Hey, guys, haven't done one of these in awhile, so thought it was about time to do an update on what is going on at Rock Lizard Fab.
Believe it or not, I am pretty much caught up on all prepaid orders that took place before I dropped my old manufacturer (woohoo!!!). I have been researching new manufacturers that will cut and form my parts for me now, and right now it is looking like I will have Marlin at JeepbyAl doing it for me. He is a great guy that I have known for awhile now and having spent a lot of time talking with him and having seen the quality of his work, his commitment to quality and customer service are very much like my own. Instead of plasma cutting like my old manufacturer, Marlin does laser cutting. His tolerances in cuts and bends are well within my personal requirements. With the high quality cuts and bends, this will reduce fab time a lot compared to all the "doctoring" I had to do before with my last manufacturer to make everything jig together properly, and will increase the quality of appearance in the end product. Due to increasing steel prices, manufacturing, and delivery of the parts to me from Marlin, retail prices will be going up in the real near future. The local steel yard that I pick up my steel for sliders, racks, carriers, etc., that is built all inhouse, in the last six months steel prices increased by 32% (ouch). Trying to keep the increases that the customer pays at a minimum, but it does have to be done a little at a time as the market goes up, instead of trying to hold steady until my cost goes up so far that it requires a big price increase later on. So a little here and there along the way will keep the sticker shock down to a minimum.
I am taking orders again, but it is more of a waiting list to lock in current prices. I am not taking any payments up front anymore. There are a few that already did pay all/part, but they are aware that their orders were placed after I already dropped my old manufacturer and there would be some wait time before I found a new one and got all the bugs worked out with the new manufacturer. I have redesigned the sliders some time ago and use a new jig that makes production a lot easier and faster, and install even easier for the customer. Turn around time on sliders and racks will be pretty quick now.
I know there are two really hot topics going on right now, so I'll cover those now.
Front bumpers. I know what everyone is thinking...WTH??!! Yeah, I know, where are they. Anyone that has been around me long enough knows that when it comes to making a product, I am very picky about how it turns out. I spend a lot of time in many areas of the product development stage for many reasons. Safety is the first area. Is this thing going to fail when put to the ultimate test and hurt/kill someone? That is going through my mind from start to finish, so anytime/anywhere I see potential for failure, I address it. Those that have already gotten rear bumpers from me will tell you some of the little gussets and reinforcements here and there may be overkill, but they never have to worry about it failing when they really need it. Build time and cost: These greatly effect the retail price, so I have to pay very close attention to the time and cost on my end so Troy nor I don't work for minimum wage, and the customer doesn't have to sell and kidney or first born child to get it. Are my products cheap? Not by any means, but you get what you pay for with my products. This is true with many companies, you buy cheap, you get cheap. And sometimes you buy high and still get cheap. Design appearance and fit: If it fits like crap or looks like crap, who would buy it? How many times has it come up that something I made didn't fit right or looked like crap? I can recall only a few times when the pinch well template for sliders were slightly off or one occasion were the rear bumper was tilted downward funny, and come to find out that was due to the unibody being jacked up from a rear end collision that the repair place failed to address.
I know you can't make everyone happy, people have different ideas on what they want to see in a product, but unfortunately for the Liberty owners, they are very limited in choices, so I try to cover as many of the wants and needs of most people as possible. This is especially true for the front bumper. People aren't as picky about the rear bumper, as it is more of the workhorse, needing accessory carriers, high clearance and departure angles, tow points, and still look stylish. For the front, it needs to be functional, but it is usually the first thing most people see on a jeep, so it needs to make an impression. I started out with just the Monitor Lizard design, then it became the Monitor Lizard Convertible Winch bumper, and for a simpler design along came the Rock Monitor.
The original Monitor Lizard design was simple in function and had the mounting system full welded and incorporated into the bumper as one piece. Then the convertible winch plan came along which meant developing the bumper with a strong mounting system and a bumper shell to bolt to that. The Rock Monitor took over as the simple bumper design with being a single unit with the mounting system welded and incorporated into it. After some time studying what people have said on this board, and discussing ideas with Troy and how to take as many of your ideas, wants and needs into consideration to design and develop the best front bumpers for your needs, Troy and I have designed up a single front mounting assembly that will work with either the Monitor Lizard convertible winch bumper or the simple Rock Monitor. The bumper shell itself will be 1/8" plate. This is what ARB uses, and after several years of Ted's real world trail abuse, I know 1/8" is plenty strong enough with a few improvements to the design. 1/8" will also be easier to destroy in the event of an accident. Cheaper to replace the bumper shell than the whole jeep. With this setup, you can get the Rock Monitor now, and if you destroy it or are ready to step into a convertible winch setup, all you need is the shell, and all the person who purchases your old shell would need is the mounting system.
On top of making both bumper models work with one mounting system, is the fact that there is a design separation between the years of the KJ. So, that means I have a total of four different bumper designs to make work with one mounting system, along with all the other work that is involved that I mentioned earlier. This is why the front bumper is taking much, much longer to design that the rear bumper, and the rear bumper has already gone through six generations of slight alterations and improvements. The front bumpers are coming, but they do take time. They are the top priority, because they have taken so long, and there is so much interest that had I finished them a long time ago, I would be a rich man. But although a wealthy business is any mans dream, it is the bottom of my list of priorities. Doing a quality product that looks good, does it's job, is safely designed and built, and all who purchase are happy are my top priorities. After several years of doing this business, I know if I fulfill my top priorities first instead of rushing to the dollar signs, the wealth will come on it's own. This business is nothing without my customers. There have been times when I wanted to seek out a business loan or investors, but sticking with my priorities, each one of my customers have become my investors, and I am truly thankful for that.
And last, but not least, what is the deal with the Godzilla SFA kit? This is definitely a project and a half. Anyone who has done a quality SFA setup will tell you there is a little bit of engineering involved to make it fully functional and especially safe. Can it be done cheap, sure, but would I want to be anywhere near you on the road, probably not. I have gotten some questions as to how I could possibly develop a completely bolt on kit that doesn't require any welding and still make it work. With this kit, you will have to do some cutting, but that is only to the rear stock LCA mounts on the unibody, just no way around it. Well, I guess you could leave them on, but that would look retarded.
You won't need to cut/weld anything else because my kit does not require the use of the stock motor mount/cross member setup. The kit comes with a complete replacement, so you just remove the entire stock front assembly and bolt this one up. My entire kit is based off of a TJ Wrangler long arm suspension kit, so getting the suspension parts is easy, just need the mounting assemblies that bolt to the KJ unibody to be designed to work with those. The control arm mounts are built into the belly pan which is a complete crossmember replacement, with integrated drop out TCase skid and unibody stiffeners. If you look at the Rubicon Express TJ long arm kit, you will see that it completely bolts to the TJ frame and encases it with steel plate, sandwiching it between formed plate, huge bolts, and crush sleeves. XJ long arm kits are the same, using plates that sandwich the unibody, crush sleeves and huge bolts, no welding, and the unibody on the Cherokee is a lot softer than that of the Liberty. The front trackbar and steering box mounts will use the same engineering with crush sleeves and through bolts as will the rear trackbar mount. Since I am basing the suspension to be that of a Wrangler, you options are much better for lift height and axles to use. We recommend using full width axles for many reasons. You're already spending the money, might as well spend a $1000 more and get the strength and stability of full widths. I have a Cherokee with 5" lift and 35" MT/R's, and a stock liberty is still taller than my jeep and just as heavy. When you lift a liberty, your center of gravity is much worse than other jeeps like the Wrangler or Cherokee. Stock width axles seem pretty popular because they seem cheaper, are easier to find, don't have to change bolt pattern on the wheels, and don't require a lot of modifications to the mounts. However, you are limited on strength, meaning you now have an SFA KJ that can take you into more gnarly trails, which will increase the chances you will break something, most likely a ujoint or axle shaft. throwing in lockers and lower gears really increases these chances. You have to run coil overs to fit with the stock axle, since the front unibody of the Liberty is wider than the XJ/TJ, so you cannot run coils/shocks from a TJ/XJ on a stock width axle. You will be running about 8" lift to be able to use the coilovers and stock width axles, so now your off camber pucker factor will be through the roof. If you roll your stock width SFA Liberty down a hill, how much money did you save by not going with full widths?
Now, I am not saying do not go stock widths, I just recommend researching it first (which I have already done most of it for you). The nice thing about my kit and it using the TJ suspension design, you can still use stock width axles, just get a D30 and a TJ rear D44 and bolt them up, but you will need to use coilovers instead of the shocks/coils that you would be able to use with a full width axle setup. The nice thing about the full widths is all of the control arm mounts can be left the same as the stock TJ/XJ D30 setup, but you have room to move the coil/shock mounts out on the axle to be able to use shocks/coils instead of coil overs. This could easily save some money over the cost of coilovers, helping offset the overall cost of building full width axles instead of stockers. Full width axles having a bigger after market support, and since most of the desirable full width axles come from 1970's era trucks, getting replacement parts at any parts store is cheap and usually in stock. You get more strength, stability, lockout hubs, bigger brakes, deeper gears, cheaper high steer setups, thicker axles tubes and shafts, more locker options, etc. If you build a stock width axle and a full width axle exactly the same, the full width axle will have all of these strengths over the stock width, with the only extra expense being the cost of purchasing and welding on the correct mounts that the d30 would already have, and even then, if you compare the stock mounts of the d30 to the weld on mounts to the full width, they don't even compare in strength. Stock width axles, 33" tires are pretty comfortable with less breakage. 35's are definitely possible, but you again raise COG and likeliness of breaking something. Full width axles, 35's easy, and 38-40" tires comfortably, if they will fit in the Liberty wheel wells.
As far as cost of the kit, unknown at this time, however I can show what Troy has done so far and give some ideas of cost. Troy of course is the first guinea pig. He has already purchased everything needed, just waiting on the mounts from me, and of course driveshafts and shocks that have to wait until after everything is assembled. He has spent about $18000. Big 8money, right? OK, I'll break this down a little to show that $18000 is nothing short of a great deal. For one, he has a brand spanking new custom built full width D60 rear axle from Currie enterprises, with Precision 5:13 gears (some of the best quality gears on the market), ARB air locker, mounts already welded on, 35 spline axles, and Wilwood dual piston disc brakes ($$$). He also has an Atlas II 4.3 Transfer Case with all the goodies needed to adapt to the KJ. Just the TCase and rear axle alone are worth over $7000. If you go with a stock full width 9", put some Yukon gears and ARB, simple disc brake conversion using caliper brackets, Nissan Maxima rear calipers, and suzuki samarai front disc brakes, TJ axle mounts, and replace the TCase with a Rock Trac 241, you could cut that price down to about $3500-4000. The front axle he has is a full width D44 High Pinion. Only the housing and shafts are used, everything else is brand new and the best of the best, most with lifetime warranties. He has the mounts welded on, Precision 5:13 gears, ARB, Crane Flat top knuckles with high steer arms, Riddle front diff cover, of course all the little top quality lifetime warranty pieces like the ujoints, ball joints, Warn Premium lockout hubs, 1 ton Chevy Tie rod ends and custom HD tie rod, draglink, spare tie rod, and front trackbar. Troy easily has over $4000 in that front axle, and it isn't even painted yet.
Then he has custom steel braided brake lines, coil springs, Rubicon Express TJ Chromoly front and rear long arms, bunch of other misc. stuff I can't think of right now. Oh, almost forgot the (5) 35" Toyo MT's on black steel rims ($1800+). By the time he pays for the mounting system, the driveshafts and shocks, he will be sitting around $20-21K. Big money, but he doesn't have any labor to pay for, since it is completely bolt on, and can be done with the help of a few friends and some simple tools. If you are thrifty, you can probably do a setup with full width axles for about half that price. Ted is guinea pig two, and he is doing it on the budget side, so we will have an idea what budget one could get away with.
So, Marlin is going to have his work cut out for him, as he will be getting a large order for rear bumpers, front bumpers and some SFA kits real soon.
Like I mentioned, I am taking preorders without any money up front to lock in current listed prices, so if you want something but don't have all the money right now but want to reserve a spot in line and lock in the price before it goes up, get that order in. It will also help me gauge interest for inventory purposes because I want to start stocking up the shelves for future orders so no more wait times.
Oh, one more thing before I forget. Like I said before, I base my products off of the customers wants and needs. I have been thinking about making a second rear bumper option. It will still look the same for the most part, however, it will be a basic recovery bumper only. No hitch, no provisions for carriers except for the stock tailgate spare just like the current bumper. The area under the tail lights will be capped so it will clean up the appearance there. It will still have shackle tabs, and like my current bumpers, if you need a hitch, it is easy to bolt the stock hitch up under my bumper whenever you need it. Since there will not be a hitch or ability to mount carriers, I can drop the bumper down to 1/8" plate instead of 3/16" plate. This will drop the weight down by about 30-40%, and with lighter material and less fab time with all the guts to have a hitch and carrier provisions, price will drop a good bit as well. Let me know your thoughts on this option.
And finally, along with all of this stuff I just went over, I will also be working on the KK product line to match the KJ line, as well as a few other top secret products I have on the drawing board.
So, thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc, are definitely welcome. Thank you all again for your patience and support. There have definitely been a lot of growing pains since stepping into the Liberty market, but I have learned a lot of hard lessons and this time of reorganization will bring forth much better customer service and product quality.
Marty
PS- just looked at this post and holy crap, I ain't reading all that!
If there is a typo, sorry, I'm not going looking for it.
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