Jeep Advice on tires and wheels for the XJ

[Homefryy]

Nice upgrade! Driving impressions?

I've only driven it a couple of miles in town to run to NAPA. With the Jeep empty and at low speeds I don't have any complaints about the tire size and gearing. We will see if that changes loaded up for camping trying to do 80mph up mountains.

 

[Homefryy]

When I installed the lift on the jeep I never did anything with bumpstops since I didn't know what I would end up with for wheels and tires. Here is the front tire stuffed to where the shock is just about fully compressed. The bumpstops are still about 3" short of making contact. I got some 2" extended bump stops and some hockey pucks on the way to sort that out.

I want to keep as much up-travel as possible so it looks like while I need to do some trimming as well. Need to figure out how I want to approach that. I don't want to run without flares and don't want to spend a couple hundred $ on something like bushwackers.

 

[mbryson]

This worked for me way back in the day. That picture is at least 15 yrs old. The stock flares and some rear mud flaps kept me from getting pulled over.

 

[N-Smooth]

I did ^this^ before as well. Worked great.

 

[I Lean]

View attachment 117807

Hey look, that's me and @BlackSheep in the background!

 

[mbryson]

That was a rather warm day if I remember correctly

 

[Homefryy]

This worked for me way back in the day. That picture is at least 15 yrs old. The stock flares and some rear mud flaps kept me from getting pulled over.

View attachment 117806View attachment 117807

Thanks for the pictures. That looks pretty close to what I want to do.

On the front it looks to me like you moved the front flare up so the top is about even with the body line and then trimmed some of the lower portions. I haven't dug into exactly how the flares are mounted yet but I believe there are some long brackets that bolt to the fenders and then the flares clip to those. Did you just drill new mounting holes for that bracket higher up?

For the rears it looks like you left the flare in its stock position and just trimmed some of the lower areas. Is that accurate? I'm not sure if I will have to do any trimming in the rear or not. It doesn't look like it but I also wasn't able to get the rear fully flexed out in my garage.

 

[mbryson]

Thanks for the pictures. That looks pretty close to what I want to do.

On the front it looks to me like you moved the front flare up so the top is about even with the body line and then trimmed some of the lower portions. I haven't dug into exactly how the flares are mounted yet but I believe there are some long brackets that bolt to the fenders and then the flares clip to those. Did you just drill new mounting holes for that bracket higher up?

For the rears it looks like you left the flare in its stock position and just trimmed some of the lower areas. Is that accurate? I'm not sure if I will have to do any trimming in the rear or not. It doesn't look like it but I also wasn't able to get the rear fully flexed out in my garage.

I did just drill new holes higher on the fender. I believe I just used a cut off wheel to cut the rest of what rubbed.

Rears were left in stock position and just clearanced/hammered/trimmed as much as needed.

 

[N-Smooth]

Just drill new holes and toss the bracket. Also, don't fret when most of the bolts break as you're taking the flares off. It's actually more convenient to have them break rather than fight with loosening them. This has been my experience on a handful of XJ's at least.

 

[BlackSheep]

This worked for me way back in the day. That picture is at least 15 yrs old. The stock flares and some rear mud flaps kept me from getting pulled over.

Hey look, that's me and @BlackSheep in the background!

DAMN!! Crazy to think that you're right - that could be 15 years ago!! Cool photo!

 

[Homefryy]

I got everything trimmed and bumpstopped properly and installed new drag link and tie rods. Now I need an alignment. Any suggestions on where to take it in the Salt Lake area? I think I have seen Alignment Specialists mentioned on here before as a decent option.

 

[Jay5.9L]

That’s where I’d heard to go too

 

[Homefryy]

Took it to Alignment Specialists and got it taken care of. I'm excited to get out Saturday on the snow run and try out the new tires.

 

[Homefryy]

I work from home so I didn't need to head out into this snow but my neighbor with bald tires couldn't get out of his driveway so I offered to give him a ride to work since I was looking for an excuse to go test the new tires on some snowy roads. Super happy with how they performed. I wish I didn't have work that needed to get done and could just drive around the rest of the day getting people unstuck.

 

[Greg]

Good to hear! Did you have them siped yet?

 

[Homefryy]

Good to hear! Did you have them siped yet?

Yeah. I got them siped right away before I put them on the Jeep.

 

[SAMI]

Yeah. I got them siped right away before I put them on the Jeep.

How was the traction on snow/ice? I'm debating siping my General's since they have plans to murder me in icy/snowy conditions.

 

[Homefryy]

How was the traction on snow/ice? I'm debating siping my General's since they have plans to murder me in icy/snowy conditions.

I only drove in snow 2 or 3 times so don't have a lot to say but I was happy with how the tires performed in those few instances.

 

[ID Bronco]

How was the traction on snow/ice? I'm debating siping my General's since they have plans to murder me in icy/snowy conditions.

Here in Idaho we get a little snow/ice and I believe 95% of tires need to be siped. I have had excellent results, on MT's I only sipe the middle 3/4, not the outside lugs so they don't chunk out. I just put some new bfg at's on and didn't sipe them, they look to be fine with factory cuts.