This week’s Stage 8 Pro Team Member of the Week is Jeff Hiltz from Nova Scotia, Canada – he also runs PIRATE OFF-ROAD NATION. His wife’s photography is our main Off Road page image on our website too – small world! Check him out. Here is Jeff’s story:
Just about thirteen years ago I took my 2003 Jeep TJ off of the road for a complete rebuild. I decided to run some old school D44 housings, Jeep Cherokee rear and Scout D44 for the front. I had a D300 transfer case added to my 231 Tcase to make a doubler which would eventually give me a crawl ratio of 155:1. I then threw money down on a really nice Rock Krawler long arm suspension with coilovers and RCV Performance unbreakable front axle shafts.
She was now almost unstoppable except I started finding that I could not keep the hub bolts tight. They were constantly coming loose and then in turn the bolts would keep getting sheared off leaving me with one dead wheel to try to get out of the woods. I used quality grade 8 bolts with a dab of loctite but still didn’t keep me from shearing hub bolts. I went to grade 12 hub bolts, but they still would not remain tight and I continued to shear the grade 12 bolts. The only thing the grade 12 bolts did for me was to make it harder to drill the bolts out after shearing them off.
After sinking a whack of money into my Jeep “The Pirateship” I could not keep my hub bolts tight and continuously sheared my bolts off. You couldn’t imagine my frustration. This went on for two years!
After building my Jeep to stand up against some hard wheeling, it was still useless as I just couldn’t keep the hub bolts in her…
Somehow one day while searching for a solution I stumbled upon an ad for Stage 8 Locking Hub Bolts!! OMG, finally, could this be the answer to my frustration? I ordered a set of the Stage 8 Locking Hub Bolts and immediately got them installed! Wow, unbelievable! I could actually go out in the snow and spin my tires without shearing off my hub bolts!! Thank you to Stage 8, I could finally enjoy my Jeep!!
