Official Crawlbox BS thread!

Ordered up some goods to build the crawl box myself. Got a TG full adapter kit coming, marlin hd 4.7 gears, and a rad triple-stick all on the way. Now on the prowl now for an rf1a topshift....

I'm unclear on whether the 23-23 spline coupler comes with the gearsets...? seems like it doesn't... (pics would indicate it doesn't) but I can't seem to find the coupler for sale on marlin or anywhere....

I did pick up an inchworm 23-23 coupler off a guy here on TW. I'm hoping it works with the marlin gearset.... Anybody know?

Edit: looks like the coupler comes with the adapter kit--at least according to the TG pics, but i read earlier in this thread that with marlin gears, i'd need the marlin coupler. So, back to my question still...

Anybody know if the Inchworm coupler would work with the marlin gears?

 

Whelp... Nevermind. The place i thought had the marlin gearsets has cancelled my order... Guess they weren't in stock like their site said. :-/ Bummer. Ok. So, sit and wait for Marlin gears to come in stock... or buy now from TG and save 15%..... Decisions, decisions....

 

I am using an OE Inchworm 23 spl coupler to 23 spl Marlin 4.7 comps. Inchworm should have the correct tolerances as they were built for Marlin gears years ago.

*Also MC 4.7s have been coming back in stock pretty regularly. I'd wait if you have the time. Less than 3 months you should see a new stock hit the shelves.

 

Some have had luck with the TG coupler on Marlin gears.
The 23 spline one supposedly does, and my 26 spline one kinda did but was a bit tighter than I would have liked. For that reason I got the marlin coupler and it made the installation much easier.

 

My custom boot from redline goods is installed and turned out great. More pics in the link below.

https://www.redlinegoods.com/CustomShiftBoot.php

 

Looks awesome man!
Where did you get those shift knobs? Haven't seen those before

 

Advance adapters

 

Got mine from advance adapters

Edit. Beat me to it. Lol. Mine say atlas on them. Booo. I didn't see the ones posted above. Those are sick

 

Looks great! Is it attached to the plastic shifter surround at all? I see yours is a 3G 4Runner, think the same boot would be fine for a 1G Tacoma?--i believe the shifter surround is slightly different between them.

 

The boot has a ring that goes through the hem and then pops into the trim piece. The boot was custom made based upon the measurements below. It is nearly perfect...I should have given the 4wd shifter a little more length so you don’t see the silver adapter but whatever..that’s super picky a d I will probably paint the silver adapter black and will never think about it again.

 

exactly the process I went through with mine. Redlined goods is the only place to go for something as custom as this. They do amazing work.

 

I found them through one of your old posts! Thank you Sir!

 

I mean. I know I havent been looking too long, but I guess I kinda expected I'd at least see *some* of these RF1As for sale, at least maybe ones that seemed pricey or needed work... I havent seen one on any of the usual forums or Facebook groups... I see stuff on car-part.com, but I'm confused on what years to look for... Marlin's transfer case Bible is a bit confusing.... everything is 21 spline except the turbo cases?-- but those are "offset 4.5 inches"-- what does that mean?

I'm starting to wonder if I shoulda just bought a built unit...

 

https://car-part.com/

This was helpful in finding some in local scrap yards.

They are out there. Don't be afraid to pay for shipping. They usually don't charge too much as long as you're not trying to ship from across the country. I found a few in socal that would have been 125 shipped to my door.

You can also make a forward shift case work, just need a conversion kit to make it top shift.

 

Dang, wish I knew about them before.

I went to the junk yard and took a shift boot off a pretty cruiser lol

 

I've been buying stuff using car-part.com for prob 18 years or so now. Diffs, axles, transmissions. Its one of my favorite sites.

Trouble I'm having is that there is like 10 or something variations on the 4runner/truck transfer cases and I can't figure out which I'm supposed to be looking for to get a top shift 23-spline case... Car-part does not list them by those details...

I've read a few different threads here and elsewhere and its still not straight in my head. :-/

And I agree on forward shift, I'm not against converting one of those to top shift (sucks it will be added cost for a conversion kit) but I still can't figure out how to find a 23 spline case...

 

I basically narrowed it down to a number of listings that met my criteria (age range). Then I called them and inquired about mileage and would have them send me pictures of it before I pulled the trigger to make sure it was what I needed. Ask lots of questions to make sure it's what you need. Shamrock auto in CA is one yard that I dealt with that had a bunch of trucks with rf1a cases in them. Albeit most of them forward shift ones. Shipping might not be too bad from there to Utah.

I believe it was @Snowy that posted a while back in this thread in response to my same question of what year range 4runner/pickup to look at for the rf1a case. Read back and you'll find it.

In hindsight, I could have gotten one of those forward shift cases cause I ended up having to buy all the internals separate anyways since I bought just the empty housing off another member here. Ymmv

 

1985-1989 MT 4Runners all came with top shifting cases. I’ve found them in the past just searching for a 1985 MT 4Runner and CP automatically pulls up tcases for 1985-1989.

 

I’ll add too, and CP is pretty good about this, EFI pickups from 85-88 had top shifters and are included in the search results. Always check with the yard it was an EFI pickup though before buying. 4Runners were all EFI after 85 so they are a sure bet

 

Ok. Cool. CP lists a pretty good bunch of them using that criteria. I'll give it a go. Thanks ya'll.