New Atlas Transfer Case

Art and Tom discuss next next upgrade for Art's JL Sport and whether it would have been better to start with a Rubicon.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Talk is Jeep. I'm Art. And I'm Tom. And we're back behind the microphones.

Tom, how are you doing? I'm doing well. Looking forward to getting behind the wheel. It's been a crazy little spring. We're just finally getting some good weather up here in Cape Cod. And the top has been off the Jeep for quite a while, off of Julius. And looking forward to some beach days coming up. I've had the Jeep with the top and the doors off for the last two weeks. Okay.

Hasn't always been the best weather, but we've had some nice days. But I just, you know, I love running it that way. Absolutely. I know I'm lucky enough to have a garage. Have you had the can of beef to safely store yours under? No, I don't have that working. I have it. It's in my shed.

But it needs to be taken out, cleaned. I think the biggest obstacle is it really needs to be fastened with like a concrete screw to anchor it down to my driveway because I've had it blow over.

You guys have had some crazy weather down there in New York.

Yeah. So it's just what I do have is I have a Jeep jacket. Okay. Which is a rain cover that works awesome. Yeah. So I just, when I'm not driving it, it's under the cover, you know, and then I pull the cover off and I'm ready to go. Nice, nice. Doors haven't come off of Julius yet, but we're almost there. Well, I have, uh, I have only a few weeks, uh, of Jeep available to me for a little while because it's going into the shop. It's, uh, it's going, it's going under the knife. I, I, I had, I had teased in the, uh, last episode, uh, that, you know, to do this Rubicon trail trip, which I'm doing in, uh, in about 75 days, it's, it's ticking down. Yeah. That's close. Wow. I needed to have some work done.

Some of it's, uh, not required for the trip, but, uh, it really needs to be done.

Did you, did you feel you could have done the trip if you weren't going to make this, uh, particular update you're doing? Well, I, yeah, I, I can't, if I left my Jeep the way it sits now, which is, um, on 35s, I have lockers front and rear, but I only have 35 inch tires. I wouldn't be able to technically do the Rubicon. Okay. It says 37 inches, the, you know, minimum tire. Now, just like the Catskills where it said you needed both lockers, I've run the Catskills without any lockers. Um, and they've let me do it, but it's one of those things where you might not be able to do all the, uh, obstacles. You might have to take the bypasses if there is like on the Rubicon, there's a lot of bypasses. Okay. So if I showed up with 35s, they probably would let me go, but they probably wouldn't want me to do all of the obstacles is my guess. Okay. I don't know for a fact, but you basically sign a waiver saying my Jeep meets the requirements.

Ah, there you go. So I have to do 37s tires. That's going to be its own podcast. That won't be on this episode, but we'll have to talk about tires because I'm very confused about tires.

Really? I look forward to that because I'm ready to, to look at the mud terrains.

40, 42s?

No, not for Julius. No, I would consider 35s because it was built up for that.

I'm not sure if that would get through the whole family in one discussion.

The whole family, the whole family has to vote on that.

Oh, hell yeah.

But, but mud terrains are about the biggest upgrade I could see doing in the next year.

All right. Well, we'll, we'll have a whole episode about tires, uh, the next time we speak, but, but the upgrade that is happening definitively is a new transfer case.

Okay.

And it's not really a, it's not a sexy upgrade from the, uh, you know, appearance, right?

Okay.

It doesn't, it doesn't add lift. It doesn't, you know, get you, uh, any good looks at the red lights.

It's, you know, it's hidden under the Jeep, but it is something that I feel is for me very necessary to enhance the performance of, of my Jeep off road.

And then that's, I mean, that's as sexy as you need to be, because if you can do the things you want to do on the trail, you're going to, I mean, that's an awesome upgrade.

I certainly believe that, you know, lockers before light bars, that's always sort of been my, my mantra.

So I've, I don't really have any exterior lighting on my Jeep.

Okay.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Not yet.

I'm not finished building it, so to speak until I do a few more things, but, you know, just for, for reference, you know, my Jeep is a, is a 18 jail two door sport S.

Which means it comes from the factory with a, um, 2.72 to one, you know, ratio transfer case.

Right.

And that's not a great ratio for crawling.

Um, the lower or the, the higher, the ratio, like the Rubicons, for example, come with a four to one.

And the higher, the higher, the higher, the, the more torque you're putting down through the tires and you're going slower, but getting more power to the wheels through the transfer case.

Okay.

So 2.72 is a smaller reduction than a four to one.

That's on the Rubicon.

And that's what we rode in the Moab, right?

When we had 37s on the four.

Yep.

Yep.

The, the rental Jeeps were Rubicons with four to ones.

Okay.

Okay.

And that's the only.

So this is even better.

Well, it will be better because the, the transfer case I'm getting is called an Atlas transfer case.

It's made by a company called Advanced Adapters.

Okay.

It's, it's kind of the standard, the gold standard for people upgrading their transfer cases.

Okay.

This company has made them for many, many, many years.

And they're considered to be, you know, bulletproof.

Now, will this be a huge update for say your two door?

Like you'd see a huge advancement in performance with your two door, as opposed to say a four door unlimited.

No, I don't think it matters too much whether it's a four door.

Okay.

I think that the main advantage for me, and again, I've talked to people about it.

I, until I drive it, I'm not going to know for, for certain.

Right.

But until I drive it, I won't know.

But the idea is now, of course, my Jeep also is a, is a manual.

So it's a little different because I think if you had an automatic, the Jeep comes with something like the hill descent and all of those things.

Where it lets the automatic transmission do some of the shifting.

So my Jeep with the manual transmission and the 272 transfer case, most of the time when I'm in first gear, I'm riding the clutch constantly.

Yeah.

Because of the way the obstacles are.

Like the Jeep is either going too fast or too slow.

And you've got to mediate that.

You've got to mediate that with the clutch.

And it's a pain in the neck.

Yeah.

I mean, it really is because I've stalled it a bunch.

It's just hard to do in a manual Jeep.

So my hope is, and what I've been led to believe is that, you know, with the 4 to 1 transfer case, and it's actually the one I've optioned is actually a little better than 4 to 1.

It's 4.3 to 1.

Because that's just how the options work with the transfer case from advanced adapters.

Okay.

You can spec it out any number of ways.

But the one I'm getting is a two speed.

They make them in four speed.

So you can actually get multiple gear sets.

Oh, my God.

So, like, if you were building.

How necessary is that?

If you were building, like, a competition rig or one of these rock rail buggies, you know, you might want more options.

Okay.

You know, racing, things like that.

I'm going to be fine with just the two speed with a 4 to 3 ratio.

But my hope is that I'll be able to put it in first gear in 4 low and let it crawl.

It'll sort of be at the right speed without having to keep clutching.

Riding it.

Yeah.

The engine, you know, to give me more control.

Yeah.

And whether I, you know, if I'm in first gear or second gear in the 4 low, I think I'll have more options.

Okay.

But, again, until I drive it, I can't say for certain.

But this is what I've been led to believe in.

It's not a cheap option.

Like, I looked at some other options.

I looked at just putting in a Jeep factory 4 to 1 transfer case because that would be an option.

Natural.

Yeah.

The problem is that, I mean, I could buy a junkyard pull.

I mean, I know a lot of people have done that.

I've seen posts, people who do it.

But, you know, I don't think that would be necessarily the, like, you don't know what you're getting.

Right.

You don't know what damage has been done.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

You don't know.

And so my shop suggested that, okay, if you want to do a Jeep transfer case, we would buy a new part from Jeep.

But that was almost the same price as buying the advanced adapters transfer case.

Ah, okay.

And the advantage of the advanced adapters is that I can, I actually get a two-stick transfer case.

Doesn't even happen with the Jeep one.

The Jeep is a single stick, as you know.

It's either two high, four high, or four low.

Okay.

Those are the options that you get with the Jeep factory transfer case.

The way the Atlas works is that I get two sticks.

I have a stick for the front drive shaft, and I have a stick for the rear drive shaft.

Ah.

That gives me the option of doing two high, which is normally rear wheel drive.

Yeah.

Or two high, I could do front, two high.

So I could do two high front or two high rear.

And I could do two low front or two low rear.

What would be the advantage of doing two high front?

So, well, two high front.

Let's say I was putting a boat in the water.

Ah.

And I'm on a boat ramp, which I'm not going to do, but.

You're not getting a boat?

I'm not getting a boat.

Not unless I win the lottery.

But you could say, I don't need four-wheel drive, but I just want to have, you know, the front wheels with the power.

Hitting it.

Right.

I haven't seen anyone in person do this.

But if you look on YouTube, there is something called a front dig.

Okay.

And a front dig is when you have the front axle engaged, but the rear is in neutral.

Okay.

And you use the front axle to basically pivot the Jeep around the front tires.

So, if you are on a really tight trail.

Okay.

You could do a front dig by putting the transfer case in, let's say, too high.

Too high front.

Yeah.

And just pivot the Jeep around the front tires.

So, it does give you some options on a really tight trail.

It does.

Now.

Huh.

I watched our friend Fred Williams.

Okay.

From the Moab Odyssey.

I don't know if.

He hasn't called me personally in like a few years.

So, I don't know.

He might be upset with me.

He hasn't thanked you for our last podcast?

He has not thanked me for our last podcast.

No, but he did a video on his YouTube channel where he installed on his JL Jeep, the Noob Sock.

He installed the same Atlas transfer case that I'm getting.

Ah.

And he was talking about the front dig.

And he, his words said, he wouldn't do a front dig on a stock axle.

Ah.

Because it puts a lot of torque on that.

Now, I haven't heard that from a lot of people, but I trust Fred.

Yeah.

So, I don't know if that's, I think it depends on where you're at with your Jeep and what you're trying to do.

But maybe if you're putting all your torque to the front drive shaft and axle, it might not be.

More trouble.

It might be more trouble.

So, we'll have to see how that works out.

But it's about, you know, $6,000, give or take, with the installation.

Okay.

It's going to take a couple weeks.

And then I need some time to test it.

And learn it.

Yeah.

Not even test it, but get used to it.

Right.

So, I have to basically get the Jeep into the shop in a couple of weeks.

It's going to be there for a couple of weeks.

And then when I get it back, I'll basically have about five weeks before, or six weeks before the Rubicon.

Right.

And I have one jamboree scheduled in Pennsylvania at the beginning of July.

Okay.

I think it's the Penn Woods.

Have you done that one before?

No, never.

I never did the PA one before.

Okay.

So, I'm going to try to get the Jeep out once before that jamboree and see how it goes.

I'll probably take it down to the AOA Off-Road Park, which is in Pennsylvania.

Beforehand.

And just run it and see how it does.

See what you can do and how you can do it.

Right.

Make sure there's no problems.

I mean, the shop said that you need to definitely do a shakedown run and make sure it's good.

Awesome.

I have to get that all set.

And then, of course, I still have to do tires, which is a...

The next level.

But at this point, are you basically running a Rubicon?

Well, that's a good question.

Essentially, yes.

But, you know, this is a question that I ask myself a lot.

Like, I bought the Sport S.

Now, granted, when I bought the Sport S, I wasn't sure what I was doing.

I bought the Jeep.

Right.

I personally didn't want to order one.

It was like a very much a buy it now situation.

Right.

I wanted it.

I got it in June.

I wanted it for the summer that season.

You had a very specific desire for that.

You wanted that six-speed.

I wanted a two-door.

Right.

And this was the first year of the JL model.

So I wanted a two-door, six-speed soft top.

Right.

And that was a little bit of a unicorn.

And I found one.

I drove about, you know, four hours to get it.

And I didn't want to – I almost didn't care what options it had.

Like, almost – You didn't want to let it go.

Almost didn't care.

But it wound up, you know, being fine.

It was a Sport S.

But then I started thinking, like, what would have happened if I had purchased, you know, a Rubicon?

Would I be better off or not?

Because I've probably spent – after I do this transfer case upgrade, I'll probably have spent close to the difference between a Sport S and a Rubicon.

And a Rubicon.

All right.

The Sport S starts at, like, $34,000, $35,000.

Let's call it $35,000 to be simple math.

Yep.

And if I wanted to buy a Rubicon with everything that I have on it now, which is 35-inch tires, lockers, the bumpers, all that stuff, I would have to go up to at least a Rubicon X model.

Okay.

And I don't think with the Rubicon X I could get everything that I've had.

Because I've got the 456 gears and I have the 3.6 liter.

When I tried to price that out on Jeep's website, if I wanted the 456 gears with the 35-inch tires, I had it drop down to the 2-liter engine.

Ooh.

So I don't know if that – That's huge.

I don't even know.

That might be something you have to special order from Jeep.

I don't think you can order it.

At least you can't option it on the website that way.

But Rubicon X in that package with the tires and the 456 gears is about $55,000.

So that's $20,000 above where I started.

And I haven't put $20,000 in at this point.

But it's also – I've customized it a lot.

Yes.

Right?

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

I would have to add some of the other things that I've done, like bumpers, to that Rubicon still.

Right.

The only thing that I would have gotten if I bought a Rubicon and started with a Rubicon is I would have gotten the Dana 44 axles front and rear.

Right.

And is that still important?

Well, it's a strength thing.

Right.

So I have a 44 in the rear and I've got a 35 in the front.

And 35 is, you know, in theory, weaker than the 44.

So that would be the one thing that I would gain.

I mean, aside from the transfer case.

Right.

So I guess if you take out the transfer case price out of what I've spent, I would be close to, you know, a Rubicon X, I guess, with all my upgrades.

But that's a ton more.

And you've been able to build your sport the way you want it.

I have.

I have.

I've been able to build it the way I want it.

And I didn't feel bad about taking any parts off it.

Right.

Like, you know, if you bought the Rubicon and it came with, you know, the problem is unless you order it with only the options you want, you usually get stuck taking things that you don't want because you're buying it off a dealer lot.

Right.

Like, my Jeep doesn't have any of that lane assist bullshit.

You know, the cruise control.

Yeah.

All the safety features.

Like, I don't want all of that stuff.

And a lot of the Rubicon Xs that I've seen come with all of that crap.

Right.

And you don't care about that.

Yeah.

I don't care about that.

Yeah.

So I think if, look, if money was no object, yeah, I might start with a Rubicon model and not worry about it.

Right.

When is money never not an object?

It's always an object.

It's always an object.

But you're so into it.

I think a lot of people, you know, they want to start with a Rubicon and then upgrade the wheels, the tires, put a lift on it and, you know, do some of those upgrades that'll do enough.

But you're like, you're deep, you're deep into what you want to have your Jeep do.

Right.

And I think it all depends on, again, what your desire is.

Right.

For use of the Jeep.

I didn't know.

I didn't know I was going to be so addicted to off-roading my Jeep.

I just, I didn't know.

Right.

When I'm done with this upgrade set, which will be the transfer case and the tires, I've pretty much done all of the mechanicals that I need to do.

Right.

Except for axles.

Will that be necessary for running the Rubicon?

No.

No.

Okay.

I won't need to do axles.

Everything else that I have will work.

It's the only thing that will determine for me axles is if I break something.

Okay.

So if I go and run the Rubicon and I break my front axle or I break my drive shaft or I do something like that, then I would be considering, you know, going beefier.

Right.

With the parts.

But until I break it, you know, I think it'll be fine.

Right.

And at this point, you've got two and a half months, do this, test it, run in Pennsylvania, and then you've got to make a decision on tires.

Yes.

And that's next.

That's next.

And that's been confusing me for quite some time.

I haven't known you to be very confused about what you want to put on your Jeep, so this will be interesting.

Oh, wait till we get into the weeds on that.

I reached out to another YouTube channel, Outdoor Auto.

He does a lot of tire testing.

And he's not like in the tire business.

Okay.

But he knows a lot about tires.

I forget his name.

But Outdoor Auto is his channel.

And I approached him about coming on and letting me ask him tire questions.

But he was not too interested in participating.

Does he want to give up the secrets yet?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I mean, you know, sometimes it's a little territorial with YouTubers.

Or maybe, you know, our channel is not big enough to entice him.

You know, we're small fish, Tom.

We are.

I know that.

I know that.

But I will say this.

Let me just get some notes up.

I'll give you some stats about the podcast, which I find a little interesting.

So we have obviously the most listeners in North America.

Yeah.

But in Europe, we have about a 6% audience of our total listeners are in Europe.

What?

Really?

Yes.

But I'll give you some other stats.

We have listeners in Africa.

Okay.

We have listeners in Asia.

And we have listeners in Oceania, which I think is Australia and other countries in that region.

That's some koala bears and sloths.

Yeah.

So that, I think, is interesting.

If you're listening from a country that's not North America, please reach out and just say hi to us.

Yeah.

Hit us up on Instagram, the Talk is Jeep Instagram channel, at Talk is Jeep.

Or the email.

Or the email.

Yeah.

Talk is Jeep show at Gmail.

Because I would just like to hear from someone who's in another country and what they're interested in.

How they Jeep.

Or what they're interested in listening to us for.

Like maybe it's a tequila talk.

I don't know.

That could very well be.

But let us know if you're listening.

I see some other countries listed.

Let's say Australia, Singapore, Netherlands, South Africa, Mexico, Sweden, Brazil.

Oh my goodness.

We'd love to hear from anyone in the audience.

But especially if you're not in North America.

When I hear about what your Jeep life is like in other parts of the world.

Exactly.

What are you riding?

What do you?

I mean, my Jeep is a TJ.

And I love TJs.

And I love seeing other people's TJs.

Are you riding an old Jeep?

Are you riding a tricked out newer Jeep?

A JK or a JL?

Let us know.

Exactly.

So next time.

And I don't know exactly when that'll be.

But hopefully within the next few weeks.

Sounds good.

We will have a conversation about tires.

Uh-huh.

And my mission will be to make your head hurt as much as my head hurts.

About deciding on tires.

Because that's a big decision.

It's complicated.

Is it a complicated decision based on the type of tire you're getting?

What it's made of?

Or is it how it's going to fit your Jeep?

And it's a...

Just pre-hurt me.

It's...

So the factors that go into it are brand.

Okay.

And then tread type.

Like all terrain.

All terrain.

Mud terrain.

All season.

And then size.

Obviously.

For me.

I know what the size is.

But then you have to factor in performance.

And most importantly for me.

Weight.

Yeah.

Weight of the tire gets under...

People don't look at the tire weight as much as they should when making a decision.

Okay.

Right.

So...

Yeah.

It's under considered.

For example.

When I bought my Cooper Evolution mud terrain tires.

Right.

I was very concerned about putting a tire bigger than what came on my Jeep on the factory axles.

I was just very concerned.

A heavier...

And a heavier tire.

Right.

Well, I just...

Even without it knowing much about it, I'm like, okay, I'm going up from a 31 that came with my Jeep to a 35.

And when I looked at the tire types, I saw that some tires weighed 15, 20, 30 pounds more than others.

Okay.

And if you're putting on that much weight per tire onto the Jeep, how is that going to affect braking, handling, the ball joints, the CV joints?

Yeah.

Multiply that by every bit of excess you put on them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I made a decision with my 35s to go with the Cooper Evolutions because they were one of the lightest tires.

And I was very happy with the Cooper Evolutions.

And you would say, well, Art, why don't you just get Cooper Evolutions in 37s?

Well, given...

Right.

I was going to say, given that, in what you've learned, was that a good decision?

It was.

It was a great decision.

Okay.

But they don't make Cooper Evolutions in 37 inches.

Okay.

So I had to go back to the drawing board.

And so now I'm in uncharted territory.

Oh, boy.

So we'll talk about this on the next Talk is Jeep episode.

Sounds good.

I'll do a little homework myself.

All right.

Because I've got to at least understand what the hell are you telling me?

Yep.

Yep.

And if anyone in the audience has opinions on tires, I'm probably looking at mud terrains.

Let me know.

Talk is Jeep show at Gmail or hit us up on Instagram or Twitter at Talk is Jeep show.

Yep.

And let's see what the audience has to say.

Let's find out some more.

Because I think tire opinions are like assholes.

Everybody has...

Everybody's got one.

Yep.

And they're not all right.

That's true.

Or left.

That's true.

Let's bring this episode to a close, Tom.

You can go sip some more tequila.

I will try to find my lost tequila glass and...

Ah, yes.

...participate afterwards.

Sounds good.

All right.

Cheers to everybody.