product review: Tompkin machine rock rails
IOPort51
NOT the voice of reason Jeep-CJ.com
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- 13,959
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- Location
- Garland Texas
- Vehicle(s)
- 1977 cj-5
4.2 W/MC2100 carb, 4.0 head W/3 angle valves,SS Header,TFI ignition with MSB-6 offroad module,CS144 140 amp RPS alternator with remote regulator T-150,d-20,Dana 44 with OX lock and disk brakes. D-30 with Spartin locker,
skyjacker 2.5 lift?nitro shocks,31" BFG A/T off road.8000 lb Warn winch, original owner.=^)
2006 Toyota Tacoma
Three pictures of the passenger side rail/step/nerf/whatever.
TOMKEN MACHINE - Item Detail
It looks good and it is hell-for -strong. I do believe I could raise the CJ with a high lift with not a lot of trouble. The quality of workmanship is outstanding, the welding is clean and neat and professional looking. the cuts were square and straight. the powder coat paint is as good as I would expect. The over all design is a great piece of work, I am very unpressed with the modular frame mounts. It is a lot easier than holding a section of pipe while trying to put a nut on a bolt. All in all I think I got my money worth in this deal.
I picked these rails because I like the design and the look. I think flat works better than round, it slides better and it is better to stand on. This has all but eliminated the problem of short women climbing into the passenger side seat. If this is to turn out to be a good thing or not is yet to be seen. I think square/rectangular looks better with the overall "brick" appearance of the CJ5. This unit is one of a very small number that is available for the CJ5. I understand this, it's a question of a very small target market.
For me, at this time, for this item, I felt it was cost effective to buy this rather than build it. I still feel good about the decision.
As I said these are shots of the passenger side, that is the only one I have on and I have spent about 5 hours on the project with more than a bit of head scratching. To say that these are easy to install may be not quite the truth. I am a bit picky, I guess, I do expect things to line up with the rest of the machine and be straight and level (when the rest of it is). On the passengers side I found I needed to re drill the holes to hold the rail in the horizontal (2), cut a 3/4 inch spacer to raise the front mount to line the rail parallel with bottom of the rocker panel and cut and drill 1/4 inch shims to take up the slack in the mount clamping to the frame rail, they were just too wide. Most of the head scratching was trying to decide weather I was missing something and not doing the assembly right. The directions are short and to the point when the entire assembly is 10 pieces with hardware you don't need a lot.
The passenger side was the easy side. preliminary look at the driver side says the e-brake cable mount bracket is in conflict with the rear rail mount.I have pretty much decided to keep the E-Brake where it is so this may require a cut and weld to relocate the mount tube a couple of inches. We shall see. And maybe I'm just not looking at it right. I am sure there is some variation in CJ5 frame from year to year so maybe these small problems are unique to the 1977.
TOMKEN MACHINE - Item Detail
It looks good and it is hell-for -strong. I do believe I could raise the CJ with a high lift with not a lot of trouble. The quality of workmanship is outstanding, the welding is clean and neat and professional looking. the cuts were square and straight. the powder coat paint is as good as I would expect. The over all design is a great piece of work, I am very unpressed with the modular frame mounts. It is a lot easier than holding a section of pipe while trying to put a nut on a bolt. All in all I think I got my money worth in this deal.
I picked these rails because I like the design and the look. I think flat works better than round, it slides better and it is better to stand on. This has all but eliminated the problem of short women climbing into the passenger side seat. If this is to turn out to be a good thing or not is yet to be seen. I think square/rectangular looks better with the overall "brick" appearance of the CJ5. This unit is one of a very small number that is available for the CJ5. I understand this, it's a question of a very small target market.
For me, at this time, for this item, I felt it was cost effective to buy this rather than build it. I still feel good about the decision.
As I said these are shots of the passenger side, that is the only one I have on and I have spent about 5 hours on the project with more than a bit of head scratching. To say that these are easy to install may be not quite the truth. I am a bit picky, I guess, I do expect things to line up with the rest of the machine and be straight and level (when the rest of it is). On the passengers side I found I needed to re drill the holes to hold the rail in the horizontal (2), cut a 3/4 inch spacer to raise the front mount to line the rail parallel with bottom of the rocker panel and cut and drill 1/4 inch shims to take up the slack in the mount clamping to the frame rail, they were just too wide. Most of the head scratching was trying to decide weather I was missing something and not doing the assembly right. The directions are short and to the point when the entire assembly is 10 pieces with hardware you don't need a lot.
The passenger side was the easy side. preliminary look at the driver side says the e-brake cable mount bracket is in conflict with the rear rail mount.I have pretty much decided to keep the E-Brake where it is so this may require a cut and weld to relocate the mount tube a couple of inches. We shall see. And maybe I'm just not looking at it right. I am sure there is some variation in CJ5 frame from year to year so maybe these small problems are unique to the 1977.
