What did you do TO your Gladiator today? [ADMIN WARNING: NO POLITICS, NO GUN TALK]

[mx5red]

Welp, I broke it
Was going to pick up a friend from the airport in stop n go rush hour, started feeling some shuddering. Road didn’t seem that bumpy? When I started driving again shuddering got instantly worse then passenger rear wheel locked up.
Luckily I was right in front of an exit median so got another ten feet forward dragging the tire.
When I looked underneath, I saw the bottom caliper bolt had come out, and the caliper pivoted down and got wedged by the rotation of the wheel.

Shifted the dust shield forward. Can’t tell if it bent the hub. Ground a groove into the inside of the wheel.

did you know front sway bar bolts are same thread?
I still had my old ones sitting in my toolbox, so I was able to make a quick “trail” repair so I could at least get off the highway.
Could hear on and off grinding and my tire slowly lost pressure.

want to guess what all will be broken? Just a bent brake caliper + I’m guessing the wheels since it’s leaking. Will the hub be bent? Will the whole axle be bent/trashed?

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[WILDHOBO]

Welp, I broke it
Was going to pick up a friend from the airport in stop n go rush hour, started feeling some shuddering. Road didn’t seem that bumpy? When I started driving again shuddering got instantly worse then passenger rear wheel locked up.
Luckily I was right in front of an exit median so got another ten feet forward dragging the tire.
When I looked underneath, I saw the bottom caliper bolt had come out, and the caliper pivoted down and got wedged by the rotation of the wheel.

Shifted the dust shield forward. Can’t tell if it bent the hub. Ground a groove into the inside of the wheel.

did you know front sway bar bolts are same thread?
I still had my old ones sitting in my toolbox, so I was able to make a quick “trail” repair so I could at least get off the highway.
Could hear on and off grinding and my tire slowly lost pressure.

want to guess what all will be broken? Just a bent brake caliper + I’m guessing the wheels since it’s leaking. Will the hub be bent? Will the whole axle be bent/trashed?

I’ve seen that happen and kill a wheel, but everything else was fine. I’d guess the wheel will be it.

 

[JCappy]

Welp, I broke it
Was going to pick up a friend from the airport in stop n go rush hour, started feeling some shuddering. Road didn’t seem that bumpy? When I started driving again shuddering got instantly worse then passenger rear wheel locked up.
Luckily I was right in front of an exit median so got another ten feet forward dragging the tire.
When I looked underneath, I saw the bottom caliper bolt had come out, and the caliper pivoted down and got wedged by the rotation of the wheel.

Shifted the dust shield forward. Can’t tell if it bent the hub. Ground a groove into the inside of the wheel.

did you know front sway bar bolts are same thread?
I still had my old ones sitting in my toolbox, so I was able to make a quick “trail” repair so I could at least get off the highway.
Could hear on and off grinding and my tire slowly lost pressure.

want to guess what all will be broken? Just a bent brake caliper + I’m guessing the wheels since it’s leaking. Will the hub be bent? Will the whole axle be bent/trashed?

YIKES. Sorry to hear about this. Hopefully the damage will be minimal. Keep us posted on the outcome. Good luck.

 

[WILDHOBO]

The last time I removed my calipers, I added orange thread locker to those bolts. There are a bunch of examples of this happening, so I thought it was cheap insurance. Not to say it still couldn’t happen.

 

[mx5red]

Still limping home. Still occasionally grinds. I’m thinking either hub/bearing or diff. Bet it’s the diff.
I can’t understand why the wheel would be slowly leaking air? I would think there would be catastrophic wheel failure, not a slow leak.

 

[mx5red]

https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/threads/warning-check-your-caliper-bolts.58993/
TSB on it

 

[Hootbro]

https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/threads/warning-check-your-caliper-bolts.58993/
TSB on it

That should be a recall. Guess I will be getting under mine this weekend and checking torque.

 

[johnchabin]

That should be a recall. Guess I will be getting under mine this weekend and checking torque.

They get thread lock?

 

[Hootbro]

They get thread lock?

Nothing in the TSB talks about thread locker. Nor does any photo of the bolts show preinstalled thread locker material on them.

Link below is from another thread showing the removed bolts and new part number sized differences. Seems the TSB replacement bolt is 3mm longer.

https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/...ors-did-not-go-well.72247/page-3#post-1179936

This seems to be more of a 2021 and prior issue, but I am still going to check mine at the first opportunity.

 

[SSingh1975]

Took mine to a local Jeep shop and had them replace the halogen with LED bulbs

For headlights, I went with this.
https://www.auxito.com/collections/...icon~ml_High Beam and Low Beam - Off-road Use

For fogs, went with this (several folks here are running this as well!):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A1YU2TS?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Fairy cheap mods but made a night/day difference in lighting (no pun intended!). Drove around at dusk in my neighborhood and its SO much better than the stock halogens. The cutoff is about the same as oem but much more brighter and cleaner and has a wider coverage. I might run this till the bulbs die out, etc and then do a full headlight swap but for now, these will suffice (very happy with the outcome!). No flickering and literally plug-n-play. Works with 'start/stop' as well (I ran some cheap LED bulbs on my now-traded Ford Ranger and they wouldn't fire 100% when the start/stop feature kicked in).

 

[JRobes]

Wrapped my dash panels. This should be a factory option IMO.

Any concerns about the airbag deployment being affected by the wrap?

(Yes the flaps open right along the center of the panel).

 

[mx5red]

Nothing in the TSB talks about thread locker. Nor does any photo of the bolts show preinstalled thread locker material on them.

Link below is from another thread showing the removed bolts and new part number sized differences. Seems the TSB replacement bolt is 3mm longer.

https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/...ors-did-not-go-well.72247/page-3#post-1179936

This seems to be more of a 2021 and prior issue, but I am still going to check mine at the first opportunity.

I didn’t measure but the bolt holes are different depth. The bottom one is shorter than the top, but still several mm longer than the stock bolt… so probably not a lot of thread engagement.
The top hole is significantly deeper. So in my case I couldn’t find an emergency matched bolt, one from Lowe’s 12x1.5x40mm was longer than stock but fit the top hole just fine.
Note this is for the rear JT caliper, cannot confirm for JL or front caliper.

EDIT: I believe there is 33mm of depth for the bolts.

 

[SF_E60]

Caved and added front and rear cameras. Last week in a double turn lane I had a woman decide she wanted to use both lanes and drove into my front tire. Luckily no damage to the truck. Dented her door and put rubber swirl marks down the side of her suv.

WOLFBOX 4K Dash Cam Front and Rear, WiFi UHD 2160P/1080P Mini Dash Camera for Cars,Free 32G Card,Built-in GPS,WDR,Night Vision,24H Parking Mode, G-Sensor, Loop Recording,Supports 256GB Max https://a.co/d/0Lb2D1x

Install was straight forward and quality seems good for under $100.

Is it hard wired or are you connecting through usb/cigarette lighter? I think I might give this a try.

 

[HooliganActual]

Interesting. Well no doubt these will soon fall in the 'vintage tools' category as most people don't even know how to read them anymore since everything is digital these days. Even when I got them many years ago a bunch of guys at the shop asked why. Well...to make sure clearances and tolerances were right. I was one of maybe 2 other guys that actually used a plastigage.

WOW!!! I haven't used plastigage in over 35 years. Used it all the time rebuilding pumps in the Navy!!! lol

 

[Charles 236]

Haven't thought about Plastigauge in years. I've used it, but I always preferred to measure with micrometers (inside and outside) when building engines.

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