any issues with anything breaking. This year, when I went back, I made sure I had the, the motor built, uh, skid system on the bottom of the gladiator. And so I have used it. Protected everything. Oh yeah. Oh, it’s wonderful. It just, even if you, even if it doesn’t do anything for you, uh, emotionally, it makes you just feel great because you know, you hear your safety net. Yeah. You hear a scrape, you hear a loud noise, you go, screw it. That skid system. That’s what I’m hearing. What do I care? Give it the guys give it to beans.
Well, that’s when I got, when I got home the first time after being, uh, no, we actually, it was the second time. Cause I did some trails in Pennsylvania.
Um, and when I got home, I had the guys look at it again, cause I needed a dead pedal rest and a couple of other things. And, um,
yeah, I did a little damage. There were some scrapes and some Carson and Chris were yelling at me. What’d you hit here? What’d you get? I’m like, I don’t know. It’s a Jeep.
It’s a Jeep. Exactly. And they put, they made the mistake. I say mistake, um, of putting cameras on the front of the Jeep for me.
Well, yeah. So I can see what’s, but the problem is, is when I can see, I have a tendency to go a little too fast and I might catch air, but you know, I don’t have a spot or so they, you know, they put cameras everywhere. So I’ve got cameras on the side and cameras in the front and cameras in the back so I can see what I’m doing and make sure I don’t do too much damage.
So, uh, how long have you had this, this 2019 Jeep?
Uh, three years. Okay. So had you wheeled prior to this Jeep with another Jeep or maybe another off-road vehicle?
Yes. I was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky.
So I grew up off-road and for wheeling and we had this.
So this wasn’t new to you at all.
No, no, I’m trying to get my daughter into it. So she’s got a FJ cruiser.
And so I got her to do a little off-road and last Thanksgiving. So hopefully I can get her more interested in it.
What did she think? Is her FJ built up at all or is it stock?
It’s stock, but she enjoyed it. She had fun. She just, you know, when you’re first starting, you’re a little timid and, you know, you gotta, you gotta work your way up to the big stuff.
I mean, we all are, unless you’re crazy or stupid or both,
especially whenever it’s a vehicle that’s a very expensive vehicle, like an FJ cruiser or even your vehicle is considered to be expensive to go out there and trash off-road, I mean, you do, you do with it what you want to do, obviously. But a lot of people have problems because, uh, you know, it’s like my $45,000 gladiator, I don’t want to, I actually, I had a mandate the first time I went out to EJS, she, my wife says, don’t take it out of there. It’s nice. Don’t, don’t tear it up. Honey, I don’t tear anything up. And if I, if I do tear something up, I fix it.
So, you know,
Well, that’s, you know, a lot of times you’re out on these trails and you see the people that I say they’ve got more money than they do since.
Oh, I see a lot
of them. And so, yeah, they throw, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars in the Jeep and then just drive it off a cliff just to see. So yeah, no, I’m not, I’m not stupid. I’m adventurous,
but not stupid. Yeah. I think a lot of that has to do with impressing the peers and I’m not interested in pressing the peers. If they want to be impressed on, you know, God love you, go ahead. But I’m not going to be doing crazy stuff. Uh, there’s, there’s a reason why they call Jeeps tacos and that’s getting air, uh, because you talk on your Jeep.
That is the germs.
All right. So looks like you have some accents on that, uh, that Jeep. Is it like a silver and purple? I just saw it briefly. I can’t remember.
Yeah, it is the, it’s the billet. Can you see?
Yeah. We got a full screen.
And yeah. And I’ve got great accidents.
Oh, that’s a nice color. Uh, and is that, is that the stock, uh, top of the stop, uh, stock, uh, a soft top, uh, from Jeep?
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And it’s probably going to need to be replaced right after my lab. Oh, really? How come? What happened? Is it, is it just, well, I’ve got it, it is. And I’ve got some little pieces of cloth hanging and it flops a little bit. And I may have got a little wet the other day.
So, um, we’ll see what happens. So are you going to go back with stock or are you thinking about best top or are you thinking about somebody else?
I haven’t really looked at it. It has to be soft.
I can’t, you got all this time hanging out in the hammock and you’re not shopping online. I mean, even if it’s future shopping, I mean, come on.
I’m working. I’m also working full-time on this trip. Yeah. I’ve got a, I’ve got a full-time job and I’m, I’m doing that as well. So it’s not all just driving and laying around.
The view has to be really interesting from the office then. That’s what I’m thinking.
It is. It is. I can, uh, um, send you pictures. Oh good. Yeah, please do. But yeah, they, yeah.
So, uh, were you aware of the show before you and if you Bob met up on Tinder?
No, sir. I was not. So I’m not, I’m not a big social media person at all.
So, so tell me, tell me about the, the F U Bob, uh, uh, U interface. How did that happen? Because I know, I know you’re teasing about the Tinder, but if you’re not, please tell us, cause we could really use some ammo for giving Bob a hard time.
Well, that’s it. That’s the thing. The Tinder, I’ve got a picture of the Jeep on my Tinder app and you know, and you know, my profile is, look guys, I’m traveling around the country.
I want to meet people. I want to see what’s going on. And, um, I got out here and Bob’s, I never swipe first, you know, I, you got to swipe on me first cause you know, I’m, I’m just like that. If you don’t want to meet me, then I’m not going to go out of my way to try and meet you kind of thing. So, um, he swiped and I swiped back and he said something, I think it was nice Jeep. And I was like, okay, so that’s where this is going. All right. So I knew that, you know, he probably wasn’t interested in a date. He was more interested in talking Jeep. So we started talking Jeep.
So let me, let me just mention really quick. I don’t want to screw, screw Bob over, but if Bob’s, uh, profile, uh, has, if he has hair in it, it’s fake. It’s fake hair. But Bob does not have hair.
He does not have hair. Does he have a really nice beard?
You’re asking the wrong person. Uh, he, he does have a beard. Bob’s Bob’s a good guy. As you can tell, we call him F U Bob. So, uh, he actually, he actually has a shirt that says, uh, but has the full, uh, full calorie words on the back of his shirt. Uh, and, uh, yeah, we did he mention about our discord server to you?
He did not.
So, so I don’t know anything about discord.
A lot of things go on. It’s like a 24 by seven chat server where you can just get on there and send text messages back and forth. It’s a, it’s kind of like the Jeep talk show community where we get on there and talk stuff. And of course we talk shit about each other. And that’s one of the reasons why I was looking for ammunition on F U Bob. Cause we’ll, uh, we’ll be using this, uh, to give him a hard time. Bob, Bob’s not on Tinder for a love match. He’s on a town, Tinder for he’s looking for Jeeps.
Well, I did ask him, I said, okay, so, so I need to know.
Where do you want me to be flirty? Do you want me to be professional? I mean, you got to tell me, is this about the Jeep or do you want to go out and grab a drink?
I’m guessing Bob is more into the professional.
You see where I’m trying to strike three for me. No,
no, you don’t want to be a professional woman. Uh, well that’s really funny. So, uh, yeah, we, we, we, we really appreciate that. So, uh, let me ask you this and please, you can, you can answer absolutely. Honestly, have you checked out the show, especially since you have all these hours of driving time with nothing else to do?
Well, I have, and I just, um, I was listening to a couple of episodes. I saw that y’all have the chick. Chick chat. Chick chat. Um, and I listened to a little bit of it and I’ve listened to a couple of episodes. The thing is, is I’ve forgotten how much I hated being read to, you know, when my daughter was little and they bring it, send her home from school and say, she needs to read 20 minutes, I’d send her to a room and shut the door, go read, getting there because I can’t stand for anybody to read out loud to me.
Podcasts are an awful lot like people read it.
It really is. Uh, the, the ones that are very good are certainly like that. Right. Actually one of the, the comments that we’ve had, uh, made to us as far as you need to be a conversational, nobody likes writing the reading type thing. Things. Exactly. That’s what we try to intermingle. Sometimes when we do news stories, uh, there is some reading there, but it’s really, uh, read a little paragraph and then get the host of their host involved in, uh, what they think and what they’re caught, you know, so a basis and conversation, yeah, and then go with the conversation conversations are so much more fun anyway, and you never know what kind of shenanigans that are going to happen when you have a conversation.
Exactly. What’s going to be said and where the conversation is going to go.
You got to be alert. Well, it’s like I tell, uh, tell the host, uh, the, there, you can get any information you want off the internet, Google, you know, just do a Google search on it. The only reason why they’re on a listing to our show is because of who we are. So we have to be who we are and some people aren’t going to like it and some people are going to love it. And that’s just the way of the world. Well, I’m glad you given us a, given us a holler. Are you going to be, uh, listening or giving us a trial listing to some of the episodes, uh, are you going to be listening to your interview or are you one of those, uh, like those actors that don’t watch their own movies?
I’m not a professional. This is my first and only interview. So of course I’m going to listen to it.
That’s great. What, what got you on to do? What, uh, what, uh, not encouraged, but what made you make the decision to actually do an interview with us? Yeah.
Because what I’m doing is fun and a lot of women, you know, that I’ve met out on the road and people that I’ve met are like, Oh, you’re doing this by yourself. And you know, you’re this and you’re that. And I’m like, no, I pee when I want. I eat what I want. I sleep when I want. I don’t have to make sure somebody else is comfortable on the road or having a good time is, you know, it’s, it’s selfish,
but I’m having a good time. Yeah. And I just want, I want people to know that you can do this. Just go. You know, I was, um, I live in Florida and Florida is a very angry place right now. So I was looking around, you know, thought I’d interview the country basically to see if I could find someplace that’s a little less angry. And so far, no doubt, but we’ll see.
So, um, yeah, I mean, you, you, you have a really good point there as far as, um, the, the fear factor in doing this. Sometimes the fear factor is, uh, the, the breaking down of the vehicle. Sometimes the fear factor is, yeah, guys, I’m there on the, on the lens. You guys are watching this on YouTube and you can wipe that off if you want to. Don’t worry about it. Um, and just be careful how high you bring up that, uh, that shirt shirt.
Although I don’t think we have a rating on YouTube. So it might be all right.
No, no PJ, no PG stuff. No, I’ve got on a cute sports bra. So if you saw it, yay.
And if you didn’t, yay. So, uh, have you had any close encounters, but maybe it turned out to be nothing, but you were a little concerned. Like, what is that noise? Who’s missing? I mean, you’re, you’re camping out in a hammock, right? So you’re in the open whenever you’re sleeping.
Can you see the hammock? That looks nice. Yeah. It is. It really is. Um, no, I’ve absolutely I’ve been at, I was a little concerned one night when I woke up and somebody had put two ducks on the Jeep and I didn’t wake up and hear them because that, that concerned me a little bit, but as far as, um, being worried or scared or danger or anything like that. No, now, uh, ballparks, they have made a industry out of building them in the worst parts of town.
So, you know, if I get to a ballpark early and I want to go to the park or walk around, I can’t, it’s not safe. You can’t pull over, you know, just anywhere around a ballpark and take a walk unless it’s built for that reason. Like the ones in Atlanta and there are a couple of places where you can do that. But for the most part, your ballparks are not in the best areas of town. So it’s best not to
think about that. Yeah. That, uh, that could, that could make a really interesting thing. Do you find that having a unique vehicle, uh, makes you more of an interest? Uh, I think everybody loves Jeeps. And if you see a Jeep that’s modified, uh, and just the accent colors alone or, or enough to keep people on, this is a modified Jeep and, and people may seek you out or talk to you about it. Or it’s always made me nervous. Anytime we go to a restaurant or something, I like being able to sit where I can watch the Jeep quite often. I just see people checking it out, but, but I want to know if there’s going to be a problem or not.
Well, I’ve, um, it’s starting to rain, so I’m going to actually move in. Side the Jeep. But as the funny thing that I’ve found as, as I have put more stickers and I’ll show you those on the window for all the ball parts,
more, yeah, more people are talking to me. So there’s that.
Yeah.
Take your time.
Okay. Yeah.
Um, so, uh, oh, you know what? Um, so you really haven’t had any issues. Have you, have you had people come up and talk to you about the Jeep or the ballparks or both?
I have had a lot of people, um, come and you know, they’ve seen the stickers. I had a guy, I was driving out of Milwaukee the other night and he jumped in front of the Jeep, leaving the game. And then, uh, said, I have to get a picture. I have to get a picture. And I’m like, well, try not to get killed while you’re doing it.
Yeah. So, but yeah, that’s funny. Uh, was he a jeeper or was he just somebody that, uh, yes.
Well, he was a, he was a jeeper and a, a baseballer and he had been to, um,
like 15 of the parks so far.
Do you run across a lot of people doing similar things to what you’re doing? Jeep or not?
Yes. And, but generally the, and they call them chasers, the people that go to all 30 ballparks or they have a technical term called chasers and a Facebook page that I know nothing about, but, um,
most people don’t do it all during one summer. You know, they do five this year and five next year and that kind of thing. Yeah. And just spread it out. But I figured I had a ticking clock.
So I needed to go ahead and get it done while I could.
So, uh, if you don’t mind me digging a little deeper, the ticking clock, what is your ticking clock? Is it just your desire or do you have something that’s going on that’s forcing?
Um, no, I’m 61 years old at my age. I’ve got what one good decade left of traveling and doing the fun stuff that I want to do, so I figured I better get it done while I could. Sure. No, your activity levels go down. Your desire to do anything goes down. You know, you get old and you quit and I just don’t want to do that yet.
Oh, very good. Uh, that’s, that’s, we’ll, uh, we’ll switch gears on that inspirational note.
So, uh, oh, I wanted to loop back to your Jeep. Um, what modifications have been made?
I have, um, two sheets worth of, you know, listings and stuff.
Um, she’s got a four and a half lift and then I’ve got, um,
I’ve got the pins in that I can pull and take her up to six if I need to. But the guy said, if I had to go to six to just put it in park and to stop and call them before I went any further. Um, so then I’ve, you know, I’ve got my Falcon shocks and, um, the sound system is amazing. Like I said, they put cameras all around to make sure, you know, I’ve got spotting when I need it. And so we had to upgrade the interior of camp. I’ve got a 10 inch.
Mount for my, can you see that?
I see a head of a duck and some little character and now I see, is that a point amount that you have on there?
Absolutely. Yeah. We interviewed the there’s John D there. Now can we see my stinger system?
Yeah. It’s a, it’s really zoomed in close though. So, oh, sorry. That’s all right. Uh, so you basically replace the, the, the stock head unit, uh, in there and, and that supports the cameras. Is that, uh, one of one of its features, the stingers features.
Yes. It supports the cameras. Um, plus my rear view mirror is a wolf off.
So it’s got a dash cam and a rear view camera too. So I’ve got basically two rears, two fronts and two stops.
Does it record as well? Or just, uh, just show you live, uh, live live, live shots.
It records as well. Oh, that makes it nice so they can find out for themselves what you hit. So for the, the damage and stuff that you don’t get anything underneath, uh, that, uh, any cameras underneath so that you can actually, uh, you know, spot rocks to make sure you’re getting up
on one of the ones up front on the left driver’s side, base is down so that I can spot rocks in the inaction. And that’s, that’s the dangerous camera because that’s the one that says, Oh, well I can go a little faster because there’s nothing on the other side of that.
And then did you, did your phone pair with your, uh, your head unit? It kind of sounds like you’re coming through your speakers now, instead of the headphones.
It did. There we go. It did. And now I shut the, yeah, I shut the Jeep off so that it picked back up on my headset.
Yeah. Yeah. It made quite a bit, what a bit of difference.
All right.
Well, it sounds like you’ve gone, that’s all right. So it sounds like you’ve gone through a lot of stuff. Was this things that they suggested to you or did you tell them what you wanted to do and they came up with the solutions?
Well, I told them what I wanted to do. I, and we basically brainstormed and ready lift. My guy Carson, if he calls ready lift now, they hang up on him because
he, he, it got, it got ugly there for a while. Before he made them understand and they were like, it’s not a kit. And he said, I know it’s not a kit.
I want these parts though. And so now they’re talking to him about actually building a kit.
Yeah. See, they learned something that’s just to listen to customers.
That’s exactly right. This is what I wanted. This is how I wanted to do it. And then they, they put it together for me and built it out.
Uh, has there been anything that was done to the Jeep that you, in retrospect, uh, wasn’t necessary or wasn’t what you had planned on? In other words, it really didn’t matter. You, you thought it was something you wanted, but it just, it just in the big scheme of things, or at least so far, it wasn’t a big, a big deal.
Um, so far, no, the best thing that I did do, um, is we deleted the passenger seat and I put up, they put, built a platform for it. And so I’ve got a freezer and my solar panel charger, I’ve got a solar generator. And so that’s on my passenger seat on a platform there. And so that’s been, uh, that’s been the best thing I did. Cause people are like, Oh, well I’ll meet you or I can go. No,
no, you can’t. I don’t have a passenger seat. I don’t have a passenger seat.
So yeah. So you, you work, you’re working out on the road. Are you using a laptop, uh, to do your work?
I am. I have a laptop and, um, um, I work closely with my IT team and they were showing me something the other day. And I was like, I was on the laptop and, uh, I said, well, I’m on my laptop and he said, well, this interface wasn’t built for a laptop screen. And I said, well, I’m only going to be on my laptop for the next three months. And the next day I’ve got a monitor.
I was just going to say plugs into my laptop. Those little things. Uh, cause I mean, once you’ve gone multiple screens, uh, it’s just like, you can’t go back. Oh, yeah.
You cannot go back. Uh, so, yeah.
They got me this special monitor.
So do you have a setup where you can put the laptop and have it hold? Cause I was thinking you were going to say that the, the, the, you don’t, you have something to hold the laptop over on the passenger side now. Is there a way for you to, uh, not have to hold or have the laptop in your lap while you’re working?
No, no, no. Um, I love gas stations, quick trip gas stations, Taco bell, any place that’s got a plug, I go in, sit down, plug in, set up my monitors and go to work.
Did they ask you to leave after six hours?
Um, no, I usually I rotate between places. I’ll stay somewhere for like two hours and I always order something, even if it’s, you know, like just a Diet Coke or something, but I’ll stay one place for two hours. Like this morning I got up and went into loves, which is three or four miles from where I am on Colorado right now.
Do the same thing that you’re doing.
Or I’m basically an over the road driver. I’m basically a truck driver doing my job. And, uh, so I went there for a couple hours this morning. I came back. There’s a place across the street called rookies. It’s got a real nice little setup. So I’ll go there at dinner time tonight. Cause company I work for is based in California. So there are a few hours behind what I call real time, which is Eastern time. And don’t get me started on time zones. Cause I’ll show you,
I actually had this correct you central time is God’s time. So anything else is not God’s time.
See, I, I’m going to have to disagree with you.
You’re wrong, but you can just, you know, no, no, no, no, no. Eastern time is real time. I don’t know what you think of the rest of it. And it’s funny because everybody at work knows how bad I am at time zones. So with this traveling thing I’m doing when they request a meeting, they know to text me like 30 minutes ahead of time. It came, the meeting’s in 30 minutes. Are you somewhere that, you know, you’re in the right time zone? And I’m like, no, but I will be.
So it’s, it’s interesting. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine. I’ve been in it for many, many years and you learn in it, especially if it’s nationwide or even worse international, you have to tell people what the time zone is, you can’t assume they are in your time zone. Well, the team, the hosts and stuff, I’m having to reiterate this several times because I mean, they’ll tell me a time and I’ll go, is that central time or Eastern time or specific Pacific time? Without this being draconian about it, I just want to say, you can’t just assume that I know where you live or I’ll remember what time zone you’re in. So it’s really important. And this is a public service announcement for everybody that just throws the time out there without a time zone. It’s like whenever people say I 95 is closed, there’s a big fire. I saw this big fire on I 95. I don’t remember. It’s a, I don’t remember I 95 in the Texas area. So it’s like, where in the hell are you talking about? Well, you know where it is that everybody else that knows I 95 knows where it is, but I don’t, is this going to be a concern for me? You know, that type of thing. Right. How does this affect me? Exactly. That’s what’s the most important. It’s how it affects me. Exactly.
Well, really cool. So is there, uh, is there any craziness that you’ve seen? Cause you’ve been on the road for several hours. Is there any craziness that you’ve seen or maybe had any problems with people that were, uh, uh, mad or, uh, maybe some pre pre-us owners that were upset with you, uh, damaging the environment by driving a, uh, this, uh, gas hogging Jeep.
Um,
I did in the floods in Texas, see a woman on top of her Rubicon four door, you know, it was.
And so I pulled over and was throwing the winch out and the tow truck pulled up behind me and I was like, I’m letting him do this cause I’m not getting in your mess. But she was on a side road, I guess.
That’s right. You know, Texas has those frontage roads. We don’t have frontage roads much in Florida.
Yeah. Um, and so there was a ditch between the frontage road and the interstate, but it was full of water and she didn’t know that. So she was on the frontage road and then just went off in the ditch and that was it for her.
That’s too bad. People laugh at me because I have a snorkel. I have an XJ that I bought brand new and then we got the gladiator, uh, and I have a snorkel on both of them and they get, they laugh at me. Uh, and one of the things they’ll say is, well, did you hook up the transmission? Did you hook up the airline for the differentials? No, I didn’t. I may get around to that, but I’m not planning on going through high water. This is the situation where if I get into a situation and I make a mistake or I get in a situation where I have to go through high water, uh, I can get the other stuff fixed later. I just need to get the, the Jeep to get me through it and sucking water down the intake is not going to get you through it. Uh, making milk, uh, milkshake in your differentials or the transmission failing later, that’s later. So yeah, I’m a snorkel fan.
We just got to keep it moving forward.
Exactly.
And we can fix everything else later. Speaking of Texas and you being in South Texas,
the hell is up with this? I’m driving down the back roads of Texas, right? First off, your speed limit is 70 miles an hour on a back road. Are you kidding? I’m from Eastern Kentucky and I wouldn’t dream of driving that fast.
Do you know what Texas is? We got to get going if we want to get anywhere.
And I understand because you know, Kansas actually makes the speed limit 75 so you can get through it faster. But so I get pulled over, you know, with the floods and I’m driving down this little back road and I know I’m not speeding and this trooper comes up. Well, it goes over to the passenger side, dude, you ain’t going to get shit over there. You’re going to either have to come to me over here on the driver side, or I’m going to have to come around. And so he came to me on the driver side and he said, do you know what’s over and I was like, well, I know when speed.
It’s it’s watching for the floodwaters. I don’t know. He said I had too many forward facing lights for I was like, what do you mean too many forward facing lights? I said, I’ve got my fog lights and my headlights. He said, yeah, and he said, you’ve got these lights over here on your side.
Were they on?
Yeah. Yes, but they’re on the side. And he said, you’ve got these lights on the side. And I said, well, yeah, I’m driving through flash flood warning conditions right now. And I want to see the water when it comes at me. So I’ve got my stitch lights looking at the ditch in case, you know, a flash flood goes
forward facing their side face.
No, they’re, you know, they’re ditch lights.
Right.
And I,
he said, well, those are considered forward facing. I said, go stand in front of the Jeep.
He was like, what? I said, stand in front of the Jeep and tell me those lights are forward facing.
And he was like, well, now ma’am. And I was like, that’s when I realized I should probably shut the fuck up and, you know, just kind of go with the flow. So then then I started.
He gave you a ticket. He gave you a warning.
No, he gave me a warning. Yeah. Cause I was like, I’m from Florida. Yeah.
I’m surprised he got out of the, the, it must not have been raining at the time. I’m surprised he got out of the pro car.
I was like, how did you even spot me? You know, what were you doing? What are you doing out here? It’s probably what I should have said.
No, but no, you were being safe. You were using lights for, for safety. And I’ve got a lot of lights. I mean, I’ve got a two, four, yeah. I’ve got six forward facing lights. Uh, and, and frankly, if I’m going through a situation where it’s not safe and I need lights and also to, I’m not blinding other people, that’s, that’s important to the other people’s safety,
then I’m going to use them and they want to pull me over. That’s fine. We’ll argue the point. Give me a ticket. I’ll argue the point to the judge and tell them exactly why. And I have a dash cams similar to what you do. I have a dash cam so I can actually show the evidence as to why I was running all the lights that I needed to run and show it what it was without the lights and what it was with the lights. So that’s interesting. So, um, yeah, so I think it’s cool that you got to experience the, the flooding and, uh, and Southeast Texas. A lot of people don’t have any idea about, and how quickly it can come up. And, uh, the underpasses, the ones that, you know, you’re, I mean, I tend, they, they, they dug the thing so low so that the people going over the highway or the freeway don’t have to go so high, but those things are, I mean, you can get 20 or 30 feet deep of water in those things. And yet people still drive their cars into it, which is amazing to me.
I do not, I don’t get it. If I don’t know definitively where the bottom is, I’m not going in. Right.
I mean, that, that just never can tell that something has fast moving water has washed the stuff out. So, I mean, a lot of the, uh, a lot of the underpasses have a measuring stick and you can see what the, I mean, I don’t know if everybody understands what those little lines and the white, uh, the white bar and the 16 and the 20 and the 20, you know,
and the dirt.
Yeah. And I don’t know if they’ve realized what that means or not, but I mean, you, you take off in there is like, well, if I get enough speed, I’ll, I’ll coast across. Uh,
you will not. Yeah.
Well, um, what a really interesting thing you’re doing, I’m hoping, and, and what would you say percentage wise you’re done with here? Are you, are you 15, 30, 50%?
23 of 30. So I’m close to 70% up. That’s a math. I don’t do math.
So, right. So yeah, I’m an it, the computer does the math. Um, so, uh, you’re, you don’t do the social media, but you are on Instagram, right?
I did Instagram so that, um, my friends and family could keep up with me and I wouldn’t have to send, I’ve got four different people who have location on me. So they know where I am at all times. That kind of thing.
Um, so, uh, is, do you mind sharing that? Cause I mean, I’m going to take pictures and showing the trip and the things that you’re doing, right?
Yes. Yeah. It’s jeep scape, two diamonds, the number two.
And, and tell us what, uh, what, what, what does that mean? How did you come up with that one?
Um, if you can, if it’s, if it’s a family, I already did.
Well, the, the, no, the, the diamonds, diamonds are baseballs. They’re baseball.
Right. That makes sense.
Right. So I’m doing a jeep scape. I’m escaping in my G to the baseball. Oh, I see. You skipped a diamond.
So you made this Instagram account specifically for the trip. Yes. All right. Well, so you can go over to Instagram and you’re not on any other social media, right? No Facebook, no tic tac, uh, no, the Pinterest or any of that stuff. Right.
Nope. All right. Snapchat, but that doesn’t count.
Yeah. Well, is tender considered to be social media?
We’re talking about my Tinder.
You can find Kim on Tinder at blah, blah, blah, blah.
That would be me. Just, just ask if you Bob. So, uh, this is cool. So you can follow Kim’s trip. Uh, she’s about 70% done, uh, jeep scape to diamonds. Uh, and so this is cool. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend and sometimes it could be baseball diamonds that are the girl’s best friend. That’s, that’s really cool. All right, Kim, thank you so much for doing this interview with us. And, uh, I hope that you enjoyed doing the interview with us today and I hope you listened to it and give us some comments back. Uh, and of course you’re more than welcome. I know it’s social media, but you’re more than welcome to join us on our discord server and maybe get a little entertainment from other jeepers while you’re out there on the road.
So, all right, I’ll look around, see what happens. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
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