What products are Jeep guys into?

[EVOLUTION]

Just thinking ahead... what sorts of aftermarket products are you guys interested in putting on your Jeeps? 

[cLAY]

Still waiting for a bolt on anti-gravity device.......

[silverfox]

Wheels
Tires
Bumpers
Armour
Winches
Lights (both aftermarket extras and OEM upgrades)
Tops (Hard and Soft)
Recovery gear (Jacks, Tree Savers, Straps, D Rings, Compressors)
Lift Kits/parts
Hard Parts
Decals (ok maybe that's just me)
Radio's and accessories
Performance parts (exhaust, air-filters, chips)
Snorkels


And Definitely the anti-gravity device

and on and on.

But it would seem to me that once I have most stuff then the need/want would be less .................... ahhh who am I kidding then I will just try new stuff.

[AV.NINE]

Clay you should design a weld in trail cage that mounts to the b piller. Like poly's or poison spyder's trail cage. An evo take on it would be awesome.

That and tube clamp high lift mounts.

[yyc_tbird_sc]

I've got a very simple thing....a leaf spring bolt that will NEVER seize up in the bushing!

[snodawg]

Body armor, bumpers, full cage, tires, wheels, lighting, recovery gear.

[EVOLUTION]

Clay you should design a weld in trail cage that mounts to the b piller. Like poly's or poison spyder's trail cage. An evo take on it would be awesome.

That and tube clamp high lift mounts.

He's designed lots of weld-on cages that mount to the bpillar... at one time we had about 5 in stock & couldn't even give them away so he stopped making them... but we should still have the numbers, I'll take a look.  The one at Poly looks like you would cut the existing Bpillar & then the new piece would fit into it & bolt on, while you weld the other front pieces to the side bars.  is that correct?  

The high lift mounts are pretty cool... maybe I could get Clay to see if he can machine/mill something like it.


Currently he is designing a pretty spiffy joint that will make cross over steering for the jeep a snap.  When we get it in the Comanche & have some time to test it out I will post it up.  He also designed some upper & lower control arms for the Comanche that are pretty cool & will allow for a 6" lift or so...

I'll let him know about the anti-gravity device... he is always up for a new challenge


Thanks, keep 'em comin'.

[EVOLUTION]

I've got a very simple thing....a leaf spring bolt that will NEVER seize up in the bushing!

We're already workin on it

[CatSplat]

Well, since you asked and you're a machine/fab shop...

If a machining place came up with a bracket that allowed us ZJ guys to upgrade their front brakes without swapping to WJ knuckles and steering, it would sell like hotcakes. ZJ brakes are pathetic single-piston things, and yet our only upgrade options are 1) WJ knuckle swap, requires some spacer welding, all new steering components from JKS, etc. Tough to do correctly for less than $700 or so, and you lose ABS so it's not great for DDs. 2) is the Vanco brake upgrade, which is a modified knuckle with a Vanco bracket that lets you mount WJ (big) or Cobra (smaller) calipers. Vanco absolutely will not sell the brackets separately, you can only buy them as part of the $1000 upgrade kit with knuckles, calipers, rotors, pads, etc. The knuckle modification is basically grinding off the caliper tabs and drill/tapping two extra holes in the knuckle for the bracket - not exactly rocket science.

Vanco kit:


In Australia there's a kit that uses a similar process to mount Corvette calipers. Probably overkill, WJ ones are more common and work just fine. That kit uses a different bracket again, but only requires the caliper tabs to be removed from the knuckle with no extra drilling/tapping as it uses all 3 hub bolts rather than the Vanco's 2+2.

This page has some good info on it, you can see the brackets in the picture of the kit and in the install photos.
http://go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoFordBAdiscs1.htm


So, yeah. If somebody made a bracket that allowed me to mount WJ calipers on my ZJ knuckle after grinding off the existing caliper mounts, even if I had to drill/tap a couple extra holes in the knuckle, I would buy it tomorrow. Design the caliper spacing for a rotor with matching bolt pattern (say, from a 2003ish Explorer Sport Trac) and it would be a brilliant brake upgrade for the notoriously budget-conscious ZJ community and likely sell like crazy.


That may not be the kind of answer you were looking for, but damnit that's the answer you're getting, haha.

[w squared]

Aren't we missing the obvious here? JEep guys are into beer. And Bacon!

[EVOLUTION]

Well, since you asked and you're a machine/fab shop...

If a machining place came up with a bracket that allowed us ZJ guys to upgrade their front brakes without swapping to WJ knuckles and steering, it would sell like hotcakes. ZJ brakes are pathetic single-piston things, and yet our only upgrade options are 1) WJ knuckle swap, requires some spacer welding, all new steering components from JKS, etc. Tough to do correctly for less than $700 or so, and you lose ABS so it's not great for DDs. 2) is the Vanco brake upgrade, which is a modified knuckle with a Vanco bracket that lets you mount WJ (big) or Cobra (smaller) calipers. Vanco absolutely will not sell the brackets separately, you can only buy them as part of the $1000 upgrade kit with knuckles, calipers, rotors, pads, etc. The knuckle modification is basically grinding off the caliper tabs and drill/tapping two extra holes in the knuckle for the bracket - not exactly rocket science.

Vanco kit:


In Australia there's a kit that uses a similar process to mount Corvette calipers. Probably overkill, WJ ones are more common and work just fine. That kit uses a different bracket again, but only requires the caliper tabs to be removed from the knuckle with no extra drilling/tapping as it uses all 3 hub bolts rather than the Vanco's 2+2.

This page has some good info on it, you can see the brackets in the picture of the kit and in the install photos.
http://go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoFordBAdiscs1.htm


So, yeah. If somebody made a bracket that allowed me to mount WJ calipers on my ZJ knuckle after grinding off the existing caliper mounts, even if I had to drill/tap a couple extra holes in the knuckle, I would buy it tomorrow. Design the caliper spacing for a rotor with matching bolt pattern (say, from a 2003ish Explorer Sport Trac) and it would be a brilliant brake upgrade for the notoriously budget-conscious ZJ community and likely sell like crazy.


That may not be the kind of answer you were looking for, but damnit that's the answer you're getting, haha.

This is actually great... new products that make our lives easier are what we're all about.  I'll forward this to Clay and see what he thinks.  Thanks for the input!!

[CatSplat]

Glad I could help, I really hope you make that work. As a side note, since all the knuckle designs for D30s are identical, any bracket you make should work perfectly on ZJs, XJs, and TJs. I just speak from a ZJ perspective because I know how badly the stock brakes suck at stopping the heavier Jeeps.

[AV.NINE]

Any link to pics of the old trail cage? I had no idea evo did that. Advertising works people!

I'd be interested in a cage for sure. (Through dash to floor/frame mount)

[EVOLUTION]

Any link to pics of the old trail cage? I had no idea evo did that. Advertising works people!

I'd be interested in a cage for sure. (Through dash to floor/frame mount)

We've done 100's of cages from simple DIY weld-on tubes to full on tube chassis.  All the work here is 100%custom to the owners vehicle so usually we need your vehicle here in order to build something (however there is about a 6month+ waiting list right now due to 4-5 full builds we are working on).  I'll see if I can come up with some pics of the trail cages we did before... we're rebuilding our forums so we've been going through a lot of old photos.  You can check our forums for photos too... or the facebook page... we will be posting a lot more as we rebuild the threads.

[apeman]

Cant wait for the bushwacker sale!! Any ideas when that will be? I will start counting my pennies....