I am a long-time Jeep owner, however, this is my first Gladiator. I am coming off a 2015 2Dr JK with a manual transmission and non-electric roll-down windows. We placed 127K miles on that Jeep and never had one issue. It was awesome! Now with that being said, our business needs to have a good off-road vehicle, that can tow a motorcycle trailer and haul our camping gear. The 2Dr JK did it but struggled at times with space. The Gladiator has taken care of that issue.
This post will be our build for a setup that will handle most of our Adventure lite needs. We do plenty of off-roading, just not a huge Big time Rock Crawler. We love trails like Imogene Pass, and Medano Pass, and places like Greenie peak in NM. We will not be taking on the Rubicon trail anytime soon. So stay tuned and don’t be afraid to give us your thoughts and feedback.
2021 Jeep Gladiator Mojave Edition
27, 313 miles when purchased.
Stock Gladiator with no upgrades.
The first thing we added was the Rough Country Floor mats. We have used these in multiple vehicles, and they work very well for the price. On a side note, we are all about cost over the name. I know that sometimes you get what you pay for, however, I feel a lot of manufacturers add that additional “Overland” fee on some items.
Next, up my wife needed some “oh S%$& handles to help her get into the Mojave. She is only 5’2 so she needed a little extra help. We purchased these off Amazon.
The next upgrade was negotiated at the dealership. They added a spray-in bed liner. It was installed by a third-party company in the town where I live. They did a fantastic job. Check out Tuff Coat tell them Jerry sent you.
As many of you know the Radio Antenna on the Gladiator is BIG and silver. So I decided to get a little stubby one to replace it. (keep your bad jokes to yourself.. haha!)
We did all that in the first 5 days of owning the new Gladiator. On the 7th day, we did a few bigger upgrades. As I mentioned above we do get out on some trails and forest roads, so a winch is needed. Last year I think I used my winch on the JK 9-10 times. This includes on the trail or just pulling people out of a snow bank when needed. Including one local state trooper. He was very happy that I had the winch.
So with that, the Mojave comes with a plastic bumper so I needed to get a new bumper as well. I love the steel Rubicon bumper, but they are very proud of them, so it was a little outside of my price range. I decided to go with the Rough Country Stubby Trail Bumper. It allows it to be installed while maintaining the Mojave skid plate for the remote reservoir. The RC also allowed me to have LED driving lights along with a built-in LED light bar.
While the bumper was off, we decided to paint the OEM Mojave reservoir skid black to match the bumper. The silver really stood out.
I added the Bulldog 9500lb winch with Synthetic line to the bumper. I have had 2 of these Bulldog winches and they have done me well.
While we are still on the front, I wanted to have color-matched Orange D-Rings on the front of the bumper. I think it looks pretty good. What are your thoughts?
We take our motorcycle along on most trips, so we needed to have a hitch installed. The Mojave was wired for a trailer just did not include the hitch. We went with a Class III hitch from Curt
The next big purchase was a Truck Bed rack. No overland truck is “really” an overland truck without one.. right?? (I joke) I was going to wait on this, but Eric down at Sportsland Trailer in Springfield MO had a Fishbone rack that he used at a local Overlanding event Rendezvous in the Ozarks that we all attended. You can see pictures from that event here.
He gave me a smokin deal on it .. almost 65% off so I had to take it. They also installed it for that price. What a great deal. If you are in the area, go check out Eric at Sportsland Trailers and tell him, Jerry sent you.
That was all the upgrades done on that one day. Next, we added the Bullet Mounting system for the JT. We used one in the JK and even over the roughest terrain they never wobbled around and were very sturdy. The mounting system is well worth the money.
That is all that we have done with the new Mojave after the first 10 days of ownership. We will be doing a few other things soon. We have a couple of overland camping trips coming up in Nov and Dec so we want to get it all ready to go. So stay tuned for those upgrades. Should have them completed in the next couple of weeks.
We are really enjoying the new Gladiator and feel that this is going to be a great vehicle for our needs. If you want to see more about our adventures both 2 and 4-wheeled stop by our travel blog. We have trips and photos back to 2005. Thanks again for reading this thread and I can’t wait to see your feedback and ideas.
Take care and be safe out there.
Things we have added to the 2021 Jeep Gladiator Mojave since our purchase on Monday, Nov 24, 2023
Rough Country Floor Mats
Cartaoo Grab Rails in Mojave Orange
Tuff Coat Spray-In Bedliner –visit their website
Rydonair Antenna
Rough Country Stubby Trail Bumper
Bulldog 9500 winch with the synthetic line
Rough Country Thimble
Autmatch Shackles 3/4 D-Ring 2 Pack
Curt Class III hitch
Fishbone full tackle Truck Rack
Bulletpoint Rubigrid dash mount platform kit
TeraFlex 1.5″ Performance Leveling Kit
JKS Quick Sway Bar disconnects
The last of the initial upgrades to Mojave is complete. Today 4-Wheeled concepts installed the TeraFlex 1.5″ Performance leveling kit along with the JKS quick disconnects. It was an easy install, with no issues. I like the way that it makes the Mojave look. I will try out the quick disconnects this weekend. Stay tuned!
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