Tires And Wheels
The M/T wheels offer a thick machined lip and five different-colored, inexpensive, optional decorative rings. You are not going to bend an outer bead on these wheels or get bored with their looks. Just remember to take the outer rings off before hitting the trail. They don't like the rocks. But once you are done off-road, they are great for covering up any dings you might have gotten on the edge of your wheels.
Now that we had room for bigger tires on our TJ, we knew that we wanted some serious meats and wheels underneath. We were hoping for a set of bias-ply mud tires for on-the-trail strength. We also wanted a wide tread for extra traction and sticky soft rubber to keep our lowrider Wrangler holding onto the rocks with authority. We decided that a set of Mickey Thompson Baja Claws was just the ticket. The sidewall specs are 35x13.50-15 LT, which gives us the 35-inch height we were looking for and a little extra width. They stuck to the rocks on our test run and dealt with a little bit of Southeastern mud with ease. These tires would never fit on the factory Jeep 15x7 wheels, so we looked into a set of 15x10-inch Mickey Thompson M/T Classic Locks. They have a backspacing of 3 5/8 inches, which helps keep the tires from rubbing too much on the control arms, coil buckets, or frame. They did rub the front sway bar, but with the Jeep so low and balanced, we ditched our front sway bar without noticing any horrible side effects.
The M/T Classic Locks are not real bead locks. They are street legal and come with changeable aluminum polished rings that can be swapped inexpensively for blue, black, red, or gold rings. We went with a set of blue rings and they look great. These decorative rings are bolted to a super-thick machined outer lip. We like the strength of the outer lip for trail bashing, but if you are going to hit the rocks, you should take the outer decorative rings off because they don't like being rubbed against anything hard. If you do damage the rings, they are easy and inexpensive to replace.
From Behind the Wheel
After some off-road testing, we found we needed to lower the rear bumpstops 1 inch to keep the tires from getting sliced on the trimmed rear wheelwells. We made our bumpstop extensions from some heavy-wall tubing and welded them into place. The other option was to simply purchase some extended urethane bumpstops from nearly any off-road shop.
Mostly stock suspension makes our 35-inch-tire-clad Wrangler drive on-road like a stock Jeep. It's not too bouncy or tippy, even though we ditched the front sway bar. Our only major problem comes from the lack of horsepower. Those four little squirrels in our TJ's 2.5L are hurting, and we need to regear the axles in hopes of ever using Fifth gear again. As for off-road, the Jeep drove up stuff that we didn't think was possible in our TJ. It scaled obstacles that are definitely not possible in a stock TJ or some overly lifted and unstable TJs we've seen. It drives to the trail comfortably and is a trail hero off-road. Keeping the factory-designed suspension geometry and adding larger tires makes for a very capable and stable TJ.
When trimming the rear wheelwell, it's necessary to remove some of the inner fenderwell. We trimmed out a chunk with a cutoff wheel on a 4 1/2-inch angle grinder. | 
Despite our trimming of the sheetmetal, the 35-inch Mickey Thompson tires were rubbing ever so slightly on the top of the rear wheelwell at full compression off-road. Before reinstalling the trimmed flares, we made some 1-inch bumpstop lowering blocks out of 114-inch heavy-wall tubing we had on hand. Sure, we lost a bit of uptravel, but we doubt it will significantly diminish the Jeep's off-road performance, and we know we won't be replacing tires that have been shredded by the rear wheeltubs. |
Driving our 35 inch Baja Claw clad TJ gets us plenty of looks. If they don't see the trick hood, big tires, or trick-looking wheels, they definatly will hear that aggressive growl of the tires. The Jeep rides like a Cadillac and works better than many other TJ's we've seen out on the trail, but the four-cylander needs lower axle and maybe transfer-case gearing. | |
THINGS WE'D CHANGE
* We'd love to add a flatter belly skidder for more ground clearance.
* The slip-yoke on the back of the transfer case is still a weak point we'd like to get rid of.
* We'll trim the lower control-arm brackets a bit because they seem to get snagged occasionally.
* We'll add rocker guards.
* We might lift the front of the Jeep an inch or two to level it out. TJs come from the factory with the nose down. We've heard XJ springs add a bit of height to the Jeep, or we could install some lift pucks up front.
* The stock shocks work OK, but we'd like the added benefit and feel of some high-end monotube or adjustable shocks.