Marlin Crawler's New Rock Crawling Long Travel IFS Suspension System (#RCLT)

lol I forgot to put that in the sarcasm font.

Yeah as soon as I read about Mike telling people they would be able to run 40's and basically match what his truck can do (never mentioning they'll have to buy another $5-8k in crawl box parts and modify their cross member) as soon as they get the kit without cutting, I was unfortunately not too suprised, yet still disappointed in that misleading marketing tactic. On my first gen I have a pretty similar setup that you have to clearance and tub with 35's about the same 2nd gens with this kit on 37's have to do, so I know what was going to be necessary.

Looks like your truck is going to come out clean!

 

I think, more often than not, especially in the niche markets (like offroad for example here). Is these companies (specifically the owners) fall in to a trap.

A) They are the idea guy. Comes up with great ideas etc, but don't have the business acumen and have the capibility to replicate it on a scale that fufills the demand. And doesn't have the understanding of how to put the pieces in place to make it happen.
The idea guys often also don't unederstand the Customer Service and communication skills necessary, because their heads are in the clouds thinking about new ideas.

B) They get full of themselves and their popularity, and then they chase that popularity to a point to where they run out of money. (this is what happened to Pelfrybuilt)


I think Big Mike is one of the idea guys... but I think he's also one of those that has always been full of himself to a degree... but I think that degree is growing, and it could lead to him breaking himself this time.

 

There are more than a few people happy to limit their up travel

 

Yeah I feel like the smooth marketing on here basically makes them feel like all of a sudden a regular long travel LCA scraping is going to be more of an issue than lifting a tire once you bump out prematurely instead of cutting up your firewall and / or fenders. Definitely living in bizarroworld in here.

 

Nice looking work here, and thanks for all the shots on what you're doing to the inner fenders. Curious to see what you do in the rear.

 

Thanks! My friend has some excellent fab skills, for sure. Here is the rear:

 

i like that his comment is irrelevant since no one else can even order a 3.5” kit right now….

 

Methinks my lady doth protest too much

 

I know it's spending more money than you already have spent but give crown a call they are out of cali and do great work and probably have LT tacoma brake lines in stock. Most retailers rebrand crown with their logo and they are used by a lot of big name companies.

 

You need to talk to some of these financial companies about that. One in particular I use it's almost useless and the

Off the subject but I was picking up a tcase for my other rig at a shop and a dude runs those tires. I asked him his honest opinion on them as there wasn't much of the tread left. He said that was his 2nd set and has a 3rd on order absolutely loves them.

 

when I ordered my crown brake lines a few months back it was a few weeks out for any order (2 or 3 if I remember correctly). Sounded like they were super busy and short staffed - name of the game these days.

but the brake lines are awesome quality and I’m super happy with them.

 

Crown is my go too for brake lines! I will say there pretty backed up right now (3-4 week delivery times I think). Also if there just standard extended long travel lines I have a new set that came with my dirt designs long travel I could sell for probably like 60 shipped or something.

 

Call up G and J Aircraft in Ontario and you can get custom length lines with any fitting imaginable - call early and they'll send them out same day.

 

Dragging a LCA isn't that big of a deal and the clearance gained in comparison to stock or like what JD offers isn't as much as he'd like to think. Now compare that to some of the true dessert racing LT kits where the LCA takes a path that hangs down a lot further is a different story. For us into more of the trail riding and harder offroad stuff those kits don't work well for us. This is why I was truly hoping the MC would be all it was being hyped up to be. But a few steps and I saw what was going down. Then JD stepped in and was a happy medium for what I needed.

 

Canada might have issues with the whole border, lockdowns, and shutdowns up there.

 

When I ordered my last set from them pre-covid I still had to wait almost 2 weeks. They are always slammed and for good reason.

 

JD is killer to work with too. That’s one of the biggest things for me personally. If I drop almost 20k with someone I would really like to receive good and reasonable customer service. Hell, Harry even gave me his personal cell number to call if i ever needed help. I’ve never used it because I personally hate being bugged about work outside of work. But still.

 

I get the benefit of the kit and for a group of guys willing and able to cut up their truck to make it a purpose-built IFS overlandercrawlerthing. That said not cutting a truck up and bumping out your up travel earlier than necessary so you lift a tire on the other side or running smaller tires kind of limits the effectiveness of the kit to the point where having that extra up travel with any setup would be better in some situations. Basically the long travel forum is for guys talking about getting the longest travel out of their trucks so I protest haha

 

Thats good to hear as im looking to build out my taco with their products almost exclusively

 

You built your truck at the best time possible.