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

No. I plan on ordering the RCLT whenever it becomes an actual product and fully supported.

 

you guys can judge a company based on products they haven't even launched, but IMHO you shouldn't.
I've ordered from Marlin Crawler on parts that I've needed before and they ship same day or next day.

Until they take your money for this product it's just a teaser, a mighty long teaser, and you have no horse in this race.

 

i'm so confused, I love your truck, love your build, but I don't want anything like what you have.

 

I probably shot that post off a little too quick. Had to run out of the office and hit send prematurely. I was more or less looking for advice and your experience with regards to function, and plans, in preparation of the RCLT. I'll shoot you a PM once I get all my thoughts on paper, if that's ok.

 

sarcasm isn't something some people can pick up on. carry on.

 

Sarcasm doesnt translate well when typed and not spoken.

 

How's this sound?
"I've had worse sores on my lips and still been able to whistle".
Done.

 

Sounds like you should probably have a doctor check it out rather than post about it on a LT development thread.

 

Agreed, now let's all try to keep this on track.
I still want the RCLT kit.
Waiting and saving, I think that I will have wait longer than I will have to save for this setup.

 

I’ve decided to move on and go a different route. But hopefully if I come back in a few years to this set up it’s been refined more and issues worked out.

 

Hey man this is fidelityflip from the FJ forum. I finally read through this thread and see what you have been talking about for the last year. This really is the LT kit to rule them all. Phenomenal.

I hope everyone keeps in mind it is not easy to develop something like this, test it, build a shop up to produce it in a scale that is able to support the end user whilst running an existing business without losing your ass in the process.

From everything seen so far this kit will be worth the wait I think. Just hope I can afford it.

 

Hello TW!

Thank you for the continued discussion and interest in RCLT HD. Sorry we have not responded to those who submitted our webform to get on the list for the first round of production. I am going to type up a response tonight and get it out to everyone tomorrow.

The response from the webform was very overwhelming; This product seriously needs to get to market as soon as humanly possible. The purpose of the Pre-Production webform was to find about two dozen highly motivated buyers to start with and what we got were more than 100 that Friday night, and doubled by Monday morning. This was incredibly important because since we put the product page up, we had gotten wayy, wayyyy too many people clicking the "Notify when in stock" button -- a number in the multiple thousands -- many of whom we assume are such people as (1) don't even own a Toyota and are just curious, (2) don't own a compatible year vehicle, (3) already have a SAS rig, (4) are just curious what the retail price will be, etc. The Pre-Production webform cut the website Notification number down to around 1/10th its size which is a far more accurate representation to work from.

Nevertheless we have more people directly interested then we'd be able to produce by the end of this year so the next step is to announce the price and then begin collecting deposits, both of which will reduce the count further. My plan after exhibiting at the Fourwheeler Adventure Expo two weekends ago was to send a second email out to those couple hundred webform people with this info but then we got inundated with event planning disasters as events and hotels were canceling/shutting down (first Rubicon Trail Foundation's BT&B, then Cruise Moab, then Lone Star Round-Up, then Toyota Jamboree), and since last Wednesday I've been busy rallying with other business owners (in and out of state) strategizing and helping each other through this uncertain COVID-19 incident.

Everyone's panic has really created a freak'n huge mess in our industry. Never mind our normal day-to-day products, but for RCLT HD we've been forced to switch suppliers ("unessential" businesses closed) and having to write new quotes and approve new samples for purchase orders and it's really created one freak'n huge unexpected headache. What the hell everyone, STOP PANIC BUYING TOILET PAPER and relax! Man alive.

So our current plan is to ride this COVID-19 epidemic out at least another week to see where the hell the economy is going before we invest literally over $100,000 in this first RCLT HD production run. In the meantime we are continuing forward with infrastructure ramping of new shelving, warehouse rearranging, new welding stations, and air ducting and vent fans for fume ventilation. The amount of money and time already invested in RCLT has very negatively affected other areas of our business (of course worth it overall as this enormous risk will pay off), but right now the health and livelihood of my employees and making sure they will have a job at the end of all this overreacting and under prepared coronavirus outbreak is my number one priority.

Dalandser is spot on. In CAD, the travel at axle center of the wheel mount face is 14.505" using my 7.87" travel Radflo shocks. In real life I max out the available shock stroke and still have some downtravel to gain. For this reason I've been comfortably telling people "around 15-inches". I'm working on two new additional products that will get this number over the 15 in mark. I'm working on yet another new product that integrates air bumps, which is why I haven't installed mine yet, which I hope to get finished in April. At that time I'll pull off my coils/depressurize shocks, and then I'll get an exact measurement.

ovrlndkull is absoultely correct. More kits installed will provide better estimations. The reason for comparing our +2.75" kit against traditional +3.50" kits, is that I'm comparing against kits re-using the factory knuckle (ie. "traditional"), which is limited in travel due to it's vertical ball joint design. Using horizontal ball joints on a replacement knuckle like RCLT HD means that limitation is gone, and based on TC's advertised +3.50" travel specification of 13", our +2.75" RCLT HD is already surpassing that.

Hello 3Six You won't need to relocate your cab mounts for 35s. You won't even need to clearance them. You won't even need to clean those mud droplets you have on your mounts right now.

Thank you for the feedback. I have toned it down a lot since last fall.

Still hopeful to get pricing info up by month's end. It will be less than the numbers I've seen floating around.

Regards,
BigMike

 

Couple updates from the Fourwheeler Adventure Expo, 3/6 - 3/7/2020

RCLT HD Officially Endorsed by Steve Sasaki!!

Steve is the founder of Power Tank (https://powertank.com) and has developed the best portable air system for airing up tires, reseating beads, and running air tools out on the trail. We have proudly carried his Power Tank products for close to 20 years and highly recommend them: MarlinCrawler.com/powertank



I liked Steve's photo so much I used it as the thumbnail for our latest RCLT HD video, which is a compilation of our Instagram Story videos rolled into one YT video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5TYTa9FJw0

And finally a few pictures lifted from IG, courtesy of @4runningmutts







HYPE!!

 

Patiently waiting

 

@BigMike

Epic! That sounds killer. How much travel are y’all thinking for the +3.5 kit??

And I assume it’ll be bypass compatible?

 

Thanks for the thorough update. Looking forward to the pricing.

 

I read all the updates ASAP , This will be Awesome for IFS .
Will this product be able to use stock Toyota CV axles with extended axles ? ( poor man build )???

 

that’s kind of like buying a Ferrari and having Walmart do your oil changes. The cost of the shafts won’t be much compared to the cost of everything else.

 

I wonder what kind of travel numbers are possible on the RCLT HD 3.5 kit, If you ditched the stock coil over bucket and hung a 10 inch CO in there. I’m only curious due to already needing to hack out most of the inner fenders. I rubbed bad on 33s, let alone throwing 35s on. I can’t even barley drive it until I do some more chopping.