Rough Country 6.5" long arm - first impressions

[WraithKWK]

thanks guys, I'm guessing either they dont have a 242 version or they sent me the wrong one. I tried to call but its after hours. I will have to wait tell Monday.

 

[WraithKWK]

I just e-mailed RC and attached the pictures I posted we will see what happens.

 

[Mach2nh]

Doesn't the 231 and 242 have different clocking? Or am i thinking wrangler 231 vs XJ 231.... Hmmm

 

[Mach2nh]

6.5 long arm kit part# Perf618 - NP242 & Perf672 - NP231. What kit # did you end up with?

 

[WraithKWK]

Give me a minute to check

 

[WraithKWK]

1 Kit PERF618 - XJ 6" LNG ARM

2 Sale 9275 - JEEP XJ 6.5" COILS
3 Sale PERF2.24XJ - XJ 2.2 SHOCK BOX
4 Sale 1079 - XJ 4-6"TRK ROD KIT
5 Sale 1689BOX3 - 689 KIT BOX
6 Sale 1689BOX4 - 689 KIT BOX
7 Sale 1077 - ADSTBLE REAR XJ SHAKL
8 Sale 1689BOX1 - 689 KIT BOX
9 Sale 1616BOX1 - XJ LNG ARM BOX KT 242
10 Sale 8047 - JEEP XJ 84-01 4" RR
11 Sale 1117 - XJ SHACKLE RELOC KIT

 

[WraithKWK]

 

[WraithKWK]

So it turns out me switching to the 4 cylinder Trans mount was the problem. RC told me to put my stock one back in and push the tranny over.

Once I did that there was a ton of clearance around my 242 TC. The guy also told me that if they had given me the Cross member for the 231 I never would have gotten the CM to bolt up.

Downside is my drivetrain now sits a bit crooked

 

[scottmcneal]

What type of motor mounts do you have?
You should have only moved it over no more than a 1/4 inch to get in the mount. Thats about what i had to do on both of the kits i installed.

 

[WraithKWK]

1/4" is right,
OEM mounts from oriley I think

 

[travisk]

Here's my 1 year/5,000 mile review after mistakenly buying an XJ with a new Rough Country long arm kit on it last year:

Within the first year:

• Track bar rod end failed - no support from Rough Country until I posted a Youtube video of the failure
• Front shock bushings failed - no support from Rough Country
• Rear shackle angle bad - Completely vertical until I installed relocation brackets
• Long arm crossmember makes working on the transfer case/transmission a real pain in the ass
• Both sway bar disconnect bolts broke at inopportune times, causing momentary butt pucker on the road

Everything else seems OK so far, but my overall experience is extremely poor. Their allegedly wonderful customer support has been nothing but a waste of time for me. Obviously I should have done more research before buying a jeep with this kit, but I was a dumb noob. Live and learn. I suspect that I will eventually replace almost every part of this kit. Do I sound bitter?

 

[blistovmhz]

Here's my 1 year/5,000 mile review after mistakenly buying an XJ with a new Rough Country long arm kit on it last year:

Within the first year:

• Track bar rod end failed - no support from Rough Country until I posted a Youtube video of the failure
• Front shock bushings failed - no support from Rough Country
• Rear shackle angle bad - Completely vertical until I installed relocation brackets
• Long arm crossmember makes working on the transfer case/transmission a real pain in the ass
• Both sway bar disconnect bolts broke at inopportune times, causing momentary butt pucker on the road

Everything else seems OK so far, but my overall experience is extremely poor. Their allegedly wonderful customer support has been nothing but a waste of time for me. Obviously I should have done more research before buying a jeep with this kit, but I was a dumb noob. Live and learn. I suspect that I will eventually replace almost every part of this kit. Do I sound bitter?

Aside from the support aspect, and swaybar links, I'm in agreement with all of the above.
The CM makes it a big pain in the ass to work on transmission/tcase, and of course, it makes use of the third (forward) CM frame nut, which on most jeeps is rusted real bad. On mine, the bolt broke free from the nut and I'll have to drill out the frame nut and find another way to secure the CM. I may just say **** it and redesign the CM so that it bolts to a plate I'll weld onto the frame.

The shocks are crap. I blew through the first set of N2.2's in about 2 hours of somewhat rough roads. RC immediately overnighted me another complete set without any questions, but they blew out as well. They sent me some N2.0's instead for the third try, and they haven't blown out, but they ride like shit on the road (they're extremely harsh to the point that small speed bumps I can smoke at 40km/h with my lowered civic, are absolutely painful to hit with my 6.5" lifted Jeep. I'm going to throw them out today and stick an old set of Rancho's in tonight.

I also had an issue with their older shock bushings wearing out in under a month of driving.

That said, I still strongly commend their support. I've pointed out lots of design flaws and material failures in the past (which I'll recap) but every failure they've made a serious attempt to make right.

THE GOOD:

When their RC12000 winch arrived with a kink in the steel rope and the motor sounded awfully grindy, they sent me a new complete winch and let me keep the old one for parts. They messed up the order and sent me another winch with another Steel rope, when I'd asked for Synthetic, but they had no issue firing out the new synth line for free as well.
The winch itself makes a lot of noise, and it's not quite as fast as a $1600 WARN, but it's $1300 cheaper, pulls just as hard, and seems to be constructed almost identically. I actually took apart my RC12000 to compare it to a buddies WARN 8000 and the RC looks to be better designed for longevity. I've done probably 40 big pulls with it thus far, so it's paid for itself at least 40 times over and shows no sign of impending failure.
The wireless remote is pretty cheezy. I'll be building a new case for it as its' bulky and the decal face peeled off just sitting on my headliner.
All in all though, a terrifying amount of winch for $350. At that price, you can blow through 5 of them before making it worth buying a WARN. I've done more pulls on my first RC12000, in one year, than most people will ever do with their WARN in a lifetime, and I have every confidence it'll continue pulling me out of a few hundred more bad decisions in the future.

The Long Arms have held up to a tonne of abuse. I've done jumps and landed the CA's on boulders and barely left a scratch. I drive river beds and boulder gardens at the top end of 4th in 4L all day, and no issues with the X-Flex joints whatsoever.

The shackle angle sucks by itself, but works fine with the drop shackle mount (which they sent for free because I wasn't happy with the shackle angle). Both have held up to everything I've thrown at it. Yes, I'd prefer greaseable shackles, but these were cheap and in almost 2 years of hard wheeling and playing in mud and silt, they show no signs of wear.\

The swaybar discos have held up fine. I've had no problems with them. I ran them in the stock location for almost two years, and am now running them with my WJ knuckles, which means I had to relocate the link pins above the steering. I recently managed to break my swaybar in half while out wheeling (it was connected because I forgot to relocate the storage pins, and didn't have anything to tie up the links at the time). If they'll survive the force required to break a swaybar in half, I think they've done their job.


THE BAD:

The shocks are all garbage. If I'd only tested set of one model, I might be more cautious with my wording, but I've tried their N2.2, N2.0 and their older series shocks. The 2.2's are clearly for highway use only. They ride real nice on pavement, they soak up small (on road) bumps very well, but they blow out immediately on even a rough gravel road, let alone when out wheeling. The N2.0 shocks are much beefier internally (despite being smaller diameter piston and arm) but ride like shit in all conditions. Their only saving grace is when doing jumps. They do jumps real nice. So nice that I often don't know if I've left the ground in the first place. I figured that out a few weeks ago when I unintentionally jumped a set of train tracks. When I hit it, I didn't know anything had happened, but heard a horrible scraping sound. Realized it came from the car beside me that had just been about 2 feet in the air My buddy behind me confirmed all 4 of my wheels were in the air as well. Didn't even notice in the Jeep though.
The older shocks are cheap and the bushings wore out in less than a month.

The cross member is poorly designed. I don't know if they sent me the CM for the 242 by accident, but it wouldn't line up with my trans mount. RC told me this was normal and to just install the CM and THEN drop the trans mount down and that it would line up. It didn't and I just forced it over an inch to fit. Besides that, the CM bolts all the way across the bottom of the jeep in one piece, so if you wanna take out your tranny, you have to remove the entire CM, which means removing the entire front axle as well. This is retarded. They should have had the CA mounts bolt to the frame, and had the CM bolt to the CA mounts. I'll be modifying mine to do this as I've gotta pull everything to do my clutch now.

Leaf springs... *sigh*. RC really tried... But ultimately failed. The first set was 2" too saggy. REAL flexy and nice, but 2" too low. So they sent me another set, which was also 2" low. So they sent me another set, which was a little better, but still 1.25" low. To compensate, they sent me a free set of shackle drops which solved the problem, but then the bushings blew out of the leafs on my first wheeling trip. All 4 blew out. Swapped to another set of their springs, and same deal. All 4 bushings slid out of the leaf and the leafs all started banging against the frame. Gave up and installed my old RE leaf pack.

Track bar. Neope. It's the right shape, and the bar itself if fine. Everything lines up and there's no bumpsteer. As others have commented though, the ends wear out real fast. I got about 2 months before the axle end started clicking on every little bump. The upper end (non replaceable) held up just fine, but it's just a rubber bushing.

Frame side track bar mount. Too much track bar beef attached to too little frame beef. The track bar drops another 2". This keeps angles nice but puts an enormous amount of torque on the frame rail. Shouldn't even be installed unless you plan on adding a support brace from the mount (just above the track bar hole) to the passenger side frame rail. Without this, the extra long frame side mount will twist the shit out of your already weak frame rail, that also has to contend with steering forces. Add a brace and the mount itself is bomber. I'm still using it, but braced to the passenger side.


At the end of the day, I recommend people avoid their leafs, shocks, trackbar, and Cross member. The CM is beefy, and it'll work fine once you've cut it apart and redesigned it to allow removal of the CM without removing the axle.

The Long arms, coil springs, winch, and shackles/shackle drops are awesome.
I won't say "awesome for the price" for any of these. They're awesome no matter how you look at it. The Long arms are beefier than almost everything I've seen on the market, the angles are very nice and add an extra 2-4" of ground clearance over other CA's. I wouldn't trade them for anything.
The coil springs have a very nice spring curve to them. You can easily stuff a 33" into the wheel well without really moving the front of the Jeep.
Shackles aren't greaseable, but thus far I haven't seen a need for it any way, and the shackle drops are bomber. All for about 1/3 the price of the next cheapest competitor.
Swaybar links won against the swaybar. Nuff said.

 

[WraithKWK]

So I have only manages to wheel this thing twice now

Coming from my RC 3 inch lift, I'm very impressed.
In some aspects it's way better than I could have hoped for. Yet lacking in others.

Overall I'm very happy, I just have to fine tune it a bit more as time and money allows.

My shocks are bouncy as hell, But did not blow on my first trip out.
My front end flexes way better than I ever thought it would.
My rear does not flex much at all, it makes the fronts do all the work.
Bad shackle angle but I have the brackets to fix it.
Those brackets are not bolt in on a renix XJ.
I have a lot more bump steer than before a lot more. but that is probably my fault and i need to align it better.

 

[WraithKWK]

Leaf springs... *sigh*. RC really tried... But ultimately failed. The first set was 2" too saggy. REAL flexy and nice, but 2" too low.

My jeep sits perfectly flat and even, without the relocation brackets.

 

[blistovmhz]

My jeep sits perfectly flat and even, without the relocation brackets.

RC has had some production/QC issues for a long time. I remember a few years back I got a set of their leafs that works perfect, and are still being beaten on today. But then 2 years ago, 3 sets in a row and all wrong spring rate and all the bushings just flew out. They really need to work on their QC, especially after changing manufacturers.