Season 2, Episode 74 - Stephen Watson of Offroad Designs, Fullsize Trucks Mods, and 2024 Ford Ranger Review

 

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Jay “Lighting” Tilles (0s):

Oh, but I’m not gonna say that The recent attempt Stop, stop,

Sean P. Holman (3s):

Stop, stop, stop. It’s, I’m still watching the car chase on the

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5s):

Tv. I know, I know, I know. Turn the car chase off. It just,

Sean P. Holman (8s):

I’m not, I’ll turn the volume down, but I’m not turning the car chase

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (10s):

Off. I mean, it is just like, I, I can’t, you

Sean P. Holman (13s):

Always complain about how distracting it ist s a show and we’re watching Car Chase. It’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (17s):

Awesome. I’m getting PTSD watching this. Why? Even though I didn’t see the dudes wearing long dicky shorts and like knee high socks stealing my, trying to steal my truck. Yeah. So here’s what I, here’s the question are

Sean P. Holman (27s):

Have they come back yet?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (28s):

No. But they’re going to. I know they are. And even though I’ve got my hila and my compu star alarm installed now and it’s in your club and it’s, don’t forget your club. No, it’s funny ’cause Brandy, my wife asked me to put in, she’s like, why don’t you get a club? I’m like, seriously the

Sean P. Holman (41s):

Club? Yeah, but it’ll slow ’em down.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (43s):

It’s all gonna slow ’em down. I know, but

Sean P. Holman (45s):

Think

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (45s):

Of, how about, but here’s the thing. They’re not gonna get The truck. Like they, they would’ve to flatbed it outta my You know front yard. Don’t

Sean P. Holman (51s):

Give any

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (51s):

Ideas. No, I’m not. But look, I have legitimate PTSD and I know that other people do too, who that’s happened to. They didn’t get The truck. So I’m so thankful they didn’t get it. And I, and I, listen, if you’ve listened to the last couple episodes, you’re probably like, oh seriously, Lightning on and on about this freaking attempted theft. But it sucked balls and I don, I don’t want it to happen again.

Sean P. Holman (1m 11s):

I don’t know that, that it did do that. That’s, and

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1m 13s):

So hopefully

Sean P. Holman (1m 14s):

That’s a metaphor. It

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1m 15s):

It is a metaphor. Okay. They’re gonna come back and they’re gonna break that freaking sliding rear window again.

Sean P. Holman (1m 20s):

Okay. So then you need to put a sign. And

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1m 22s):

So here’s my question.

Sean P. Holman (1m 23s):

Put a sign Yeah. In the back of your bed for when it’s parked that says, this vehicle is equipped with all these things.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1m 31s):

So the alarm guy said, don’t do that.

Sean P. Holman (1m 33s):

And then say, please don’t steal it. They’re not going to. And then also say, they’re not gonna read that. May God be with you.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1m 38s):

No, I’m not gonna do that either. Why? Someone said, put a little white decal of a gun. Or

Sean P. Holman (1m 43s):

It’s gonna make ’em want it. ’cause they’re gonna think you have a gun safe in there.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1m 46s):

I, I don’t know. But like, so here’s the question. Is there any way I can prevent them from busting that little tiny one foot square window? Is there some protective film that I don’t know about? And I started looking it up.

Sean P. Holman (1m 57s):

Yeah. ’cause I suggested that and I sent you some links.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 0s):

I looked at ’em, but, and you’re like of still

Sean P. Holman (2m 2s):

Shatter.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 2s):

That’s the thing. So most of them, that stuff goes on the inside of the window and it shatters. But it prevents,

Sean P. Holman (2m 7s):

But it keeps you from making a mess.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 8s):

That’s fine. But I’m not really worried about the mess. I’m worried about the broken window in, in a six week back order on Windows again.

Sean P. Holman (2m 15s):

Well, not, they won’t be six weeks forever.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 18s):

I, if the theft keeps going, nah,

Sean P. Holman (2m 20s):

They’ll,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 20s):

They’ll make on Ram trucks. They’re make more, they’ll

Sean P. Holman (2m 22s):

Make more. You’re good. So

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 23s):

Who you don’t work in Mopar.

Sean P. Holman (2m 24s):

Because if, listen, if Mopar has demand, they’re gonna start ramping up production, maybe making, making more money. No, that’s not true. They won. They

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 31s):

Don’t make The truck anymore.

Sean P. Holman (2m 32s):

Yes,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 32s):

They do. I know. It’s the, the,

Sean P. Holman (2m 34s):

It’s the Ram 1500 window. The window’s no different on the new one as it is on yours. Listen,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2m 39s):

Is there a film that I can put on the outside that when they come with their little punch tool, it just, it no bounces right off? Nothing. Well,

Sean P. Holman (2m 46s):

I mean, if you, unless you wanted to get like a bulletproof glass from an armored ram probably cost you 15 grand. But we keep that rear window from shattering. Hmm. I mean, listen, how, how, how committed are you to keeping that window

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 2s):

Together? Pretty damn committed. All right. I don’t know if I would put in bull. I, I guess I would have to see if they make one A and, and how much it costs.

Sean P. Holman (3m 10s):

Okay.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 11s):

It just, I don’t, That sucked.

Sean P. Holman (3m 13s):

Yeah, it sucks.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 17s):

Do do I do.

Sean P. Holman (3m 18s):

Was later do it. Do you think it was a loud exhaust that,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 20s):

Should I just shut up about this? Should I not talk about this topic anymore?

Sean P. Holman (3m 22s):

Structural podcast at gmail dot com. Are

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 24s):

You guys tired of hearing about this? Alright. I I’m not, you know what? I feel like it, it’s let’s talk about Happy talk. I feel like I’ve overdone this topic. I’m moving on. You’re

Sean P. Holman (3m 31s):

Not, you’re not. Because the, the second you have some other thing, you’re gonna bring it up.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 34s):

We have to talk about CompUSA Thank you at some point. Yes.

Sean P. Holman (3m 37s):

Alright. I was at the California Overland show this weekend and had the 3 92 on display and had, did they

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 44s):

Bust your rear window trying to get in?

Sean P. Holman (3m 46s):

No, I had it open so that they could look inside. Oh, okay. It was open all weekend long. Got it. Had a couple, actually, several listeners come up. Who

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (3m 52s):

Did they think you were Lightning? No. They

Sean P. Holman (3m 54s):

Said, oh dude, I love your podcast. And I was like, what? Really? So I thought that was pretty cool. In fact, one of the guys you may remember, he owns a local pizza spot in San Pedro. And he said, Hey, I would love for you and Lightning to come have a slice on me.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (4m 10s):

He said that again or originally? No,

Sean P. Holman (4m 12s):

Again. Really? Yeah. I, I believe his name was Marco Ben Bonne. And he, he owns a pizza shop called Bon’s, New York Pizza and said, Hey, would love for you guys to come by. And I Can

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (4m 26s):

We come there now? Yes.

Sean P. Holman (4m 27s):

And I, I’m starving. I told him, I’m like, dude, would, we would love to come there? He goes, really? I’m like, no, seriously, I remember your email and we should do this. And then you and I just, I mean, it’s not the closest place to us, but for good PII said, first of all, remind me, is it Chicago or New York? And he says, New York. I went, I’m in. Yeah, because I don’t care. I, there’s gonna be a lot of people in the Midwest. You’re gonna be upset about this. But you guys, we talked about this. You guys make tomato cake, you don’t make pizza.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (4m 52s):

I’m sorry. Love it. I love it. I love it. Love it, love it. Awful. But if I had to choose,

Sean P. Holman (4m 55s):

It’s not pizza, it’s tomato cake,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (4m 57s):

Whatever.

Sean P. Holman (4m 57s):

If Chicago said we make the best world’s best tomato cake, I would be on board with that. But they’re trying to co-op pizza from people who really make pizza. And it’s not pizza. I’m sorry.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 5s):

I’m saying I love them both. But if I had to choose one on an island forever,

Sean P. Holman (5m 9s):

I’m not saying I I’m not saying I don’t like Chicago pizza. I’m saying it’s not pizza.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 13s):

It is pizza.

Sean P. Holman (5m 14s):

And it’s like saying I like roast beef and I like New York pizza.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 17s):

No, it is pizza.

Sean P. Holman (5m 18s):

No, it’s not pizza. It’s pizza. It’s tomato cake. Fuck it’s tomato

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 21s):

Cake. No it’s not.

Sean P. Holman (5m 22s):

It’s the, the ingredients order of operations are installed wrong. It’s got that thick Doughty crust. The toppings are layered and then sauces. It’s, it’s all backwards. It’s not love. It’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 32s):

Not right. I love it. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (5m 33s):

You like it ’cause it’s food.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 35s):

No, I don’t love all

Sean P. Holman (5m 36s):

Food. Okay. So I, I did

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 38s):

Ask, but I would take New York style over it. Listen, but not by a ton. Listen,

Sean P. Holman (5m 42s):

I talked to Marco and I said, Hey, good question for you. I wanna go eat at your establishment. I wanna have, I wanna have your pizza. Do you have Dr. Pepper?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (5m 54s):

I have a feeling the answer is yes. There

Sean P. Holman (5m 55s):

Was a pregnant pause that had me worried. Oh really? And then he said, only in cans. And I said, I’m good. We we’re good. I can do cans As long as it’s not bottles. Bottles sewed inside plastic is crap. So we’re good that he has ice cold Dr. Pepper and cans. And he has a delicious New York pizza. And I wanna go. Here’s the

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 13s):

Thing about Pedro.

Sean P. Holman (6m 13s):

Are are you going with me?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 14s):

A hundred percent because they have a great bar scene.

Sean P. Holman (6m 16s):

I, whatever. I’m, I’m going for pizza. No,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 18s):

We, we, we go and we do the pizza and then there’s like three really four, three or four really cool

Sean P. Holman (6m 22s):

Bars. Wait, so may we would go eat his pizza and then leave his establishment

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 26s):

Unless he has beer and then we’re hanging. Okay.

Sean P. Holman (6m 29s):

I wonder if he would let us make some pizza. Do you think he lets spin the dough in the air and like throw it up to the ceiling and catch it.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 35s):

Don don’t know. Are there any regulations that prevent two hairy dudes from spinning pies in

Sean P. Holman (6m 39s):

Here? I think there’s a lot of re but what if it’s our pie?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 42s):

That sounds disgusting. Okay,

Sean P. Holman (6m 44s):

Well I’m, I’m down to, I’m down to try. Alright. I’ve always wanted to, to, so

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 49s):

Pizza, what is it? What’s it called again?

Sean P. Holman (6m 51s):

Bon’s New York Pizza in San Pedro. It’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 54s):

Pedro,

Sean P. Holman (6m 55s):

The local Pedro, Pedro,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (6m 57s):

Whatever. Do the local say Pedro. Ah, You. Don’t even to say San you’re go Pedro.

Sean P. Holman (6m 60s):

What’s up? Pizza, pizza, whatever.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (7m 2s):

Oh, come on Now all Right here is The truck. Show Podcast. I’m Lightning and the guy over there is Holman. And on this show we’re gonna bring you, in this episode, we’re gonna bring you Stephen Watson from Off-Road

Sean P. Holman (7m 12s):

Design. Oh, you mean listener Stephen Watson. Yes. That’s Stephen Watson emailer. Stephen Watson. Now wait a minute. A five star hotline message Lever. Stephen Watson. Do

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (7m 20s):

You think he’s listening before we call

Sean P. Holman (7m 21s):

Him? Yes. Full size truck builder. He Stephen Watson. Yeah. He’s like, he’s like an Adonis to all of the full size truck. Hardcore off-Road guy. So

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (7m 31s):

On Adonis, that’s like a guy who like works out and he Yeah. Built and glistening.

Sean P. Holman (7m 35s):

Yeah. He is on a, he is on a mountain in Colorado and he, the sun shines on him 24 7. It’s amazing. So we should, we should definitely talk to him. And then we’ll also kick off my thoughts on the new Ford Ranger now that we can talk about it. You may have heard our have You Heard episode last week about a little bit from the Ranger Raptor. So I wanna talk about the Ranger day and then we’ll get to your emails from our inbox.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (7m 58s):

But first we have to thank our partners starting with Nissan.

Sean P. Holman (8m 1s):

If you’re in the market for a new half ton or mid-size truck, you wanna head over to Nissan usa dot com or down your local dealer where you can check out the Nissan Frontier, the Nissan Titan and the Nissan Titan Xd. And of course, Titans have the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty. And all the Nissans have zero gravity seats. Why is that important? Because I have driven a lot of trucks in the last few weeks and I am really missing that frontier I had because those seats are some of the most comfortable in the entire industry. So if you’re somebody with back issues that finds trucks uncomfortable or seats in general, like

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (8m 35s):

Seats in

Sean P. Holman (8m 36s):

General, well, a lot of automotive seats. You,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (8m 37s):

I can’t sit down.

Sean P. Holman (8m 38s):

There’s some of these vehicles that have like a gazillion different adjustments and they’re still not comfortable. I have yet to sit in a Nissan product with zero gravity seats that I didn’t immediately sink into and go, dude, this is perfect. So I’m one of those guys. Love the seats. Buy The truck for the seats. Only the rest of the truck’s good. But the the seats themselves are better. And that’s an

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (8m 57s):

Interesting purchase decision that

Sean P. Holman (8m 58s):

Fender audio system solid because I’ve also been in a lot of trucks lately that have their upgraded audio.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (9m 4s):

No highs, no lows.

Sean P. Holman (9m 5s):

I’m just saying some of those systems aren’t as advertised. Check out the options and pricing today. Once again, that’s Nissan usa dot com

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (9m 12s):

And if you have a 1991 to 1999 Jeep, or a 2000 to 2006 Jeep and the headers are starting to rot and it sounds like, sounds like you need a header. Yes I do. You need to call your friends over at Banks Power 806 0 180 72 or hit up Banks Power dot com and type in your year make and model to find stainless steel jeep headers that don’t make that God awful sound.

Sean P. Holman (9m 39s):

Ones that don’t have holes in them.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (9m 41s):

Exactly.

Sean P. Holman (9m 42s):

How about the performance Lightning?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (9m 43s):

You’ll gain up to 22 horsepower just by bolting on these headers with nothing else. That’s it, dude.

Sean P. Holman (9m 49s):

That’s solid. It

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (9m 50s):

Is solid. Banks Power dot com to find yours,

Recording (9m 53s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer What The truck, truck rides with The truck show. We have the lifted We have the lowered and everything in between. We talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa. It’s The truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (10m 33s):

Alright, whole shot. It’s time to call Mr. Stephen. Watson. You ready? Let’s do it. Let’s dial, let’s

Sean P. Holman (10m 38s):

Do it.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (10m 39s):

All right.

Stephen Watson (10m 49s):

Lightning at Holman

Sean P. Holman (10m 51s):

From a mountaintop high above the beauty of Colorado, our friend in, should we say newest advertiser and just put him on the spot and make him spend money with us before we go

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 1s):

On track. No, no, don’t do that. That’s that’s dirty. Yeah. It’s funny though. This is

Sean P. Holman (11m 3s):

Funny.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 5s):

Mr. Stephen. Watson. What’s up? How you doing

Stephen Watson (11m 9s):

Guys?

Sean P. Holman (11m 9s):

How’s your ears after that?

Stephen Watson (11m 12s):

You, you’ve recently received compliments on your prowess and not to try to inflate any heads there, but you do a good job on keeping the audio working properly.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 24s):

Oh, well

Stephen Watson (11m 25s):

That all came through. Okay.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 26s):

Thank you? Yes. Well, ed, so you win some, you lose some I lose some every Tuesday when we record and I and I win some when I post the audio when it sounds good. So I’m doing all right. Hey, it’s your turn to choose an Intro. So do you want Well, let’s just,

Sean P. Holman (11m 41s):

He he’s a listener of

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 42s):

The show. I know that. Does he want, does Steven want, hold

Sean P. Holman (11m 44s):

On, I’m just gonna

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 45s):

Go through the list. Wait, hold. You’re gonna let him choose? Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (11m 47s):

Yeah, yeah. Do you, do you want innovator entrepreneur pull up a stool? Who diss

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 53s):

Don Don’t think we

Sean P. Holman (11m 54s):

Or old timey shop talk I don.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (11m 55s):

I gotta be honest, I’m not comfortable letting a guest choose their own

Sean P. Holman (11m 58s):

Intro. That’s Stephen Watson. It’s fine. Yeah. Yeah. We, we can let ’em

Stephen Watson (12m 2s):

Let’s go with the, pull up a stool and share.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (12m 7s):

Pull up a stool and share. Here we go.

Sean P. Holman (12m 9s):

Yeah.

7 (12m 10s):

Pull up a stool and share. Pull up a stool and share a story. Pull up a stool and share.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (12m 20s):

How about you pull up a stool and share with us? I love that one. Never gets told. Good.

Sean P. Holman (12m 25s):

Good choice then.

Stephen Watson (12m 27s):

Good ones.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (12m 28s):

Alright,

Sean P. Holman (12m 28s):

So we’ve had a bunch of listeners who are like, Stephen Watson keeps leaving you voicemails. Stephen Watson keeps emailing you. Why don’t you have Stephen Watson back on the show? And I’m like, well, here he is. So you’re, you’re back. I, I think what, the last time I saw you, we were hanging out at SEMA in the, the Skyjacker booth and you were regaling me with tales of how many times you swore Lightning out listening to the last 10 shows.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (12m 55s):

Swore Wait, what? Why, what, what, why

Sean P. Holman (12m 58s):

I just, maybe, maybe he didn’t. I don’t know.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (13m 0s):

No, I feel like there’s a little bit truth.

Stephen Watson (13m 2s):

This we were about minis too much.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (13m 4s):

Was that the deal?

Sean P. Holman (13m 5s):

All so lightning’s like, well what’s, what’s he gonna come on and talk about? And I’m like, well, normally we are like pushing some parts or something or, or we’ve got somebody who You know has some, but this is a rare time. We have somebody who’s both a listener, longtime listener and a shop owner. And there’s a bunch of questions out there, but then you had opinions on the show. So I, I wrote down a, a bunch of stuff and I think the first thing we should discuss is third vehicles. ’cause you seem to have an opinion on the third vehicle thing.

Stephen Watson (13m 36s):

Oh, I think it’s the second vehicle thing.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (13m 39s):

Oh,

Sean P. Holman (13m 39s):

Second vehicle thing. Okay. Okay. Yeah,

Stephen Watson (13m 41s):

Because I think that most people that have a truck are gonna have something else that they drive quite a bit because the truck’s probably not gonna get good mileage, especially if it’s kind of a broad You know your tow rig, that kind of stuff. And so you kind of end up with a super vehicle and especially if it’s a project, you’re definitely gonna have to have something to drive. There’s all kinds of things to discuss as far as the merits goes. Talking about the mini versus the Honda and You know as we message back and forth a little bit, the true answer is a mini truck, but room to debate and look Yeah.

Stephen Watson (14m 21s):

And come to that conclusion.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (14m 23s):

Well you’re right, but we don’t, neither of us have a mini truck. You don’t think that my second car is good in Holman cr like where do you stand on all this? The CRV versus when I used to have a mini

Sean P. Holman (14m 33s):

Stephen Watson owner of Offroad Design who builds solid axle. Awesome You know mostly GMs and things like that. What is in your driveway right now? Let’s, let’s take this to your, to your home

Stephen Watson (14m 44s):

At this point there is a Toyota FJ that my wife drives. There’s an Isuzu pickup. That’s all there is to describe the Isuzu pickup because apparently that’s what they were Zuzu pickups that my younger son is driving F-150.

Sean P. Holman (15m 1s):

There’s not a whole lot of trucks, like small economy cars here or Yeah, I mean the Isuzu’s sort of a mini truck, but it depends like is that like an Isuzu Colorado Isuzu or is that like a older, older Isuzu like,

Stephen Watson (15m 12s):

Oh this is, yeah, this is an Isuzu mini truck. All right. So which is the perfect kids support vehicle because he can haul parts in it gets good mileage. You know it was kind of small and economical. Even the quote big tires on the Isuzu or like thirties that even

Sean P. Holman (15m 29s):

Those are cheap. That’s big compared to a, a CV or a, a mini.

Stephen Watson (15m 32s):

Yep. And it is four Wheel Drive, so it’s a, a viable backup. So yeah, that’s why I think the mini truck is the ultimate thing. But as you guys know, a lot of people end up with just kind of the different hand-me-downs, which is kind of how I sort of ended up with a Jetta.

Sean P. Holman (15m 49s):

Oh. Oh there we go. There you go. We cut right to the, finally got to the core. It was be beating around the bush a little bit

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (15m 55s):

There. My god. Two hours later. Two hours later. So a Jetta, there’s a, so a Jetta pretty well what?

Sean P. Holman (16m 3s):

It’s a diesel Jetta. People

Stephen Watson (16m 4s):

Just, it is a five speed diesel jetta that is fairly fun to drive. It runs better than a stock one. And so that helped. Nothing extensive but enough to, to make it kind of fun to drive. And it still gets like 45 miles to the gallon.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (16m 22s):

Does this apply where those, they say it’s, it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car. Slow. And that’s a really slow car driving kind of, sort of fast ish.

Stephen Watson (16m 32s):

Yeah, this is one of those where it’s just nice to drive for a couple of weeks without going to a gas station. So

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (16m 37s):

Hold on a second. It sounds like you were super fired up about our conversation or our heated debate about the mini versus the crv and now we got you on the horn and you’re like not blasting us the way maybe we thought you would

Sean P. Holman (16m 53s):

Because he’s a shy. I think

Stephen Watson (16m 55s):

A lot of people end up in your situation You know I have The truck and I also have the long commute. So I drive the car and my wife drives The truck to work. That’s common. I think guys do that. You could probably have people call in and tell stories how that works. Like Sean’s, I have this hand me down thing That’s awesome and I’m just gonna drive it for a while. I mean, my dad ended up driving a Subaru brat for a long time because it was, geez, I think my brother drove it in high school. It wasn’t a brat, it was a hatchback.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (17m 28s):

But Steven, Steven, hold on a second Steven, because

Stephen Watson (17m 31s):

My brother gave it to him. Oh, I and it just hold

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (17m 33s):

On a second. Hold on a second. The brat and the Jetta are both cooler than a Honda CR-v even if it was a brand new 2024 CR-v fresh off the lot, zero miles new car smell the whole thing. Still lame. That is

8 (17m 50s):

So lame.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (17m 52s):

Lame. Super duper lame.

Stephen Watson (17m 54s):

A diesel and a five speed makes just about anything cool.

Sean P. Holman (17m 58s):

I mean I kinda have to agree with that.

Stephen Watson (17m 59s):

That’s, that’s just kind of how it works. I, that’s the only way that I preserve my manhood driving it.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (18m 7s):

A grown man in a Jetta. Yeah, I mean it is a chick car for sure, but with, with the rolling a little coal out, that tiny little one inch tailpipe You know. Well you should

Sean P. Holman (18m 17s):

Send him a banks monster tip on that thing.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (18m 20s):

That would look hilarious. A five inch monster exhaustion.

Stephen Watson (18m 23s):

Just cut it up into the trunk. Yes.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (18m 25s):

Oh no, cut it into the rear bumper.

Sean P. Holman (18m 27s):

Can no French it

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (18m 28s):

In. Hold on a second. I will send you one, I will send you the patented sidekick tip, which is nine inches across. It’s all brown if you hood stack it.

Stephen Watson (18m 38s):

Dude, I’m not sure I’m into it quite that much.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (18m 41s):

Come on you. I want, I want a hood stack on the Jetta

Stephen Watson (18m 47s):

Maybe whatever that engine gets swapped into.

Sean P. Holman (18m 50s):

Oh, it

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (18m 51s):

Also a high calling for those engine engines. Not, you’re missing the comedy. The comedy is a hood stack on a

Sean P. Holman (18m 56s):

Jet. But you’re, you’re missing what he just said.

Stephen Watson (18m 58s):

Oh, the Jetta,

Sean P. Holman (18m 58s):

You’re missing what he just said. Which

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (18m 60s):

Was, which

Sean P. Holman (19m 1s):

Was whatever gets swapped into

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (19m 2s):

No, no, I get that. But we don’t know.

Sean P. Holman (19m 5s):

I want to know what is it like, is there a Suzuki Samurai like hiding around on his property

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (19m 9s):

In Colorado or something? Doesn No, he doesn’t have a plan for that yet. He just knows that he, when the car dies, he’s gonna take the engine and put it in something that’s slightly cooler. Right. Am I right? You don’t have plans for that yet. Oh,

Stephen Watson (19m 19s):

Well that does bring up, I actually daily drove a sidekick, a 91 kicker for a lot many years and it’s still floating around my, my middle son’s been daily driving it for a while now because it came to the family through a junkyard and just never died there. So there’s just another, they’re pretty there. Another example of a vehicle that they just show up and they just never leave. And it, it was amazingly fun to drive and back in what, oh seven or oh eight. I drove it everywhere, including some trips up in the mountains that I didn’t want to take my suburban on because it would cost me $150 in fuel to go on a day trip.

Stephen Watson (20m 0s):

So there’s a lot of fun in the auxiliary vehicle. I

Sean P. Holman (20m 4s):

I like that. The auxiliary vehicle.

Stephen Watson (20m 6s):

There you

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (20m 6s):

Go. I don’t think you’re allowed to call the CRV an auxiliary vehicle.

Sean P. Holman (20m 9s):

It’s, it’s exactly what it

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (20m 10s):

Is. I know, I know it is. I know it actually is. It

Sean P. Holman (20m 12s):

Literally is an auxiliary

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (20m 13s):

Vehicle, but it it’s it, it should be called your Daily ’cause that’s what it is. No it’s not.

Sean P. Holman (20m 18s):

I haven’t driven in two weeks.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (20m 19s):

It’s more what have you been? Oh you haven’t driven anywhere in two weeks. All right,

Sean P. Holman (20m 22s):

So enough of this auxiliary vehicle stuff. So I, we were going through some of the emails and one of our listeners who writes all the time, Trevor Nero had a very specific question. He says, Hey, would you get Stephen Watson back on and would you ask him when he is gonna get on the oh five plus Dana 60 bandwagon? He says, I don’t own a square anymore, but I think I talked to him a couple years ago and he said they were experimenting with them. Kingpin sixties are like two to five grand for crusty stock takeouts now, at least here in California. So they’re not really a feasible go-to anymore. Several people ran those axles on the UA on the 2023 UA ultimate Venture, which you just got back from what, a couple months ago. And he says he only saw Dave broke a stock 1480 shaft.

Sean P. Holman (21m 4s):

So he’s saying he thinks there’s enough validation that the quote unquote, oh my god, ball joints and unit bearings isn’t an issue. So what’s your take on some of those newer Dana 60 axles and unit bearings and all that kinda good stuff for your hardcore builds?

Stephen Watson (21m 20s):

So we are actually right directly in the middle of working on, on a project using one of those. It’s a little educational because those axles overall are really well sorted. I mean guys have been using them for years. They have super aftermarket support. If you wanna get rid of ball joints, that’s not a problem. If you wanna put beefy knuckles on ’em, it’s not a problem. If you wanna put indestructible shafts in ’em, it’s not a problem. And bigger ring gears and I mean everything’s there to do really amazing stuff with them. But one of the things that Chevy trucks are good at is just being able to like bolt things in. Like Legos a K 30, Dana 60 just bolts into a blazer, You know.

Stephen Watson (22m 4s):

And that’s one of the advantages that they’ve always had through the years is it doesn’t require a custom axle. It’s not like a You know a Jeep or anything else where you, you’re modifying width and you’re modifying bracketry, you’re doing all this. You just literally bolt it in. And that’s where I think there’s still a ton of value in putting the time into finding that K 30 Dana 60 is, if you’re gonna bolt it in with Leaf Springs it, it just, it still just bolts into the vehicle and you’re gonna have to do a number of different things depending on how deep you’re going with the mods to get a left hand high opinion linked up axle in there. And I think people lose track of some of that work and some drive trains support.

Stephen Watson (22m 47s):

Like a lot of times when you’re doing a swap, especially a diesel swap, a left hand front trans or left hand front drive shaft and transfer case system is native and it gets the transfer case away from the exhaust pipe which runs down the, the right frame rail and makes everything go pretty smooth with that specific swap. But one of the things that you run into with most square bodies is the exhaust is right where a high pinion axle with the, the drive shaft on that side wants to be You know now you’re playing funny header games with frame rails that never had high clearance headers for You know for front discs like that. So You know there’s a, a handful of things that go into ’em.

Stephen Watson (23m 29s):

Well ground clearance is another one. You know as we’re playing with this project, you start looking at the way the link mounts are on those things and the link mounts hang as low as the bottom of the differential. So ground clearance is terrible and like our coil over brackets that are built to go onto a kingpin axle are automatically built with the link tucked up behind the axle tube. So your clearance is way better and you can do that to the oh five and up superduty axles but you’re cutting off a whole bunch of stuff. So it’s a kind of a project to get down to bear tubes and start over. So it is really viable if you’re doing a pretty involved build.

Stephen Watson (24m 9s):

And we, we have customers that have done that. We’ve helped them with the bracketry and everything for it. But you just gotta be careful for a milder build that you don’t get sucked into a whole bunch of work that’s not necessary when You could just use the right thing.

Sean P. Holman (24m 22s):

Is the strength comparable between the two? And I I I hear what you’re saying is you could find this axle for a, a couple grand as a takeoff in a junkyard but then you could be 10 grand into it for fab and everything to make it even fit up. I’m assuming they’re comparable in strength otherwise we, it wouldn’t even be part of the conversation, especially since the brackets and everything You know have to be redone.

Stephen Watson (24m 43s):

The super duty axle actually has potential to be quite a bit stronger than especially a GM Kingpin 60. You can get in, well you’re starting with a high opinion. You can get into bigger ring gears in ’em if you get the right combination of super 60 stuff in ’em, it’s really easy to dump 1550 jointed shafts in them or the giant RC vs. It’s pretty easy to build that, that super duty axle into a lot more torque strength than you would get out of a You know out of any of the kingpin stuff. You know question is at some point when, and this is something we’re gonna go through, is weighing everything out.

Stephen Watson (25m 23s):

I hate to look at the kingpin 60 as maybe being a lighter option because they’re pretty chunky. But I think there’s a point where that happens and then there’s to you kind of steal one of your, your phrases and twisted to this. There’s axle inappropriateness. Nice. That’s, I

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (25m 45s):

Mean how how many Jeep guys? That’s all my how how many Jeep guys have axle inappropriateness? Well

Sean P. Holman (25m 49s):

It’s funny ’cause I’m on a lot of the Facebook groups and so there, there’s some good ones. Jason Aubrey runs one called Wrangler no BS group. So if anybody’s in a-hole, they get booted immediately. No, no smart asses. It’s only helpful people. So for a lot of the newer folks coming onto there, it’s, it’s, it’s great because it’s a, it’s a pretty You know welcoming environment. Well you go to some of the other ones like the regular, regular jail form or the EcoDiesel Gladiator forum. What

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (26m 15s):

Was the group that they were thrashing each other over the a EV stickers?

Sean P. Holman (26m 19s):

Oh, I don’t remember. I’ve on so many of, I just, some of them I just don’t even You know, just shake my head and move on with my day. But somebody had said, Hey, what kinda lift is it gonna take to put forties on my gladiator with the stock axles? And everybody just tore ’em up and he’s like, I don’t even go off road. And they’re still tearing him up. They’re like, dude, no, not, not even, not even for the mall. Like you just,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (26m 44s):

I know two guys on 40 twos in stock axles. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (26m 48s):

Yeah, that’s, I mean that, that’s the equivalent of

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (26m 51s):

No, that’s a really fat guy in skinny jeans.

Sean P. Holman (26m 53s):

It’s like a Dana 30 front end back in the Jeep days where somebody would build up or put in a rear 44 and then they wouldn’t do anything to the front and they would just completely grenade the front. We even did it Four, Wheeler You know a a few times where we did like You know indestructible or how far could you push a a Dana 30 or Dana 35 front axle. And we had true tracks and axle shafts and I mean it’s great that there’s upgrades but it’s, you’re still money ahead starting with a better axle and building that up than going with the cheap axle and making it strong. ’cause there’s just too many weak points. Well,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (27m 25s):

But but hold I think we’re getting off track. So we talked about d

Sean P. Holman (27m 28s):

Well we’re talking about Axel and appropriateness. And appropriateness. Yes. So this is right on track, right? No,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (27m 31s):

No, but like when is it too much? Well like that’s what he’s talking about. Yeah,

Stephen Watson (27m 34s):

I think, yeah ’cause there’s, it can go both ways and the, the point I was heading for is there’s a lot of guys that are, that are swapping one tons into stuff that absolutely don’t need it. And it’s You know it’s this guy that’s gonna drive on the street in a, in a resto mod truck with smaller tires. And unfortunately I think some of that’s starting to kind of fade away, but it’s really easy for that guy to call up, yeah, I’m swapping the Dana 60 into this thing, I’m gonna be running 30 fives. It’s like, wait

Sean P. Holman (28m 4s):

A minute. Oh yeah, we don’t even ground cleaner until that point. Like a Dana 60 pumpkin is so big on 30 fives, you can barely go over a beer can. I mean it’s just, it’s like that’s silly that, I mean that could

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (28m 14s):

You go over speed bump in a mall?

Sean P. Holman (28m 16s):

Yeah, no, probably. But you couldn’t go not l not lengthwise. I mean people don’t realize how big a 60 is compared to like a 44 or nine bolt or a, or You know whatever. I mean a 14 bolt, a 60, those, those are big houses.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (28m 30s):

But can I ask a dumb question like please do I will.

Sean P. Holman (28m 33s):

You are the king,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (28m 34s):

How big is the ring gear? I mean like in a modern GM or a Ford truck, you got a 12 inch ring gear. So that’s a foot from, you know what I mean? It’s yeah, six inches out on each side from center and then you’ve got the case that it’s sitting, which has gotta be at least another inch out beyond that. So now you’re seven inches beyond center minimum. How big a round is that pumpkin? Like, oh well

Stephen Watson (28m 57s):

Like a 40. So the sixties a what? A nine and three quarter round

Sean P. Holman (29m 1s):

Here? Yeah, it’s nine and three quarter

Stephen Watson (29m 3s):

And the 14 bolt 10 and a half is 10 and a half.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (29m 8s):

Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (29m 8s):

Sterling, same way You know. So there or a 10, 20 10 and a quarter on a Sterling You know that’s a fairly popular axle that you can find. And then like on a Jeep 44, so a, a older 44 like jk, a non advant tech I think is like an 8.8. And then the Advantec, which is the newer ones in Js and gladiators I think are an 8.5 inch. So that just tells you for scale kind where the low end data 44 up to like a a 60 what where everything fits in there.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (29m 35s):

It’s pretty amazing that you get like the new Ford’s got what, a 12 and a half? Like they’re

Sean P. Holman (29m 39s):

Fricking I think there’s one that has a 13. Is that the ram with the American axle? Oh, big one

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (29m 45s):

That is a 12 and a half as well.

Sean P. Holman (29m 46s):

12 and a half. Yeah. I think

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (29m 47s):

I thought we’ve got d covers for ’em all but like the, we don’t, the the, the biggest one that I’ve, I’ve seen but I haven’t measured the ring gear is the new forward with the ho the one that’s 1200 pound feet of torque. The’s a big boy like that is monstrous. I don’t know, I think it’s Dana Axel but I don’t know how big it is.

Stephen Watson (30m 2s):

Y You know, we’re also You know throwing 500 horsepower through these things and 40,000 pound trailers behind them. So I guess they, they gotta be able to take it and and do it for long distances. You know that’s something to totally sidetrack this little conversation. We’ve You know, we’ve seen carrier bearing problems in You know like in a Sterling 10 and a half in tow rigs. You know my dad’s super duty was You know I a hundred thousand miles, 125,000 miles and we were putting carrier bearings in it. So they, they make ’em big for a reason. You know this is where we come back to this guy building a resto mod truck. And and we do have to respect power numbers these days with axle choices because it actually, with everything about the vehicle, even getting into suspension stuff and all that because the, when these things were built, 200 horsepower was a pretty powerful engine.

Stephen Watson (30m 57s):

And now if you don’t have 400 horsepower, you’re you’re really not doing it right. You know it’s so easy to drop horsepower into these things that You know you have to pay attention to it a little bit in your old 28 spline 10 bolt that You know is like a stock eighties blazer axle. Yeah, It’s even more than ever not the right thing for the rear end, but You know, the You know a stock half ton or three quarter ton front end is still does fine. It You know most of the time when you’re on the street it just is along for the ride. You know strength is adequate even for some off-road use with a smaller tire. So You know that’s where for, like I say, I, I think a lot of guys are starting to check up a little bit on automatically swapping one tons into everything.

Stephen Watson (31m 41s):

The rears like I say, those demand some respect because it’s so easy to have horsepower and fun. Well

Sean P. Holman (31m 47s):

I I was gonna bring up really quick too is when not, it’s not just the axle and the transmission and the engine, but it’s so much easier to get a four to one T case these days that thinking of the, the torque multiplication on these higher output engines, you have to think about that for your, your joints and steering and shafts and all that stuff too because four to one you’re four times the torque of what that thing, so if you had something that had 300 pound feet of torque and you’re like, I got my new crate engine that’s 400 horse and five 50 You know, think of all that power when you’re in low range that you’re putting through and a lot of people You know wanna have all the parts but they don’t necessarily do the math to make sure that the parts are gonna live.

Stephen Watson (32m 26s):

Yeah. And it’s almost easier if a guy’s getting into, if he’s deep enough to be looking at a, at a an aftermarket transfer case set up You know where a magnum hits 5 33 to one But. that guy is definitely going to bigger axles. You know he’s by the time he gets to the transfer case point, he’s passed the axle point. But one that is sneaky that You know with the overall gear reduction when You bring it up is most of your modern automatics have four plus to one low gears in the first gear and then a 2 72 transfer case. I mean you start doing the math on that and all of a sudden compared to a You know an old K 30 with a turbo 400 and a 2 0 5 You know with a two and a half to one first and a two to one low range.

Stephen Watson (33m 17s):

I mean this is, this is stuff that we dreamed about going rock crawling with and it’s stock in all of these new trucks. You know that reduction’s automatically there. So You know guy swapping a You know a six L 80 and a and just a 2 41 into his blazer, K 10 You know K 20, whatever You know he’s got way more reduction than, than people are used to

Sean P. Holman (33m 40s):

Ball joints versus kingpins. So obviously kingpins were what everything was back in the day. You know. Are are you, he’s backing up. Are you getting No, no. That’s a dochy. He’s doing, he is doing the bread delivery. Did we lose you?

Stephen Watson (33m 53s):

Well, I’m sitting in The truck and every once in a while it wants to turn the phone off and it gets cold.

Sean P. Holman (33m 58s):

Oh, gotcha. Okay. So all right, so You know kingpins were all the rage up until what probably the You know early eighties and ball joints came into play. But I’m seeing so many people now going back to kingpins and talking about kingpins. Do you want to tell our audience the difference between a kingpin and a ball joint and why one is more desirable than the other?

Stephen Watson (34m 18s):

So just to give people kind of a, an idea of gm, Ford and Dodge all ran the same identical knuckle pivot arrangement on their one ton axles through the seventies, eighties and and early nineties. And it was a big tapered bearing with a race. So something similar to a Wheel bearing is your bottom pivot. And then the upper pivot was a, was a steel cone on the axle housing with an opposing cone that was a, a plastic piece actually that was contained in the knuckle and that was loaded with a spring. And so the way all of this goes together, there’s no pieces that that press in or press together or that you take apart You know and just drop in a new cartridge like on a ball joint.

Stephen Watson (35m 7s):

You know just replaying loose joints. This is all rebuildable stuff. They’re big burly bearings. Crash resistance is, I use the term crash because that is what most people equate hard offroad driving to You know or would call it that You know it’s possible to break the, the plastic bushings, but the things don’t ever come apart. You’ll lose alignment but it never comes apart. And so the ball joint stuff is all of your late sixties, seventies, eighties, straight axle stuff. You get up even into the, the one ton stuff starting with the Fords You know and the Dodges when they, I guess when they went to the coil spring stuff in 94, they use a pressing ball joint that is the knuckle pivot.

Stephen Watson (35m 51s):

And so there’s one on the bottom of the knuckle, one on the top of the knuckle and they generally press into the knuckle and then that indexes into the housing. And the problem is that it’s possible to break a U joint and when those pieces kind of get balled up against each other, they can force those ball joints, You know and kind of press the knuckle apart. So sort of You know, just presses the ball joints out of the knuckle. I mean it’ll blow the knuckle off of the vehicle and You know so tire out or Axle You know everything kind of goes with it. With the bigger axles, when You get up into super duty stuff, they’re pretty strong and they’re You know, they’re just more robust parts.

Stephen Watson (36m 33s):

But it is You know, I, I watched it on a UA trip a couple of years ago, that steering system over angled busted a, a giant U joinin, it was crow Molly 1550 stuff, but it still can’t be over angled. Geez. And blew the knuckle apart. It was quite a recovery effort to, to make that happen. And that guy was really glad that he was on that trip with that group of people that knew exactly all the moves to make in that situation because it would’ve been a real bad day without that crew. But, but that’s where it

Sean P. Holman (37m 6s):

Went from a mildly uncomfortable day to a really bad day.

Stephen Watson (37m 9s):

Yeah, exactly. It would’ve been a real bad day without, without being on the UA trip. So, but pretty early on, You know people started building better ball joints and durability is is really good. There are ball joint eliminators that You know are basically some kind of bolt in systems with uni balls that replace those pivots for real hardcore stuff. So these days probably strength wise, I guess it is still possible that you see some broken ball joints here and there and boy I you don’t really break kingpin stuff so, so maybe there’s a slight strength advantage there.

Stephen Watson (37m 52s):

But

Sean P. Holman (37m 52s):

The main drawback would you say is maintaining alignment?

Stephen Watson (37m 56s):

Main drawback with kingpin stuff would be maintaining alignment and that’s pretty easy to fix. You can put a bronze bushing in and place of the, of the, the plastic bushing and then they’re pretty much bulletproof after that. And You know things don’t move around, they don’t wear funny. And if you replace the spring with what’s called a load bolt, it’s where you actually have a giant You know, like a five eights set screw on top of the knuckle that sets your, your bearing preload that turns into a pretty bulletproof system that You know a lot of ultra four guys run guys that are running solid axles, that’s a, a pretty common heavy duty system.

Stephen Watson (38m 37s):

A lot heavier than the super cool spider track stuff that just uses a couple of uni balls and all fabricated lightweight But that still really robust. So yeah, kingpins still have a good place, but the ball joint stuff is very usable and they’re, once again, there’s fixes for all of it. You sort of have to apply them piece by piece into that, that system. But, but there are fixes.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (39m 3s):

I had a question about uni balls versus ball joints. I, and on a, on a Chevy truck it was obviously it was IFS very, very different but I was blowing through, I had what size tires did I have in there? I think I did 30 sevens or 30 eights back 10 years ago or so. But I was blowing through the ball joints and I was told to move up to uni balls and I did it, took a different upper control arm and then I lasted don don’t know, several more thousand miles than I did with the ball joints. Does that play, does that decision making play a role in, in your parts with solid axles? Are there uni ball applications in what you’re doing

Stephen Watson (39m 44s):

There? Yeah, some of the ball joint eliminator parts are, are based on, well actually yeah, some of them are based on uni balls and actually some of the, just the replacement ball joints are based on uni balls. You know dyna track replacement ball joints have a, a uni ball inside the housing. Probably the biggest thing You know like in your case with the, the upper control arm joint is with a uni ball you can put in a much bigger, a bigger joint you can usually get a bigger shank in ’em. The downside is they’re not as protected from the elements. You know they’re not sealed up like a ball joint.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (40m 24s):

No they’re not. So they, I had to keep ’em well greased or they would start rusting because they are bare bare metal. Yeah. So that is something that was kind of a downside. But they, they didn’t, everyone warned me that they would make noise. I I didn’t experience that but I will, I was, I man I went through like three or four sets of a ball joints just, they don’t hold up to the, to the forces on big tires and, and that whole situation I, I figured there was some are you talking about on an IFS truck on a IFS truck? Yeah. Again, I know it’s different but I I I was just curious. Yeah. At what point do you recommend guys swap out of a standard Moog You know or equivalent ball joint and go into a uni ball?

Stephen Watson (41m 6s):

Yeah and on the solid axle stuff that’s usually just part of a, a heavier duty ball joint and some of it’s gonna be like on the You know and this is getting a little bit out, out of our normal world with guys running the axle super duty axles like in a Super Duty or You know the dodge axles and the Dodge trucks. I know they run in You know bigger, bigger tire packages, You know Wheel offsets all play in all that kind of stuff. But they’ll start running into wear problems and getting into some of the, the heavier duty ball joints that are based on a uni ball can be based You know like you on on just a wear part You know or wear life. And one of the things there too is that you’re getting into a part that was designed to be heavy duty from the start.

Stephen Watson (41m 50s):

And it’s not that a ball joint can’t be designed to be heavy duty. Our You know the tie rod ends that we use in our steering systems are a, a decent example of that. It’s a a somewhat conventional design tie. Rod end You know they just have a super heavy duty spring. There’s super good materials, hard parts on both sides. So it it’s still a, a ball joint design piece somewhat similar to the axle ball joints still. But, but it’s designed for kind of for the purpose, it’s designed to be really heavy duty. That’s where like that upper ball joint in your case when You put a uni ball in it, you’re putting in a You know much bigger uni ball you’re putting in a much bigger stud You know you’re, you’re planning on it being an aftermarket piece to be beat on and all of the other stuff is, is essentially a stock replacement that’s designed for a stock truck.

Stephen Watson (42m 47s):

So it’s almost one of those things where you’re like someone could build a ball joint 4-year-old Chevy that was super robust but they just didn’t, they just built You know they built it and based it around a uni ball architecture.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (43m 1s):

Let’s go back to solid axle stuff and away from my IFS you’re talking a lot of Ford Super Duty axles. How plentiful are they and and are you referring to older super duties or are you talking about new Dana axles, sterling axles that you’re buying off the shelf? Like what are we we’re throwing out on the term as if everyone knows where we’re getting these You know Ford rear ends.

Stephen Watson (43m 25s):

Yeah so offer up getting back to offer up. What, what was the guy’s name that asked the question to start with? That was Trevor.

Sean P. Holman (43m 30s):

Was it Trevor? Yeah.

Stephen Watson (43m 31s):

Okay, so back to Trevor’s question. The superduty axle that he’s referring to is the oh five and up coil sprung superduty stuff and the the front axle is the big deal. ’cause the rears people don’t really care about that much. They, they generally grab a, a sterling rear to match the front and swap it into a vehicle

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (43m 54s):

This whole the time, the all time I’m thinking of the rears. That’s

Sean P. Holman (43m 56s):

That’s funny. Lightning also says he has a sterling rear.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (43m 59s):

Yes, exactly.

Sean P. Holman (44m 1s):

It’s lots of squats people, lot of squats don’t skip leg day.

Stephen Watson (44m 7s):

So anyway, it it’s the front axle that’s the magic. So that’s the You know the beefy piece, it’s You know the between Ford and Dodge, the Dodge axles are, are not as strong, not as supported in the aftermarket. A lot harder to deal with. So that Superduty axle has become the darling of the, of the axle swap world and the hardcore builder world and it’s the oh five and newer, there’s a couple of different generations with breaks and a little bit of stuff in the diff but really it’s anything coil sprung Super Duty is gonna be a good base starting axle for, for a lot of these projects kind of within the, the parameters that we talked about earlier that they don’t swap directly into a Chevy truck.

Stephen Watson (44m 54s):

There are situations where they make sense but, but that’s the application that we’re looking at is that that super duty setup

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (45m 1s):

And they’re, they’re plentiful. Is that the bottom line? They’re in junky yards everywhere. Yeah.

Stephen Watson (45m 5s):

Yeah and I think that’s what he’s bringing up You know Trevor’s bringing up is the fact that You know, let’s face it, K 30 stuff hasn’t been produced since 90 or 91 was the last one to roll off of You know roll off of a dealer floor. They’re pretty plentiful still. I mean in the grand scheme of things, if you have to pay $2,000 for a a reasonable core heavy duty axle that bolts into your half ton vehicle, that’s still pretty cheap. You know they are less plentiful and only becoming less and less plentiful. Whereas Superduty stuff, they’re still building the things and they built them in production numbers that are giant You know in oh five until now.

Stephen Watson (45m 50s):

So there are a lot of those and that’s where I think Trevor brought up the question is, you know, what are you guys doing with that? And, and like I say, they’re great for swap stuff, You know we’re, we’re gonna look into moving more that direction with our, our nineties solid axle swap and our early two thousands solid axle swap stuff because they’re You know those vehicles are native left hand drive shafts. So there are definitely places where they are the golden piece.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (46m 20s):

How much welding on these axles are you doing, if any? All of it. Okay. And if you are doing welding, so hold on a second. I’m a lot of guys who are fabricators, there’s two schools, some guys are like welding weakens everything. You don’t wanna weld to a stock chassis weakens the chassis. And so where do you stand on this? You you need to mount it to something so you have to weld. How do you keep it from weakening the base product?

Stephen Watson (46m 46s):

You know and this is where we’re, we’re developing super duty stuff and we’ll You know, we’ll kind of follow the track that we do with the kingpin axles and the, the big thing there, and it’s pretty true across the board of essentially any solid axle is the knuckle arrangement. The the inner sea. A lot of people call it the end forging that’s pressed onto the end of the tube that a lot of times you end up welding pieces of bracketry too is forged steel. So that is a steel part and it welds beautifully. They weld just fine. That’s how the factory welded it to the end of the axle tube. The other side where you’ve got the axle tube pressed into the cast iron differential, that’s a little bit different story.

Stephen Watson (47m 32s):

That’s where you get into different types of cast iron that they used over the years. How much oil has impregnated itself into that old cast iron You know? How good are you at welding cast iron You know both in technique and materials and You know all the details with pre and post heats. So with our coil over kits, we have everything built to bolt to the, the the casting the center section and you can still go in and weld all of that if you are the fabricator that can get that done You know and it’s not exclusive knowledge. There’s lots of guys that do it and it’s not, not that hard but, but we design our brackets to where they mount up to the axle just fine by welding to the axle tube and over to the end forging.

Stephen Watson (48m 21s):

And so it kind of keeps you from, from getting into welding on that center section. That said there is a, a little bit of restraint involved in not You know burring You know one side of a bracket in all at once because you can You know even on heavy duty tubes you can warp the tube. You can, you can bend them and then it’s possible to just weld the other side and bend it back. So You know none of that’s permanent but, but there’s some technique involved there. But we are very, very far from the, the school of don’t weld on it because it’ll mess it up because it’s all mild steel that can be easily welded and kind of the same thing on the frame rails. You know a lot of people look at the, at the frame rails, like on the the square bodies is the stuff that we deal with the most.

Stephen Watson (49m 9s):

Those things are, are a mild steel. They’re not heat treated, they’re not special, they weld beautifully and and you are doing the frame favors by welding stuff to it. They’re not that strong to start with and they, they fatigue and crack and need to be repaired and they take welding beautifully.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (49m 28s):

That’s, that’s what’s that, that’s not what I expected him to say. I mean I, he, I would expect him to fatigue more with heating up and cooling up. Why? Basically he’s saying that gu gusts sitting them and such, it’s going to help their,

Sean P. Holman (49m 40s):

It does their life. Why would you think that? It doesn’t,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (49m 43s):

I’m learning, that’s why I’m asking questions. So.

Sean P. Holman (49m 46s):

Well,

Stephen Watson (49m 46s):

Like now, and this is because in big truck world, there are actual heat treated frames and this is, I I don’t know how far it trickles down into maybe even like 4500, 5500 territory or medium duty trucks. But, but I know on a lot of semi-truck size stuff, the frames are heat treated and or at least rolled out of a, out of a material that would be weakened by welding. And those frames are bolted together and you don’t weld on them.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (50m 18s):

I wonder if that’s where it came from.

Sean P. Holman (50m 20s):

Well, I was gonna say there are light duty vehicles like gladiators and jls, like JK had a pretty decent frame. jls and gladiators have a thinner frame that is really susceptible to mistakes or problems if you weld on ’em wrong. But if you’re a good welder and you know what you’re doing, there’s no issue. I think lots of people are building coil over kits and gusseting and brackets and all that kind of stuff. It’s just, it’s really about the, the level of expertise and the quality of metal and the quality of welding and penetration. And You know that’s why it pays to go to a reputable notable shop or use the right products because those shops likely have a number of vehicles out there.

Sean P. Holman (51m 1s):

Like Stephen Watson and Off-Road Design has a slew of customers. He uses it, he knows what’s, what works, what doesn’t. He’s seen it all. Now you may go to your buddy who’s learning fab down the street, oh, I can do that. And then you may end up having a problem, right? So it pays to go. It’s the backbone of your vehicle, it’s the frame. So it pays to go to somebody who’s an expert, pay a little bit more. It’s cheap insurance and you can have a better outcome most of the time as well.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (51m 25s):

And I appreciate the fact that he brought up the heavy duty trucks because I think that’s where maybe it started. ’cause the heat treat, he said the words heat treat. Yeah. And I think that’s where maybe the guys that say don’t weld to your chassis may think that they’re all treated,

Sean P. Holman (51m 39s):

But who, who’s saying that? Like in your world, who were those people? Was it like an engineer at work? Was it an old guy that was at a coffee

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (51m 46s):

Shop? Someone that I worked for.

Sean P. Holman (51m 48s):

So they said don’t ever,

Stephen Watson (51m 49s):

We talked to that guy occasionally. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (51m 51s):

You

Stephen Watson (51m 51s):

Know. I don’t, I don’t wanna weld to this frame. I’m building these brackets to bolt on and You know. So it’s a, it’s kind of an old wive’s tale that gets floated around and You know, depending on how many times it’s been repeated around you, maybe it’s believable But that, and that’s probably where it comes from, is the You know is the heavy truck world or You know, or variations thereof where there’s, there’s some heat treating involved in it. And, and it’s something to keep track of because as the factories You know, the one of the cooler material things You know that I know of is the, the boron steel for the skid plates and all the, the GM stuff these days.

Stephen Watson (52m 32s):

You know and the ZR two packages. Yeah. And that is a super cool process. You know, I, I don’t know the, apparently there’s obviously some, some boron in the steel. It’s probably got a bunch of chromium and molybdenum in it that would make it chromoly steel also because they’re basically You know heat treating it as they stamp it, which is really cool. But the big thing is it is heat treated, so you’re gonna wanna be careful welding. I don’t know why you would wanna weld on those skid plates. There’s probably some reason, but, but if you were, that’s something that you’re probably gonna lose the temper and, and mess that up by welding to it and having that knowledge because there’s, as the factories get better and better at this, just like, geez, all the crash standard stuff and all the vehicle stability stuff and You know suspension testing and You know and emissions You know everything on these things is getting more complicated and it’s better and on and on.

Stephen Watson (53m 27s):

It wouldn’t surprise me if we get to a point where there are frames that this shouldn’t be welded on. You know once they leave the factory You know or pieces of frames stuffed together. So You know, keeping a handle on it is definitely a good idea. You know, especially when You get back into older stuff. Weld em up,

Sean P. Holman (53m 45s):

Weld em up. I I found this excerpt from a company explaining hot stamping boron alloy steels for automotive parts. And it says the base material is 22 MNB five and has tic lytic microstructure with a tensile strength of approximately 600 megapascals or 87 KSI. And after the part is hot stamped as a istic microstructure and increased strength up to 250% of its initial value. I know it sounds like it came right out of the turbo and tabulator, but No, it came outta Google.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (54m 13s):

That sounds like a Drake song. No. Like what did, what were the first couple words in that sentence? The fibular

Sean P. Holman (54m 19s):

Tibular? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For tic paralytic microstructure.

Stephen Watson (54m 23s):

So the per light is an early You know softer structure in the steel. I’m kinda reaching back here, but they, well, and one important thing there is when they talk about being like 87 KSI, yeah, that is relatively weak material in low grade steel world. It, it’s okay stuff, but like your, your DOM steel tubing that would be used in a, in a roll cage is in that ballpark You know, that’s unhea treated omo territory. And then when they talk about it getting two or three times stronger, You know you’re getting up into probably around 200 KSI, which is like heat treated crow moly steel territory.

Stephen Watson (55m 6s):

And, and a good example of this is like ar plates abrasion resistant plate that goes on material handling stuff. You know. So loaders and backhoes and You know all the buckets and conveyors and You know all that stuff for handling gravel and rock and, and that type of stuff is essentially a heat treated chrome moly material. And it makes amazing skid plates because it’s so hard it doesn’t gouge. And Yeah. And on and on. And it’s in that You know, in that strength range after it’s heat treated. So that’s the,

Sean P. Holman (55m 41s):

So they’re saying that’s the magic strength, the strength range in automotive application, like the boron steel a EV uses on the GMC Sierra is up to 230 KSI after it’s been heat treated. And I’ve had experience You know with those skid plates before. And in fact you may have been on a trip with me where I fell into a giant hole with my front Wheel on my Jeep and landed right on the boron skid plate and I thought for sure I lost a Wheel or something like that. And the whole frame came right down on that and there was a gouge in the powder coat. Nothing to the steel at all. The whole weight of the vehicle dropped right on. Or just kunk?

Sean P. Holman (56m 21s):

Yeah, it was like a, like, it was like a six or seven inch straight down drop into a hole landing right on the, the the down. So on a Jeep there’s a down tube basically with a blocker beam. And that blocker beam is what keeps you from going over the top of something. And so you cut the bottom of that off because a’s bumper reuses the top and then wraps that boron steel around it and ties it together that way and it landed right on those down tubes and I thought for sure this well trip’s over not, not a scratch other than a little gouge in the power coat.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (56m 51s):

How’d you get it out?

Sean P. Holman (56m 53s):

We winched it out. Oh, that was no big deal.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (56m 55s):

So changing the topic, Mr. Stephen Watson, how the heck is business these days off-road design dot com. How are you doing? Are you, it looks like you’re kicking some ass. You’ve got a lot of parts on the website. Wish

Sean P. Holman (57m 5s):

He had some knowledge about some

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (57m 6s):

Things. I’m just saying I think he’s a good go-to guy. If you guys out there have questions about axle swaps or suspension, your forte is in gm but you, you’ll, you’ll touch anything. Right?

Stephen Watson (57m 19s):

We really try to stay focused on the GM stuff because it’s, it’s really nice to have the really in-depth knowledge to be able to help guys out in, I guess just in that in-depth way.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (57m 32s):

Okay. So if, so what? I said, so if you don’t have GM Kick Rocks, he doesn’t wanna talk to you.

Stephen Watson (57m 38s):

Well, and this is where You know some of our stuff does transfer around. We have guys that have used our coil over kits to swap stuff into old Dodge trucks. You know the, the seventies, eighties, early nineties dodge stuff. In the transfer case world, we can put a 2 0 5 magnum system swap stuff around on You know and about any brand. So those things are, are fairly You know, fairly brand agnostic. But when You get into the suspension world, it’s basically GM centric and it lets us do stuff like, oh geez, I talked to a guy yesterday that had a late seventies K 30 crew cab and one of the things that not very many people know about those trucks is that they were essentially a factory four Wheel drive conversion from gm.

Stephen Watson (58m 30s):

Really? So the back end Yeah, it, it’s, and it, it took us multiple examples to kind of figure out what happened here and the, the exact date ranges are still kind of fuzzy and and so on. But those trucks have like the back end of a C 30. The, the frame bracketry on them is, You know is two Wheel drive stuff and they have a solid axle up front. Kind of the telltale is that they’ll have a, a suspension block in ’em from the factory, which that’s the only truck that I’ve ever seen GM put a block in was those kind of converted trucks to make up the right height in the back. Hmm. And don don’t know why, but You know.

Stephen Watson (59m 12s):

Talked to a guy yesterday. Hey, the back end of my truck is, is sitting really low.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (59m 19s):

Oh, Steven’s getting cold. He’s gotta turn the, hold on a sorry.

Sean P. Holman (59m 22s):

Hopefully it starts. Okay. We haven’t left him out in the wilderness to freeze the death ’cause Yeah,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (59m 28s):

I picture him up on like a plateau right now. He’s like in this shivering truck. Yeah. By the way, what are you sitting in right now? What, what, what vehicle?

Stephen Watson (59m 35s):

It’s, I am, I’m not suffering at all. I’m in my 22 GMC 3,500.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (59m 39s):

See I knew it. I I know that door ding anywhere. I knew it was new. He’s on a plateau. He’s at like lover’s love lover’s lookout. Right? And he’s looking over the city

Stephen Watson (59m 48s):

Actually in

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (59m 49s):

A valley. Stop it so I

Stephen Watson (59m 50s):

Can see the cell tower.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (59m 51s):

Stop it. Stop it. That’s the key. I’m painting a better picture. You’re at Lover’s Lookout and you’re looking over the city and the lights are twinkling and the sun just set.

Sean P. Holman (59m 59s):

Do you know what I had to do to convince him to come back on the podcast after last time?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 0m 4s):

Oh, he loves me. Stop it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 6s):

Not the same way you think he does.

Stephen Watson (1h 0m 11s):

Yeah, so suspension stuff, You know, we focus on gm, we know it, we know it really well. One of the cool things is the rise of the Rusto mods has been going on for years, but it’s really cool kind of working with a crowd that isn’t going to go beat the trucks up. And it’s neat for a couple reasons. One is people have a, a different outlook on spending money on The truck, which is kind of cool when the thing is gonna be worth something when they’re done. And geez, for so many years with the You know beater trail rigs and, and let’s be clear, not all square bodies, not all, even the 67 to 72 stuff, there are trucks that are so far gone that it’s okay to use ’em off road.

Stephen Watson (1h 0m 56s):

You know they’re, they don’t all need to be restored and go to Barrett Jackson, but there’s a lot of these that guys are gonna drive, enjoy and have for a long time and not beat up and actually have something that You know that kind of stays with them for a while. And in trail rig world, I, I went down this path. I had a cool truck, nice paint job, started off roading it and within three or four years the thing was basically a buggy You know. So knowing that the, that a lot of the guys we’re working with are that’re building a truck that, well they may have gotten it from their grandpa, their dad You know it’s something like what they had when they were in high school, whatever You know and it can go to their kid when You know when the time comes.

Stephen Watson (1h 1m 41s):

So, so that’s kind of rewarding. The really cool thing is You know we talk to, to some of these guys after we get a suspension set up and our, our custom leaf program has been doing really well. And it’s so cool here in guys call up, I had no idea that you could have a leaf sprung truck that could ride like this. You know, this is the best riding truck in You know in my family’s fleet. So that’s always really nice.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 2m 9s):

I gotta give Holman some credit for that. He’s been singing the praises of leaves for six years. I was like, oh, leaves suck. I I was, I I had really poor experiences with leaves and Holman set me straight. So mad props to this guy you’ve proven otherwise. And, and Steven’s here to back it up. Like there,

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 26s):

There’s some great, I mean, back in the day everybody wanted to throw on big arc springs, thick, lots of ’em. And they just, of course they rode like crap and they’re bouncing. There’s no articulation. But even Leaf spring technology has come a long way. It’s, it’s, the key is a lot of thinner springs. You can make ’em super flexy. You pair ’em with a really good You know shock. I mean, I think everybody thinks you need to coil over everything. And the reality is, is there’s some beautiful advantages to a leaf spring. The leaf springs are durable. You can, you can usually hit boun You know, bounce ’em on a rock or whatever. They both spring the axle and locate the axle. So it’s not like you have to worry about extra arms and things hanging low. They’re pretty high and out out of the way.

Sean P. Holman (1h 3m 7s):

And you can get a bypass shock that can work with a leaf spring. It does. The shock doesn’t care what the spring is. And so many people are like, oh no dude, it has to be a four link, five link bypass coil over weld all these bracket. You could go out there with a really good set of leaf springs that are designed right with a really good shock and you can have a lot of fun and, and ride great going down the highway, man. Again, alignments are easy. Location of the axle is easy. Durability on hitting things off road. Yeah.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 3m 35s):

Yeah. They get a bad wrap. Well they have,

Sean P. Holman (1h 3m 38s):

Was that a pun intended? Yes.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 3m 39s):

Because you get axle wrap. Yeah.

Stephen Watson (1h 3m 43s):

Well, and one of the things that we run into is, and to be clear, we have coil over kits that are a clear advantage over lease spring stuff in You know in, in a handful of ways in in lower end, the lower end of the performance spectrum. A lot of it’s just handling precision. You know in the steering the, the driving experience overall is just a You know, a more crisp experience. And then when You get into more hardcore off-road stuff, there’s durability advantages and so on. But the Leaf Springs are still really good.

Stephen Watson (1h 4m 23s):

And when you’re working with a vehicle that they just bolt onto You know our, our custom leaf suspension is something that a guy can bolt onto a You, know his blazer, for example, over a weekend with no trouble and

Sean P. Holman (1h 4m 38s):

Have immediate results.

Stephen Watson (1h 4m 41s):

Yeah. And just, and go drive it. It’s You know it’s ready to go. Yeah. And I’m

Sean P. Holman (1h 4m 44s):

Not saying that you’re gonna go replace your trophy truck suspension with Leaf Springs. I mean obviously coil overs and a You know four link or five link or something like that are a massive performance advantage toward the limit. But for the average guy building a truck who doesn’t have that kind and feels like, oh man, I gotta stick with Leaf Springs. No, there’s, there’s a lot of advantages to Leaf Springs

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 5m 5s):

On my last truck. I, I mean remember I remember I had the factory GM with the overload and I ditched it and got a set of Atlas and they were, the coil pack was, they were much thinner. Yep. Right. And it road is so much

Sean P. Holman (1h 5m 18s):

Better. Yep. You look at You know I have, I’ve had the guys at Diva rebuild some springs for me and build some springs for me. And You know they just nail it every time. You know, it’s, it’s all about friction pads and material and how many leaves you spec and You know, You know the arc and do you have anti wrap and is your geo mean? You still have to have leaf spring geometry, right? Like you still have to have everything, keep it from twisting or s twisting on itself and and stuff like that. But as with anything, there’s trade offs. But for somebody who doesn’t have a big budget, you can get a lot of performance out of a modern leaf spring suspension.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 5m 50s):

How are you handling the custom setup, Steven? So is a guy calling and telling you how much weight, what The truck is, et cetera, et cetera? Or, and are you, do, are you physically putting the leaf packs together or are you working with a diva or an atlas or something like that?

Stephen Watson (1h 6m 6s):

Most of the customers You know, we, you can order this stuff through our website and we actually have a, a spring form that’s a You know, it’s a couple page questionnaire that you go over that gives us details about The truck and, and specifically it’s getting to heavy things that you’ve added to The truck and it’s You know the Cummins swap, the, the winch bumpers, the tail You know or the tire carrier bumpers in the back You know the, the giant toolbox gas tank combo in the bed You know that kind of stuff. And even down to on a blazer, are you gonna run the hard top or the soft top the most, you know, what do you, what do you want this set up for?

Stephen Watson (1h 6m 48s):

So we walk through that on the spring design form and that’s what I, I, at this point, I still do all of the spring design myself, You know I go through those and You know set the lengths and the, the arches and the number of leaves and all that stuff. Then we have a contract spring shop that we work with that does all the construction because that’s, that’s pretty specialized stuff. when You get down to it, it’s, well, You know I say that people put these together, You know they’re so, it isn’t, it isn’t full on rocket science, but You know there’s heat treating ovens, there’s quenching oil tanks and You know they’ve got specialized little machines that wind the eyes on the springs and they’ve got all the bucks that match all of the arches for You know for setting up the individual leaves.

Stephen Watson (1h 7m 38s):

You know there’s a lot of just little details that go into doing ’em. Right. And You know there’s a reason why a spring shop is a spring shop. It’s ’cause that’s what they do and that’s all that they do anyway. So we contract with a, with a spring shop here locally that has been doing, I, I have no idea how long they’ve been in business. They did work on springs for my blazer when I was a kid and do great work, do it to our specs and, and everything works out great. So that’s kind of the, the process in gathering the data, getting ’em speced, they go through the construction and then get shipped out.

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 14s):

So this is a, a good segue for one of the things you and I were talking about in our emails leading up to this, what about the perception of off-road vehicles that are modified and then how they handle and behave on the road. So you were talking about You know, kind of generally hearing You know the chatter of people that were I was gonna get your suspension, but I’m not taking this thing off road. Which you’re hearing them as saying I’m okay with it being super rough and You know crappy stock because if I modify it to your stuff, it, it’s it to be. I think people, one of the things that we’ve educated people about on the show, I think in the last six years is, and one of the things that I hear a lot like You know, I like Bill Stein Suspension. They’ve supported, they’ve supported the show.

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 55s):

We’ve used them on a bunch of stuff. It’s a great product. But one of the things I I’ve heard over and over again from people is, oh no, those are off road shocks. They they’re not gonna ride well. And one of the things about the Bill Stein is how well they ride on road. And I think to your point, just because it’s dialed in for off-road doesn’t mean that you have a penalty on road.

Stephen Watson (1h 9m 14s):

One of the examples that I use, and this is, this one’s fairly easy for people to understand, You know in West Coast world because they kinda get the concept, but You know a trophy truck is the top end of the desert race. Go fast offroad world. These things are, I mean I’m I’m hearing reports of a thousand horsepower plus Oh yeah. Out of these things. Yep. And You know they’ll run a buck 40 down You know, barely graded gravel roads, You know pretty rough stuff that they’re doing. Ridiculous speeds on. So I, I kind of posed this question. It’s like, do you think that this truck that can carve these back roads at triple digit speeds is really going to handle terribly on asphalt?

Stephen Watson (1h 10m 3s):

That just seems like a completely backwards way to think to me that You know this thing that can, that can keep you alive on a shelf road. You know at these triple digit speeds on dirt is gonna be terrible on asphalt. And to throw out a little bit of credit here in that example, those things have a, a bunch of body roll. Yep. But they also

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 24s):

36 inches of travel these days, active shots. I had the chance to ride with Ryan Ro in his truck and we were doing almost 120 miles an hour over the whoops. And it’s so violent that You know, everybody thinks like a trophy truck is plush. Well, no, because, because you always see the helicopter

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 10m 41s):

Shots when the cab is floating. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 44s):

The wheels are me. But But, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing acting on the frame in the cab. Well, and I’ll tell you from sitting in the dryer and hurts in the passenger seat, it’s violent. It’s not, it’s not like, oh, look at me. It’s not like you’re in your, your You know Geyer brothers pre-runner that’s set up for super kush. You’re in an F1 car that has carbon fiber and crow molly and CNC parts and the whole deal doing race You know track speeds in the open desert. And it’s, you have to be an athlete to, to survive that. I mean, it’s, it’s not, it’s not this big marshmallow that you’re like, woo, let’s try for 200. Right? Like it’s not, it’s like, holy crap, I’m going 117, 120 miles an hour and the wheels are only touching the tops of the whoops.

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 29s):

Right. But all of that force is still going into the, into the chassis. Like

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 11m 35s):

I, I feel like, so I used to go to Supercross religiously for 20 years and you’d watch back and I’m sure there were guys like Bob Hanna and stuff early, early guys in the You know, late eighties, early nineties. But it wasn’t until like Jeremy McGrath would fly over the tops of the whoops. Like just b bang bang bang bang B. That was a tons of skill, but b just sheer strength. Right. Imagine the force that his legs were taking at the top of every whoop with a, with a, with a swing arm compressing on every single one. I I mean that was going right into your ass in The truck. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 8s):

No, I mean, you, you feel it and Right. I’m trying to hold my phone up Right. To try and take a video of the experience and I literally never works, cannot hold my arm steady, my phone is hitting the ceiling, hitting my lap hitting and I’m trying to compensate. But like the amount of hurts that’s happening, you’re, you have latency. I had arm latency in trying to control it because I couldn’t keep up with the hurts that were coming in. Right. And, and so I’m constantly doing

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 12m 35s):

You’re talking about the frequency Yes. That it was, you were going over the whoops. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 39s):

I couldn’t, I couldn’t compensate. It’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 12m 40s):

Not like you’re, it’s like five per second or maybe 20

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 43s):

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s like when You go over bumps in your truck and it’s like, and you’re holding your coffee cup up and it’s not spilling. No, that’s impossible in a trophy truck. So

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 12m 51s):

The, again, it goes to the helicopter shots that we always see where it looks like the cab is just deceiving those.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 56s):

Yes. They’re, my my point is that you look at that and you go look at that calm marshmallow those men are in, right? You’re no, it’s not like that

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 13m 3s):

Really. They’re, they’re, they’re spine is is poking outta their ass. Let’s

Stephen Watson (1h 13m 6s):

Think about looking at that as you’re doing that. Ryan was driving The truck,

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 13s):

Right. And once again this is a, he had to keep his foot on the pedals and his hands on the, on the Wheel and he’s shifting and

Stephen Watson (1h 13m 19s):

And he was steering it. So when, when we’ve been tuning shocks, You know specifically in our our Ultra four car, one of the things that was a data point was can you still steer The truck

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 32s):

Sort of important You

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 13m 33s):

Know can.

Stephen Watson (1h 13m 34s):

Yeah. Well, but you get to a point where you’re just kind of herd it and You know hoping it goes the direction that you want it to go. And as you tune the suspension in and tune the shocks in, you get to where you’re actually placing The truck You know where you want it to go. And You know when we’re doing You know in our case we might have been doing 60 across a rough section. And, and at that point, if you can precisely steer The truck, you have room to go faster. But in a worse suspension iteration, we might not have been able to steer it at that point. You know might have been at the point where you’re losing control and having to chase it around and You know. And then when You come up on the You know on the two bushes that are too close together, You know you, you can’t split ’em.

Stephen Watson (1h 14m 20s):

And so that’s where that You know that control of that shock tune and the suspension geometry tune and all of that stuff comes in is You know When, when that guy can run that trophy truck at a buck 20 through that rough stuff and see a rock coming and actually dodge it You know or see a bush coming and dodge that You know or there’s another line popping up and I wanna steer off or just

Sean P. Holman (1h 14m 44s):

Drive right through it. ’cause you’re in a trophy truck. Yeah.

Stephen Watson (1h 14m 48s):

Well even those guys come up against rocks that are too big. But it, but it’s that, it’s that You know backing that level off You know is when we have that kind of steering precision You know even in, well as I was coming down here, You know my ask, my wife asked me what we were gonna talk about. I was like, well this is one of the things. And I was like, you know what? I guess this is a good question for you. You’ve driven all of our stuff, right? Yeah. She, she’s like, yeah, pretty much. And I mean she’s taken like our 99, 25 hundreds a lease sprung solid axle truck. She took it on the hole in the rock trail from here, You know, drove it down there, drove the trail and drove it home by herself.

Stephen Watson (1h 15m 33s):

You know she had, yeah, she’s keeper a couple of boys with her. I don’t, I don’t know that they were old enough to drive and just took off. And I think probably her favorite truck to drive is our convertible K 30 that is coil over and four link front and back with a pretty rowdy V eight and and so on. That truck is, it looks very off roady, but when you’re driving it on the street, the steering has a really light feel. It’s extremely precise. And even though it has a good bit of body roll, the steering doesn’t vary with that body roll, the geometry is set up well. So when You turn the tire You know when You turn the Wheel, the tires go where you want to go.

Stephen Watson (1h 16m 16s):

And they stay going that way kind of regardless of everything else that’s happening. And it’s actually really easy to drive on the street. It doesn’t seem that way, but it’s the way that it works. And that’s the You know, one of the myths and, and back to Leaf Springs, they are just the inherent geometry of of Leaf Springs. The more technical side of it is they, they inherently have some roll under steer in them. So when You body roll in a corner, they tend to steer out of the corner, which fixes the vehicle. It doesn’t steer into the corner, which is a problem with a lot of crappy setup link suspensions. You’ll go into a corner, get body roll and the body roll will make the vehicle steer more, which makes it body roll more, which makes it steer more.

Stephen Watson (1h 17m 3s):

And it’s an unstable feedback loop and that’s what you’re trying to prevent. And and that’s some of what people see from the old You know super slinky rock crawler days on the, on the street is these things that just get super squirrely. Yeah. And that’s where a, a leaf spring is naturally roll under steer and a a properly set up link system may not hit roll under steer, but it’s gonna not be too much rollover steer. And that’s one of the, the myths that we really try to dispel is that You know with our four link conversion, again You know specifically it’s like, look, Dodge has been running four links on the front of their truck since 94.

Stephen Watson (1h 17m 46s):

This is clearly a suspension that works fine for a street driven vehicle. You know, in this case we just have the geometry, right, like Dodge did on a stock truck, a Jeep TJ You know that was the the beginning of of this in the Jeep world and in stock form those drive really nice on the street You know it’s easy to lift them really at any at all and make ’em handle kind of crappy. But that’s You know, that’s where getting that geometry right’s really correct and, and once again trying to kind of dispel this myth that You know that a, a truck with a modified suspension handles handles poorly when it doesn’t have to be the case.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 18m 28s):

Steven, changing the topic really quick here. Tell me about the GMC you’re sitting in that’s brand new.

Stephen Watson (1h 18m 34s):

Yeah, it’s, it’s got some miles on it but, but to clarify, I still haven’t bought a new truck that don don’t know if that’s a point of pride or just an observation, but stubbornness even this one I found used, so it’s basically just my tow pig, but it’s also a really nice truck to drive, which is don don’t know. Just having things like stupid seat heaters and You know a stereo that just works all the time and You know in a truck that I can hear the stereo when it’s playing You know there’s, there’s some nice features about it. Basically I’ve, I put a set of of knitter recons on it just recently because it came time for tires and bumped those up a little bit.

Stephen Watson (1h 19m 18s):

I think they’re what, 2 95 seventies and just put ’em on the stock wheels. So You know gave it a tiny bit attitude and then did a BDS sort of a leveling small lift. I think it says a two inch lift that we put on it with some, some foxes, You know talking about putting good shocks on stuff, splurged and did the foxes with the DSCs. That’s pretty impressive. The being able to dial it up when I’m towing stuff and You know back it off some when I just wanted to ride a little softer is pretty cool. I put a, I’m sitting here staring at the, the ID dash that tells me that I’m at 91% on my regen percentage.

Stephen Watson (1h 19m 59s):

Oh

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 19m 60s):

He is about to regen. So

Stephen Watson (1h 20m 2s):

Yeah, fortunately I’ll drive it down the highway with a trailer behind it is the next thing that it’ll do and, and give it a good chance to clean itself out. Yeah, that’s, that’s really it. Otherwise we got good seat covers in it because You know kids and dogs and tools and me.

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 23s):

So it comes Lightning ready.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 20m 28s):

It sounds like, it sounds like you need a derringer tuner. It sounds like you might need a rear diff cover or boost tubes. It sounds like you might need some other future mom

Stephen Watson (1h 20m 41s):

Actually a pedal monster.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 20m 43s):

Yes. You do.

Stephen Watson (1h 20m 43s):

Pedal monsters probably. We know a guy ’cause it, yeah, it is laggy and I honestly, I cannot complain about power levels on this truck and towing. It’s even in stock form. It’s, it’s pretty amazing until

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 20m 60s):

You try downer. I’m gonna, I’m sell I’m sorry Yeah, for the schilling here, but until you try one and then you’ll go, oh

Stephen Watson (1h 21m 6s):

Well I have one on my 17. Okay. And, and that was cool and I can only imagine with You know in this package with more cooling and, and with the 10 speed and that’s something that, that’s been kind of cool that I’ve been able to watch having, having had an dash in the 17 and then and watching it in this one is the 17 would derate because the, I would start seeing, well basically you could see when it got to 250 degrees on the oil temp, you could feel The truck start slowing down on a big hill. I don’t know that I’ve seen oil temperatures much over about two 20 in this truck ever. You know. So it just, all of the stuff that they did with the cooling package just makes it so that it can use all the power with this.

Stephen Watson (1h 21m 52s):

I bet having the derringer on this one would be, would be a lot, a lot more impressive because it’s got more headroom I guess before it starts shutting itself down. So may have to play with that.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 22m 6s):

Might be able to hook a brother up with some, some something, you know what I’m saying?

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 9s):

What’s the next trend coming up? I know you guys have your awesome magnum box. That thing’s incredible for the MP 2 0 5 cases that gives you, what is a 5 33 low range in addition to the normal was 1.96 to one or something like that,

Stephen Watson (1h 22m 25s):

Right? Yeah. The, the 2 0 5 is pretty anemic by itself. But yeah, that we end up with a a a lowest low of 5 33, but then the 2 72 in the middle also.

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 36s):

Beautiful.

Stephen Watson (1h 22m 37s):

So, so new thing coming up in the gearing world, in suspension world,

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 44s):

Anything you thinking what’s, what’s hot? What’s hot and healthy? Like if

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 22m 47s):

You’re, what, what are you most excited about?

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 48s):

Yeah. As a business owner you can kind of see the trends. What are you guys planning on being prepared for?

Stephen Watson (1h 22m 54s):

One of the things that I wonder about is with the increased complexity of newer vehicles, if people aren’t going to kind of flock to older vehicles for enthusiast builds even more. And that’s where I see like the GMT 400 platform continuing to get, yeah, I guess hotter. The GMT eight hundreds are still a relatively simple vehicle. I think the

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 22s):

Eight hundreds were peak GM truck. It’s the right mix of creature comforts and modern modernity I guess without being so complex with all the computers and stuff like it’s sort of in that space and the build quality of those trucks was phenomenally good, I think even better than the nine hundreds. Yeah.

Stephen Watson (1h 23m 39s):

And especially in the gas engines. The You know the dmax is it, it doesn’t matter which generation it is. Injectors get expensive. You know, and, and they’re still good. I mean we’ve run across a lot of 400,000 mile DMAX trucks, but geez, you, you pick up a You know a six oh powered oh five GM truck. There isn’t anything on that. That $2,000 won’t make brand new and have a a thing that’s gonna go a long ways. Yeah. That’s something that, that we’re kind of keeping an eye on is, is continue doing what we’re doing, but better You know moving through these platforms because I think they’re gonna stay hot for quite a while because there’s all of the things that we talked about with You know all the crash standards and, and messing with bumpers and sensors and yeah, it asks You know emission stuff is You know is harder and harder to deal with and, and on and on for, for somebody that wants to work on something that’s relatively simple in their garage, You know it’s gonna be old trucks and I, I think they’re just going to keep booming.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 24m 45s):

On that note, let’s thank Mr. Stephen Watson for a listening and b owning a really rad shop up there in Rifle Colorado off-Road Design. You can find them at offroad design dot com and

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 58s):

I’d like to personally Thank you for making me your favorite podcast host.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 25m 2s):

Wait, why, why are you his favorite?

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 4s):

That was called the Presumptive Close Lightning. Oh, that’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 25m 8s):

A dick move. Well

Stephen Watson (1h 25m 9s):

It is a little sad to say that, what was it, 201 of your listeners, this is the You know You’re the Top podcast. Oh,

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 17s):

In review podcast

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 25m 18s):

You listen to.

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 19s):

Yeah,

Stephen Watson (1h 25m 21s):

I’m one of those. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 25s):

We, we appreciate you mightily my friend and I know you myself, Lawson, Kevin Stears, we’ve, we’ve got some unfinished business to do out in the Mojave. So as soon as maybe in the new year, as soon as things kind of settle down a little bit, we need to get our trip planned and hopefully I’ll be able to get back on the trail with you soon enough.

Stephen Watson (1h 25m 44s):

Yeah, I wanna, I I still need to listen to the Billy Creech episode. I haven’t got the yet, but I’m anxious to hear about that one. And maybe

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 25m 53s):

I’m, I’m sorry, who maybe go

Stephen Watson (1h 25m 54s):

Visit that trail

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 25m 55s):

Desert Explorer.

Stephen Watson (1h 25m 57s):

That’s the one.

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 58s):

Yeah, I think there’s a, a lot of cool stuff on that that You know you’ll find pretty interesting. So if we continue to listen, we’ve got a lot of great guests such as as yourself lined up and we’re, we’re excited about 24. We’ll, we’re just gonna make sure that you can’t listen to any other podcast. Stephen

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 26m 14s):

Watson every Friday. Come on Thank you.

Stephen Watson (1h 26m 16s):

Yeah. Good talking to you guys all.

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 17s):

All right. Turn your car on and, and get warm again.

Stephen Watson (1h 26m 20s):

Time to go home. All right,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 26m 22s):

See ya. Bye.

Stephen Watson (1h 26m 22s):

Have a good night. Bye bye.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 26m 26s):

All right. Elman, I’m interested to hear how you like that ranger that you spent some time in recently.

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 32s):

Does that mean we’re doing a truck

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 26m 33s):

Review Indeed. Truck review. Yeah. Rolling The truck. Did Ford strap a set of truck nuts on the trailer hit?

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 47s):

They did not. They did not. So Holman

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 26m 48s):

In the last episode, you went through the features of the new Ranger but you weren’t allowed to talk about how it felt to drive, which I think you’ll do now, correct? Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 56s):

The last episode I think the embargo had just lifted and so I didn’t get into a whole lot of details and so I, and we didn’t go very deep. We talked about mostly Ranger Raptor, which dude by the way, so much fun to drive. It’s funny because you go into the base ranger and we had X SLTs and Lariats sport four by fours with only the 2.3 liter. But that’s still 270 horsepower with the 10 speed automatic. Again, I like those better than the GMs in terms of responsiveness. The transit feel like it was hunting other than the electronic start stop issue where there’s some vibration that I caught a few times. It was very sporty, very responsive, felt great, love that about very quiet and I really like the dash, the outside looks okay to me.

Sean P. Holman (1h 27m 41s):

Like it’s just, okay, it’s still built on the same T six platform that’s been around since 2010. And most of this vehicle was engineered in Australia while the powertrain was done here in the States. So I had a chance to drive the four cylinder. We didn’t get a chance to drive the two point, which is the upgraded engine because they’re late availability and I thought, Hey, even at Altitude, great power, it’s fine. Totally adequate. Nobody is going to be bummed about that 2.3 in Ranger. It feels great. So I can only imagine it’s probably a two mile per gallon penalty. But moving up to that 2.7 liter V six with the twin turbos is gonna be pretty awesome for those as an upgrade. And nobody else is really doing a upgrade. They’re doing a, you can get the higher output four cylinder, but you can’t get a V six.

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 22s):

Right. And so the only ones with the V six are gonna be Nissan with the frontier with the normally aspirated V six or four with the 2.7 ’cause Toyota walked away from it, GM walked away from it. And then of course there’s the ridge line if you consider that. No, doesn’t really count in this, in this space. I don’t think it, it’s a great feeling truck. I think it’s a really great upgrade. I think if you like the current truck, you’re gonna like the new truck even better. It did have some fit and finish issues. Ours were pre-production and there are a lot of like just were the seams of the plastic on the interior kind of came together. The seat fabrics felt a little cheaper. The leather seats were better. But again, I go back to, it’s funny,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 28m 59s):

They have to, leather seats only have to have one panel in them. It’s actual leather.

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 3s):

Yeah, most cars are like that. The

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 29m 4s):

Rest, it’s all vinyl. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 5s):

Which is fine. It’s not, that’s really not that big of a deal in something that’s gonna get dirty and wiped off. But when You sit in it and you look at kind of, there’s, there’s a little bit of cost cutting here and there that you can tell the Raptor’s way better. Obviously it’s gonna be a lot more money. Do you see

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 29m 19s):

It in like the, the door panels? They just look

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 21s):

Cheap? No, I love the door panels. I thought the door panels were great. They have these, these like shapes that are molded into ’em that are kind of funky and technic because usually that’s where you see the cheapness

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 29m 29s):

Of The truck You know it’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 30s):

No it’s where, no, it’s where the door panels all the, like the glove box meets the corner meets the door. There’s places like where the steering column snaps around the ignition that didn’t quite line up a hundred percent. Just that kind of stuff. It’s just the little stuff that over time you’ll catch and you’ll be like, nah, nah. You know. And going back to the seats, they were fine but they weren’t Nissan Frontier Zero Gravity seats. To me those seats are still the best. And I really wanna take a Chevy Colorado and go back and forth between that and the Ranger. ’cause it’s been a while since I’ve driven the Colorado and I’ve driven a lot of stuff since then. So I don’t have like, I don’t have a good reference point of what else is going on in the mid-size category right now. Could

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 30m 9s):

You get one? Yeah, probably. No. But like back to back at the same time

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 12s):

May maybe it’s, it’s just depends on scheduling. I’ll refer to The Frontier mostly because that was the most recent mid-size truck that I was in. And I feel like the Frontier’s ergonomics are better. How

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 30m 24s):

Can I ask about your seating position? Because in the frontier you’re sitting higher, you feel more like you’re in a big truck.

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 30s):

Yeah, I mean it, you feel like you’re in a mid-size truck. I mean it, I don’t know the seating position,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 30m 35s):

The Ranger was fine. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 36s):

It’s fine. Okay. It didn’t, didn’t strike me. And then there’s also this weird cap on top of the dashboard that looks like it should have been a cubby for like sunglasses or pens or something. Instead they have this like cap on top that has a bunch of warning lights on it. So that just looks kind of chinsy, like the dash looks nice. And then there’s just this piece that looks like an afterthought but overall really nice to drive. I’ve got some, some Raptor video that I’ll try and get up hopefully this next week or so on our truck show page of me taking around the the muddy course. It was pretty cool. And I’ll say this, the steering was awesome in the Raptor you can totally steer with the throttle, which was a, a ton of fun.

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 17s):

Very responsive. I wish it had a little bit bigger tire. It’s 30 threes. I would’ve loved to see a 34, 35 on it to be You know On, on par with, with the Chevys. Overall it’s handling was great. Brakes felt great on either truck. It’s only got about 10 inches of travel front rear. I would’ve loved a little bit more travel in the Raptor but, and they let us jump it. We, we huck them Really? And it was like

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 31m 40s):

How far,

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 41s):

I mean I got a foot off the ground probably.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 31m 43s):

No kidding. Yeah. You didn’t jump into flat like our friend in the, in the Raptor?

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 47s):

No, it was very, very

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 31m 47s):

On the Hogan video. It

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 49s):

Was a very controlled environment at the Ford Raptor Assault School where they set you up with courses and instructors and

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 31m 55s):

All stuff’s what’s called the assault school

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 57s):

Raptor assault.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 31m 57s):

Oh that’s kind of cool. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 58s):

It’s pretty cool. So you get to take ’em on. So Bronco has their off rodeos. Ranger Raptor has Raptor assault. I think you can take the big trucks out there so if you buy one you basically get a chance to go to these schools. And so we went to the one that was in outside of Salt Lake City and overall like I thought it was a pretty good truck. I am a little bit shy about the pricing on the non Raptor. Again, I don’t know the pricing on the Raptor yet, but it’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 32m 26s):

What,

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 27s):

It’s a lot of coin man.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 32m 28s):

Like it is. Well Larry

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 29s):

Can I guess, well no Larry of four by four like loaded, you’re like

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 32m 33s):

You’re touching 50,

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 34s):

You’re touching 50, right? I think you’re on the other side of 50.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 32m 38s):

So then the Raptor a lot. So then the Raptor version is

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 41s):

Don don’t know. They haven’t announced it yet. I just said that.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 32m 43s):

Oh I know You know

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 44s):

Though. No, don don’t know. Oh you really don’t put it like an A EV version of the Colorado B in 69. So Raptor’s gonna be somewhere in there. Yeah. And you look at what you paid for your TRX and they’re not that far apart and you got a full size truck.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 32m 58s):

So what does it weigh? Do You know?

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 1s):

So the, the Ranger four by four comes in at 44 15. Okay. And the, so there’s a difference obviously between the the Ranger Raptor and the Ranger itself. So the Ranger Raptor 44 15 and then that’s gonna get you 7,500 pounds of towing. Whether it’s a a four by four by two, four by four in both engines. And it gets you a maximum payload the four by 4 17 11. Which is really, really

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 33m 32s):

Respectable. Bad.

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 33s):

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And because they made the, the Ranger wider, the shocks are on the outboard now. So they handle better and it handles loads better. Having them outboard of the frame rails, which I, which I think is pretty cool. So when You move over to the ranger raptor, obviously there’s gonna be more You know content on that. So it’s gonna be a little bit heavier. So the ranger raptor comes in at,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 33m 54s):

Comes in at I, don know what is it?

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 59s):

53, 25.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 34m 1s):

Oh that much weight. Which is

Sean P. Holman (1h 34m 2s):

A lot. Which is a lot more, I mean you’re almost in half ton truck territory there, especially with the aluminum Ford F-150. So, and then the tow rating drops to 5,510 pounds still respectable just because

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 34m 13s):

It’s so much softer

Sean P. Holman (1h 34m 14s):

That and because it weighs so much more. So the gross weight rating obviously is gonna change and payload drops to 1375, which is still pretty reasonable. Like I think 1375 is is good. I think the AV version of the Colorado is somewhere around a thousand pounds of payload. But again, a little bit different ’cause that one already has all the skid plates and the winch and the bumpers and the 30 fives and all the things that take away from, it’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 34m 38s):

Got all the ACC

Sean P. Holman (1h 34m 39s):

MA already has the accoutrement on it, the

9 (1h 34m 41s):

ACC ma that you will need ACC ma.

Sean P. Holman (1h 34m 44s):

And then what are the other things that I didn’t love was, yeah, while there are hard buttons for climate controls on the bottom, a lot of stuff is buried in the screen. Like You know there’s a great mode controller and the mode controller does all of your drive drive modes and also it has the trailer backup assist or pro trailer backup assist is what Ford calls it on the knob on the center console. That’s cool. Having that trailer helper on the mid-size truck now. Super cool. But there’s a lot of things like turning your lockers on and off has to be done inside the screen. And I hate not having hard buttons. ’cause if that screen never goes bad, you can’t control your for rifle. Yeah.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 35m 18s):

You’re stuck. Yeah, no, why, why do you supposed to do it soft as opposed to, I mean forward guys are traditionally,

Sean P. Holman (1h 35m 24s):

’cause buttons cost money.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 35m 25s):

I I, I know but Ford owners have spoken time and time again we need knobs and buttons. Yeah, well

Sean P. Holman (1h 35m 32s):

Knob and buttons cost money and Yeah. Hmm. Basically they You know they’re putting as much stuff in the screen as they think they can get away with. So there’s still a volume control knob, which I appreciate. And there’s still climate control buttons, which I appreciate. But some of the secondary controls, it would’ve been nice to have buttons. You go into the new Tacoma and there’s a lot of hard buttons in the new Tacoma, which I, which I really like. Oh, and the cameras, you’d love the cameras. Cameras all around this thing. There’s even the side views and the screen is crystal clear. So full 360. Yeah. Okay. And, and side and front and rear all of it. And you can do different camera modes and the screen is super, super high definition. So it looks, looks awesome. So I did really like that. And then for those of you who are looking to get maybe into an XLT, you’re looking right around 40,000, a little bit more than that.

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 17s):

So, okay. And that’s with the 2.3. But again, once you load up, get a lyric at that 2.7 liter, if you get four Wheel drive again, you’re, you’re that 50,000 range. And man that’s a lot of coin.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 36m 27s):

I wonder the, the the 2.3 to the 2.7, I mean I wonder what the, what the butt Dino would tell you between those two engines.

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 33s):

It’s a significant change in both horsepower and torque.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 36m 36s):

I just feel like the 2.3, I know you say it’s feels good, but to me it just feels too little for a truck. I You know even like the, the DURMAX three liter or the, I mean the 2.8 for example, that they had the LWN which was in the, the Colorado and the Canyon. That thing was just

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 53s):

The old diesel you’re

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 36m 54s):

Talking about. Yeah, the diesel. It just, it just, I guess that’s why ’cause it was diesel but it just felt anemic But that

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 59s):

Was way less horsepower.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 37m 2s):

Okay, fair enough. I

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 3s):

Mean that was, it had more torque but it was way less power. Yeah. So if you’re the 2.3, I mean they have it in the Mustang, I mean they have it in everything. Yeah. You get everything in that engine. But the difference that you’re looking at moving from a 2.3 to a 2.7 is fairly significant. You go from 270 horsepower and 310 pound feet of torque to 315 horsepower and 400 pound feet of tor.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 37m 25s):

You’re right.

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 26s):

That’s a lot. I mean that thing, the 2.7 in a ranger is gonna be a screamer. So I mean I, I’m looking at this and I’m thinking like I would hold out for the tremor ranger ’cause You know it’s coming right With the 2.7, that thing would be just a blast.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 37m 39s):

Right. So you don’t need the full Raptor and You don think you get about the Lariat and then you get all the towing of the tremor and all that

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 44s):

Stuff. Well what I, yeah, what I wanna see is if they do a tremor model, which I’m sure they’re gonna do, I wanna see how far away it is from a raptor. Is it $10,000 cheaper? Can you just get better shocks and suspension gets your 30 fives on it and then have a nearly as capable truck. I mean usually

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 37m 59s):

Though it’s, it’s like 70% or 80% of the, the raptor, but you don’t have the white fenders, you don’t have the, the up travel, things like

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 8s):

That, the fancy shocks, things like that. Right. So, we’ll we’ll see the, the raptor itself, I’m telling you, was an absolute joy to drive. I love the big raptor, but the, the V six version has always felt like it’s, it’s tough to kind of balance that marble on the pencil tip of, of really having your foot in it to have the turbos lit but not too much where it’s over blowing everything. I felt like modulating the power delivery on the Ranger Raptor with the, with the three liter V six twin turbo that’s in there was way easier. And again it has paddles, a lot more tech in inside the, the cabin was way nicer. The Watts linkage in the back You know, ’cause it’s coil, it’s basically coil springs in the back versus leafs on the standard ranger.

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 51s):

Just transformative in that truck. And I know that because it was engineered in Australia and whatever the constraints were down there and they were make it global platform, they stopped at 30 threes. I still think a ranger raptor around 30 fives would be like just perfect. Again. I’d love to see like 11, 12 inches of travel. Not a whole lot more, but I’d like to see 10 or 20% more travel. It handled the jump. Great. We got to drive this muddy course in different modes to see how it was You know baja mode with all the nannies turned off or just regular off road anys. We didn’t get to encounter a whole lot of, whoops. We did like this mountainous trail where we got to use the, the locker and stuff. But to be honest, it’s stuff that is like kudos to Ford.

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 35s):

’cause they’re usually really good about letting you push the limits of their trucks. Usually a controlled environment. But because this is like an owner’s course for like novice drivers, ah, I, I felt like

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 39m 47s):

It was a little tame

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 48s):

Yeah, it was, it was tame because normally they would take us out in the wild and they would like You know, block off a, a, a piece of land that they rented from the government or something like that. And they would set up a cool course on a private ranch. This was at their school with the courses set up and the, the, the dirt handling track and all, and like the Baja Track were just an incredible amount of fun to drive. But the mountain course that was more like a trail. It was just a trail. It wasn’t hardcore, it wasn’t like anything as hard as we did with GMC up in Montana or what we did with Chevy, with the Bisons out in Johnson Valley. So while you got a sense for The truck, I I,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 40m 23s):

You didn’t get to push it to what is like, like six tenths the

Sean P. Holman (1h 40m 26s):

Way? Yeah, I mean we were probably at six tenths. We didn’t get, definitely didn’t get to do like nine-tenths with it. Okay. And you could tell that ground clearance was a little bit of a liability just from bottoming out on the belly. But Forges did a really good job of making a really good approach angle and departure angle on this particular truck. So from that standpoint, at least it feels like You know, you’re not You know you can nose up to something and get up on top of it. The approach angle on the Ranger Raptor is, is fairly impressive. 33 degrees while the departure angle’s 26.4 and Breakover is 24.2, but minimum running ground clearance is 10.7. And then just to let You know sort of how that compares with the Chevy Colorado.

Sean P. Holman (1h 41m 7s):

So a ZR two, so non bison has a 10.7 inch ground clearance, so comparable to the range of Raptor, but the bison on 30 fives, 12.2. Yeah, that’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 41m 18s):

Pretty

Sean P. Holman (1h 41m 19s):

Major. You could drive over a ruler. Yeah, right. Like that’s, that’s a big deal. And then the approach angle on the zero two bison is 38.2 degrees. So that’s significant. The departure angle is a, is 26.0 and Breakover angle is 26.9 on the zero two bison with with 30 fives. So you can You know, you can see how that is fairly different. The zero two bison comes in at 52 65. So not too far off of curb weight. So I think they’re, they’re pretty comparable, although max payload is 10 50 with the bison versus the 1300 in the Raptor and Towing’s a little bit more in the zero two bison at 5,500 pounds. So just if you guys were curious about where Chevy and four kind of come out in the, in the numbers,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 42m 0s):

How similar or dissimilar are the buyers between the Ranger Raptor and the Chevy Colorado bison? Meaning, let me tell you what I think, and you’re, I’m sure you’ll think I’m wrong. I think that the bison owner is more of the showy driver. It’s more of a daily and he’ll use it occasionally. The Ranger Raptor guy is gonna huck it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 42m 21s):

Mm. I think you’re, I think you’re the opposite really. don don’t think they know yet because both trucks are brand new. So who knows where the buyers are. But the Raptor I think is more flashy and I think the Bison’s more catering toward the overland crowd. Oh, okay. Raptor’s going after the Baja

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 42m 35s):

Guy. So you’re not, but it’s, the overland thing is kind of like a lot of those guys are showy. They camping all that stuff. The

Sean P. Holman (1h 42m 40s):

Toyota guys are for sure.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 42m 41s):

Oh, the Toyota guys. Have

Sean P. Holman (1h 42m 42s):

You seen the zero two Bison guys? Those guys are using those trucks. Are they? They’re absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, if you look out there and then Ranger Raptor’s never been in the United States, so who knows. Got it. What it’s gonna be. So I, I don don’t know. I think the cool thing is that Chevy and Ford both offer incredibly similar vehicles. I also wanna see how the Raptor is going to compare to like a Toyota Trail Hunter, which is kind of going after that. Or the TRD pro. Really the trail hunters feels like it’s more ZR two and the TRD pro is more Raptor. So it’ll be nice to have all these trucks and then Frontier gets redesigned coming up ’cause a mid-cycle refresh. So You know that should keep it in, in the conversation as well. So there’s a lot of stuff happening in the mid-size truck market and it’s an exciting place to be right now.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 43m 27s):

Well Holman Thank you for that. Truck review.

Recording (1h 43m 29s):

Truck review. Yeah. Roll The truck bugs.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 43m 38s):

Alright, it’s now it’s time for you to smother me in email.

Recording (1h 43m 43s):

You email? Yeah, I email Do it. We email. That’s right. Everybody email type it up. You email proofread. I email send it. We email. Click it. Everybody emails. Alright.

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 1s):

So I printed these emails out in our new printer. Oh my God. Resize it to a point that Lightning will not be able to read this text. And

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 10s):

I’m, I’m wearing my glasses.

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 12s):

Are you wearing your magnifying specs?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 13s):

Holy crap. Can I do you guys out there have a, a microscope that I can borrow? Damn,

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 19s):

It’s not that small.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 20s):

It’s freaking three point

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 22s):

Dude. I can read it. I can do, I have to read all the emails in this can read

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 25s):

I segment, I read it. It’s just so ridiculous. Let

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 28s):

Less complaining. More reading, sir.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 30s):

All right. Frontier Sighting. I think this says Troy, would you just

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 34s):

Read the emails from Troy?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 36s):

I took these pics on the way to work yesterday. I seen quite a number of frontiers scenes. Ah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 42s):

It was just for you. Yeah. I

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 43s):

Appreciate that he’s underlined and bolded scenes. Is

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 45s):

That from, you didn’t even say who it was from,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 46s):

From Troy Brick.

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 48s):

So you can read just fine

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 44m 49s):

Troy. Seriously. I know you’re being funny but don’t, don’t perpetuate. I seen it’s, I have seen or I saw not, I seen, I seen quite a number of frontiers on the road and there are a lot of used fleet vehicles. One of our area police departments uses quite a few of them. I look forward to getting a sticker sometime in the not too distant future if Lightning doesn’t forget. I’ve listened to every single episode and Holman read my email. Lightning played the, I’m sorry, drop to my wife on season one, episode 2 55. And the day I heard you read my email was, but who’s counting a terrible day? Hold on, check this out. He says, the day I heard you read my email was a terrible day until I got into my truck after work.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 45m 29s):

The podcast started where I had left off that morning and Holman started reading my email. My mind was somewhere else and I suddenly came back to reality thinking. That sounds like my email rewound, if that still is a phrase, maybe backed up a little better to listen to the entire thing again. I’ve replayed that episode to many, many people. Thank you for making my day much better. I feel that the podcast has improved since you have entered season two. Always been my favorite podcast. The quality is second to none. That’s from Troy Brick in Boone, Iowa. Alright,

Sean P. Holman (1h 46m 3s):

I got this message that says, what about small diesels from Dennis Durrell? And he says, what about ’em? He says, famous bros. You’ve shed some really good light on the merits of going with a Gasser unless you really need the big Diesel Power for regular use. However, what is your opinion on the small displacement diesels versus gas? For example, on the Yukon XL Denali, the choice would be the three liter durmax or the six two gas. The Durmax has a significant advantage in both economy and range. However, I tend to keep vehicles for over a hundred thousand miles. And I am a bit concerned about EGR fouling deaf problems, et cetera. With the 2500 3500, the gap between the L eight T and the L five P isn’t as much as it is between the three liter LZO and the 6.2 liter L 87.

Sean P. Holman (1h 46m 48s):

Further, unlike the 25 500, 3500, the three liter is a cost savings compared to the six two. At least at MSRP, I feel like the six two would stand a better chance of getting me past a hundred K without spending time in the shop. But I really want the three liter for economy in range. Set the record straight. Will you Dennis doll. He says PS you guys really do sound alike even after a year’s worth of shows, it’s hard to tell the difference. No unless Berg laughs keep delivering the Great Weekly podcast and five stars,

10 (1h 47m 18s):

Five star review. Five star.

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 20s):

And that was Holman that read your email.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 47m 24s):

The answer to your question is, first off, did he say how long he planned to keep it

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 28s):

Over a hundred thousand miles?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 47m 31s):

Three liter diesel ax. I’m gonna

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 33s):

Long

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 47m 34s):

Gas. Nope.

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 34s):

I I think the, the gas diesels suffer from the exact same problems as the big diesel. The GM is a much newer design and it’s probably the best out of the light duty diesels that’s left out there. Oh wait, it’s the only one. And I would say that you still have the same issues of having to have death. You have the same issues of expensive services. Yes, you’ll make up some of that in fuel economy, except that diesel, at least where we are, is almost 50 cents to 75 cents more than premium per gallon.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 48m 6s):

But it’s not that way everywhere.

Sean P. Holman (1h 48m 7s):

That’s why I just said where we are. And the other thing is that you’ll have the exact same issues of being in regen and things like that. So if you’re not driving that on a decent amount of, of time, 30 minutes, 45 minutes every day and you’re doing short trips to drop the kids off at school, you’re gonna have issues with it 100%.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 48m 24s):

And that’s a you miss, but it’s not as bad as the L five p as the big six six. I I It’s just not as bad. So guys, I, don, shorter, shorter trips. You can do that in the three liter. Look, I I I wish we had parts for the three liter. We don’t, like we didn’t see that one coming. We thought it was just gonna go the way of the two eight. But it has been huge success. And I’m on all the three liter groups. GM’s got a hit on their hands and they’re, they’re producing more than 30,000 of ’em a year. We thought they were we gonna be like 15. So they’ve more than doubled the the production.

Sean P. Holman (1h 48m 54s):

But it also hasn’t been out out as long as the other ones. It’s true’s true, but the jury’s still out on long-term durability. Now the engine itself seems to be fine as as far as durability. But let’s see what happens with the, the DPF and the DEF system and the EGR. Once we get another You know we we’re not even to what, five years yet? Yet on that engine?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 49m 12s):

You maybe six. It came out in 20, I believe. Right? So you had the So

Sean P. Holman (1h 49m 15s):

Four, two, so four years.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 49m 16s):

Yeah, four years.

Sean P. Holman (1h 49m 17s):

Right. So we’re not that far along to know what these high mileage ones are like. And the ones that are hitting high mileage now probably have less issues because if you’re already hitting high mileage, it means you’re using it all the time. You’re towing, you’re driving cross country, you’re using whatever. So, but if you’re

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 49m 31s):

Told, if you’re, if you’re using it a lot, then you’re not gonna run into those clogging issues either.

Sean P. Holman (1h 49m 37s):

I understand that

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 49m 37s):

You’re gonna work ’em like they’re supposed to be worked.

Sean P. Holman (1h 49m 39s):

I understand that. And that’s what I’m saying is, is we still don’t know how this is gonna respond to those short trips. ’cause those short trip trucks aren’t at a higher mileage yet. Anything. It’s only been four years. The things that are at a higher mileage now are things that are being used. So everything’s getting blown out. You’re doing regen, it’s doing all this stuff right? All the people that are using it for a quick short run to school or to the grocery store or those over and over and over again don’t have that high mileage. So we don’t know what that looks like yet. That’s

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 50m 7s):

I’m saying. I mean, do we know his use case? We don’t really,

Sean P. Holman (1h 50m 9s):

We don’t really know his use case. All I’m gonna say is if you want to hit 150,000 miles, go with the tried and true V eight gas engine lighting thinks he should go with the ax.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 50m 20s):

Yeah, I’m still, I’m still leaning at the three. Oh, I’m still leaning towards the three. Oh, this one’s called Frontier spotting from Chad. It looks like he’s in Newfoundland, which is

Sean P. Holman (1h 50m 28s):

Cool. Oh dude. Chad, you people, you have a problem up there in Newfoundland.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 50m 31s):

Yes. Stop with

Sean P. Holman (1h 50m 32s):

The dogs. I’ve been to Newfoundland and there’s no freaking Newfoundland dogs. There’s chihuahuas and there’s pit bulls. Stop it. And there’s Labradors.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 50m 39s):

Stop it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 50m 40s):

Like I would expect Labradors to be from Labrador, but there’s no fricking newfies. I wanted to go to Newfoundland and I wanted there to be big, giant hairy newies and I didn’t see one while I was there and I’ve been screeched in and I still didn’t see a new fee and I bit the head off a herring and it’s bs. So read, read his dumb letter and tell him that I have a problem with Newfoundland. Although I did go to a town called Dildo. That’s a true story.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 51m 7s):

Chad says, Hey guys managed to spot this one at my local dealership, sharp looking truck trade, the pick for a sticker deal. Yes, I will trade the bright red Nissan frontier for a sticker. Thank You. very much. If you are interested in getting a truck Show Podcast sticker, simply take a photograph of a Nissan frontier from the cab of your truck.

Sean P. Holman (1h 51m 28s):

I got an email here from our friend Trevor Nero says New Tundra and Tacoma. So I don’t understand if the new Tacoma and Tundra share the same chassis. Is the tundra light duty half ton or is the Tacoma heavy duty? Midsize seems odd to be sharing the ender bits between two different class trucks. Uht is all the time my friend Ford F two 50 and three 50 Chevy 2500, 3500 Ram 2500, 3500 Nissan Frontier, Nissan Titan. I mean we could go down the line. The chassis are not the same. The platform is the same. And what that means is that the tooling, the things that, the hard points of where things connect to the chassis suspension and things like that are the same between the trucks.

Sean P. Holman (1h 52m 12s):

But things that attach to it, such as control arms and axles and things like that will be upsized. Even bracketry sometimes the chassis itself, and I’m not a hundred percent sure in the case of the Toyota, but typically what happens is you might have thicker metal on the heavier duty vehicle and a deeper drawn frame rail also on these modular platforms that a lot of companies are going to. And this is common throughout the industry. You can change track width and you can also change Wheel base. And you basically, the hard points stay the same, but you can put in different cross members or more cross members. You can widen the frame rails, put a wider body on top of it. So all those things are taken into account. But being a modular platform, again, they’re not the same chassis, the same.

Sean P. Holman (1h 52m 55s):

The chassis would mean like a tundra could bolt to a Tacoma and if it could, it wouldn’t be a Tacoma, it would be a Tundra. But on the on the platform itself, there’s a lot of part sharing and component sharing. Like they might have the same You know Wheel bearings, they might have the same half shafts, they might have the same motor mounds, they might have the same mounting points, things like that. But guess what? Components will be Upsized gas tank may be bigger, You know room is measurements are changed to accommodate a a roomier cab. All those types of things. So that’s basically a CliffNotes version of how that works in the automotive industry. Sharing a platform does not necessarily mean that one is a heavier duty vehicle. One’s a lighter duty vehicle. They can be both with different changes made to the chassis.

11 (1h 53m 39s):

That’s funny. I don’t recall asking for a

12 (1h 53m 41s):

Really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,

11 (1h 53m 46s):

Really boring story. My god, don’t you understand? No one cares.

Sean P. Holman (1h 53m 51s):

I think Trevor

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 53m 51s):

Cares. I’m guessing Jay has considered retractable bollards from rb. I don’t know what bollards are.

Sean P. Holman (1h 53m 58s):

Those are the things that if you go to a military base or an airport or

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 2s):

Whatever, oh they stick outta the ground.

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 3s):

Yeah, they stick out and the retractable ones go underground. So like you could have your driveway flat and then when You park your TERX, you have the Ballards pop up and then they can’t pull it outta your driveway.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 12s):

I would totally do that if I had a spare a hundred thousand dollars Lightning. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 15s):

I don’t think they’re that

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 15s):

Much. As I’ve heard the various installments of your TRX anti thievery saga, the first thing I thought of was three of those retractable Ballards posts. One between The truck and the road and one on each side. Assuming you put one end of The truck up against the garage door. That’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 31s):

Actually a great

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 31s):

Point. He says, I assume you’ve already considered that. No

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 34s):

He

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 35s):

Hasn’t. No, but

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 36s):

Wait, what about a what’s what about one of those low rolling wrought iron fences?

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 41s):

I have considered that ’cause You know I could do that in my front

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 43s):

Yard. You know our, our buddy makes wrought iron fencing. I bet he could make one for you.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 47s):

Who’s our buddy? You’re talking about Eric from Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 49s):

Eric Baja. He doesn’t he make Rodt iron.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 54m 52s):

It’s funny ’cause Yes he does. Okay. It is funny as as tight as I am with Eric. don don’t think you do for free.

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 59s):

I who said for free don don’t have the money. Why are you saving for free? You

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 55m 2s):

Don don’t have the the cashish to build a 2030 foot long

Sean P. Holman (1h 55m 7s):

Slider. Why? Because you had to buy a new rear window.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 55m 9s):

I mean I did have, I mean it was only $500 for the deductible. But that’s a I I’ve thought of that. I don’t know if that would keep them. Wouldn’t they just bust the lock and cut the chain and slide it over?

Sean P. Holman (1h 55m 21s):

Dude, that’s a lot of work. Make it so pins have to go in it. There’s not lot

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 55m 25s):

Mean when You talked to John Tang from Iley, he talked about how they moved the dudes three way

Sean P. Holman (1h 55m 29s):

Easier to move a car than his to

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 55m 31s):

Move 92 out to get the

Sean P. Holman (1h 55m 32s):

T Rx way, way easier to move a vehicle out of the way than it is to move Ballards or a fence.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 55m 38s):

I have thought about the fence. Hey listen, if you do fence work and you do like, call me up brother. Jeez. I got you. Lightning at truck Show Podcast dot com.

Sean P. Holman (1h 55m 47s):

Did you really just ask a listener to make a free fence for you? No.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 55m 51s):

I’ll, I’ll pay some.

Sean P. Holman (1h 55m 55s):

Alright, well we got Alden lyrics says stickers. Haha. I laugh all the time at the people complaining of not getting stickers. I’ve been listening and emailing since the days of quote unquote free t-shirts. The new listeners don’t know it’s a running joke about getting items sent for an email. You all are my number one podcast that I listen to. Look forward to the next download Excel shirt whenever you send it. And that’s our friend Alden who’s been listening since almost day one.

13 (1h 56m 26s):

Thank you, Thank you

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 56m 29s):

Thank you. Everybody for writing to Mr. Oh, you got another one? You got one more? Oh, I didn’t know

Sean P. Holman (1h 56m 33s):

You trying to get outta here.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 56m 34s):

I didn’t see a piece of paper on your

Sean P. Holman (1h 56m 37s):

Laptop. All right, one more called Tundras from Chad Colburn. He says, Hey dudes love the show and longtime listener first time emailer, but heard in first

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 56m 45s):

Time

Sean P. Holman (1h 56m 46s):

Listener, but heard in the latest show the topic of sliding rear windows. And you guys said the first generation tundra went all the way down. But in fact, every gen CrewMax Tundra has a power up and down rear window. One of the best features. And I do agree with the typical slider never being used as I never used it in my previous Tacoma. I do use the power down in the tundra all the time. Keep up the great job on the podcast. And that’s Chad Colborn says PS this info must be worth the sticker You know Chad. It might be, but you didn’t leave us an address. Sorry. Oh

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 57m 15s):

Damn. That is a harsh to All right, he is Holman at truck Show Podcast dot com. I’m Lightning at truck Show Podcast dot com. Or you can hit the general email inbox at truck Show Podcast at gmail dot com. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. I

Sean P. Holman (1h 57m 36s):

Just like the,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 57m 38s):

The

Sean P. Holman (1h 57m 39s):

Music, the music after all these years, I still, I still think

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 57m 41s):

It’s cool we ruin it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 57m 42s):

I

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 57m 43s):

Remember every single show, we talk over

Sean P. Holman (1h 57m 44s):

It. Well we ruin it for just doing what we do. I remember the first time at K Rock, the very first show where we did our jingle music and it was like, Hey, is this thing real

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 57m 54s):

Kind of cool?

Sean P. Holman (1h 57m 55s):

The old studio that’s no longer there. Are

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 57m 57s):

You just reminiscing about six years ago, six and a half years ago, starting the show.

Sean P. Holman (1h 58m 1s):

It’ll be like seven now, isn’t it? Almost going on seven, going on six. Almost I don Dunno, something like that. 18 40 18. A lot of shows.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 58m 7s):

All right, listen, we want to thank Nissan for making this show possible. We were, we’re bulking up this this afternoon and this evening we’re recording 35 episodes in advance because Holman is going on a world tour here. He is gonna go do Jeeps out in the, in the Mojave. He’s gonna go Jeeps up in Utah. He’s gonna drive Jeeps through the Sahara. He’s gonna Dr No, see what, what are you doing driving Jeeps through the Sari era? I’m just saying, I feel like you’re gonna be gone for the next six months. Ah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 58m 34s):

Dude, I’ve got so much trouble. I’m heading out the Eastern Jeep Safari, so I’ll be out there for a week and then doing a deal with Jeep Jamboree, u s a to pre-run a a week long desert trip. And then also heading to the middle of the country with my dad, my oldest who see the eclipse in middle America. Yeah. So that’s weird. Going out to Oklahoma, possibly to run a booth for an aftermarket company in September at a overland show. Okay,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 58m 58s):

Well, You don’t have to gimme your whole, whole

Sean P. Holman (1h 58m 59s):

Year. Oh, oh yeah. Oh, I just,

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 59m 1s):

I I meant like, because we’re recording a couple episodes right now, so anyway, we got

Sean P. Holman (1h 59m 5s):

A lot. Yeah. Okay. You guys need to leave us reviews. Please do it on Facebook, on Spotify or on Apple Podcast. Hit us up on the email Holman at truck Show Podcast dot com. Lightning at truck Show Podcast dot com or truck Show Podcast at gmail dot com. Don’t forget about the five star hotline. 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5. Five star,

14 (1h 59m 25s):

Five star,

Sean P. Holman (1h 59m 26s):

Five star hotline. Head over to truck Show Podcast dot com where you can check out the latest in events and also discount codes for featured products. And please follow us on social at Truck Show Podcast. Dave Graham continues to kill it for us. Did you see the, this week’s was pretty hilarious. I, I do. No. Which, which one? Well, there’s Did he, did he

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (1h 59m 46s):

Chop our heads off

Sean P. Holman (1h 59m 47s):

And Yeah, put ’em on different bodies and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Those, those are always, oh, those are always fun. And then also you wanna follow us at Sean P Holman at LBC Lightning. And please, guys, we still need some know your notes, so send ’em our way and we will be happy to guess wrong, I guess is what I tried to say. That

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2h 0m 3s):

Is where you record the exhaust note and you send it to us in the form of an email, the audio attachment, or you leave it on the five star hotline and we do a miserable job guessing what it is.

Sean P. Holman (2h 0m 12s):

Shout out to our good friend, Stephen Watson, for hanging out with us for a bit. And if you are in the market for a brand new truck with a great warranty, durable, dependable, and screwed together really well, you wanna go to your local Nissan dealer where you can check out the Nissan Frontier, the Nissan Titan, and the Nissan Titan Xd. The Titans have the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty, and those Nissans have the best seats in the industry. So once again, head on down to your local Nissan dealer or build a price at Nissan usa dot com. And

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2h 0m 39s):

If the headers in your old 91 to 91 Jeep or 2000 2006 Jeep suck, and they’re cracked and they’re making strange noises, it’s time to upgrade to a brand new set of bank stainless steel headers. Head over to Banks Power dot com, type in your year, make and model, and get a nice set of headers that will per and add 20 horsepower under that Jeep Hood later. Thanks for

15 (2h 0m 60s):

Watching, and remember, everything matters.

Jay “Lighting” Tilles (2h 1m 3s):

The truck Show Podcast is a production of truck famous LLC. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and Jay Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar Khan. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple Podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast.