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2 things I wish JK accessory manufacturers did

1K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  Round Robin 
#1 ·
  1. Metric fasteners only. Come on, people, it's not that difficult, even Chrysler managed to do that. Time to leave Liberia and Myanmar behind. And I'd rather pay twice for a good set of metric tools than twice for two crappier toolkits.
  2. Torque specified for each fastener. No more "more than a fart, but less than a poop". Poops are embarrassing.
 
#3 ·
Well, when I was writing the original post, all I had was a premonition - I was looking at the part, at the tools, and wasn't liking what I saw. And now the premonition materialized.

So, like you may have guessed, my toolkits are metric (see the sig, just started, yada-yada). The only imperial tool I happened to have in a whole workshop full of metric tools was a 5/16 socket (Husky). Well, I'm thinking, let me see which metric tools fit. So 8mm hex fit the 5/16 socket perfectly (picture one).

Well, it was nice and all till the time came to torque the part. At that exact moment it turned out that the hex that appeared to have fit, actually hadn't, and it just mangled a shiny new part (picture two).

Sure, call it my fault - usually paranoid, I made a leap of faith and assumed that if it fits, it works. Still, from now on I'll be voting with my dollars for manufacturers that do appreciate my hard earned money and don't make me buy unnecessary tools.
 

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#4 ·
Yeah, it's a pain where I have to have 2 sets of wrenches and sockets to work on any job on my Jeep. My pet peeve is more along the lines, of "come on aftermarket, stop using fasteners that don't have any rust protection."

I was just re-adjusting my Teraflex rear brake light extension. It's been on for less than a year now. $80 for that piece of garbage, and the powder coat black paint on it has faded to grey and the standard sized mounting hardware they included with it was rusted to hell.

I hate aftermarket products with the corners they cut but people on these forums keep telling me how they're so much better than the OEM parts. Ok, whatever.
 
#6 ·
I guess this is your first encounter with nuts and bolts, from here it just gets worse. If your not wanting to learn and buy tools then just take it somewhere and pay the big bucks for someone to do it for you. I thought this was a pretty petty post on a Jeep, I assume you don't do any mechanical work and looking for that one tool that does all.

trainman
 
#8 ·
I guess this is your first encounter with nuts and bolts, from here it just gets worse.
Okay, I'll bite.

Far from that.

I've probably been dealing with all things mechanical for longer than some people on this forum are alive, and invested more in tools than some cars are worth, even with a full tank of gas.

It's just all of them happened to have been metric.

If your not wanting to learn and buy tools then just take it somewhere and pay the big bucks for someone to do it for you.
There was a period in my life when I had more money than time, and this is what I had to do - just didn't have an option to do it myself then. And that was the final straw for me - "reputable shops" screwed up so much inside my mechanisms (not just cars), I still cringe looking at scars that they left.

The very last straw was when my V8 radiator blew up (straightforward replacement, righ?), but the shop managed to kill the viscous fan clutch (failed the next day), blamed it on being old, then put a dent in the door when they were fixing that (and I only saw it when I took the car home - 2 hours roundtrip), then broke the center console when they were fixing the door (and also in a way that was undetectable while I was in a shop - who would expect that they break something INSIDE while fixing an OUTSIDE problem?) - just the followups added to about a day's pay out of my pocket.

...and when two months later my window regulator (previously replaced under warranty) failed, and I started the replacement by taking off the door panel and saw 6 out of 11 clips broken, I vividly remembered the conversation I had with shop people: "But guys, the door started rattling after you replaced the window regulator?" - "Oh, they all do that with age". Age my ass, it *will* rattle if you break that many. Five cent clips, too.

So no, no matter how much you pay, your chances of getting a shitty job don't become less.

DIY since, unless it is heavy lifting.

I thought this was a pretty petty post on a Jeep, I assume you don't do any mechanical work and looking for that one tool that does all.
Not petty, bitter. I just can't wrap my mind around things like supplying metric bolts with imperial heads, or having a metric fastener on one side and imperial on the other. Arrogance? Impunity? (this comes out of discretionary income anyway, and costs a pretty penny, too). Your call to name it.
 
#11 ·
1. Jeep uses both. Why should the aftermarket be different?
Jeep, or JK? I haven't seen anything SAE in JK yet. Well, not that I've been digging deep - but I'm sure that time will come. Oh, a flashback - one of my other cars just exploded its AC compressor (literally, with the case cracked in half and pieces of shrapnel all round the engine bay) and took out a half of at least cooling system with it, in the middle of an overhaul :) But that one is metric, though.

2. It's not just JKs. TJs have the same mix of SAE and metric fasteners.
See also: seller's conspiracy; multiple personality disorder

3. Be glad they don't use Whitworth - that's a slice of hell in and of itself. :lmao:
Add BSF, BSP, and Mad Metrics to the mix, and you have it all. Or do you?
 
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