Rocky Road Conversion

Hey all,

I have posted questions a few times here and got tons of great feedback. Last time I posted I said I was getting the rocky road YJ conversion and someone asked me to give a review so here goes! I'll break it down into three parts. 1) The quality of the kit (hardware speaking) and customer service. 2) The install. 3) The ride.

But first, two important notes. First, I'm not a great mechanic. You might read through this and think 'that guy is pretty dumb, I can do that way easier.' If you think that, it's probably true. But I sure have a lot of fun trying anyhow!! It's just my hobby and YouTube as well as this forum is referenced frequently in the garage. Second, this Jeep is a mess. There's barely anything stock on it, and it seems to have been put together in a junk yard. You'll see that a lot of the problems that I ran into were caused by this. Maybe that's a similar story for your jeep - maybe not!



1) the hardware/customer service
Most of the kit was great. It took a bit longer to get than I was expecting, and when it finally shipped they sent me everything except the leaf springs - not very helpful!!
A lot of the hardware was messed up. I had trouble with the brackets for the frame side of the rear. I called several times to get it fixed. The first 3 times I called I spent about an hour on hold with no answer and just gave up. The 4th time I called I finally got ahold of someone. I emailed pics and they said they thought that the brackets weren't square and they would send me new ones. A week later I emailed back because I hadn't received anything and they put them in the mail the next day. When they finally came in they were the frame side for the front, not the rear. I ended up just having to figure out a way to make them work because I wasn't going to wait around any longer.

Also, a lot of the hardware was just plain wrong. See the picture at the bottom for example. There are supposed to be 4 bolts that are 4.5 long. There's nothing in the bag even remotely close. All the bolts to the right were to be the same length. All in all, I ended up using about half of their hardware and had to by quite a bit of my own.


I tried calling on this again, but again, sat on hold for more than 30 minutes a few times.

All in all, I would say the quality of the big parts was decent. There was no reason to send hardware since most of it was wrong, and the customer service was great when someone answered the phone, but in my experience, that only happened 1/10 times.

2) The install

Here were the three big problems I ran into.
1) The previous owner had tube steps welded onto the jeep. The brakes for those were right where the brackets for this lift needed to go (see pic below). I had cut the steps off long ago, but I had to spend sooooo long with the grinder to make room.

Second big problem is that my frame was boxed in at every shackle hanger. So, getting the hardware on was nearly impossible sometimes. There are a couple places that the kit took a boxed in frame in account with self tapping bolts. Maybe this is just my mechanical skills at play - but those were terrible. I came up with a different plan. I just cut my old ubolts down and welded hardware on to the end of those. Here's a pic of what I did, but if I had to do it again I'd probably weld two bolts rather than a bolt and a nut.




In addition to the boxed in frame, there was so much stuff running through the frame there. I have ARB lockers, and the air lines were run through those. I also have an aftermarket heater that is run to the back seat, and those lines were run through the boxed in section as well. It seemed dumb that I needed to drain the radiator and remove my heater hoses to put on some leaf springs, but that's life I suppose.



The final big problem was the winch!! My winch plate was bolted into the exact same place that the front shackle hangers needed to be. In the end, I don't think that I ended up doing a great job with this. I think I need to to more work to get my winch secured better and my front bumper is only held on by two screws now. In the end, not ideal, but I didn't have much choice. Here's a pic of where the winch plate was.



It took me about 2 months to install this. Now I was only able to work on it a couple hours a week, there was a lot of downtime waiting for new parts or new hardware to arrive, and I spent about 40 hours with the grinder because of other parts that were welded to the frame. All in all, it was a lot more work than I had anticipated. I went through more grinding disks than drill bits, and I used A LOT of drill bits!!

It was a fun project, but I probably bit off a bit more than I could chew.

3) The ride

I haven't got a chance to take it out on a trail and play with it yet, but around town, it is a night and day difference. A lot of my bushings were completely gone when I took the kit off, but the ride is soooo much smoother and quieter now! The only 'complaint' about the ride is that the lift is a lot taller than I was anticipating. It had a 2 inch lift on when I started and this was supposed to lift it 2 inches. In my mind, that mean that it would sit at the same height. I figured it would be a bit higher since the old lift was at least 15 years old and the jeep had a plow on the front for a lot of years before I got it. However, the jeep sits an average of 5.5 inches higher now than it did before I put the lift on. I anticipate it settling a little, but I don't think it's going to settle that much.

Also, before I put the lift on my tires (35x12.5) would rub at full lock turning both ways. I had shackle revolvers on, and the tires rubbed on those. Now there is no rubbing at all!! Here's a pic of the (mostly) completed project. Let me know if you've got any question that you want answered by a mediocre mechanic!!!

 

Cool! I was thinking about doing some YJ leaves on my 78. I think the rear of the 76+ may already be YJ width. So really just the front needs work. I am interested to hear about the flex and stability off camber. Let us know!

 

I did the same conversion to mine when it was a bare frame. It’s a lot easier obviously. I think my 3B will get YJ springs but I’ll just buy aftermarket mounts and weld them onto the frame.

 

x2, I have all the parts to install a full set of new yj springs on my 74 when I do my frame off restore. I bought new ome springs, New Crabtree shackles and bushings, all new crabtree frame mounts, and new 1/2 inch u-bolts. Bottom line, all the parts cost almost as much as a R&R kit but I feel like I will have just a little better quality parts.

 

Is that crabtree company still in business?

 

I am not sure, It has been almost 3 years sense I bought my parts from him. the guy has/had a machine shop in Missouri and custom machined them for Jeeps. His name is Jim Crabtree. As I recall he was simi retired and did not work full time any more then. Took him about 2-3 months to get them. I will see if I can find some contact info, If I have it it will be at my brothers shop 30 miles away. Will be over there sometime this week.

 

How long did it take to receive your conversion kit? I ordered the complete ome conversion kit a week ago. Gerald told me 5 -6 weeks to ship.

 

Another testament to the lack of quality etc. of Rocky Road. You have a lot more patience than me. Their website has a "help wanted" ad on the home page, looks like the applicant doesn't even need experience(?) Sad...
Curious: what year is your CJ?
Good luck on your project!

 

It's a 1975 CJ5, I'm patient to a point. If it starts getting ridiculous I'll cancel and look for something else, probably BDS. I'm always open for other suggestions.

 

If your planning on staying spring under, then cancel that garbage order from RR and order the bolt in BDS springs.
If your dead set on YJ springs then you might as well save yourself $500 and DIY it, by the time you install the RR kit…. Then correct all the problems with RR poor designed products, you basically DIY’ed it…. Only you paid RR to educate you.

 

I installed that same conversion on my 75 CJ when I had it. Lucky for me RR is just 100 miles away from where I live. I only had one wrong part, and they sent it out right away. It did take me a week to get this installed, and the biggest problem was access to drill things out in the rear. I had to remove my muffler. Cept for being a PIA to install it went rather well. My problem was the rear shocks were not quite long enough, and I kept breaking the bolt off the lower shock mounts. I stopped at their shop on the way back from Moab and they gave me some different shocks. As for the bolts breaking on the shock mount, I finally bought some weld on shock mounts and welded them so the shock was supported on both sides. The other problem I had was that the front spring perch was off a bit. All the measurements were correct but, no love. Fixed that by grinding the OEM perches off the axle and replacing them with new in the correct location. This was several years ago. The guy who I always asked for is Charlie. He knew his ****. I mighta made a thread here someplace back in the day.

 

Thanks @Criss , I was actually curious as to the year of the o.p.'s post.
so @JustJeff What year is your CJ? Color and "Jeep" logo stamp remind me of my old '73.

I don't want to turn this in to a Rocky Road bash thread but wow the pics and descriptions above just leave me shaking my head.
Being a small biz guy myself I just don't understand why it's so hard to just communicate. A simple email stating that "we're working on your order, sorry for the delay" can work wonders.
Hopefully you guys can get your projects sorted out. I wish I could suggest another source but my Wagon works just fine for me with stock style leaf springs. But I do enjoy seeing what other folks are doing, especially the intermediate types; I have a secret envy for an early '70's CJ-5.

 

This post is not intended to bash on RR Outfitters. It seems that some folks like and have good luck with their stuff. I think the problem with this kit is that it’s marketed as “bolt on”, “simple” and ‘easy”. Building up a custom suspension on our jeeps properly is not that difficult ...but probably not “easy”. Maybe it fits a niche, but this seems like a short cut to avoid having to weld and do any fabrication, actually making a conversion more complicated than it needs to be.

From their site:
“Rocky Road pays attention where all the other suspension companies have ignored... we give you a simple bolton conversion kit for installing Wrangler YJ springs to your CJ 5, CJ6, or M38A1 from 1955-75. Our new kit gives you an easy way to bolt on more articulation with out any adverse effects at all.”

This gives the impression that anybody can just throw it together over the weekend and it will work out great. And maybe it does for some people. Buts there’s lots of variables; Frame boxing/changes; No Saginaw PS conversion is the same; existing winch mounts; different axles, etc, etc. There’s enough variables to throw off shackle angles or axle positioning, and make the otherwise “easy”, “bolt-on kit” a big PITA.

If a guy wants to build a custom YJ suspension on an old Jeep, why not do it well? I fail to see the advantage of this kit with so many quality, prefabbed components out there that actually are easy to work with. The freedom to position everything exactly how you want it and make other improvements and corrections while you’re at it... that alone is worth self-engineering the system.

It does not take long working on old cars to learn that hand-drilling holes in thick steel, over and over pretty much sucks. If you gotta drill a hole, Okay. But many of them? (Of course, the floor jack drill press works pretty well for some inverted holes.) Time and money is better spent on a simple welder and metal working tools, and learning to use them... a little reading, research and practice is all it takes.

Ultimately, It’s not that hard to put your jeep on jack stands, one end at time, remove stuff, cut off the spring hangers, grind the frame clean, and start fresh. Careful measurements, some reference marking, a little planning / forward thinking, and an understanding of axle alignment and front-end geometry are things we can all do. The system can be tacked in place, weighted, measured, tested and double/triple checked before committing to the final steps. In addition to the usual shop tools, just a simple stick welding outfit, some 3/32”-1/8” 7018, and a 4” angle grinder can be enough to get things done right.

 

I think I'll call and see if I can cancel my order. I placed it a week ago so hopefully it won't be a problem.

 

Well I Went & Did It.. Rocky Road Conversion On The Way. | ECJ5 (earlycj5.com)

 

Good write-up. I read along as it was happening. Still have the link to it saved.

 

Funny, I sold my ol 75 to a retired cop down that way. Can't remember his name, but he is a car guy. Had a pristine 60's or 70's GTO in his shop that he had restored. He later sent me pics of my ol Jeep that he re-painted.