Novak Conversions Jeep Wrangler TJ engine mounts

I'm done!

Irun

Irun

A vicious cycle of doing, undoing, and re-doing!
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Virginia
For years I've been an advocate of Savvy products.Over the last 2 years I've been looking for LJ corners, to no avail. They have sold their soul to the devil and I'm done. While their products are the best, the business motives are not. There, I've said it. My only hope is that @mrblaine will replace what they have left a void in!
 
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Pretty much. Was really hoping to grab rocker guards and corner armor from them, but looks like that's never going to happen. Genright was/is looking like the next best thing, I think?
 
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Gerald promised us the Heritage Line. Is there not going to be a Heritage Line? 🤣
 
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Irun said:
For years I've been an advocate of Savvy products.Over the last 2 years I've been looking for LJ corners, to no avail. They have sold their soul to the devil and I'm done. While their products are the best, the business motives are not. There, I've said it. My only hope is that @mrblaine will replace what they have left a void in!
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What's changed?
 
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NskLJ said:
Is there any difference from the genright to the Savvy sides other than the bolt pattern
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Not that I’m aware of. I think it’s the tailgate pattern that is most concerning. The corners are good.
 
JMT said:
Not that I’m aware of. I think it’s the tailgate pattern that is most concerning. The corners are good.
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Only difference I saw between ours was the bolt locations on the top. I wouldn't have known which was which if you handed me both.
 
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NskLJ said:
Is there any difference from the genright to the Savvy sides other than the bolt pattern
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I believe @sab put in some effort to get his GR corners installed in a manner that made him happy. I wonder if those efforts would have been necessary when installing Savvy corners.
 
Irun said:
That's where I'm leaning. At least they are consistent!
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As I understand it, from reading many comments about them on here, Savvy has been consistent for a few years now. Consistently great products, consistently hard to get hold of and consistently inconsistent customer service. All this due to it being a hobby with a business tacked onto the side. Following the sale (which the previous owner seemed loathed to admit had happened), if this is actually a real business for the new owners and there is a business case for the TJ side of things in time they may very well professionalise it. But if there is no viable TJ business there, as a business why should they do so, they bought the business to make money.
 
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Stinkbug said:
I am wondering if the dude that bought Savvy has any regrets…
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Just one. :unsure:

1690707392320.png
 
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NskLJ said:
Is there any difference from the genright to the Savvy sides other than the bolt pattern
Click to expand...

Mikee024 said:
I believe @sab put in some effort to get his GR corners installed in a manner that made him happy. I wonder if those efforts would have been necessary when installing Savvy corners.
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Yes, I did spend some time getting the Genrights to be more like the Savvys for my LJ:
  • I had to trim the bottom front edges to be parallel to the sliders/bottom of the tub (I believe that's a typical thing done, even with the Savvys)
  • I added quite a few mounting points, copying Mr. Blaine's Savvy design as best I could. If I remember correctly, I added multiple holes at the rear on either side of the tailgate, holes at the rear of the sides where the tangent point of the tub corners is (top and bottom), holes about midway up on either side of the wheel cutout, and multiple holes at the front on the sides. I have a drill press, so getting the countersink square to the panel and setting depth correctly was easy (if someone looks closely, they can tell which one was the first one because it's a bit to deep and my speed was too fast - it chattered.) Doing that freehand would be tricky.
  • Even though my tub has the stock wheel cutouts, and I ordered the Genrights for that, I ended up having to re-cut the entire wheel cutouts because they were too small. That may be done on purpose by Genright (to make up for the wide tolerances of used TJs), but it wasn't in the instructions.
  • Some of the precut holes needed slight tweaking to line up. In particular, the gas tank hole and mounting screw holes were slightly off. As adjusted, it's un-noticeable unless you really, really look at it.
  • I want to run the stock Rubicon flares, and none of the holes for the mounting bolts were drilled, so I had to mark those and drill them. Same for the two holes for the inner fender liner "darts." I actually just added those (after painting) because I had forgotten about them.
  • As PNW_LJ noted, the hardware from Genright is not so good. They use Allen heads instead of the #4 Phillips that Mr. Blaine uses. They also use non-flanged nuts instead of Mr. Blaine's serrated flange-head nuts. I bought a bag of the #4 Phillips screws and serrated flange-head nuts from McMaster-Carr, which made mounting so much easier.
  • Also as PNW_LJ noted, the Genright backer plates, for which they charge an extra $70, are horrible. They are 1" or 1.5" formed angles with three holes in them (one per side). I made my own aluminum backers (two per side), again as close to Mr. Blaine's design as I could surmise (I've never seen a set of Savvy corners in person, and detailed photos were hard to find.)
I had the corners off and on countless times lining everything up. I don't recall how many hours I spent fitting them, but it was on the order of 15-20, I think. It could have been more. I also spent an hour or two on the backer plates and an hour or two sourcing the aluminum for the plates and researching/ordering hardware and tooling. I know that getting corners from Savvy would have been considerably cheaper and saved a bunch of time, but that is a current impossibility. However, now that they are painted and installed, I am very happy with them.

Here's the two posts I made in the "What did you do to your TJ today?" thread about my corner project:

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/what-did-you-do-to-your-tj-today.1784/post-1339332
https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/what-did-you-do-to-your-tj-today.1784/post-1367485
I still have to figure out what to do about my sliders. I have the RockSlideEngineering step sliders (love them or hate them, I know), but I want to put full-length aluminum sliders beneath them to protect the tub. The Savvy's will work perfectly, but they're unobtainable. I'm pretty close to making some myself. I'll have to find a shop with a press big enough and the know-how to make the bend, though. I don't have such a press at my disposal.
 
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The lj blanks say available on backorder bit we all know by now what that means when it comes to Savvy. Unless someone has had recent success ordering those and the order getting filled.
 
Novak Conversions Jeep Wrangler TJ engine mounts
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