3 Tons of Fun! Littles 2nd Gen Taco and BMW E46 Build with B.S. and travel pics

It was about 8 weeks from order to my door. I dont really have specs as they built them based on what information I provided.

Looking back at my emails I misstated the rear axle weight...post edited accordingly. It was 1300lbs of gear that I had estimated between the topper, tent, swingout, drawers, tools, spare, water and fuel. 3400lbs on the axle by alcans guesstimate based on what I sent them.

The exact response I got from Bill at alcan was: "Boy you do have a load on the Truck! I would imagine 3200 3400# on rear axle. So you are pretty close on the 1300# tools and gear."

 

That makes more sense. Haha I just looked mine up and was around 2740 for my rear axle.

 

Coming soon...

 

Subbed

 

This is a killer picture.

Hard no.
Too high.

Man that's cool.
...I want to move.

That settles it. I'm moving.

Just went through your build, great pictures and trip reports. You've got a really well put together truck, too. Hope to see you on the trail one day!

 

Thanks man, I really appreciate the kind words and compliments. I promise I will not be able to get through all 90+ pages of your build thread anywhere near as fast.

I guess I might as well post a minor update while I'm here. Dual battery setup is more or less complete. Just need to run wires to the cab for the switch. The biggest bitch of the install was having to run a new wire from the battery to the starter since the factory wiring is not long enough to accommodate the battery being turned 90 degrees. Getting the factory wiring out of this little plastic holder was a pain.



I re-used the old starter wire to extend the wire to the fuse box as that was a little on the short side as well. Did the fancy HKB voltage booster in the fuse panel to give proper AGM charging voltage.



I was a little concerned about the proximity of the ridiculously large, totally overkill battery terminals to the aluminum mounting bracket for the ML-ACR. You can see I took an angle grinder to the positive terminal on the left to give me some more space. So far I have no concerns about it shifting in there unless something catastrophic happens with the dual battery bracket. Or it gets really wet and something arcs. I am hoping that doesnt happen as my truck will most likely burn to the ground.

That's all for now on mods...more updates to come. I'll drop some recent pictures from our trip out to Buena Vista camping off Mt. Antero.

Josh hating on the ridiculous sized stump we threw in the fire and trying to make it reasonable...





Super sketchy spot we should not have tried to get through. It took us quite a while to pile rocks and shovel dirt so that we didnt slide of fthe road. Probably 2-3 hours at this spot.



And there were some pretty bad slides covered with snow and debris lower on the trail. Passable at the time, but when the snow melts theres a lot of cutting to be done.

 

Haha don't worry about it, it's mostly BS. It was called my build and BS too thread but it ended up becoming a BS thread with some build too lol




Damn, sketchy spot is sketchy!

 

Alright...cats outta the bag so I might as well get started with my build thread updates.

I was trying to keep the crawl box mod on the DL from all my local CO buddies so I could just show up on the trail one day and walk up obstacles like a boss...but I said too much on the FJ case threads and have been exposed. So here it is...the story of the crawlbox that no one wanted...



I am at least the 4th owner of this crawlbox since it was built my marlin, but I will be the first one to install it after I overcome a few obstacles specific to the 6-speed manual trans. The crawlbox is not transmission specific, however there are two very important parts that allow you bolt it to the transmission that are different between the auto and the manual.

One of them is the transmission seal extension housing, which allows you to install an oil seal between the trans and crawl box to keep the trans oil inside the trans and vice versa. This one is easy if you have one to copy or know the dimensions. Lucky for me, my good friend @HomerTaco had one laying around from his crawlbox install back in 2016 when he ran into this issue and had to have one machined. It's just a machined piece of aluminum and not too terribly hard to replicate. Also, I'm fairly confident these are readily available from marlin...but its marlin so I'd rather have one machined at twice the cost then give them my money.

Here they are side by side for the manual (left) and auto (right).



The second piece of the puzzle is the spline coupler that joins the output shaft of the trans to the input on the crawl box. On the auto, it's a simple 23 female to 23 spline female sleeve.



Unfortunately, the 6 speed manual transmissions have a larger 22 spline FEMALE output, which requires a 22 spline male to 23 spline female coupling. Even more unfortunate is the fact that (as of this posting) no one makes them anymore... not even marlin. They never did. Inchworm is the only company I know of that used to make this spline adapter and back in the old days, even if you ordered a crawl box from Marlin for a 6-speed, you got an inchworm adapter. Inchworm is no more, so us 6 speed guys are up shit's creek without a paddle while we wait for marlin to get their shit together and make their own adapter for their own crawl boxes. They are too busy focusing on their long travel setup and lca gussets to concern themselves with making an adapter for their existing products and theres enough demand from the autos to sell out crawl boxes as fast as they can build them (which isnt very fast), so it's tough titties for us MT guys. To Marlins credit, they are super friendly and informative on the phone, but they continue to spread incorrect information regarding the spline count despite the fact that numerous people (myself included) have pointed out that they are wrong. I called them and offered to work with them and come up with an adapter design that would work and they told me that they are going to do it their way on their timeline. As a result, I have an unjustifiable animosity towards Marlin. Unfortunately they are the only game in town. I know that ultimately marlin got paid, but I'm glad I gave my money to another member and not directly to marlin.

I called everyone I had heard of who makes or deals with crawl boxes for tacos trying to find an adapter. Trail Gear, RST, low range, yota masters....I went as far as to roll the dice on a coupling from Advance Adapters for their atlas tcase knowing it likely would not work. It has the proper 22 spline male end, but the 23 spline side is also male and a completely different spline size despite having 23 splines.



So I said fuck marlin and fuck this shit and decided to get my own adapter machined. I bought an FJ case, dropped my taco case, pulled them both apart, removed the input shafts and took them both to a machine shop so that they have the 22 and 23 spline patterns to work from.

Count 'em...there are 22 splines. Get your shit together Marlin and stop telling people it's a 19 spline input.




Ok...anti-marlin rant over for the moment.

As it turns out, you cant just go to any machine shop for this. You need a machine shop that does hobbing and gearing. I found 1 shop near denver that could do the work and they are currently turning 5 adapters for me at the low low cost of $600 a piece. I am keeping 1 as a spare and trying to sell the 3 others.

I'll post more details of my journey shortly. Despite all the challenges I'm having a blast with this!

 

Dude what a pita...that’s awesome you found a solution. I just wanted to add that I got to wheel with Marlin this year and he is one of the nicest most helpful guys you could meet out on a trail. I have not done business with them yet though, so no comment there. Jealous of the taco box!

 

Good info. I'm hoping that some guys with more disposable income than me can help with continued development and cheaper sources for adapters.

 

Bravo kiddo!

 

So here's the tear down of my VF2A FJ transfer case. Supposedly out of a clean 2007 automatic Florida FJ with 175K on the odometer. I know there's other write-ups out there...but there are some minor details that I wanted to mention in my own write up.

From what I've read, you want your tcase in 2wd before splitting it or you'll have the added challenge of properly positioning two little keys necessary for the tcase to properly shift into 4wd on the fly. I put it in 2wd so I did not run into this issue and I dont have pictures, but just a warning to be mindful of.

I started with removing sensors. Bottom single sensor is 2wd / 4wd. Top right is low range. Top left is the neutral indicator which the MT tacoma doesn't have and wont be used in my setup. You can use the existing FJ sensors or swap in the sensors off your taco case to retain the connectors if you like, but either way these wires will get extended and wired directly to the dash indicators in my set up as I removed the 4wd ECU and ADD on the front diff. On my truck, red and white is 2wd/4wd. Yellow and white is high low. Neutral is just chillin for me as there is no dash indicator and now that I will have 3 ways to get to neutral it seems silly to wire up an indicator just for the tcase. More on wiring later.


Next unstake the nut holding the flange for front output shaft and pull it off. I used a cheapo 2 jaw puller for this and it popped off quite easily.



Remove the Allen head nut holding the hi/lo detent spring and ball...a magnetic tool is very useful here. Removing this will let you slide the hi/lo rail out easily so you can pull the pill between the shift rails. You can leave the 2wd/4wd spring on the other side as your grinding for the twin stick happens on the hi / lo rail.




Next remove the 12 x 12mm bolts holding the case together and use a pry bar and hammer to carefully break the seal and separate the halves.



Once the case is split, pull the hi/lo rail from its slot if it didnt come out when splitting the case. Mine did. Shove your magnet in the detent spring hole and pull the pill...you can see it through the shift rail tunnel in the picture below:


Since my hi/lo rail stayed with the front half of the tcase, I removed this next along with the hi/lo shift sleeve sitting on the low range planetary gear.


Now it's time to get the angle grinder and let sparks fly. This is were I wanted to emphasize that you not only need to grind the nub that horizontally crosses the shift rails, but you also need to grind it down vertically as the high low rail has a taller nub on the front that can interfere with proper operation of some double and triple shifters.
Said differently, you need to grind it from two dimensions...x and y.

This is an easy nuance to miss!

Horizontal or x axis:



Vertical or y axis:


Ok so now the fun part is over. No more sparks.

If you're just doing an FJ case into an auto without a crawl box then replace any seals/bearings you feel inclined to replace and button that baby back up in reverse order. I'm only doing seals but not the bearings in my FJ case with 175k. For me that's input shaft and front output seals, oil pump seal, and shift rod seals.

If you're working with a manual, you'll want to swap over the speed sensor and extend the wires accordingly under the truck. On certain VF2A cases from 4 runners, you may or may not have the worm gear necessary for the MT speedo sensor. Just take a peak inside the case...if you see tiny gears on the shaft you're good. If you dont, you need to pull the rear casing off both the FJ and tacoma tcase output and swap the worm gear for the smooth sleeve. Not a problem for me so no further instructions on this but details are in the FJ case thread I'll link to later.





More to come...

 

Nice write up bro. You got way more in depth than I did. I just dropped out my taco case and installed the FJ case. Still running ADD off of a switch though. Mine is an auto trans. Crawl box envy. I want one.

 

Thanks man. The next 2 weeks will be interesting. I'm quickly running out of time to get this done before Moab despite my best efforts to coordinate all the steps.

Splitting the cases and pulling input shafts wasnt necessary, but it was preferable to taking them both of the cases, and it at least allowed me to bolt the the crawl box up and test fit shifters and measure drive shafts. Plus I figured worst case scenario I can swap my taco case input into the FJ case if the adapter didnt work, but now I've modified the drive shafts so I'm committed.

If i recall correctly, you had to do a lot more work to fit your sticks cleanly. You kept the j-shift and came up through that coin slot on the right side of the auto shift lever, correct?

 

Yes. Because it’s an Auto I had to get creative.

 

These next steps are necessary only if you're doing FJ tcase swap into a manual trans without a crawl box. The crawlbox output is the same 23 spline as the FJ case, but if you're not installing a crawl box then you need to swap planetary gears sets to get that 22 spline input for the manual over yo your FJ case.

Remov the plate with the oil filter covering the oil pump. Remove the three bolts holding it in and it to get that out.


Behind the oil pump plate theres a magnet to collect any metal shaving floating around in the tcase oil. This fits in a slot on the tcase


Next remove the 3 bolts on the oil pump. Pull that out, then the gear behind it. You can see the slotni mentioned for that magnet in the photo below.




Next grab that magnetic tool and pull the split bearing out of the planetary gear set. It's just sitting in there.



Okay now you can flip the case over and remove the bolts holding the input flange.



Now the only thing left is a snap ring that holds the planetary gear in. Place a towel or rag under the planetary gear to soften the fall or turn the case on its side so it doesn't drop out and get damaged I used a screw driver to carefully pry off the snap ring.

A word of caution here...I was not wearing gloves and my screwdriver slipped off the snap ring and i sliced my knuckle pretty deep against the edge of the tcase. Lots of blood and cursing. And with that you're all done dissembling!

 

So fresh and so clean! Nice work on that!

 

Tear down of the taco case is virtually the same as the FJ case so I won't cover it in detail.

In contrast to the FJ, the shift rails on the taco case run through the middle of the case and not the top. The position sensors are on the actuator instead of the top of the case. The holes that were in the FJ case are filled in on the top of the taco case. You can swap your sensors if want to keep the same plugs, but you will have to extend wires anyway regardless if installing a crawl box. There is no neutral sensor on the taco case.


Filled in sensor holes on taco case:

Taco case:

FJ case:


With both cases apart and input shafts at the machine shop, I figured I might as well get to work fingering out the shifters. Just for fun I bolted up the tacobox to the FJ case without the input shaft and attached my shifters. I went with Radesigns triple stick setup and no lie I spent like 20 minutes just shifting through everything in my living room repeatedly, grinning ear to ear the entire time.



To cut the hole, I unbolted the the crawl box from the tcase and bolted that up to the trans on its own. Much easier to manage just the taco box versus the whole assembly. Even so, the bastard still slipped from my grasp and I damaged the edge of the tacobox. Fortunately not in an important place where it impacts the seal surface...but still

I marked the four corners, dropped the tacobox, and then drilled a small hole at each one. Then I took the angle grinder inside the cab and went to town. I bolted the crawl box back on the trans and checked my work. Nailed it!





Edit: whenever working around the top of the crawl box, do yourself a favor and tape off the opening especially when installing the shifters. I foolishly had one of the bolts for the shifter in my hand while trying to thread the the others and it dropped into the crawlbox. I had a terrible panic attack until I got back under the truck and was able to see it sitting on the bottom of the crawlbox in wasy reach of my magnet through a hole in the adapter plate. Dont be dumbass!

I installed the triple stick without connecting the linkages to the transfer case just to see where they landed without a body lift soni could make a decision on that. They were sitting just a little above the body and I wasnt sure I could move enough metal with my BFH so I opted to order a 1" body lift. In retrospect, I should pounded on the trans tunnel first before ordering the body lift. The body lift probably isnt necessary but it did make things easier. I think you can fit this linkage with enough BFH and no body lift.



While waiting for the body lift to arrive, I had already received my parts for the ADD delete, so i figured i would tackle that next...

 

Nice work, Bryan!

Who is modifying your driveshafts? I’m hoping that I can get my crawl box installed this winter and I have no idea where to go for that locally.