Latest / Jeep Talk Show / Christmas Tree Dash? Blame Your Battery Cables

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Christmas Tree Dash? Blame Your Battery Cables · Jeep Talk Show

0:00
A'ighty ho boys and girls,
0:01
it's time for another
0:02
Jeep Talk Show interview.
0:03
I'm working really hard, Paul,
0:05
to actually form the
0:07
words and not just slur them,
0:08
because I say the same
0:09
thing on every interview.
0:11
And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
0:13
So I think I did good that time.
0:16
So Paul Roth has always loved cars,
0:19
and that passion led him
0:20
to create JeepCables.com.
0:22
Don't wince, I know the
0:24
name has been changed,
0:25
or added to.
0:26
The name recently changed to Big 7 Kits,
0:30
Big, the number seven kits.com.
0:33
After he couldn't find
0:34
the quality battery cables
0:36
for his 1999 Jeep
0:38
Cherokee, God bless you.
0:40
So he built his own, oh wait, what?
0:43
Oh, it's the picture.
0:44
I thought I'd gotten something wrong.
0:45
Wait a minute, you're wrong.
0:49
Words spread quickly.
0:50
Actually, I've read 99 and a half.
0:52
Yeah, words spread
0:53
quickly among Jeep friends,
0:55
and he was shipping kits worldwide.
0:58
Today, the company offers
0:59
kits for over 50 vehicles
1:01
and continues to grow.
1:02
This is an old intro,
1:03
so some of these
1:04
numbers may have changed.
1:06
Paul believes in
1:08
keeping vehicles on the road
1:10
rather than replacing them.
1:11
Still runs his original 99
1:13
Cherokee as the shop truck,
1:15
and is currently
1:16
building a 2023 Wrangler 392.
1:19
I bet you're done with that,
1:21
if you're ever done with Jeep Building.
1:23
No, yeah, are you ever done?
1:24
I know, you're crazy.
1:27
What began as a
1:27
simple fix for his own Jeep
1:29
has become business
1:30
helping enthusiasts everywhere
1:32
keep their rigs running strong.
1:35
And as you said here in
1:37
When You Fill Out the Form,
1:39
following up on the last
1:40
time we had a chance to talk,
1:42
we're at where we're
1:44
going, where we're at,
1:45
where we're going, and
1:46
things we've been up to.
1:47
So if you didn't catch it
1:49
already, you should go over to,
1:51
you should go over there
1:51
now while you're listening
1:52
or watching this interview, big7kits.com,
1:56
big the number sevenkits.com.
1:59
Paul, thanks for coming back.
2:01
Thank you.
2:02
All right, so why the name change?
2:05
Was Jeep serious when
2:06
they sent the C-synthesis?
2:09
No, it's actually, we
2:11
started talking to a lot of people
2:12
in the Ford and the hatch communities,
2:15
and they were like,
2:16
"Well, you don't have anything
2:17
"for my vehicle, what do you mean?
2:19
"Your Jeep cables, it doesn't,
2:21
"you obviously won't have anything
2:23
"for my Ford or my Dodge."
2:24
No, we actually do
2:25
have stuff for your truck.
2:27
So then we really started looking at it,
2:29
and people have always
2:31
bought our big seven kit
2:33
that we've sold, so the
2:34
Jeep cables, big seven kit.
2:36
And we were like, "Well, you know,
2:38
"it's just lean into what we are,
2:39
"and we're the big seven kits."
2:40
So we rebranded, that's
2:43
been really interesting.
2:45
You know, if you ever had
2:45
an exercise and rebranding,
2:47
it's, yeah, people are still like,
2:50
"Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
2:51
like, the Jeep cables,
2:52
"no, no, no, actually we're, you know,
2:54
"we're big seven
2:54
kits, come away with it."
2:55
Yeah, I remember JeepCables.com, those
2:58
(beep)
2:58
I'd much rather deal with
2:59
you, we're the same company.
3:01
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
3:04
So it made it really easy.
3:07
I did have an awkward
3:08
conversation with Atlantis
3:09
when we were, Pierce at Jeep Jamboree
3:13
put out a thing on
3:14
Facebook, and he was like,
3:15
"Hey, does it give me up a Cherokee?
3:16
"I need it for an event
3:18
that I can't tell you about."
3:20
And I messaged him, I was like,
3:21
"Hey, Pierce, I've got a 99 Cherokee,
3:25
"I sent him some
3:25
pictures," and he called me,
3:26
and he's like, "Oh, I love this."
3:27
He's like, "Do you mind if I send this
3:29
"to somebody at Stellantis?"
3:31
And I'm like, "Yeah, that's fine."
3:34
And so we then, and since the Headrest
3:36
have the JeepCables logo
3:37
emblazoned in the Headrest,
3:38
like, embroidered into it,
3:40
so first thing from Stellantis called,
3:43
and when this phone
3:43
number from Stellantis rang,
3:45
I was like, "Oh, this is it, this is
3:47
where Stellantis is like--
3:48
"Hook her up, like a cop," yeah.
3:50
Yeah, I talked to a really
3:52
nice person at Stellantis,
3:53
and they're like, "We'd
3:54
love to have your Jeep out here
3:56
"for the release of the Cherokee
3:57
"for the 2026 mile year."
4:00
So she's like, "Anything we
4:02
should know about the vehicle,"
4:03
and I was like, "Well, the Headrest says,
4:04
"Jeepcables, we're changing our name."
4:06
She's like, "Go get a
4:08
gray interior, guys,
4:09
"they'll cover it up, no big deal."
4:11
And actually, they picked up the Jeep,
4:15
white-gloved it the whole nine yards,
4:17
sent it out to
4:17
Brooklyn, got to go be there.
4:19
We were the only privately owned vehicle.
4:22
The other XJ's that were there
4:23
were either Peterson Auto Museum
4:25
or Stellantis' own personal collection.
4:28
We were the only privately
4:29
owned vehicle on display.
4:31
That's really cool. And yeah,
4:32
that was really cool. That was really cool.
4:33
And I got a photo, the
4:35
media person from Jeep,
4:37
Stellantis, sent me a
4:38
picture of Ralph Giles,
4:40
the Chief of Design over at Stellantis,
4:42
posing in front of it,
4:43
like doing a thumbs up,
4:44
like really, so yeah.
4:47
The Stellantis people
4:48
are always very friendly,
4:50
but of course they have lawyers,
4:51
they have to protect
4:52
their brand, all that stuff,
4:54
I understand, but I mean,
4:56
in the big scheme of things,
4:58
having companies with the word Jeep in it
5:00
is really good for them in the long run,
5:02
but again, they have
5:03
to protect their name,
5:05
and I understand that. I get it.
5:08
So yeah, but I think they like that.
5:11
I think they really enjoy, I would,
5:13
if I was building something
5:14
that people fantasize about
5:16
and have to have one and
5:18
make all these modifications to,
5:22
so yeah, it's really, really cool.
5:25
So I know that you have other vehicles,
5:29
but were you concerned
5:31
about shipping your baby off
5:33
and somebody else handling it?
5:35
I don't care who they are,
5:36
I don't care how many
5:37
billion dollars they have.
5:38
(laughing)
5:40
I gave them a love note list, like,
5:43
"Dear Jeep, thank you for
5:45
bringing this to your show,
5:46
here are a few things you
5:47
should know about this Jeep."
5:49
And it was like, it eats oxygen sensors,
5:51
because it's an LS swap
5:52
running a Holley Terminator anyways,
5:54
for some reason it
5:54
likes to eat oxygen sensors,
5:56
there were two in the
5:57
back and the way back.
6:00
So I went through, like,
6:02
the Jeep throw up all the way back
6:04
and you pull the key, the key will come
6:05
out in any position,
6:06
make sure you always
6:07
leave it in the off position
6:08
for you to pull the key out.
6:10
Just like stuff like that and Jeep was,
6:13
Ansky picked it up, so
6:15
like I said, white glove,
6:16
like they went over it with like
6:18
literally white gloves
6:19
and they like found
6:19
every, any imperfection,
6:21
loaded it up and then
6:23
same crew brought it back,
6:25
white glove that I
6:25
love the trailer made sure
6:26
it looked like just like
6:27
how they had brought it.
6:32
You're like, "This Stellanthus and Jeep,
6:34
they love what they're
6:35
doing, they love the product."
6:38
I actually got to meet a
6:39
person from the Jeep team
6:41
at Easter Jeep last year.
6:43
Did you know that every
6:44
Jeep has like a trapezoidal
6:46
wheel well, like
6:47
they've carried that over,
6:49
that design element over from
6:50
vehicle to vehicle to vehicle
6:52
and she's like,
6:53
"Yeah, these all have like,
6:54
every time I see the Jeep
6:55
and I see the trapezoidal wheel well,
6:58
you know, it's a design
6:59
element we carry from every vehicle
7:00
and I looked around the
7:01
parking lot and I was like,
7:04
like, you guys really do carry this,
7:06
but yeah, they love it,
7:07
they're really proud of it
7:08
and they really believe in the brand
7:11
and I think the reinvigoration of Jeep
7:17
with some of the vehicles
7:19
coming out like the Scrambler
7:21
or the, apparently there's
7:23
gonna be like an SRT Wagoneer
7:26
and I'm like, "Well, I
7:27
don't know what a Grand Wagoneer
7:28
looks like but with the SRT package,
7:31
maybe it's a Hellcat Wagoneer,
7:32
like who wants to see a
7:34
soccer mount blasting by them
7:35
and then you know, 10 seconds."
7:39
Well, if you do it
7:40
right, if you do it right,
7:43
they don't see you, you
7:44
just go really, really fast.
7:46
So yeah, Josh and I
7:47
did an interview on this,
7:48
I'm not an interview,
7:49
we did a show on this
7:50
just yesterday that's out currently now
7:53
and we were talking about the Scrambler,
7:55
it was a viewer requested thing
7:58
and we were talking
8:00
about it, we were bashing it
8:01
because it's fun that they're
8:06
coming out with the Scrambler
8:07
but some of the stuff
8:08
they're doing with it,
8:09
I don't care for but--
8:11
The same as the--
8:13
One of them is an SRT version.
8:17
Josh didn't believe me, he says,
8:18
"You can't cram a Himmie
8:21
in a little two door Jeep."
8:23
Apparently you can and
8:25
it's that kind of attitude
8:28
that shows why you
8:29
can't do it and Jeep can.
8:31
So yeah, we'll see what happens but yeah,
8:33
talking about the SRT
8:35
Scrambler 6.4 liter Himmie,
8:38
479 horsepower, 479 foot torque
8:43
and it's called the
8:45
midlife crisis death vehicle.
8:49
Don't think that I'm not figuring out
8:51
how much I need to get
8:52
rid of in a vehicle fleet
8:53
to like make a home for a Scrambler.
8:56
Well, how do you feel about IFS?
8:58
Because that's what they're
8:59
talking about doing to it.
9:01
We had a Bronco Raptor
9:05
and it was dumb.
9:07
Like really the dumbest
9:08
vehicle next to our 392
9:10
that I've ever driven.
9:11
You're like on 37 inch
9:13
tires from a factory, IFS,
9:15
it's got turbo, it's fun.
9:20
Like I don't know if
9:21
it's great on trails,
9:22
it probably won't be but
9:25
if you look at probably
9:26
how they're slotting it in
9:27
like a Bronco Raptor fighter
9:30
that you would have IFS, a large engine,
9:34
like kind of like how the
9:35
Mojave is like the rated
9:38
or what do they call that?
9:39
Like, yeah, it's like
9:39
bi-rated instead of trail rated.
9:42
I think that might be like, you know,
9:46
you could probably get
9:46
Casey Curry in a Scrambler
9:50
and have him run, you
9:51
know, 500 or hammers
9:54
and something like that a lot easier
9:56
than you can get him into a Bronco.
9:58
I think it's good for the brand.
10:01
I think it's the diversification.
10:03
Yeah, but it's a two
10:05
door truck, little truck
10:09
with a himmy in it.
10:11
We'll see how many of them sell.
10:12
And the IFS is front and rear.
10:16
Well, it's not IFS on the rear,
10:17
but it's the same type of
10:19
setup, not a solid axle.
10:21
I'm sorry, maybe independent axle.
10:27
Rear axle, I mean, no axle,
10:29
but the independent rear as well.
10:31
So yeah, I mean, they're
10:32
absolutely going the direction
10:33
of off-road high speed racing,
10:36
which I don't give a
10:37
(beep)
10:37
about.
10:38
Think about this, like
10:39
how many people thought
10:40
you could take a
10:42
entry level Dodge Charger
10:44
and put a hemy in it and
10:46
then a couple years later
10:48
supercharge it and then
10:49
a couple of years later
10:51
make it more powerful in a
10:53
limited production demon.
10:55
And then a couple of years later,
10:56
make it more powerful in a demon 170.
10:58
Like you taking a $30,000 today
11:03
and now it's doing like,
11:05
what, like high eights,
11:06
low nines, and you're charging people
11:10
160, $170,000 for it.
11:13
And you're like, but the interior is
11:14
still $30,000 today.
11:16
And it's just got, yeah.
11:19
Well, I don't know about you,
11:21
but when I was like 16, 17 years old,
11:24
I took whatever vehicle I had and made
11:26
modifications to it.
11:28
And I mean, I dropped a
11:29
327 in the Nova that I had.
11:32
It had a straight six
11:33
and I needed more power.
11:35
And oh, I love this love going fast.
11:38
I love that torque that
11:39
pushes you back in the seat.
11:41
So I absolutely understand it.
11:43
Actually, I've mentioned this before,
11:45
I actually got out of fast cars
11:48
because somebody was gonna die.
11:50
Not me, because I was invincible,
11:54
but somebody else was gonna die.
11:55
So I got into full-size
11:57
trucks and then got into Jeeps.
11:59
I still drive fast,
12:00
but I'm less likely to,
12:02
for that racing thing,
12:03
you know how the kids
12:05
come up next to you and race?
12:06
And the, they used to
12:07
do that in the, in my XJ.
12:09
I got a 98 XJ red and it's on 33s
12:13
and it's got the, you
12:14
know, the straight six.
12:15
And I've got quite a bit of armor on it.
12:18
So some reason the
12:20
steering would malfunction
12:21
when some Honda was trying to race me.
12:23
And I'd just take that 33
12:24
and start getting closer to their Honda.
12:29
They got the message and left.
12:31
So anyway, all right.
12:33
So we know why you changed the names
12:35
because it's good for advertising.
12:37
Have you noticed a difference in sales
12:39
since you changed it?
12:41
The story is like Jeep
12:43
cables is kind of really close
12:47
to Big Seven's market share.
12:49
It's been, in some cases
12:51
we're competing with ourselves.
12:52
So it's just whoever we
12:57
want to serve as the customer,
12:58
whether they know it's this Big Seven
12:59
kids or Jeep cables,
13:01
we're probably gonna take Jeep cables
13:03
and spin it into like a boutique,
13:06
kind of like a boutique shop,
13:07
maybe work something into a physical
13:08
storefront with that.
13:10
We'll see.
13:10
Right. But I mean, you
13:11
still have both sites.
13:13
I mean, one site
13:13
probably redirects to the other.
13:15
So, oh, it doesn't?
13:17
Oh, two sites.
13:19
Oh, that makes making changes fun.
13:23
Yeah, it does.
13:24
So I mean, people can
13:25
still go to JeepCables.com.
13:27
Is it more specific to Jeeps?
13:32
Would you recommend?
13:33
That's gonna be the
13:34
focus we're working on
13:35
is steering people if they're buying
13:37
Jeeps to Jeep cables,
13:38
buying parts for Jeeps,
13:40
but still maintaining
13:42
all the same products,
13:43
all the same,
13:44
it's just gonna be what
13:45
we're steering advertising to.
13:47
Right.
13:47
So, I mean, people
13:49
could go to JeepCables.com
13:50
if they've got a Jeep and
13:51
they'd be perfectly fine,
13:53
or they could go to BigSevenKids.com
13:57
and still get to the Jeep stuff.
13:58
1000%.
13:59
Yeah. So that's good.
14:00
It's just really however
14:02
they remember the name.
14:04
And cause that's a big deal.
14:06
Yeah.
14:07
I mean, gosh, I mean,
14:09
I got a big Jeep talk show logo
14:12
on the side of my gladiator.
14:13
I've had people come up and say,
14:16
are you on the radio?
14:17
No, it's a podcast.
14:19
What do you talk about?
14:22
It's not a stupid question.
14:26
They just, I mean,
14:28
I think everybody's a
14:29
little nervous, you know?
14:31
And they're not having
14:32
the time to think about it.
14:34
And that's fine.
14:35
Customers, you wanna
14:38
make sure the customer
14:38
has the easiest time finding you.
14:41
1000%
14:43
Yeah. So, but it's still funny.
14:46
I'm such a smart,
14:48
I kind of look at the logo and I go,
14:50
I kind of look at it.
14:50
I go look at them.
14:51
They go, oh, Jeeps?
14:52
Yes.
14:56
Yep.
14:57
But yeah, it's one.
14:57
Oh, I'm sorry.
14:58
Before I forget about this,
14:59
we were talking about how Jeep
15:01
and how good a people they are.
15:02
So in 2023, I went to EJS
15:06
and I backed into one of
15:08
those little tree shrubs.
15:10
You know, the ones that are really short.
15:12
They look like they're
15:13
from Mars or something.
15:15
And I took out the factory rear light.
15:20
It really just destroyed the thing.
15:24
And the last day of EJS,
15:27
and I wasn't out there.
15:28
It was actually a buddy of mine that,
15:31
cause we had about 25, 30
15:33
people from Jeep talk show
15:35
that were out there all together.
15:38
And anyway, he was out in the parking lot
15:40
and he saw a couple of
15:41
guys looking at my gladiator
15:44
and looking at that broken tail light.
15:46
And he was, he walked
15:47
over there and said,
15:48
Hey, can I help you guys out?
15:49
And they said, oh, we were
15:50
just looking at this tail light.
15:52
We were going to get
15:53
one out of our stuff,
15:56
but we've already packed up.
15:58
Come to find out there
15:59
was, there's two Jeep guys
16:01
staying at the same
16:02
hotel we were staying at.
16:04
And they were gonna,
16:04
they were gonna hook me up
16:05
over the replacement tail light,
16:08
but couldn't because of the timing of it.
16:10
But I mean, they
16:10
literally were over there
16:11
looking at the tail
16:12
light, the broken tail light,
16:14
and they were going to try to fix it.
16:16
I don't know if they were
16:17
literally gonna swap it out.
16:18
That would have been cool too.
16:20
But yeah, anyway, I thought that was
16:22
really, really nice.
16:23
And it was a, it was great.
16:25
And I think I asked, I think I asked,
16:29
Chip, did they look at the logo?
16:32
Did they notice the logo?
16:33
Because the whole sales thing again.
16:37
All right, so anyway, tell the folks,
16:41
we've had you on the show before,
16:43
but there's always new
16:44
people learning about
16:46
the products that you have.
16:49
Tell the folks what it is that you do.
16:51
I mean, it's Jeep
16:52
cables or big seven kits.
16:54
It's really all about the cables
16:57
that we use to connect
16:59
our battery to the starter,
17:02
the alternator, the whole nine yards,
17:04
because, and I didn't know this.
17:06
I remember the last time we talked,
17:07
I didn't realize that
17:08
even in the brand new Jeeps,
17:10
the XJs, I understand.
17:12
You know, they got
17:14
these thin little wires
17:15
and your headlights are dim,
17:17
and there's a bunch of reasons for that.
17:19
One of the reasons is that
17:20
the cables that they use,
17:22
because they're saving 59 cents a vehicle
17:25
by putting in the smaller cables.
17:27
But they even do that
17:28
to the JLs and the JTs,
17:31
so the thing that confuses me is,
17:34
I have a 250 amp alternator
17:36
because I got the max tow package.
17:39
I'm hoping they put
17:40
bigger cables on there,
17:41
or some engineer checked off,
17:43
like it won't melt for five years.
17:46
Yeah, go ahead.
17:47
So, but I found that out.
17:49
I didn't realize that.
17:50
I figured I have a brand new
17:51
vehicle at 2021 at the time,
17:54
and I figured they did
17:55
something about the cables.
17:57
No, no.
17:59
No, I don't know.
18:01
I can, we see it all the time
18:04
where we're cutting
18:05
open a cable from a vehicle
18:08
that will have
18:08
starting issues and will PR.
18:11
A lot of JKs and JLs
18:13
becomes like signal issues
18:15
or Christmas tree lights on the dash,
18:17
especially the JK owners,
18:18
they go through that so much
18:19
where it's like, oh, my dash
18:20
lit up like a Christmas tree.
18:22
Because the system is so sensitive
18:26
that there's any like ground
18:28
issues or transient voltage.
18:30
It just doesn't know how to deal with it.
18:32
So it just starts throwing errors
18:33
and then people will go and
18:35
they'll find their grounds
18:36
are throwing or they're
18:38
worn or damaged something.
18:43
And Jeep really, I mean,
18:45
and I say this with all the love,
18:46
just they only have to,
18:48
it only has to last
18:48
three years, 36,000 miles.
18:51
And other than that, it's fine.
18:54
They'll just send you,
18:55
they'll send you to the dealer
18:56
and have you buy a new set of cables.
18:58
And that'll be like $900 or $1,000
19:00
and the technician will
19:01
want like $1,000 to install it.
19:04
Some of them are part of
19:05
the transmission harness.
19:06
I don't know why somebody
19:08
can explain that to me someday,
19:09
why the starter cable is part of the
19:11
transmission harness.
19:12
Whatever, he'll be there.
19:13
But yeah, the immense
19:14
problems that they'll still have
19:16
because they're not sealing
19:17
the ends the same way we would.
19:19
It's different materials to meet
19:22
different price points,
19:23
different quality of wire.
19:25
I mean, they're not skimping on
19:27
necessarily on the quality
19:29
but maybe on the protections
19:30
they're affording that wire
19:32
or how they're doing it,
19:34
protecting it from elements.
19:35
But we have the
19:38
forethought to really build that in.
19:39
And since the
19:40
customer is buying something
19:41
that's gonna last in quality,
19:43
they're paying for a specifically,
19:46
a niche market product
19:47
that they're buying something
19:48
that we've paid that attention to.
19:50
Whereas Jeep can't because of either cost
19:53
or for whatever reason,
19:55
that's just not in
19:56
their budget or their plans.
20:01
So I would imagine
20:03
you get a lot of people
20:05
that really need the cables.
20:07
They've waited too long and
20:09
they really need the cables.
20:11
Is there a sweet spot where,
20:14
depending on where you
20:14
live, a number of miles,
20:17
or is it because preventive
20:19
maintenance is always nice
20:21
but you don't always wanna do it.
20:22
You won't always wanna
20:23
wait till the last minute
20:24
or the minute after the last minute.
20:27
What we find is typically people
20:32
that are experiencing
20:33
issues are usually over
20:36
150,000 miles the further north, the
20:39
further west you get
20:41
where the colder climates are.
20:44
Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota,
20:46
definitely more of a
20:47
demand on the electrical system
20:48
in the winter.
20:49
If you're talking a TJ
20:52
that sat in a Phoenix garage
20:55
and has such little mileage on it,
20:59
it's probably gonna be fine.
21:01
But even then, nobody escapes time.
21:06
Things where they get exposed,
21:08
the battery terminal
21:09
starts to get corroded
21:10
because maybe the battery
21:11
starts to break down and leak.
21:15
So I would think that heat cycles
21:17
do something to the
21:19
cables or the insulation?
21:21
Depends, yeah.
21:22
So they're not sealed.
21:24
So there's really
21:26
just a ton of space for,
21:28
if you look at the end of it,
21:29
between the lug and
21:30
the jacket, there's gaps.
21:32
It's just, you can't help it.
21:34
So any kind of water getting in there
21:36
just has all the room for growth at once.
21:40
And then once it starts
21:41
corroding, it just keeps going.
21:43
They call it the
21:44
creepy green death, yeah.
21:45
Would a salty
21:46
environment cause it faster?
21:48
Yeah, I've seen electrical
21:52
systems go completely sideways
21:55
because the radiator was corroding.
21:58
The cooling system was having issues
22:00
because the radiator was corroding
22:01
because now that's
22:02
functioning as the electrode
22:04
because electricity is
22:05
passing through the radiator
22:06
because the, it's just, I
22:08
had to help a customer out.
22:09
It was a couple of years ago now.
22:12
He kept replacing radiators
22:13
because they kept leaking 10 whole leaks.
22:16
Turns out the
22:17
electrical system was allowing,
22:19
because he was in
22:20
such a salty environment,
22:21
it was allowing the radiator
22:22
to act like a grounding point.
22:24
So current was passing
22:25
through the radiator.
22:26
So we were kind of like a ground cable,
22:28
like a really short cable for his
22:30
radiator to the frame.
22:31
So that way it was, yeah.
22:34
How did you figure that one out?
22:36
It took a couple
22:37
iterations, but he's like,
22:38
yeah, I keep going through it.
22:39
He's like, baby, just, you know,
22:42
when I was like, well,
22:42
let's do a ground cable
22:43
for your radiator.
22:44
And maybe that's, you know.
22:45
And you really can't have
22:47
too many grounds, right?
22:48
I mean, I mean, you can go
22:50
overboard with it obviously.
22:51
You can, but I mean,
22:54
if you look at some of the
22:55
EFI, the standalone EFI's,
22:57
they'll require you to go from the
22:59
battery to the computer,
23:00
from, you know, from both
23:02
the positive and negative.
23:04
Yeah, ground was, ground very important.
23:06
I mean, that's where all
23:06
the signal are, you know,
23:07
the signal's not good
23:08
if the ground isn't good.
23:09
So the computer is looking for, you know,
23:11
3.3 volts at the TPS
23:13
sensor and the grounds
23:14
are having issues and that
23:15
only sees like one and a half.
23:16
It's gonna throw us a, you know,
23:18
check engine light for a bad, you know,
23:19
bad TPS sensor or
23:20
something, all kinds of things.
23:22
So I guess unless you have a CJ,
23:24
everybody has a computer these days
23:27
and the computer is really,
23:30
really picky about voltages
23:33
because it has to
23:34
have a good base voltage.
23:35
So it knows what's a
23:36
one and a zero type thing.
23:38
Yeah, so that's one of the reasons
23:40
why the grounds are so important
23:42
and probably one of the reasons
23:43
why that Christmas tree thing happens
23:45
because it's seeing voltages
23:47
and it thinks the
23:49
universe has gone crazy.
23:50
We are in a different
23:51
part of the universe.
23:52
Things don't work this way wherever I am.
23:56
So, all right, so,
23:58
so I know that you guys
24:01
sell the basic cables.
24:03
When I say basic
24:04
cables, if you're an XJ owner
24:05
or probably a TJ
24:06
owner, you know there's a,
24:08
what is it, like three main cables
24:10
that you wanna change the, or maybe,
24:14
well, I say three, not
24:16
including the grounds,
24:17
but the one at the battery.
24:19
The battery goes to the starter
24:21
and goes to the alternator.
24:23
I guess maybe there's
24:24
like a little Y there.
24:25
It's been a while since I left it.
24:27
Yeah, they go to the PDC
24:28
where your cabin lights
24:29
and your cabin, you know,
24:31
your windows and all that, yeah.
24:33
So, you sell a kit to replace that.
24:38
And I'm sure you go further than--
24:40
Yeah, we go, we do all the grounds.
24:42
Would that be your basic kit?
24:43
Our basic kit is seven wires.
24:45
For an XJ TJ, YJ, DJ, WJ,
24:48
there's about seven wires.
24:50
And it's the cylinder head ground
24:53
because there's a little EM wire
24:55
on the back of the cylinder head.
24:57
That gets, we replace that.
24:59
Renixes usually go really
25:01
haywire with bad grounds.
25:03
So we've seen that.
25:05
The fender grounds, the battery negative
25:07
to the engine block, the
25:10
battery to the starter,
25:12
battery to the PDC,
25:13
PDC to the alternator.
25:14
And we throw in a fuse in there.
25:16
Since we're replacing the fusible link
25:18
that's part of the whole system,
25:19
now we add a fuse in
25:21
there that's user serviceable
25:23
because XJs, for whatever reason,
25:25
maybe somebody from Stellantis can tell
25:27
our Jeep would be AMC or
25:29
Jeep or who knows then.
25:32
Why did you mount the
25:33
alternator on a point
25:35
below the waterline of
25:36
a when you're fording?
25:38
Yeah, they did with a TJ.
25:40
Notice that when we
25:41
got the TJ, it's up high.
25:43
And it's up high on
25:44
the Gladiator as well.
25:45
So I like that.
25:46
And I don't know why
25:47
they decided to mount it
25:49
low on the engine.
25:49
It's like right at the oil pan level.
25:51
So you're going through
25:52
a stream and yeah, bam,
25:55
there goes your alternator.
25:56
That's awful.
25:57
So you guys haven't gotten into the
26:00
alternator business, have you?
26:01
That seems like that
26:02
because you have the natural team.
26:04
That's for me, I, we've
26:07
partnered with people.
26:09
I try to get to our
26:10
partners JS alternators
26:12
on a Greer South Carolina.
26:14
Great people, Jonathan and Kristin
26:16
have the whole team
26:17
down there, great people.
26:20
But that's not a big thing.
26:21
You don't wanna, I wanna
26:22
do the thing I'm good at.
26:23
And it allows me to
26:25
have a singular focus.
26:27
I can make everything
26:28
around the wiring better.
26:30
I've invested in machinery.
26:31
I've invested in sasses.
26:36
I mean, we're not, I can
26:38
tell people that we do wire
26:41
and we do wire better than
26:42
anybody else in the market.
26:44
I can, you can take
26:45
any product that we make,
26:47
any product that anybody else makes,
26:49
and I can tell you that we make ours,
26:52
you know, a hundred times better.
26:54
And I can say that for any
26:57
competitor that's out there
26:58
that we have, we're just
27:00
doing better than them.
27:02
I mean, and that's, I'm not trying to,
27:03
I'm not trying to
27:03
toot my own horn on this,
27:04
but we've made investments in machinery,
27:07
investments in processes, investments in,
27:10
and every step of the process.
27:12
And we deliver a better
27:14
product, a fantastic product.
27:16
And that's why
27:18
alternators, I would have to do it
27:20
just the same way I would
27:21
have to be in such tight control
27:24
of the alternator housings,
27:25
the windings, the bearings.
27:27
It would end up
27:28
costing, you know, $800, $900.
27:30
And I know that there's
27:31
companies like Macman,
27:32
DC Power, JS Alternators, Brand X.
27:36
It's a, it's a market that
27:38
there's people that are better
27:40
than me doing it.
27:41
And those alternator companies would be,
27:45
yeah, they're good at it.
27:46
So electricity is not hard.
27:52
Most people don't know how things work.
27:55
Like when they start hooking stuff up to,
27:58
they start running 12
27:59
volts at 800 cold cranking amps
28:01
to a switch under their dash,
28:04
because they're gonna turn a light on
28:05
with a mechanical switch.
28:07
And they don't, they don't understand
28:09
that that can become a light bulb
28:11
filament really easy.
28:13
(laughing)
28:14
And that's usually when
28:16
they learn about fuses
28:18
and relays and all kinds of other stuff.
28:20
So I can imagine that,
28:22
especially because the price
28:24
of your cables will probably seem high
28:28
compared to going down
28:29
to auto zone or something
28:30
because of the quality.
28:32
So how do you, how do you
28:34
get people to understand simply
28:36
because you know, they
28:37
don't wanna go through
28:38
a whiteboard presentation.
28:40
They just wanna get the cables.
28:42
How do you get it across to them?
28:45
And like if you have a
28:46
partner that does alternators,
28:48
that's the time that you
28:50
have to talk about cables.
28:52
Because if you put a
28:52
5,000 amp alternator in there,
28:56
that really will melt the cables.
28:59
People still try, they still die.
29:01
Like how do you get this too?
29:02
Like the standard 20 amp
29:03
alternator on four gauge wires?
29:05
I mean, you're good.
29:06
Bro, you're the second.
29:08
I mean, yeah, you can learn what it was.
29:10
It's, you know, have a
29:11
better program nearby.
29:13
So there was a company
29:18
called Sesqui on the Motorsports
29:20
and they had a banner on their website
29:22
that used to say something like,
29:24
it's easier to apologize for the price
29:27
than ask for forgiveness
29:29
for the quality or something.
29:30
It was something like that.
29:32
And I've always been like, yeah, I mean,
29:36
the shorts we would be buy
29:38
once, buy once, buy once.
29:39
But it's really, it's
29:43
the higher price point
29:44
just accounts for
29:49
everything that's gone into that.
29:50
And if you know that
29:51
you've got a warranty,
29:55
so we came up with a quick sidebar.
29:59
There's headlight relay
30:00
harnesses on the market
30:02
and everybody's got a headlight harness.
30:03
You can go to Ali Express or Ali Baba
30:06
and I am in bulk or
30:08
whatever for like three bucks each.
30:10
I can set up an eBay
30:12
storefront and sell them for 20 bucks,
30:13
make 17 bucks per kit,
30:15
whatever, it's silly.
30:18
We sell one and they saw that and I won
30:21
and I was like, oh, this
30:22
is really, I don't want no
30:23
(beep)
30:24
because the relays are burnt out,
30:25
the wire is falling apart,
30:27
the wire is getting warm.
30:29
And I started digging into it
30:30
and the wire was rated first.
30:33
They were calling it 14 gauge wire,
30:35
but it was really 14 gauge
30:38
jacket with 16 gauge wire.
30:40
And probably aluminum wire.
30:43
The relays weren't a good quality.
30:46
And I had to get as a personal challenge.
30:49
And I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this
30:51
and I'm gonna do it better.
30:53
So I went and I got an automated wire
30:55
from a company that makes automotive wire
30:58
for BMW and Mercedes.
31:00
It's a higher grade wire.
31:01
We put the ends on and
31:03
then we do a bit of solder
31:04
to make sure that connection's solid.
31:06
The ends are ceramic connectors.
31:08
The relay is a good relay.
31:12
And we sell it for like $95.
31:16
That's a lot more than a
31:17
standard $3 AliExpress one.
31:21
And we sell a lot of that
31:23
because people recognize
31:24
that they're only gonna have to buy one
31:26
and they're not gonna have to buy three.
31:28
And the last time you
31:29
want your lights going out
31:30
is when you're on the
31:31
trail and being like,
31:32
well, I saved $60 by
31:36
buying this cheap one.
31:39
That's how I've done the
31:40
whole thing with our cable set
31:41
is I, sure, I could use OEM, not an OEM,
31:46
but like a stereo or an amp wire,
31:48
like aluminum or copper-clad aluminum.
31:51
And I could do that
31:52
stuff and I could sell it
31:54
for a lot less, but I
31:56
wouldn't be able to sleep at night
31:57
because I'm just turning out junk.
32:00
Well, I mean, you
32:00
have to do the same work,
32:02
whether you're installing
32:03
(beep)
32:04
or you're installing something good.
32:06
So why would you wanna
32:07
do it two, three times
32:10
if you don't burn your Jeep down?
32:12
So for the headlight kit,
32:14
now, when you said that,
32:15
it reminded me when I had the XJ
32:18
and the XJs is so sad
32:19
about the brightness
32:20
of the headlights.
32:22
And a lot of that has
32:23
to do with the harness
32:25
that's used to get the
32:27
power to the headlights.
32:28
So that makes a big deal.
32:30
So the XJ, the XJ, the TJ, very dim,
32:36
and probably the YJ was as well.
32:37
I just never experienced that.
32:39
Do you see dimmer headlights on the
32:42
modern ones as well?
32:44
No, they're already running LEDs,
32:46
which LED is just these five volts,
32:48
or five or 12 volts, it doesn't care.
32:49
It could be, it needs
32:51
like one amp at 12 volts.
32:53
It's fine, you give it
32:54
that, it's super happy.
32:56
The TJs, the YJs, and
32:58
all those other ones
32:59
that are running halogens is they
33:00
actually run the light,
33:01
the wired harness runs
33:04
through the headlight,
33:05
and then the headlight goes
33:06
back to the headlight switch,
33:08
and then it goes back through.
33:09
It's making like this secure.
33:11
The longer you can make a wire
33:12
and electrical connection is better.
33:15
And I'm being facetious, it's not.
33:17
Yeah, so the real harness,
33:19
all it's doing is just using,
33:20
it's just stealing the
33:21
signal for the headlights,
33:24
trying to come to the headlights,
33:25
it's just stealing it to use
33:26
it for a switching a relay.
33:28
It works, it's simple,
33:29
it's dead reliable, it works.
33:32
The only trouble we found is Canadians
33:35
like their daytime running lights.
33:37
So the system wants to
33:39
trick a lot like three volts
33:40
just to give the headlight,
33:41
because it uses the
33:42
headlight itself as the DIL.
33:47
That's the only one that's
33:48
got some problems with it,
33:49
that's Canadian film.
33:50
Yeah, don't
33:52
(beep)
33:52
off.
33:53
They're gonna be 51st state here soon.
33:55
So they'll finally be Americans.
33:58
All right, so anyway,
34:01
just to go over it again,
34:03
if you're gonna get a higher current,
34:06
higher wattage alternator,
34:09
you seriously want to make
34:10
sure you get better cables.
34:12
Please, please.
34:14
And that's not just the
34:15
cause, it's gonna help you out.
34:18
I mean, if you're
34:18
trying to get more current,
34:20
more power to devices
34:22
in your Jeep headlights,
34:25
light bar or whatever,
34:27
you're gonna not be as happy.
34:29
And I bet you've heard this
34:31
before too from customers,
34:34
because it's kind of like when you
34:35
replace an old starter
34:36
and then you go to start
34:37
your vehicle and it goes,
34:39
(both laughing)
34:40
wow, that thing is really turning.
34:43
That's a good story, that's a good,
34:45
so we had a guy, this was
34:47
a couple of years ago now,
34:48
he's like, "Hey, I'm
34:49
having a problem with my kid.
34:50
"I installed my kid and now my Jeep's
34:52
"making this really weird sound."
34:53
And I was like, "Okay."
34:55
And I was like, "Don't have speakers."
34:56
He's like, "Every time I start it,
34:57
"this sounds a lot different."
34:58
I was like, "Okay, let's see what it is.
35:00
"We'll figure this out,
35:01
figure it out together."
35:02
And he puts my speaker
35:03
and he goes to start it
35:04
and I was like, "All
35:05
right, that's a problem."
35:06
He's like, "It's never
35:07
sounded like that before."
35:08
And I was like, "No, that's
35:10
how it's supposed to sound.
35:11
"It's supposed to be that fast."
35:14
Well, and you don't know
35:15
because as the cable wears
35:17
and as the corrosion builds,
35:19
you get used to it
35:20
not cranking this fast.
35:22
So a good set of cables
35:26
could, I think this is true.
35:28
I'm gonna claim it, that
35:29
it can make your battery
35:30
last longer, it can make
35:32
your starter last longer
35:34
because you're getting
35:35
the proper voltage to it.
35:37
Yeah, I'll go with that, yeah.
35:40
People, what we've
35:41
tried to tell people now
35:42
is like people will
35:43
replace their battery,
35:44
they'll replace their alternator,
35:46
they'll replace their starter,
35:47
they'll replace their shocks,
35:48
they'll replace all kinds of things.
35:51
And then we'll say, they're like,
35:53
"Yeah, I'm having a hard time starting."
35:55
And it's like, "Did you
35:56
replace your battery cables?
35:57
"Why would I need to do that?"
35:58
Right.
35:59
It started before. The engineers
36:00
designed that, surely
36:01
they're going to design it,
36:03
the necessary specs,
36:05
no, they're saving money.
36:07
Does anybody, does Jeep use aluminum?
36:10
I don't think they use
36:11
aluminum in their cables, do they?
36:12
No, they don't use aluminum,
36:13
they use different grades
36:15
of wire like SXR or SGT.
36:19
They use different kinds of wire,
36:21
blower strand count,
36:23
higher, different jacket types.
36:25
They're just doing it because they've got
36:27
a million feet of it in
36:29
a warehouse somewhere.
36:30
And they don't even store
36:32
it, Jeep doesn't store it,
36:33
Atlantis doesn't store it,
36:34
somebody else is
36:34
making that sub-assembly.
36:36
There's a warehouse somewhere that's got
36:38
millions of feet of
36:39
wire, and they're like,
36:41
they committed a Jeep, it's gonna cost us
36:44
a dollar a million to build this part.
36:46
We've got a contract with
36:48
Jeep to sell it for $14,
36:51
they'll charge the
36:51
customer $98 to replace,
36:54
everybody's just trying to
36:55
save their pennies on it.
36:56
And it's their meeting,
36:58
their meeting the standard
36:59
that slant is set, and
37:01
if the slant has not,
37:03
why would you exceed the standard
37:05
if you weren't getting
37:06
paid to exceed the standard?
37:08
Yeah, everything's a profit deal.
37:10
All right, so, oh, and I
37:12
should have made this point,
37:14
and I'm hoping this is true,
37:16
you don't use any of that fly-by-night
37:19
aluminum wiring or anything like this,
37:21
this is all good copper stuff.
37:25
Made in the USA, oxygen-free copper,
37:28
which I actually thought
37:29
oxygen-free was a marketing ploy,
37:31
like oxygen-free, and actually talking to
37:35
people in the wire
37:36
industry at a conference,
37:37
there's a wire industry conference, you
37:39
would have imagined.
37:39
Of course.
37:41
And they're like, it's
37:44
actually how it's manufactured,
37:45
the wire is drawn in a
37:47
vacuum, it's formed in a vacuum.
37:49
Wow.
37:50
And it's, yeah, it's oxygen-free
37:53
because when they're
37:54
forming those strands,
37:55
there is no oxygen present, so it helps,
37:58
there's varying grades of oxygen-free,
38:00
but it's oxygen-free, yeah, I don't.
38:04
That's interesting,
38:05
well, I guess I shouldn't be
38:07
too surprised because
38:08
you have a shielding gas
38:09
whenever you're like, MIG welding.
38:11
Yeah, when you're welding.
38:11
Yeah, so obviously it could be something,
38:14
I don't know the ins and outs
38:15
of it, but yeah, really cool.
38:18
Now, so we talked
38:21
about the basic cable kit,
38:23
the stuff that really, I think you
38:25
benefits the most from.
38:27
I didn't know that you
38:28
had headlight harnesses.
38:30
I'm trying to
38:30
remember, I think it was LMC
38:33
that used to sell the
38:34
Chevy headlight harnesses
38:37
that would work the SJ's.
38:38
Wow, that's been a few years.
38:39
Yeah.
38:40
That's been a few years.
38:41
It was like 40 bucks, and
38:43
it was 10, 15 years ago,
38:46
and I actually bought
38:47
one for the XJ, of course,
38:49
and then when we got the
38:49
TJ, I got one for the TJ,
38:52
it worked fine, had all the right
38:55
connectors and stuff on it,
38:56
just hook it up, and
38:57
the lights were brighter.
38:58
Eventually I went LEDs on both vehicles.
39:01
It's so funny, the XJ, I don't know,
39:03
I think we talked about this before,
39:05
the XJ, I found some
39:08
illegal headlights on eBay
39:12
to go on the XJ, put them in,
39:14
because I wanted to be able to see that.
39:18
Yeah.
39:18
I was sterilizing people
39:20
that were in front of me.
39:22
I couldn't, you know how
39:23
when something's overexposed
39:25
in a camera, it was hard
39:26
for me to see the vehicle
39:28
that I was behind,
39:30
because it was overexposed.
39:33
So I had to figure out a way,
39:35
somebody was gonna get
39:36
(beep)
39:36
off,
39:37
or I was gonna get pulled over.
39:39
I had to figure out a way
39:40
to make those LEDs dimmer.
39:42
I wasn't going back to the halogens,
39:45
but I had to figure out a
39:46
way to make them dimmer,
39:47
and I started doing some Googling,
39:49
and I found out that I could actually use
39:51
a DC motor speed control.
39:58
Really, like a PWM controller?
40:00
Phase, yeah, exactly, that's the thing,
40:01
because that was what I
40:02
was trying to remember,
40:02
but for like seven bucks off of eBay,
40:07
I got this little controller
40:10
and put the knob on my dash,
40:13
and I could turn the volume
40:15
up or turn the volume down
40:17
Volume down.
40:18
On those LED lights.
40:20
And the cool thing, and
40:22
I'm giving people bad ideas,
40:24
the cool thing was when
40:25
people were on their phone
40:26
in the fast lane going
40:27
to a phone work at night,
40:30
instead of just blinding them,
40:32
I would just, it's like
40:33
putting a frog in hot water
40:36
and gradually raising the heat.
40:37
I would do that with the headlights.
40:39
(laughing)
40:41
I would just turn it up a little bit,
40:43
a little bit, a little bit,
40:45
and by the time I got to full brightness,
40:47
they got the hell out of the way.
40:52
(laughing)
40:54
Good idea, I like that.
40:55
Yeah, it was really, really cool.
40:57
So anyway, that was a lot of fun,
40:59
but the LED lights, they
41:00
were just so, so bright.
41:04
I still got them, still use them,
41:05
still got the little thing on there.
41:07
I mean, I haven't
41:07
driven the XJ in a long time
41:08
since I got the Gladiator,
41:10
but it's all still there.
41:11
That's a good conversation,
41:13
that's a good conversation.
41:14
We are, I'm toying with this,
41:18
this Paul talking,
41:19
Paul toying with an idea,
41:21
thinking about getting rid of the XJ and
41:23
getting a Gladiator.
41:26
Why?
41:26
Well, you don't have a place to park it?
41:29
So I love our XJ, I
41:31
love it, it's amazing.
41:33
It's a fantastic vehicle.
41:34
You are not ever gonna make it again.
41:37
Never gonna make it again.
41:38
And you have the best year, the 99,
41:40
the 98 was pretty good, but 99--
41:43
It was all sloped, so we don't even have
41:44
like the toopy head deal,
41:46
so we have like no worries
41:47
about the head because it's an LS.
41:49
Oh, that's right, I forgot you changed.
41:51
For me, the thought is like,
41:53
I've got this really cool XJ,
41:55
and I never take it out of the garage,
41:57
and it never leaves any events.
41:58
I know Brian and Darrell at JCR
42:00
probably take real Hawk out more.
42:03
I just, I'm like, you
42:05
know, it'd be really cool
42:06
to have like a Gladiator.
42:07
Maybe a Mojave, maybe the
42:11
Far Out, like the Diesel.
42:15
Yeah, we love the Gladiator.
42:18
We have the 2021 Gladiator here.
42:22
It's very nice, and it
42:24
reminds me a lot of the XJ,
42:26
which I was concerned about.
42:27
The only thing that I don't like about it
42:30
is I've lost the 4.0 sound.
42:33
That motor has a very definite sound.
42:36
Yeah, it does.
42:36
You know what I'm talking about,
42:37
because you got an LS in there now.
42:39
So you can--
42:40
Well, actually our daughter, we had two,
42:42
I'm looking at our parking lot,
42:43
and then we have a TJ
42:44
out in our parking lot,
42:45
and we have the, my daughter has an XJ,
42:48
a four liter XJ of her own.
42:52
That was a project.
42:54
Don't buy a cheap Jeep.
42:55
Do not buy a cheap Jeep and expect that
42:58
you're gonna be able
42:59
to like, I should have
43:00
just bought a nice one.
43:02
She wanted a next day, and I was like,
43:03
oh, let's find one I
43:04
found with a blown motor.
43:06
And I was like, nothing cheaper than,
43:08
there's nothing more
43:08
expensive than a cheap Jeep.
43:10
Oh no, and the thing about it is,
43:13
even if you're gonna afford
43:13
it, it takes a lot of time.
43:16
And if you have
43:17
somebody else do it for you,
43:19
they're probably not gonna do it right.
43:21
And they probably don't know a
43:22
(beep)
43:22
thing
43:23
about Cherokees.
43:24
So I love my Cherokee.
43:26
It's great.
43:26
I need to break it out
43:28
and get it out there again.
43:29
And the thing about,
43:30
the thing that scares me
43:32
is the Gladiator and the
43:35
JLs and stuff have the,
43:36
for most of them,
43:37
have the three six in it.
43:39
It's not a 4.0.
43:40
I don't trust it like I do the 4.0.
43:43
If anything happens to the Gladiator,
43:45
engine, cams, or all those
43:49
little issues that it has,
43:51
there's the XJ.
43:53
All I have to do is get back in it
43:54
and start it up and start driving.
43:55
Fire it up.
43:56
Yeah.
43:58
I've seen, like I've
43:59
seen Brad at Trail Recon,
44:00
he's gone through a couple sets of cams.
44:04
(sighs)
44:05
Scary as
44:05
(beep)
44:07
I don't know what that cause is.
44:09
I don't know whether it's
44:10
inadequate heat treating,
44:13
or poor metal.
44:15
The metallurgy isn't,
44:17
it's not a good standard.
44:19
So maybe they were
44:19
skimping out the metallurgy.
44:21
Maybe the heat
44:21
treating wasn't done right.
44:22
Maybe, I don't know.
44:25
Like that's a good question if you can.
44:26
Do you, well, I have,
44:27
I think I have an answer for you.
44:29
Have you heard of Baxter Performance?
44:32
Yes, Kevin, Lucy and
44:33
Rick, they're great people.
44:34
Yeah.
44:35
Great people.
44:35
So Kevin says that that happens
44:38
because you don't have any
44:39
oil at the top of the engine
44:41
where the cam is or the cams are.
44:43
And--
44:44
I'm trying to find out.
44:45
I have a Baxter filter assembly
44:46
peeking around here
44:47
somewhere that for my wife's sale.
44:50
I highly, I don't, I only have 30,000
44:52
miles on my Gladiator,
44:54
but I don't think it's worth risking it.
44:57
So I got the Baxter
44:58
Performance oil filter adapter.
45:01
So it keeps the oil up, at least an oil,
45:04
the filter size thing.
45:05
It's a bigger filter as
45:06
well at the top of the engine.
45:08
And then when I go to start it,
45:10
it drops that oil down
45:12
the top of the engine.
45:13
So now it's not the lifters and the cam
45:16
and all that stuff aren't dry.
45:18
And I think that's
45:20
what's happened to Brad.
45:21
I actually, whenever he had that issue
45:24
the first time on the Gladiator,
45:26
I sent him an email cause I thought,
45:27
hey, I need to get Kevin
45:29
from Baxter Performance
45:30
and Brad on to do an
45:31
interview to talk about it
45:33
because it would be a
45:34
great way for Brad to say,
45:36
well, this is what happened.
45:37
Brad, did you use the Baxter
45:40
Performance, blah, blah, blah,
45:41
blah, blah.
45:42
And I hadn't heard back from him.
45:44
So, but I'd still like to know,
45:46
especially with two failures now.
45:50
Yeah, I actually looked it up.
45:51
I used AI cause I was
45:53
like, I have a Gladiator.
45:54
So I'm worried about mine going through
45:55
the same type thing.
45:57
And AI said that whenever
46:00
the dealership fixes the issue,
46:04
they don't fix, they
46:05
don't replace all the lifters.
46:08
They replace one cam,
46:10
the one that's failing.
46:12
The next one fails.
46:13
Yeah.
46:14
So, and again, I haven't
46:16
heard anything from Brad.
46:17
I didn't try reaching out to him again,
46:18
but I'd be interested in knowing if,
46:20
cause I know he got the
46:21
cam from a shop that had one
46:25
in stock cause it was
46:26
going to be three to six months
46:28
to get back from dealership.
46:30
And so I'm curious about,
46:33
was the whole thing repaired?
46:34
Because that's just scary.
46:36
I mean, I'm impressed with the three six,
46:40
but it's, I know it's not a four Oh,
46:41
and that's one of the
46:42
reasons why I didn't want to buy
46:43
a new sheet.
46:45
So it was not invulnerable though.
46:47
I had a, I rebuilt a
46:49
four, window four seven.
46:52
And the first trip around the block,
46:54
I bent the lifter because the comp cam
46:58
that we replaced the
47:00
lifters with the comp cams ones
47:03
stuck.
47:05
It was, it didn't pump right.
47:08
So it ended up, I ended
47:10
up with a bent rod and
47:12
so I was getting ready
47:13
to go down a trail on the,
47:15
the rev stuff.
47:16
You know, when you rebuild a four Oh,
47:18
you have to do the break in thing,
47:21
which you rev it a certain
47:22
thing for two minutes and so on
47:24
so forth.
47:24
But we need to talk about
47:26
the stuff that you're selling,
47:27
not this Cherokee stuff.
47:30
There's a group of people out
47:31
there that love hearing about
47:32
the Cherokee stuff, but
47:34
we're not going to do that.
47:35
I'm not going to indulge myself.
47:37
All right.
47:37
So getting back to the line of
47:39
questioning about the cables.
47:40
So you have the basic kit, you have,
47:42
and apparently the kit
47:43
comes with additional grounds,
47:46
which, which you need.
47:48
Do you have, and you
47:49
have the headlight harness,
47:50
which I think that's very
47:51
important for the older Jeeps.
47:54
And what else, what else do you have?
47:57
What else do you mean?
47:59
Now we're really doing,
48:02
we're starting to move a
48:02
lot more into the deal,
48:04
like a power stroke and
48:05
come inside power stroke,
48:06
or Cummins and Duramax or Dirty Max,
48:08
as the kids say, side of things.
48:11
But we're really, really pushing on our,
48:14
on expanding our diesel reach.
48:18
So this isn't just
48:19
Jeep that has four cables.
48:22
No, okay, no.
48:23
Yeah.
48:24
I figured that was the case,
48:26
but I can imagine
48:27
somebody going along with that.
48:28
I'm going to go forward.
48:29
No, I mean, all those
48:31
manufacturers are going to do
48:32
cheap as they can.
48:34
It's a spreadsheet balance type thing.
48:37
There's no incentive
48:38
to put an extra dollar
48:40
to that part if they don't have to.
48:42
Like I said, they're just, you know,
48:43
the designer at
48:44
Stellantis or Ford or whoever,
48:46
says this is the
48:46
standard we're going to have
48:47
for this cable assembly.
48:49
It needs to have this jacket material
48:51
and needs to have this type of whatever,
48:53
you know, whatever their
48:53
spectra is for that wire,
48:55
whatever they, and then
48:56
here's our budget for that part.
48:58
Right.
49:00
So probably not, but
49:02
I'm going to ask anyway,
49:03
because I thought it was really cool.
49:05
I do not like the Tesla
49:07
Cybertruck the way it looks,
49:09
but I thought it was
49:10
cool that they started using
49:13
a 48 volt system so that
49:16
they could make the cables
49:17
smaller and lighter.
49:21
Do you do anything with Tesla?
49:23
Cause I could very well imagine that.
49:28
Funny story.
49:29
So we were talking to fine people
49:32
when our connections out
49:33
in Ohio and they were like,
49:35
I was like, yeah, I'm
49:36
thinking about getting into
49:37
doing EV wiring.
49:38
And he was like, don't,
49:39
there's no money in it.
49:40
There's no, he's like,
49:41
I'll sell you all the tooling
49:42
you need to make your
49:43
own high voltage cables.
49:45
And you can start producing that.
49:47
He's like, there's just no money in it.
49:48
It's just, it doesn't
49:49
seem to have the problems
49:50
that the 12 volt systems do.
49:53
And Tesla being
49:55
Tesla, it's over engineered
49:57
and it'll probably never fail.
50:01
Good God, you're saying
50:02
that there's a car manufacturer
50:05
that doesn't nickel and dime it.
50:07
Yeah.
50:08
I mean, when you're
50:09
making a vehicle like that,
50:12
you're it's over engineered.
50:13
It's going to be over engineered.
50:15
It's everything about those,
50:18
probably aside from the
50:19
battery is over engineered
50:21
and the battery just
50:21
because it's a battery,
50:22
it charges it to drive,
50:24
you know, it charges it,
50:25
brain that charges and
50:25
transit and cycles and lower.
50:29
They're, they remind
50:32
me of Intermec printers.
50:34
If you've ever dealt with printers
50:35
like Intermec barcode
50:36
printers, they're built like tanks.
50:38
They're built with like
50:39
plate steel for the side panels.
50:41
The boards are like 10
50:42
layers that you're like,
50:44
what are we building here?
50:44
Like this is not going to the moon.
50:47
It's just a barcode printer.
50:50
All right, Paul, you
50:51
know how the kids love
50:52
the social media.
50:53
Where can people find
50:55
the either the Jeep cables
50:58
or big seven kits?
51:00
I run a line on Instagram,
51:02
Facebook at big seven kits.
51:05
Jeep cables.
51:05
We will actually ask you to
51:07
follow us at big seven kits.
51:09
We are on Instagram and
51:10
Facebook at Jeep cables.
51:12
You can follow us on
51:14
both those platforms.
51:15
And I think we're on big brown.
51:19
What's the other one?
51:21
TikTok, I think we're on TikTok.
51:22
I'm not sure though.
51:23
We're on YouTube, but
51:24
I don't have anything.
51:25
Well, if you go to the website,
51:26
you probably have,
51:28
We have social links, yep.
51:29
We have social links.
51:30
That you can go to.
51:31
So just go to big
51:32
kits, big seven kits.com.
51:35
And then you can find
51:36
all the social media stuff.
51:38
Paul, thank you so much
51:39
for being with us today
51:40
and continued good luck.
51:41
And don't get rid of the XJ.
51:44
You'll be so sad if the XJ is gone.
51:48
But I know what you mean.
51:48
You'd like to see somebody enjoying it,
51:51
but they're not gonna
51:52
love it the way you do.
51:53
I know they won't.
51:56
(laughing)
51:58
No, they won't.
52:00
You're my friend.
52:00
You're my new friend.
52:03
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52:07
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