Check out this big SEMA announcement from Greg Henderson of Unofficial Use Only on the latest Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode — it’s amazeballs! We kick things off with a lighthearted “palate cleansing” question: “As an overlander, how do you cut your sandwich?” The Round Table is where we connect with you, the listeners, through a Zoom meeting, offering real, funny, and sometimes downright strange conversations. Don’t miss out on the latest insights and laughs. Watch this episode now!

 

 

In the wildly popular Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode, we discuss essential gear for self-recovery and assisting others beyond just having a winch and tow points. Greg Henderson, with his extensive Jeep experience, joins the conversation to share his insights. Ever wonder what’s in Greg’s recovery bag? Tune in to find out all the must-have items for off-road adventures! Don’t miss this informative and fun episode, packed with practical advice for every Jeeper.

hi I’m Tony and this is the Jeep talk show roundtable episode and we’ll see if Rick is still surprised we get started so fast hello zoom people oh good troop 889 is here tonight it’s it’s good to have you here is we’ll try to keep it clean for you kids all right you can be part of our weekly zoom meeting and I would not bring the kids around just go to Jeep talk show comm slash contact I found out how to join how you guys doing tonight everything going well do we have anybody in Florida are you evacuating as we speak I’ve equated right when I got home I feel much better so so you guys know what I’m talking about with the hurricane Milton category 5 I actually saw some people it was tick-tock people they weren’t real people or people that know about weather but they were talking about could this be the first category 6 hurricane oh god I know how scary can Milton be that’s what I keep wondering well I saw the funniest one said that Milton heard that Florida stole a stigler some glasses with tape in the middle yeah exactly it’s actually going for my vacation spot so the same place my family goes every year I figured that was the case didn’t they just rebuild that about two years ago or a year or so they’re still rebuilding several of the places weren’t even open yet and and they got the cause we have pretty quick but the several restaurants were down there was a one restaurant during in called the monkey duck that that started selling t-shirts saying the lucky duck after Ian because the storm was so powerful from the wind that it pushed sand all up against the front of the restaurant which then diverted the storm surge around it so it didn’t flood oh no but there’s a queen the lean didn’t have strong enough winds to do that so the lean ended up flooding it so it ran out a lot but now they just had a lean go through there and destroy a lot of stuff and now right behind it you’ve got Milton coming in and that’s it looks like it’s doing right for him basically the same path if you look at the Ian path where it was rejected to hit Tampa and then kind of came down into the four miners area looks like a stew and this one’s taking a similar target so I think it was hurricane Rita actually the the hurricane that convinced me to start building the XJ so I could actually evacuate if I needed to hurricane Rita right after Katrina I was a category 5 and it wasn’t until after Rita had gone away that I found out that hurricane category 5 have a tendency to tear themselves apart and so this hurricane I think they’re predicting Milton to be a three or maybe a four when it makes landfall unless something’s changed recently but it has it’s a it’s a major hurricane it’s done a lot of quickly rapid intensification and hearts and prayers go out to everybody in Florida I know that there’s a lot of people on the road evacuating I think I saw on one of the social media things today there was a 30-plus mile traffic backup with everybody leaving the Tampa area plenty of time to listen to a Jeep talk show about thinking that I love that it’s a great idea there you go the funny thing you mentioned about the tearing itself apart so Milton actually made it all the way up to five and was like setting kind of some pretty crazy records with its pressure it actually went through a eye eye wall rebuild or whatever rebirth or whatever it tore itself apart on the eye and then reformed did you see that video of that you can actually see it it kind of goes into the middle of the eye and then shapes back up again weather is just amazing and it’s just so damn huge it’s it’s really really cool I mean it’s it’s very dangerous and everything but it’s it’s just amazing it’s it’s just really the guys that the guys that fly into it got balls Oh big ones oh yeah see what and that’s a C-130 aircraft they fly into it for the most part I think p3 is well but I know most of the storm changers chasers run the old C 130 prop planes and they fly that sucker right into the middle of it that’s that’s impressive minds all right well let’s let’s get started so m Johnson and I’m guessing this is Matt would like to know what the minimum kit you need for a winch and tow points so I think this is I think Matt he didn’t specify but I’m sure this means not only for self recovery but for recovery using the winch for somebody else so what do you guys think that the minimum kit you should have to for your winch and tow points let’s go let’s go with Steve since he’s got a mouthful

 

you bastard

 

first the first choking death on the show that was that that’s this good podcasting I think the minimum is four in my opinion one off each corner of the vehicle I have I haven’t put anything in front bumper yet so the factory come bumper steel bumper but I do have the two tow points on the back of the body armor bumper that I have running out the back that are closed and I think what he’s talking about here is you know you can how you can get a bag of stuff like tree saver oh yeah I forget what it’s called the thing that allows you to double up the strength or a quadriple that’s black yeah snatch block or snatch block I think that’s what he had in mind is this that thing you got in your shop there Greg is those the simulate boobs because that looks like some nice boobs on the on the floor over there oh that’s a creeper oh I know it’s just Tony it’s just Tony he’s like Greg’s like boobs really where where I want to touch him exactly so any ideas what you put into a kit or what you’d get for your for your kid’s sake I’m sorry Kerry snatch block I have a winch dampener which I don’t really need from the synthetic rope but just to get someone else you do I have it more cuz I’m worried about the guys steel out there some soft shackles one thing I do caution is I watched an incredible video by a guy out in Ohio you do not use a snatch block with the soft shackle

 

because it will cut through that soft shackle and that a snatch walking come flying back at you right past your head which happened to him so yeah I’ve got a toe strap that I’ve had since my exj but I still carry with me I haven’t gotten into the kinetic ropes yet I haven’t seen them I haven’t been in a situation where I’ve needed it or seen anyone else use them so I’m not sure I want to drop the cash on that right now I need to do some reading on that because I know that there’s certain things you use the tow strap for probably towing and the certain things you use the kinetic ropes for I love the idea of the kinetic rope just simply from the standpoint of it doesn’t shock you your vehicle or the vehicle you’re pulling out of something yeah culminates into a pull a rubber band if you will so I love you I’ve got a yank um kinetic rope I think I went with the 20 foot one yeah I mean I’ve self recovered before with my winch I know three four times some of the heavy mud out here but that kinetic rope would have been interesting to see it at the time it’s good to make sure you tell the guy that that’s not a kinetic rope that’s a toe strap so don’t take off and yeah exactly oh god well Larry what do you have in your kit I assuming you have a kit for your your Jeep and your winch yeah just a couple soft shackles the toe strap and snatch block that’s pretty much about it that’s you know that’s what we use to to get that that gladiator off the trail down there in Hidden Falls couple years ago very nice so it’s worked out very well how about you John Lee what do you got um so originally I started off buying the worn kit so had the warm epic shackles and snatch block all that kind of stuff and you know ultimately that’s that’s all really really heavy so the last few times I’ve switched out to a soft shackle setup and I run a still run a worn shackle to connect my my winch line to just to kind of store on the on the front and as a recovery point on my Jeep but those those soft shackles are amazing so I have gloves I have a yanker rope which we got to use on Bob just a couple weeks ago to get him out of the mud and then I’m Bob or I’m Bob’s Jeep

 

Bob’s Jeep of course I got to use the same thing on Bob and Moab too I could see Bob requesting that just for the experience Bob will let you make sure you have all of your recovery gear correct so we winched and yanked them out at the mud hole anyway so I think I think the biggest thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is gloves so you know gloves are kind of important you know more important I think on the metal steel line winches from the splinters and stuff but just because it’s synthetic you know they’re still useful that being said I don’t think I wore gloves when we recovered Bob. Well the other thing too that if you’re running like soft shackle gear is if you have a bumper that’s designed for like a traditional shackle you need a traditional shackle you don’t want to put a soft shackle through that because if it again like Steve pointed out if it’s got sharp edges it’s gonna cut into that rope so even when we were in Colorado we had to use a regular shackle to you know get a good mounting point on the bumper so then we could you know connect the winch with a soft shackle so you got to make sure you got the right gear and then also you know they make snatch blocks you know specifically for synthetic line right so like Steve always saying use a traditional snatch block it’s gonna cut into the rope right but you know they make ones specifically for synthetic line right so you just gotta make sure you have the right gear and having enough soft shackles too right because you’re trying to put this puzzle together you don’t know what attachment points things that you’re gonna be running into tree saver too that’s that’s another one right so if you need a point to anchor to you don’t want to you know you want to use that tree saver so you’re not you know doing damage to it if you know if that’s something you end up having to ultimately do.

 

What was the question I’m just curious I came into this late sorry it was stomp Roger what question can we ask Roger when he comes back? Yeah well I’m assuming it has to do a recovery gear and what you probably have right what do you what kit do you have or what what would you put in a recovery kit if you you know you get the winch you get the tow points but what do you need to carry along with that because that’s not enough so I would I would add on to what Bill was saying and when it comes to those snatch blocks don’t just carry one of them I carry I’d carry a minimum of four of them and you might say why would I ever use four but with the right amount of snatch blocks if you’re by yourself and then you got a you got a point in front of you and behind you that you can hook to you can actually pull yourself backwards with a front winch mounted on the front of the vehicle and in some cases pulling backwards might be a better better option than pulling forwards so with the right amount of snatch blocks you can actually run lines back and forth in a manner I mean look it up you look at something and look it up on there if they want but you can you can run them in a manner that it’ll pull you backwards you need five you got a tree close enough most enough because you got to have enough cable to be able to do that well I carry an extension winch or extension line too also so you know I don’t just have just the winch line I have a second line that you need five

 

snatch blocks to pull yourself in reverse with a front mounted winch you can get away with four Greg you you can but it’s safety first but yes you can get away with four but five makes it pretty easy and most most people can figure out the math on that because when you’re doubling up a line it’s it’s twice as slow so if you if you double up four times you have one single then you pull yourself relatively quickly you put a V the standard length of a synthetic or steel cable because I’m thinking with five five of those snatch blocks you could run out of cable or yeah but it depends yeah it depends on where you’re going 85 to 90 well most when so most of your 8500 or 9500 pound winches have close to 100 feet the synthetic ones can hold more which is 125 to 150 feet and then you can have I have 50 foot extensions and hundred foot extensions and 150 foot extensions so it’s interesting yeah now and a winch line extension is exactly that it shouldn’t be used for pulling it shouldn’t be used it should just be used for the winch line and you can get him in synthetic and you can get him in steel and you can also wait until the data comes that you break your synthetic your synthetic winch line on your vehicle and now you have two two extensions yeah yeah I would like to point out that mitten Tony has had his mitten up for a long time hey I’m just doing my part doing what we were asked I appreciate that and he was waiting his turn Rick I was just pointing that out hey go ahead Tony I mean since since we’ve since Rick brought this to a halt anyway to jump in there I personally I carry a lot of the same stuff I carry a recovery strap a lot of people don’t know the difference between a recovery strap and a tow strap the tow straps got zero give typically has a hook on it a recovery strap has like I think it’s like eight to twelve percent elasticity to it so it does have give not as much as a kinetic rope obviously but enough to actually not cause damage to the vehicles other than that I really like actually I think I have my ear right here I carry high-vis coveralls for getting in the mud and I like high visibility gloves that way anybody around and see exactly where your hands are and they can see hand signals really easy also makes it whenever to find the finger after the the winch lines popped one off exactly whenever I’m doing hand signals with gloves on I always do it backwards because typically the insides dark leather that way people can actually see what exactly you’re doing stop come back everything like that getting closer I think I think gloves are a good idea whether it doesn’t matter if you have a steel winch line or a synthetic it’s just good good idea to predict the hands and probably the most dangerous thing I carry is a I think it’s like a 40 ton logging chain it’s like six and a half seven feet long has the huge loop on it and the only thing I really use that for is pulling people out of a ditch as they have no sort of toe point that makes a really nice extension to get on there like little cars and stuff like that or people that are really very it’s never ever gonna break so let me ask you the whole group about this because I don’t know I just have this this feeling based on what I’ve seen and the decision I made a long time ago I would and I’m not picking on you Tony but I would absolutely never use a chain what do you guys think anybody I use the chain don’t use some underrated chain yeah you don’t want to you don’t want an underrated chain I I keep a chain just for the safety sake of having it in case you need to really anchor something down I also keep one of the five-in-one tools that you see on tow trucks that allows you to key into all the slots on a frame because if somebody’s rolled over in a precarious situation sometimes there’s not a very safe spot to put a D ring and there’s usually not a soft a safe spot to put a soft shackle so I carry one of the five-in-one tools that tow trucks carry just to key into somebody’s frame I have to look at the five-in-one so I’m glad you mentioned the recovery this is again a question for the group is there a situation if maybe it was a serious rollover or one that required more than one winch line more than the number of infinite number of snatch blocks that you could use and you have to have multiple people pulling on the the vehicle that they’re that’s having the issue is it an issue if some are using steel cable and some are using synthetic I mean because you have no I have to have two different kinds of stuff to do that right now you it doesn’t matter what they have as long as everybody knows that one person is in charge of everything so you know you know in any safe recovery situation one person should be in charge so that they are giving the hand signals to the operators of the winches they also should explain what the hand signals mean because some people don’t follow the standard rules so you want everybody to know what’s going on so just like any other emergency situation you know think EMT or anything else one person takes charge one person has to alpha up and make sure that everybody else either shuts the fuck up or that the people who are in control of things listen to just that one person because otherwise you get

 

15 Chiefs trying to tell three Indians what to do and things get all messed up right and I could imagine it could be quite difficult to obtain don’t dominance sometimes in that being the one that’s talking yeah you just you just have to take charge right if somebody’s like that though another thing you do want to really pay attention to is the different speeds and different strengths of the lunches being used that way you aren’t losing sight that oh you have an 8,000 pound lunch pulling from this side with synthetic cable that pulls it’s a it’s a Harbor Freight lunch that pulls extremely slow but this guy has a pro series 12,000 that is race speed that way when you tell somebody to winch in a little bit it’s actually just a little bit yeah and that’s why that’s why the hand signals are so important to explain you know a fast twirl of the finger means that with your finger pointed up means to power in the winch and if you’re pinching your fingers it’s the same as like a crane so if you do the the finger pinch like this it means just barely you know so so you can tell two people two different things by using two hands so and that’s why taking charge is the most important thing and sometimes the smartest thing to do is to let somebody else take charge right if even if you know everything is right if if somebody else is is freaking out or having some kind of a strange moment or just won’t listen you know sometimes relinquishing the control to even somebody without the same knowledge as you is worth it to keep the peace right so I’m not saying take charge like always be the asshole on the alpha but sometimes taking charge even means relinquishing the control to somebody else so but on the same note if you’re not the one in charge don’t be afraid to say something if you see something yeah we’ve we’ve been on the trail you know where rollovers happened and even though we’re qualified and certified for recovery you know we’ve left it up to them because they either wouldn’t listen or they wouldn’t do something and you know people were in harm’s way and eventually you can say as much as you want but eventually you just have to walk away and sometimes that’s the hardest thing to do when there’s a possibility of somebody getting hurt but sometimes people are just overly aggressive and you don’t want a recovery to turn into a fight too right so so you so you have to learn and you have to judge the situation you know like an adult we we had a similar situation out at Hollyoaks when it first opened there was a lot of drop-offs from the watch outs before the trails were fully developed and there was a gentleman with a relatively new jk at the time was going to roll off one of them flips and we had three recovery trainers on site that had been doing it 40 plus years and he insisted on only trusting his buddy that owned an off-road shop that i mean he was a very young guy he didn’t have the experience but that was the only guy he’d trust i mean so his vehicle we all we all yeah we all just sat back and watched and i mean he almost lost it he did get it down but he almost lost it because they weren’t doing it right and we just had to sit back and watch it and keep everybody clear yep so great you mentioned the uh the five-in-one tool was there anything uh else that you carry in your your winching or recovery kit that uh maybe my my because i’ve been involved in teaching recovery classes and um i got certified and did all your stuff my recovery kit is a little more obnoxious than most um so my recovery kit is eight d-rings like the actual steel d-rings and i use two different sizes so i keep four seven eights and because the seven eights is good for thirteen thousand pounds i also keep four five eights which is good for 6500 pounds because sometimes your attachment point is different um so that’s eight d-rings i also keep keep eight soft shackles i have two tree savers i have one recovery rope which is different than a kinetic rope i also have two kinetic ropes i have a 30 foot and a 20 foot um i keep three pairs of gloves just in case somebody else needs gloves i have five snatch blocks i have two winch extensions i have 150 foot and 100 foot that i bring i have two winch line weights so the actual lead weighted pouches that go over the winch lines right um i keep have one factor 55 splice tool so that i can re-splice yeah that makes synthetic lines i have one 10 foot chain so it’s not a very long chain but it is a 10 foot chain and it’s rated for i’d have to look again but i think it’s 32 000 pounds so it’s a fairly large chain and then i have the tow truck frame tool um which you can order off of i mean you can order them anywhere but they’re so convenient because sometimes you know vehicles don’t always just tip on their side and they don’t always slip into a precarious situation so it’s really convenient to be able to key into a frame with a secure anchor point

 

so and then there’s two bags involved with that and sometimes i throw extra stuff in i also keep

 

and they don’t sell them anymore which bums me out but super winch used to have this recovery bandana and it listed all of the different line pulls or not all most of them different line pulls some safety information the instructions for proper winch hand signals fully knowledge working load limit for chains rigging check and walk through so it had all of this information in fact i’ve got one right here well it’s great because in those situations it’s nice to be able to take a quick glance to make sure you’re doing the right thing yeah so this is it and i’m actually thinking of producing some of these and selling them on the website or just giving them away right but because nobody makes it anymore and i’ve got oh you said bandana it is literally a bandana okay it’s literally a bandana um that’s neat and and super winch when i was teaching the classes um they gave me thousands of these so now i i think i’m only down to a few hundred because i give them away all the time but i think it would behoove me i was almost gonna i was thinking about doing it in my apparel line because we’re just getting ready to launch it i was going to do my favorite winching shirt and then put all the information on the shirt um but but yeah it’s recovery is a it’s a tricky thing it’s a tricky thing to deal with because every situation is different every everywhere you’re at you know every type of wheeling is different every terrain is different and then the operators of the

 

is an endless rope. It is coming very handy for attaching to vehicles and being in the form and cut off.

 

What was it again?

 

Sorry, an endless rope. Endless rope. Oh wow, that sounds very unique, an infinite rope.

 

Yeah, I’ve heard him call that too.

 

I have no idea what that is.

 

I don’t know, I’ve got one out in the garage. Can’t get out there right now. No problem, I can always look it up. I’ve just never heard of an infinite rope. It sounds like a joke. Yeah, Google will probably pull up a bunch of water down it, perhaps.

 

All right, well good, thank you for sharing that. And Rick, I see you got your hand up. What do you have for us? Just a quick comment.

 

I’ve got a TJ, but I’ve got a 12-5 winch on there. That’s too much winch, you need to get ready. I know John Lee and folks who joked about that, why I got such a big winch on there, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve winched gladiators and all kinds of other stuff up waterfalls and whatnot. How do you keep the TJ from being drugged towards the vehicle? You park your tires behind a big rock or something.

 

I mean, you anchor to another vehicle. I’ve had to do that before too. Yeah, sure. Crown King. Yeah, Crown King, I pulled up two gladiators up a waterfall and you know. How did you, what did you use to connect the back end of your TJ?

 

And does it help the stretching that you’re planning on doing to it?

 

I think it did stretch it about an inch, but no, I didn’t know. Actually at Crown King, I just, there was a rock, just happened to be, and I was actually kind of pointed downhill, but there was a big enough rock I was able to put my driver side wheel behind.

 

So I kind of used that as a, you know, to kind of anchor my Jeep.

 

And even then it was still pulling my Jeep down a little bit, but we got them up.

 

All right, let me jump over to Jacob. Jacob, if you’ve got a winch and tow points, do you have a kit? What’s in your kit? Is it kind of what we’ve already talked about?

 

A little bit, yeah. I’ve whittled mine down over the years, just based on the groups that I wheel with, because we each have a little bit of everything. I keep a couple of hard shackles. I’ve got a couple of soft shackles. My YJ runs a winch front and a winch on the rear. And then. I’m glad you brought that up. I think that’s a neat thing. Yeah, and then my Willys, I’ll run a winch on the rear of that, a portable winch. And then I’ve got the winch on the front.

 

Recently I’ve picked up one of them for all our off-road, what they call it, the Versa Shackle. And it’s like a six foot long soft shackle. So it can replace your tree saver and it’s a lot easier to pack.

 

That’s already been handy. I’ve used it twice already.

 

But I’ve really whittled it down because I used to carry a strap. I used to carry a bubble rope. Now I just carry the bubble rope.

 

I had to start cutting weight. My YJ was like 5,500 pounds at one point.

 

So I really started cutting weight and on some of it was a recovery gear based on– You just have to weight it most of the JKs on the channel. Yeah, I know.

 

(Laughing) But based on what my buddies carried, I mean, we would all put it together and have what we need. So I started leaving the high lift at home. I haven’t carried the high lift in 15 years.

 

So things like that that just add a ton of weight and rarely used. This is a tough job as a monthly buy lift.

 

(Laughing) All right. Hey, that reminded me something. When you said the rear winch, Greg, I know you put a rear winch on the JTE that you built for SEMA Quadratec. Is that, was that a gimmick or is that something that you’ve done to other vehicles, maybe one of your own, Frankenbrute or the Mahindra?

 

I actually have a front and rear winch on both Frankenbrute and the Mahindra.

 

And surprisingly, even the boys at Quadratec, they will tell you if you talk to anyone about the JTE because it did do 50 state trail cleanups, they use the rear winch more than they use the front winch.

 

the winch dampener, a heavy jacket, a weighted jacket, the weighted bags like I have, all they do is they redirect the force.

 

So it’s still coming. It’s still coming at you. It’s still coming fast, but they tend to redirect the force so that it hits the earth, which takes away a large amount of the kinetic force before it comes towards you. So when they snap, it’s still a dangerous thing, but it’s much less dangerous if you have something with some weight on it, which helps direct that force towards the earth first. And you guys correct me on this if I’m wrong, but I think the thing here is, so people, especially the new folks that are going, “Well, holy hell, this is being pulled off the side or one tire moving away from going over the edge and I need to be tied to our winch.” So it kind of sounds scary. These are very conservative ideas that we’re expressing that the, I’m not saying you- That happened every day when off-roading. Yeah. It’s not like this is, this is not really a concern. It’s just that you have to be safe because everybody wants to go out, have a blast and get back in one piece. And that’s all we’re, we’re just being very conservative about the safety aspect, which I think you have to be. So don’t get overwhelmed by this is just so super dangerous. It isn’t for everybody and it’s not going to be, there is an aspect of danger to it, but it’s like riding a roller coaster to a degree, it’s fun to be scared and it’s an accomplishment whenever you get over that fear and you see how easy it was, are challenging and you met the challenge.

 

I raised my hand. Can I input one last thing? No.

 

Go right ahead. Something I was told by the guys over at Factor 55 one time that I never realized until they were told, man, I might’ve brought this up a long time ago. It’s not really a tool, but it’s a technique and when you’re hooking up a winch line, it’s got a hook on the end of it. Always hook up, never hook down. Yeah, that’s- Because if the hook breaks and it’s hooked from the bottom up, it’s going to hit the ground. It’s hooked from the top down, it’s going to go flying in the air.

 

Yeah. Yeah, that’s the other thing I don’t like is tow straps with hooks on them. And again, I haven’t done a lot of stuff, so I may be wrong, but chains and straps with the hooks on them, I would much rather it have a loop that I can attach a D-ring to or something. I think it’s actually Factor 55 that always mentions it’s not closed loop winching. It’s like closed loop towing, recovery, whatever it is that they say. Everything is closed, so there’s no open, like a hook has an opening. Yeah, well even there, there’s a little locking pin on their ultra hook for the clasp that opens up, but even on, right on the hook itself, it says hook up.

 

Yeah, that’s a good tip.

 

Because down makes sense to me, but yeah, if it comes off there, I can see how it could

 

change its trajectory. All right, so let’s go to this next question. I think this is a pretty cool question. It’s kind of just a generic what would you do type thing. So if you rolled your Jeep, and I know it just depends before Greg starts in on this. If you rolled your Jeep, would you keep it or not? And let’s go to Keith Teeth. Keith been through several Jeeps, not rolled Jeeps, but Keith, you just got a Jeep with a Hemi in it, right? So if you roll that one, what are you doing with it? I’m keeping what I came out of it. That’s damn sure.

 

Would it be a situation where maybe you cut away the pieces and put a cage on it and keep going?

 

Um, that’s hard to say, you know. Yeah, it depends on the damage, isn’t it? Yeah, it depends on the damage. It’s just the tub and body and the engine, the frame are good. I’m keeping the engine in the frame and I’ll find a tub.

 

Otherwise, that’s a situational thing. Hard for me to say. Is it a concern of yours whenever you take your Jeep off road, especially this one that you just got recently?

 

Mm, rollovers, not really. I got my pucker factor. It’s a little bit better than John Lee’s, but still.

 

Yeah, I’m not worried about rollovers too much right now. Very good, very good. Yeah, and that’s who I was going to go to next is John Lee. What are you doing with yours? Because you’re in love with that JKU. I can’t imagine you getting rid of it no matter what happens to it. I think the, uh, you said it depends on the damage. I think a flop, I’m definitely going to be keeping it. But if we’re, if it’s a flop enough for insurance to total it, but it’s just cosmetic body damage, whatever, that’s one thing. Now, if it rolls off the top of Black Bear Pass and catches several ledges on the way down, there may not be a lot of salvaging possible, you know, when it, when it gets down there. So it would, it would really depend on the, on the damage. But short of something like catastrophic, yeah, I’d probably, I would definitely fix it. Like I would be the amount of mods and everything else I’ve already got into it. It doesn’t make sense. And, and to start over with anything that would be different would be maybe going to a three ninety two if I had that launch it off a Black Bear kind of situation. So I don’t know if you saw the, uh, the video, there’s a video in MERS, which is the adventure park in Amarillo, Texas that goes out into the paladoro canyon. They had a four by E that was left in gear when they were set up at a camp shop. And it’s similar to that campsite y’all had at EJS, where it was right there on the edge of the cliff for the campsite. It was same scenario and it rolled straight off. And by the time they got down to where it was, like there, there was nothing straight about it. That frame definitely wasn’t straight. Like, I mean, there, there was no salvaging something like that. So even if you got in a wreck, maybe it wasn’t a rollover. If the, if the frame was bent, would you go through the process of having the frame straightened or maybe an off body replacement of the frame? I mean, how far would you go to keep your G? I think, I think if it’s, if the majority of the parts of those frames, I’d probably go with like something like the gen right or the moto belt already made frames that are already set up for like a coil over kit and stuff like that. So the typical cheaper answer, I would take the opportunity to upgrade. Right. It’s an opportunity. Let me get a bigger and better set up. So, yeah.

 

All right, Roger. I see you have your hand up. What would you do?

 

He would go into an area where he doesn’t have service. So he can’t talk to us. No, sorry. I was muted. I said I would turn it into a trailer Queen. There you go. I mean, if, you know, if it’s long as a, if the frame, the little framed, the little bent, well, it doesn’t need to be straight for the, for the off road. You know, it only needs to be straight for the highway. So just turn it into a trailer Queen and buy another Jeep. That’s interesting. I never thought about that. I guess it really doesn’t have to be straight. Does it? I mean, there are limits to that. Well, you know, they say, you know, it’s already bent. I’ll just rename it a pretzel and take it off road. If it’s already bent, what’s the worst that can happen? Are you going to bend it tomorrow? If you’re driving around with a permanent Jeep wave, you know, one wheel something here.

 

Yeah. If you don’t need, if you don’t need to, but the one door off so you can see where you’re going, then you may have a bit of a problem. All right. So let’s go over to Jacob, but Jacob, what would you do if you had a rollover? Would you, I guess, and of course it depends. Let’s just say that it’s, it’s, it’s fixable. It’s not horribly gone wrong. It’s not mutilated. Would you keep the Jeep or would you let the, the insurance or the, the record driver take it away? Well, it depends on which of the five it is. If it’s my YJ, I’ve had 25 years. I’m going to cry. And when I’m done crying, I’m going to assess the damage and try to rebuild if it’s possible. If it’s the JK, it’s just a minivan dumpster fire, let the insurance have it and maybe buy it back and buy what parts off might be worth it. Well, it is tough too. I mean, I know a lot of you guys really enjoy working on your Jeep, but for me, it would be really tough if I put the time and the effort into the modifications and then to be in the situation where I couldn’t, I mean, all those modifications, all that work that I did is going away. I think several of you guys would look at it as an opportunity to be like, oh, I get to do that again. That’s fine.

 

That would be the opportunity with the Willys because that one was built up literally out of the scrapyard once. So it would be the opportunity to throw the 3800 supercharged and I got sitting here.

 

All right, Rick, what you got? All righty. So, you know, I’ve said several times, knowing what I know now, I could pretty much build a whole Jeep from scratch from all aftermarket parts or TJ at least. Yeah. So, I mean, you can get a full throttle frame, which is like quarter inch. I mean, beef frame. You can there’s a company, Aqua Aqua Lehrer or something like that out of Canada that that makes a whole aluminum tub. I mean, you can completely build the whole Jeep out of the whole little one out of business. Oh, really?

 

All right. Well, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it. Now you’re helpless. Now you’re. Yeah, my problem. My whole plan is ruined. But anyway, I definitely I would definitely. I mean, if it was a complete just nothing, you know, picking up pieces all the way down the side of the mountain. I mean, that’s one thing. But, you know, if I could, I mean, obviously after after I drowned it, I mean, I put the thing all back together, you know, so that’s what I’d be doing.

 

Greg, have you ever thought about building a Jeep from the ground up? I mean, the amount of detail that you go into, you kind of do that already. But I mean, literally something that is a Jeep but doesn’t have anything, any OEM parts on it.

 

I picked the wrong time for. And he’s got the kill. He’s got the kill to the back door. No, no, nothing up the back door. No, so I I’m actually and Jacob knows because he’s been here, but I’m essentially kind of slowly but surely in the process of building something from the ground up.

 

And because it’s a personal project, it tends to it’s more of the back burner. But but yeah, I’ve got a I’ve got a Jeep that I have a frame. I have part of a body. I have I just bought another Jeep, which comes with the powertrain and the dashboard.

 

So yes, I’m going to be building one from the ground up starting with.

 

Essentially just big piles of parts. So but I mean, you literally could build you could build a Jeep with absolutely no OEM parts. You could. Yeah, you could just build it the way you wanted to do it. And it would have never been from Toledo or any other Jeep plant.

 

Yeah, and anybody can do that, right? You can you can buy every single part and build a Jeep right out of a catalog without hand fabricating it. Or if you really wanted to. Yeah, you could fabricate most everything.

 

The body, the body is relatively simple.

 

The frames are real simple. The suspension simple. So yeah, you could build one from scratch if you wanted. But I mean, you you have the knowledge because you’ve gone through this many times. You know, the angles, you know, the distances, you know, the thicknesses of the metal that need to be need to be done. I don’t think anybody could do it. I think that with another research, they probably could. But I think it’d be easier for someone like yourself that has been through this and has to fix a lot of things. I mean, the knowledge that you have on the the frame, for example, you were telling us about the frame you have in the image right now, but things that you were doing to it to to make it actually better than what it came from the factory. So, you know, it could be wrong, but I think that you have to have some knowledge to easily do something or not being in a situation that once you get done with it, there’s a major problem with it. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, maybe I’ve learned it wrong. I believe that anybody’s possible because because today we do we’ve got such a wonderful resource of information. Right. But for me, yes, it would probably be a little bit easier because I essentially do it all day anyway. Oh, what better way to learn than hands on. Right. Right. Yeah. So so if anybody wants to do it, they’re more than welcome to come hang out for three or four months, learn just an obnoxious amount of shit while I get free labor for it. And then they can go do it on their own. I love the last part. That was very understated while I get free labor for it.

 

Yeah, I just like the idea. You know, it concerns me with the way the direction and stuff that Jeep is going with their stuff. And I like the idea of still being able to be in the situation, whether it’s used stuff or maybe if I want to have something that’s new, having the ability to actually have a real Jeep and not something that some crap that Jeep has come up with. And I don’t I don’t know that for sure. I mean, I think that the Jeep is still Jeepy here in in twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five. But there’s there’s things that are scary that that they’re doing. And I think being owned by a European company is one of those things. I mean, if they ever stick IFS on the Wrangler or a Gladiator, I think that would be a really, really. So in the funny part is, as they’ve done it, when JK, some of the first prototype meals of the JK that were driving around had IFS.

 

Well, the funny part is, is JL did not. But yeah, when they were coming out with JK, they actually IFS some and there was there was a bunch of them driving around Michigan.

 

And they felt so smooth to drive. It was like the upcoming Bronco that was going to be coming out years later.

 

All right. Let’s go back to Bill. Bill there in and around Austin, Texas, not living under a bridge, no matter what you heard. So, Bill, if you if you rolled your Jeep and you can pick which Jeep it is, would you keep it or would you just get another one? So what masochist came up with this question? I’m not I’m not answering that. Doesn’t that seem like a Rick Rick question? I think that’s a Rick question. I don’t know. I’m getting pleasure out of this or whatever. So I’m I’m going to take a pass. I’m not going to answer. That’s fine. You can always do that. I can either confirm or deny that it was me.

 

Thanks. I was going to go look up. I was curious. I know I said a big less. I can’t believe I got blamed for it.

 

Horrible question. I can. Oh, man.

 

OK, let’s see if let’s see if Steve has his mouth full again. I didn’t come out right. No, it did not come out right.

 

What would you do, Steve, if you rolled your Jeep and I guess it doesn’t have to be off road. You could roll it going back and forth to work, right? I mean, you got hit from the side and stuff. The first thing probably Jacob’s reaction. I’d be crying. I love my Jeep. Yeah, but a lot of time. Love effort labor into it. Yeah, it depends on the damage, obviously. And my obvious expertise level, I don’t have a garage. I don’t have a place to work on it.

 

So if it’s, you know, frame damage, I’m done.

 

It all depends. You know, is it running? Is it not running?

 

It’s paid off at this point, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re being paid off here fairly recently. I think you had said that you paid it off. So would that. 392.

 

Would that dovetail into whether you kept it or not? I mean, would would you like to have an off road only rig?

 

Oh, yes, my wife wouldn’t, but I would.

 

Well, I don’t have a tow rig. I don’t have the trailer, a place to keep the trailer. So that’s not likely an option for me. Yeah, I know. I’m in the same situation with the current situation. So yeah, it’s all dependent. You know, just praying to God never happens. Although with Roger spotting me, I almost thought it was going to happen.

 

But yeah, how about you, Rich? Rich, I can see you keeping anything and maybe collecting dead stuff along the road and bringing it back to life. Would you if you if you rolled your Jeep, would you would you keep it or not?

 

Depends on how bad it is.

 

I would chances are if if it’s not too bad, I’d probably chop off the worst parts of it and turn it into more of a rock crawler buggy type of thing.

 

Well, if it’s too bad, I would I don’t know. I don’t know where I go with it.

 

Parts? I did. I did get permission to build a buggy for my wife. So that would probably be the next build. Was she drinking?

 

Maybe.

 

Yeah. So I would imagine you’ve pretty much rebuilt that XJ a couple of times over, haven’t you?

 

Yeah. And it’s it’s going to go at least one more time.

 

Very nice. All right. Well, I’m having too much fun tonight. I just glanced up and I see we’re over one hour here on the episode.

 

So I call on Travis. Yeah, you better call on Travis. I didn’t. I didn’t see Travis was there. I wish he would put his name as Travis and not T. I always see that T and I want to see a G after it. He Travis, if you had an 89 YJ and you rolled it, would you keep it or would you kept it? I’ve rolled it and I’ve kept it. That’s that’s the thing. When you’re talking about rolling a vehicle, I’ve rolled the YJ.

 

He had some body damage, but the Jeep was fine. And when I say I rolled it, it’s been on its side. I’ve not completely flipped it over. When when a lot of us are off road, I think the majority of us would put them on their side, pick them back up and keep going. It’s not going to slow down or it truly doesn’t slow down the Jeep. I pulled mine back over and, you know, was back out on the road that that moment.

 

If you’re flipping it or you’re going through Moab and you’ve got it rolling tumbling down a hill, I think that’s that’s the question that needs to be asked because then you’re totally because you put a Jeep on its side. It has a solid frame. It’s going to be a good vehicle. You’re going to pull it back over and you’re good to go.

 

So that’s me. No, I’ve rolled it on its side. I’ve not flipped it over.

 

And zero issues. I had some body damage. You know, I’ve upgraded all my fenders. I’ve done everything since. You can’t tell. No one will ever know that that’s happened. Right. If I’m, you know, flipping it over and tumbling down, you know, a Moab trail. Yeah. Then we’re going to talk because then you will get into frame damage. But 90 percent, I think, of what everyone’s going to be willing or doing. They’re going to flip it on its side. They’re going to be fine. It’s going to be scary as hell. And then you’re back and you’re you’re you’re good to go. Well, your engine. Yeah. And the aftermarket society’s situation is there’s so many parts out there. So it’s like you said, you could put fenders on there, replace that it up. It’s an opportunity to upgrade.

 

You know, John Lee always talks about how he hates off camber. I’ve got one final question for you, John. John, if you and I don’t you can you correct me on this. If you’ve already done this, I don’t think you’ve ever laid your Jeep over on its side. That would be the ultimate off camber moment. Do you think you would leave jeeping if you if you literally flipped it on its side? Would that be too much for you?

 

Can’t believe you went there.

 

He’d be setting up the psychiatrist appointment before he left. I feel like answering that would bring bad juju on. So I’m just I think I might have to go bills way. And just for the record, this is Tony mittens question, right? So there we go. Blame him for that. That negative vibe. But I think the positive of it is that there’s you don’t just because something happens to your Jeep doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the Jeep or the end of you being out there having fun with that Jeep. So it’s just an opportunity to overcome once again. So and Tony, one of the thought if you do flop your Jeep or roll it over, if you’re on your roll cage at all, that roll cage is a one time use.

 

You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.