Marlin Crawler's New Rock Crawling Long Travel IFS Suspension System (#RCLT)

They’re 14.5”

And being real real with what I’m saying aren’t inflated tape measure numbers. Most 3.5” LT kits with horizontal uniballs will max out at 15” up front limited by uniballs. That’s with upgraded axles to not limit the travel. Put back, with my super long shackles, you’re gonna max out around 19” of travel with 62” leafs and no frame notch. At that the driveshaft is the limiting factor. Frame notch you can get more but leafs are gonna go negative.

Claim whatever numbers you want but if you don’t tune your shocks your trucks will still ride like shit. “Spec” valving doesn’t mean snit

 

Damn, I thought the 12" shackles I am running were big. 14.5" is huge.

 

12" or 9" were basically the "industry standard" before 2nd gens used inverted shackles and 99% of the aftermarket parts kept that design element. Those 12" are TC's most 1st gen guys run on here. No one's tried a longer shackle that I've seen, but maybe the same would work 1st gens too.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/rear-setup-first-gen.543193/#post-18438028

It's good to learn new things - lurking on here for the latest "Ridiculous Clusterf*ck Longtravel Thread" update it looked like BMOC @DirtlifestyleNate ended boasting about his setup to guys that were miles or even longer, his rear travel numbers, ahead of him with a good old fashioned shoot out (time and place TBD that is). To be frank it looked like that RCI / articulated travel vs. vertical wheel travel argument had already been sorted out and you just wanted to throw preposterous jump on deez nuts numbers out to keep YoU tuBerZ gotS moR n0-Legge flow going up in hea.

Anyway, looks sweet brother

 

He took a page out of the Marlin RCLT production department by not showing back up.

 

Feb 16th marks 1 year with no posts for Mike here and anywhere on Tacomaworld (although he logged in up until Dec. 3rd)



I'll stand by the only post I made before now about DirtNat when this thread started talking about him. I think it didn't have to go down the way it did if instead of getting defensive, he listened. He can only benefit his truck by returning and kicking the bad fortune of being associated to Marlin to the side and keep working on it with the resources of guys who are more skilled than him. Choices have to be made among what is more important though, pleasing people you may never met online or pleasing people you will only get views from online - either way, we'll have to just wait and hopefully watch people get their long awaited kits.

 

All good. I am learning as I go along. I didn't know the difference in wheel travel measurement, but it now makes sense that articulated travel would be more. The 12" shackles ended up working perfectly for my setup and my self imposed constraint of not wanting to cut holes in the bed. For simplicity I originally went with the archive garage SUA kit but the 5" shackles it came with were hitting the frame before the springs were fully flexed.

 

How flat do the leafs get at bump - 16's under the bed seem like they'll almost limit up travel compared to a traditional 12-14" shock relocation? I'm surprised @ARCHIVE 's usually well built products weren't allowing enough up travel before they hit the frame - maybe you were getting as much up travel as you could and more than he anticipated would be attempted How far is the leaf spring from the frame at full bump for your new shackles?

 

If your shocks are mounted directly to the axle and not on any crazy angles/cantilevered, and you’re using the whole shock travel, then your suspension travel is 16”. It’s not any more complicated than that.

Obviously different once you get into trailing arms or cantilevered setups with higher motion ratios.

 

Trying to get my head above water today!
I don't have much time this morning unfortunately but I have had so many of you reach out via email, Dms and such that I just wanted to say thank you! Clearly lots of great folks in this forum.
I think I bit off more than I can chew lol and I don't have time for this kind of shit anymore. I've always made myself as available as possible for this kind of thing but I had over 47,000 comments in 2021 on YouTube alone. There are only so many hours in a day to answer people! Last week was supposed to be a light week but I had a few new sponsors roll in and when I wasn't editing I was dealing with contract negotiations. My apologies for going dark for a few days.
Now back to the first question asked last week about wheel travel.
I've got no time to pull the truck apart for no reason but that's not saying I won't get these numbers. The next time I pull the rear coilovers to do other work I will be happy to report back with wheel travel numbers.
In the mean time someone needs to get the stock numbers. If you want to back up your claims that this truck has the same flex (or less) as the stock truck then we need data right?
HOWEVER... one thing I'm sure we can all agree on is flex is also only one metric for measuring suspension performance. There are MANY benefits to doing a link suspension with a Coilover.
As someone who wheeled my stock 2021 toyota Tacoma on the baja rubicon last year and then wheeled my current setup throughout Johnson Valley I can confirm that this truck fucks. The rear suspension works beautifully on and off road and short comings aren't from the mods but rather from the poor approach and departure angles. And the 50:1 crawl is frustrating if you are used to wheeling a purpose built rock crawler.
I should have time to build the skids later this month as well as a install an extra reduction box before the tcase. The week before EJS I will have a stubby flatbed for this Taco and will cut off a foot or so of the rear frame giving this truck the departure angle it needs.
Now... I've got a video going live in an hour (8am) about me Soft-roading this truck through couger buttes. Check it out if you have time! Not alot of hardcore wheeling yet but still a great day on the trail if you are interested.
One last thing.
I want to do a right up on TW about Clearing all the lights on the dash from upgrading the rear E locker to ARB. I was able satisfy the computer successfully last week and wanted to help anyone that is upgrading the rear locker or the rear axle all together. If you have any pointers on the best way format my first post LMK.
Thanks folks

 

In case anyone was curious.

 

Nevermind the potential link length, what's up with the welds on the upper link bracket? Yikes!

Wheel travel is measured differently for crawlers vs prerunners so I'm not at all surprised to see this amount of bickering going on lol. Yeah sure RCLT might have stock travel but its not meant to bomb through the desert, its primary use is crawling where ground clearance and big tires can help a lot when your articulation isn't there. Crawlers can also get away with all sorts of funky suspension geometry because they're used at 1mph or less, not 60mph through the whoops. Apples and oranges

 

I’ve got worse welds than that I promise. What I don’t have are 24” links mounted to the factory leaf spring mounts. I don’t see that being good geometry for anyone regardless of application. We will see which fails first, my boogers or rigid links to the factory leaf mounts. Probably a toss up. Maybe mine will be worth fixing if the geometry is good. Suspension travel isn’t measured differently depending on how you use the vehicle. I sure hope the RCLT pulls more travel than stock. If not, what’s the point? 10k for maybe an extra inch of ground clearance over the factory LCA?

Maybe he is pulling the full 16” out of the rear, but it appears that he has less uptravel than a stock truck due to the tall bump stops. Maybe it’s 3” up and 13” down travel? Who knows. I’m just curious. I don’t have a dog in the RCLT fight luckily.

 

I have welds like that -if I run out of gas j/k

But an attempt to be “helpful” I will say that anyone that can afford a nice 2nd or 3rd gen and has a dream of building it into a decent off road rig has absolutely no excuse to not get good at welding.

Jaime at weldingtipsandtricks.com and Bob Moffat at Weld.com upload enough quality instructional videos, all it takes is actual time and dedication to practice at home and improve beyond laying down bird poop. That kind of stuff is ok for $3k raisinedup beaters I guess, but even they deserve love, too Craig.

I’m not sure how people are saying the RCLT has the same wheel travel as a stock truck which is like 9”. A guy just posted he’s getting 15” which is the same as any 3.5 over LT kit. You can measure IFS travel one side a time since it’s independent. To replicate the same idea on a solid axle (as one component) you just lift it up and let it bottom out - same as either side of the front.

 

Lol

 

Your are close with your welds you just need to give your puddle more time pool up. You aren't welding thin sheet metal so don't be scared to let it cook for a minute before you drag your puddle to start forming your bead. If you have a big gap to fill use a little steel tig rod. You can literally lay it in the gap, zap it with your gun to keep it in place and weld over the entire gap in one pass. It looks like your machine settings aren't to far off you just need to get more hours of experience on your machine to get a good weld. But what you have can easily be fixed by grinding it down smooth, turning up the heat and laying down a fat cover pass over all of it. Make sure you have enough heat to marry your parent materials. Your old weld will essentially act as a heat sink.
I would clean it really good with acetone and blow it out with an air nozzle a couple time to reduce porosity in your cover pass.
Anyone can shit on a guy for not have great welds. For some reason very few will offer ways to help him improve his craft.

As for the links.
Take a look at these pictures.

"What I don’t have are 24” links mounted to the factory leaf spring mounts. I don’t see that being good geometry for anyone regardless of application."

Here is just one of many examples of other applications with the same size links.
These are factory rear lower control arms from my 2021 Jeep gladiator. It's now on a 4 1/2" lift with the same length arms. The only difference is the new arms have more flexible joints and are adjustable. Thousands of gladiators all over the country are on the same size lift, with the same length arms and perform great on and off road.
Buddy. I'm not your enemy. Stop trying to find things wrong with what I've done when you have so little experience. And I'm not trying to sound insulting at all but you are digging yourself into a hole by trying to make me look bad. And for no reason! I'm a nice guy! I promise! Let's put down our weapons and have a hand shake.
I have installed "long arm" kits on jeep tjs and xjs with arms that are shorter than these. The length of these arms on my Taco are fine.
As for the mounts. I understand your skepticism and your questions are very fair. At least they were until the last comment.
But look at these pictures. This mount is huge and has a great foot print over ALOT of surface area of the frame. I'm testing this as a location because it was just soooo easy to take advantage of and it is super high clearance. Having your LCA mounts hung up on rocks sucks. This is an easy way to make the truck a little more slippery in the rocks if it works. If they rip off you will know. But after using this truck a bunch at Hammers and bombing through the snow yesterday, I have no distortion in the mount what so ever. Time will tell and so will I
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday bro

 

All of these pictures are taken of the stock 2021 lower rear gladiator control arm next to the arms on my 2021 tacoma. I just want to be super clear about what everyone is looking at.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks! I'm heading out to install new suspension and a new engine in my son's RC crawler lol. Try and unplug today and spend a little time with your kiddos if you can
Later

 

Random guy on the internet says:

But an attempt to be “helpful” I will say that anyone that can afford a nice 2nd or 3rd gen and has a dream of building it into a decent off road rig has absolutely no excuse to not get good at welding besides not feeling it’s important enough to apply themselves and become halfway decent.

Jaime at weldingtipsandtricks.com and Bob Moffat at Weld.com upload enough quality instructional videos, all it takes is actual time and dedication to practice at home and improve beyond laying down bird poop.

There’s guys who could pick apart anyones welds, but self-management is always helpful, too.

Bad fit-up? Recut the piece or add material to the piece on the table and re-shape - don’t just build a mountain of weld.

Less than satisfactory bead especially in a high visibility or high stress area? Grind it out. Practice a little on some scrap mimicking the same angle and flow of the final weld.

Yeah it takes longer but that’s how improvement happens at a faster pace while not looking back and being remorseful or make excuses / hide it from another buyer when it’s time to move it down the road.

 

I understand that now. I didnt know there was a difference between wheel travel and articulated wheel travel. I thought that since the frame was staying flat and not flexing, the articulated travel was wheel travel. Now I know!

 

I'm not trying to attack, honestly. Your videos have been helpful to me. I have no room to tell someone what's right. This isn't my craft, and it's barely my hobby. I'm in over my head, but that's the only place I learn. I'm picking apart your build to hopefully understand why you chose the compromises you did and if the compromises I chose are still valid. You may have found a viable solution to linking the rear that requires less fab and nets similar results. That's definitely worth exploring.

edit: thanks for the welding tips. I’ve only been at it for a little over a year and that’s weekends if I’m lucky. I have a long way to go and I appreciate the help over calling them boogers and moving on. I ain’t blind I know what I got

 

Your local community college may offer a welding course that will answer a lot of questions and help you build a good foundation of understanding.
Any real fabricator understands that no question is a stupid one. Some people have the gift and some it takes some experience and learning to get it right. You’re on the right track.