2006 CRD Frankenlift Report/Review

Hi all, I’ve been reading on this forum for some time now researching before I purchased my KJ. I thought I’d better do some giving back to keep the Karma at a level state.

I recently purchased a 2006 KJ and within 2 weeks of picking it up installed the 2.5 inch Frankenlift. Below are a few observations regarding the lift and the process.

I wasn’t sure If I was going to get the Rockfather II or Frankenlift. I decided to call them both and get a feel for which would be best for me. I called Rockfather and spoke with a pleasant young man who didn’t know if the parts were in stock, couldn’t guarantee when the lift would ship and couldn’t answer an of my technical questions. I then called AllJ and spoke with Heather. She had all the right answers. Parts in stock, and said they would arrive in time for my planned trip. She also asked Quinn a few questions for me which helped a bunch. I ordered the lift and it did arrive in a timely manner.

Installation was not straight forward. I did not receive adequate instructions with the kit. I could not finish the lift without help from Quinn. I had to ask Quinn where the brake re-location bracket went (holes did not line up). Quinn also told me exactly how the struts went together. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have all of the necessary info, I will say that the support from Quinn was immediate and excellent.

With the CRD you need to have the struts built. We tried to compress the springs ourselves, but it wasn’t going to happen in my garage. The nearest Big O charged me 40 bucks for the job. I ended up returning to the shop a second time after learning that the strut guy installed the wrong bracket on the wrong spring. Believe it or not, my CRD has two different springs on the front end. Got it all installed, wasn’t easy, don’t do it (on a CRD anyway) without some mechanical knowhow.

The First trip with the new lift went well. Last week I drove the KJ back into the Arizona wilderness for Bambi killing. I still have the stock tires installed so wasn’t really expecting much. Tires did ok, I ruined one with a sidewall flat and chewed up the others pretty bad. Yes it is completely worth it to put on bigger tires for only 1 to 2 inches of undercarriage lift. Ground clearance is definitely the KJ’s weakest 4wheeling link. I left a pound of skid plate paint on the rocks up there. I was very impressed with the articulation and ride of the new lift. Only negative I have seen is that the suspension is overall a bit on the soft side. On the higher speed dirt roads I bottomed out several times before finally learning to slow it down for the dips and minor washouts. I was loaded down heavy, but it still bottomed easy. Gas mileage doesn’t seem affected by the lift. I’m getting around 25mpg with 2000 miles on the jeep.

In Summary, I’m satisfied and would do the same lift again. It’s great to be just a little bit different than all the other KJ’s out there. Looking forward to BFG all Terrain 265/70 R-16’s. I’m hoping the stiffer sidewall will help with the high speed bottoming.

Hope this helps someone. Sorry for the long post, I wanted to get it all out of my head in one sitting. I’ll post this at the CRD site too.

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"He who fart in church sit in own pew."

Well, being a fellow Tucsonan and CRDer, I'd like to check out that lift sometime if it is convienant.