Mickey Thompson Baja MTZ
Tires and Classic II Wheels
new meats for the
jeepfan.com CJ
The jeepfan.com CJ-5
has been running the same set of 33x12.5
BFGoodrich Mud Terrain tires for 11 years.
The tires served the Jeep well but it was time
for a fresh look.
In addition to
the tires a used set of chrome Outlaw II wheels
were also looking a little dated.
We picked up a
set of Mickey Thompson Baja MTZ mud tires and a
set of Mickey Thompson Classic II aluminum
wheels from
Rough Country.
 The
tires arrived via UPS nicely wrapped already
mounted and balanced. Due to a small
communication error the tires needed to be
remounted and rebalanced to change the white
letters to "out". Make sure you specify
that since most often white letters are mounted
"in".
SPECIAL NOTE:
This is important to Jeep CJ's 77-80.
These year CJ's use a larger rotor and caliper
assembly. If the wheels are balanced
inside the rim the weights need to be kept 2" in
from the inner edge of the wheel or they may hit
the caliper.
Size
We toyed around
with the thought of moving to 35" tires but
decided that the little CJ-5 looked better with
the 33" and didn't look as stuffed in the wheel
wells. We tested a set of 35" Baja Claws -
check it out. The below left picture shows
the 35" on the rear and the right picture shows
it on the front.
The
33" MT tires were a bit taller than the BFG
tires. A picture on the right shows the
difference.
After the tires were mounted and installed the
Jeep went for a ride. The tires were
surprisingly quiet for a mud type tire and rode
very smooth. Handling was what you would
expect from a 30+ year old CJ. The look of
the tires is very fitting of the Jeep and a
welcome improvement.
We
look forward to wheeling these tires a little to
see how they work. Check back
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