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

[mtudb24]

Daystar 3/4" lift spacers. Fronts - simple. Less than an hour start to finish. Rears, not much worse but those stupid upper spring isolators for the rear springs suck. I finally used 3M 008001 to glue them up in place so I could work the springs back in with the spacers and not have those isolators up there fall out or get messed up.

I waffled a bit after putting just the front spacers in - loved the look with less rake, but then those max tow rear springs cut a tiny bit off the height of the rear when I put those in months ago and just didn't like the rear sitting even 1/8" lower than with the original springs.
So I ended up putting the spacers rear and front.

3/4" ain't much at all but my real goal was gain back some of what I lost with the steel bumper, 82 pound winch and steel skid plate.

Funny thing - the Daystar kit instructions were great - not that I really needed them since I had already swapped springs and shocks and whatever - but one thing bothered me just a little -
For the rears, it said "remove bottom spring isolators" and install their spacer.
Well, my truck had NO isolators or pads or anything under the rear springs. Never did. It was spring against steel pad from day 1.

Are these supposed to have some isolator pads UNDER the rear springs? The fronts have top and bottom (the lower being a harder material, the upper being a soft pad) and the rears on mine only had those upper ones that kept falling and annoying me until I glued them.

I guess the spacers act as isolators now!

I have those exact same spacers for the front in my garage now. Trying to debate if I want to install the Quadratec QRC bumper I bought. The more I look at it, I'm not sure I will like it since I assumed (yes, my bad) that my 2021 would come with black flares vs painted ones when I ordered this truck (2021 and dealer didn't know body color was std). So we'll see. Glad you had a good experience in installing them. Thanks for the write up on those!

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[ShadowsPapa]

Funny, I just ordered that last night!!! Excellent

I like it - my wife does, too. She usually rides over there and wants access to a pencil, her nail file, whatever, it's all in there. She can also plop her phone in there and it won't go flying. She used to put it up on the dash - uh, no, never put things up there - not with me driving LOL

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I have those exact same spacers for the front in my garage now. Trying to debate if I want to install the Quadratec QRC bumper I bought. The more I look at it, I'm not sure I will like it since I assumed (yes, my bad) that my 2021 would come with black flares vs painted ones when I ordered this truck (2021 and dealer didn't know body color was std). So we'll see. Glad you had a good experience in installing them. Thanks for the write up on those!

When I did the springs and shocks, I did it like most guys (or gals) do with lifts - axle at a time, not wheel at a time. So it actually made it more complex that way.
I did the one corner at a time with these spacers - piece of cake. For one thing, I knew for the most part I didn't need 50 pounds of tools - had memorized most of what I really needed so that saved time, but it's also faster, easier, to get things to drop one corner at a time.
And dummy me - I should have KNOWN that from working on cars for years - replacing springs, whatever - one side at a time. Even better with a solid axle as you have some serious leverage there.
Still to get the rear down far enough I had to use my bottle jack to shove the axle down enough to get the spring out and insert the spacer under it. But that I was fully prepped for and knew exactly how to do it.
So it was a lot faster.
Their instructions, if needed, are quite good, really.
I did take the brake line brackets loose on the rear to keep from stretching the brake hoses.
My Milwaukee super duty cordless impact, a Snap-On impact swivel and an 18mm impact socket were my friends for taking things off - and the impact set to low to simply spin things back to finger tight going back. (I think the rear shocks took a 21mm? or was that 20? Geesh, forgot already! HA)

 

[JWGladiator]

Was a busy day yesterday. Loaded up the Gladiator with everything that I had bought over the weeks waiting for her arrival.

• Started off with a full detail and ceramic coating.
• Rydonair Stubby Antenna
• Rugged Ridge door sill
• JoyTutus Floor mats
• JoyTutus Grab handles
• Bestop Sunrider (easily my favorite purchase so far)

Hothead Headliners are up next.

 

[Jdyowa]

Installed an xprite hood bracket and dual color light bar, to match the one on the chase rack.

 

[Tom in Long Island NY]

added 2nd rear tow hook and tonneau cover

Looks great.. I like the chase bar. did it work with oem tonneu cover or what did you use?
I have A JTRLE.

 

[Deleted member 30519]

Mopar roof rack

 

[TheClevo]

Ac couple days ago, but been busy

Had plans to install the RC 3.5" lift, but one of the front spacers didn't make the trip (thanks FedEx). CarID was no help (again), but a call to RC direct and the part was on its way. Hope to have it installed next Wednesday!!

 

[DeezJT]

Installed MC/PS decal, PS Bumper, warn Zeon, jws fogs (not working for some reason). Any tips?
Waiting for my Ps fairlead to dry. Painting it to match my wheels.

 

[FLUndertaker]

I installed my door hangers in the garage. Yeah, perfect timing, winter. Oh well, ready for the spring. Mounted a 12’ 2”x6” in order to have options of where to hang the doors rather than having to hit a stud. Needed all 4 up high because of space issues and didn’t ever want to risk backing my own JT into the doors had they been hung down low.

 

[BrandonG]

Mopar roof rack

What rear bumper is that ? Looks great

 

[SF_E60]

On board air check. I also sold my mopar tonneau cover and bought Access LITERIDER Roll-Up Cover in anticipation to my Rebel rack that should be going on in 2 weeks. Can't wait!

 

[Deleted member 30519]

What rear bumper is that ? Looks great

It's a raptor magnum bumper. You can find them for $400 and under. Solid and heavy

 

[mtudb24]

Looks great.. I like the chase bar. did it work with oem tonneu cover or what did you use?
I have A JTRLE.

Thanks. THe bar mounts to the trail rail system. There are extra hardware included to mount the bar if you don't have the trail rail system. I didn't pay much attention to what that all entails.
With that said, I serached a whole bunch of tonneau cover instructions (including Mopar's OEM one) and found they almost all mounted the same way. The front of the bed mounts up front in each corner and then in the back where you "snap" off the section of spray in liner to expose the threaded holes to mount the rear brackets right above the LED be lights.
I will say, I narrowed my search to bed top mounting styles (rolling and tri fold) because I didn't want to have to deal with finding something specific for trail rail and then try to modify it since the roll bar takes up the trail trail at the very front.

So onto your real question (just wanted to give you what led to me what I choosed), I went with the Rugged Ridge tri-fold as it was a match in premium fabric of my soft top and used the mounting features that the roll bar didn't interfere with. The mopar one would work too (with premium fabric) but it was 2x the cost and back-ordered from what I could tell.

The 2nd section of Tri-fold folds right before the back of the roll bar, so I can get 2 /3 of the bed cover up. And I knew that going in. I wouldn't be able to get any style (roll or fold) up where it sets inside the roll bar brackets.

Its a short bed, so I am happy with how it all turned out (once I actually got all the right hardware and instructions sent to me)

 

[EstoJTR]

Got the rear lights hooked up, wired them to AUX 4. Baja Designs S1 wide cornering units.

No light:

JT reverse lights only:

S1 reverse lights only:

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