BigMike’s Big Journey: New 2016 Tacoma

Sorry but we have not opened up a R156F yet...

Contributing factors are: 1) I am 6'1" and have more headroom in the Tacoma than the 37-year old Hilux so we know the cab is taller, and 2) the Tacoma uses a 6" tall frame whereas the Hilux uses I believe a 4" tall frame. Those two factors gobble up a lot of ground clearance. The Hilux has a higher suspension lift but yet it's cab-line is at about the same height as the Hilux...

Yes sir! We are working on expanding our offerings at the moment which will coincide well with our forth-coming Quarter Of A Century business celebration. We currently offer light bars and other lighting (mostly from VisionX), roof top tents (from Tepui), lift kits (All Pro, Old Man Emu, Bilstein kits), and have a large line card and can get all sorts of products such as ARB bumpers and so on. We just haven't had the time to get these products listed on our website but we plan to get to it this year

 

July 14, 2017: TLCA's Annual Rubithon Event -- The Tacoma's first baby steps on the Rubicon! (continued)


WHEW. That was a lot of work! Ok ladies and gentlemen I have now created a dedicated Trip Report thread titled, BigMike's 2016 Tacoma Trip & Trail Log. In 3 days I posted my first 9 trips which were previously posted to this thread except for Rubithon.

So without further ado please click here to view my full trip-report of the Tacoma's first time on the Rubicon!

Here is a sneak peak from the above link!







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui7ZAiTHUIw







In total, I posted 85 images from the Tacoma's first time on the Rubicon to my new Trip Report Thread. Please give them a look and let me know what ya think!

 

I am trying to get this thread up to speed as quick as possible because in nine days from now the Tacoma will be in our booth at this year's King Of The Hammers event showing off some pretty awesome updates which I need to get posted here before the truck makes it's next public appearance.

This means I won't have time to post my full trip reports from the rest of 2017, but that's okay since I can post them later to the new dedicated Trip Report thread without having to hold up progress of this build thread (Separating trips from the build will make both easier to maintain.) Hopefully by this time next week I'll have this build thread 100% caught up.

Will be replying soon with more updates. Thanks as always for reading!

Regards,
BigMike

 

I’d be especially interested if you had a small stock of some armor that usually takes 2-3-4 months leadtime, such as sliders and skid plates. Maybe partner up with one of the better suppliers of bolt-on 3rd gen stuff. I realize it’s a big inventory investment but those are the parts that require a big commitment to purchase sight-unseen.

 

Thank you for the suggestions Forgot to mention we are selling and installing All Pro sliders. We almost always have 1979-1995 Sliders in stock but we usually submit POs for Tacoma sliders as they're placed. We just finished rearranging our warehouse and crammed about eight more shelves and are working on building up inventory.

As for skid plates, we plan to start making our own at which point we'all regularly stock them. As for bumpers, ....stay tuned

 

Mike sweet rig! ALLPRO just got the boot from TW because they’ve been out to lunch.

 

I love what you do for me..... TOYOTA!

 

I'm gonna push through a few events (which I'll later post to my new Trip thread) so I can get on with the build!

After Rubicon it was obvious I needed more tire clearance, but that had to wait as only after one day I was off on a 2,000 mile journey to Colorado!

July 18-23, 2017: 11th Annual FJ Summit (Ouray, Colorado)

The week following TLCA's Rubithon, I represented Marlin Crawler in participating in our first-ever FJ Summit event! For event details, please see https://www.fjsummit.org. I ran Black Bear Pass, Poughkeepsie Gulch, and Imogene Pass and had one of the most relaxing times I've had wheel'n. Ever. Maybe I'm getting old but I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing on really, really easy trails for a change. I will post up a full trip report later; Until then here come a few teasers!







Thank you Roger Marquez on Facebook for this pic of me making easy work of the hardest obstacle called "The Wall".

 

Because it'll be a few weeks until I get the trip report up, here come a few more

 

After FJ Summit I was down to about a month before our annual Marlin Crawler Round Up event where I'd be returning to the Rubicon.

August 7, 2017: Bald Mountain Day Trip

While waiting for some parts to show up, I took the wife on a solo day run to Bald Mountain to do some top secret product testing, you know, for science

First things first, I was loooong overdue for a truck wash



Back up the mountain near Shaver Lake, central Cali at our Dinkey Creek Trail Sign!



Progress feels slow but steady

 

As I was testing out some parts for product development, this wasn't so much of a trip that I can share from but I did take a few pictures. I'll probably post up a few more to the Trip Report thread along with some short videos later...

 

August 9, 2017: In the Garage with my Hilux

My wife and I were still slowly moving into our new house and it is so awesome to finally have my own garage. Naturally, it looks best with both Crawlers in it

 

August 18, 2017: RCV Axles arrived!

Back on reply 360 I mentioned I was hoping to get full-Chromoly RCV axles before Rubithon. After four months since ordering them, RCV finally delivered!

300M Ultimate Axles!

 

I was still waiting for more parts to get in before I'd be ready to hit the Rubicon again, so I spent some time tackling some smaller jobs

August 27, 2017: 29% Taller Crawl Ratio Sticker

When I made my back window Crawl Ratio sticker, I spec'd it at 7" tall. Well, that was just too small so I had another one made at 9" tall because Rock Crawler.

I replaced both stickers. It is now wider than the Stick Shift sticker which I like much better. Thank you Win243 for the updated photo!

Heights:

 

August 27, 2017: Front Facing Camera! (Install progress 1 of 2)

After wheeling Rubicon in July as the trail leader, there were 101 times I wished I had better visibility out of this dang maibatsu monstrosity. I had known about the reverse camera anytime mod and was planning to utilize it with a forward facing camera. After reading a lot of posts and comparing methods, I decided to go with Abec23's diode method due to it using only one three-position switch.

I first got the switch installed but didn't have time to wire-in/mount the camera. I tested it out and it works great. Flip the switch forward and a new camera circuit is activated (the camera could be mounted anywhere), flip to the middle position and the system functions as stock, flip it reward and I get reverse camera anytime regardless of vehicle direction.

 

Brand new feature at our annual Marlin Crawler Round Up

I had a busy summer/fall in 2016 and couldn't get the Tacoma ready for the 15th annual Round Up (MCR15), which was the first eligible Round Up for the Taco. To make up, for the 2017 Round Up (MCR16) I started a new Round Up feature called "BigMike's TacoBox Run", which extends our event with Wednesday & Thursday day runs exclusively for our customers who are running TacoBox Dual Case (ie. all 1995 and newer chain drive customers).

Here is the Official Thread for the 1st Annual BigMike's TacoBox Run with event details: http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=102295

If you've got a TacoBox and would like to join me this September at MCR17, please keep an eye on this new thread on our forum which will be updated with info for the 2nd annual BigMike TacoBox Run!

I coordinated with our largest southern-California TacoBox installer Wyatt from Rock Solid Toys (RST) to bring 5 fully built and solid axle swapped Tacomas on this inaugural event. RST builds some pretty wicked Tacomas. For example, here is Wyatt's '05 automatic on 41s and a Dual Ultimate Marlin Crawler TacoBox:

 

After my first TacoBox event, I typed up a full-on trip report (which is almost finished and currently at 300 lines of text) which I'll post up after I get the FJ Summit trip posted. Luckily I typed it up last September so it is quite detailed.

To say the least that was an incredible event! It's difficult to sum up and all will be explained in detail in my official trip report. Until then here is what went down in a large nutshell:

• One week before the TacoBox run, 4 of the Tacomas had pulled out due to illnesses and scheduling conflicts.
  
  
• Monday Sept 11: One day to go Wyatt had to pull out due to his front Currie unit bearings failing and his only replacement parts, Dynatrac free-spin kit, not eaisly compatible with his axle setup.
  
  
• Tuesday: Earlier that summer I had invited our premier Canadian distributor Nathan from The Gear Shop to provide video coverage of both the TacoBox run and the Round Up. He drove his 4.7-liter V8 powered 4th gen 4Runner down from Alberta and on Tuesday morning he made it safely to our shop... The day we were supposed to leave... And I wasn't ready... Nathan and I spent the day getting last minute stuff done on the Tacoma
  
  
• Wednesday: A day behind schedule and minus 5 trucks, Nathan and I finally left for the Rubicon!
  
  
• Thursday: On the trail just past 5pm we were over half-way to our first camp when both our trucks broke down within 100 feet of one another. We were able to get my truck back together in the dark with spare parts I had, but none of my remaining spares fit Nathan's 4Runner. We abandoned his truck on the trail, loaded up his necessities into my Tacoma (LOVE THAT ACCESSCAB!), turned around, and drove out in the dark as gingerly as possible without any extra spare parts.
  
  All will be explained in my trip report. The breakage was simple, straightforward, and a real crash course for me and the strength of the IFS system. Nathan has been building and wheel'n late model Toyota IFS on trails like the Rubicon for about a decade and this was a first for him. The freak experience left us both with an eerie feeling; Felt like anything could break at anytime on the way back out. Getting back out took way longer than it should have as I kept getting stuck taking awkward lines trying to reduce loads on the front end. We made it back to pavement, aired up, and about 2 hrs later had managed to find a hotel room in the mining town of Placerville, CA at 1am Friday morning.
  
  
• Friday: We drove back down to the valley and all over the place picking up multiple spare parts for both our trucks and was able to contact, coordinate, and pick-up one of my employees in the valley, who I had previously scheduled to leave the Springs campground this same day to meet our main Marlin Crawler group up at Lake Tahoe to pick him up and help carry in the massive amount of supplies that it takes to put on an event of this magnitude. I then drove back into the trail late that day with two passengers (first time I had ever wheeled with more than 1 passenger as I've never had back seats before).
  
  By this late in the week, we decided to avoid the rush of 300-something people all trying to get to our Round Up event by taking the Official Rubicon Trail Entrance discussed in reply #78 of my Trip Report thread thereby becoming at that point the first 3rd Gen Tacoma to officially attempt the Rubicon trail! The three of us entered the trail through Wentworth Springs as the sun was setting. This was my first time ever through Wentworth Springs literally since I was a toddler.
  
  We got to Nathan's 4Runner long after dark, got it back together, and then began a long sequence of getting lost in the dark and backtracking twice on the Slabs, then lost on the Rubicon Trail Foundation's new property as our first time there while trying to avoid an overcrowded Buck Island Lake campground, and finally giving up and continuing on to Buck and luckily finding a small campsite at 1am Saturday morning.
  
  
• Saturday: *This is the main day of our Round Up event so we were now late to our own event* We hammered through the rest of the trail, encountered a lot of traffic, and made it to the Springs Campground before 2pm.
  
  It was quite the welcoming party at the Springs! As President it is my honor to kick-off the main Springs Campground event and wish everyone a farewell from the stage. Event staff were asking every other truck entering the Springs if they had seen BigMike, to which they had either (1) never seen a new white 3rd gen Tacoma anywhere on the trail, or (2) had only seen the broken down black 4Runner not even halfway to the Springs---as we were on the old, traditional trail entrance of Wentworth Springs plus only traveling mostly by night. So as you can imagine it was pretty cool rolling in when there were already hundreds of people at the Springs welcoming us to another awesome Marlin Crawler Round Up experience!!
  
  
• Sunday: Because we are in charge of the entire Springs Campground it's our annual duty to remain in camp as the last to leave to ensure all trash is picked up and the 'Con left better than we found it after the 300-400 event participants have left. I had more issues with the Tacoma on my way up and out to Lake Tahoe and ended up warping my driver's rear brake drum from an on-going issue that was first experienced at the FJ Summit and which other Tacoma owners have reported that their rear brakes fail to unlock after the release of the e-brake. In the end, I got home just before 3am Monday morning! WHEW! Such an awesome trip!! Can't wait to do it all over again in Sept 2018!!!

I'm really looking forward to posting my full trip report. Definitely, the inexperience I have with this new Tacoma adds many brownie points to the epic meter. The last time I had such an epic adventure on the Rubicon was with Tim aka "TURBO" during MCR7 in 2008 where my lightweight 4cyl Hilux had to tow a heavy 6cyl 4Runner that had broke an axle and was experiencing charging issues on the Rubicon in the dark, not getting home until sunrise! These are the trips I'll never forget and I'm always grateful for having experienced!

To continue here, I'll just run through what I was doing that made me a day late to my own new annual Rubicon event.

 

September 12, 2017: Final Rubicon Trip #2 Prep (1 of 2)

Tuesday Sept 12 was the day we were supposed to spend driving to the Rubicon and setting up camp at Loon Lake. I, however, was still wrenching on the Taco

Time to get these RCVs installed! Pulled off the axles I was borrowing from All Pro which were stock Toyota outers with 2-inch longer Chromoly inner shafts. They got me through the Rubicon, FJ Summit, and Bald Mountain with 37" tires, however, it's difficult to compare with other experiences as I have a Marlin Crawler which greatly reduces the risk of breaking anything.

Comparison photo with a new 300M full-Chromoly "Ultimate IFS Axle" from RCV. They are guaranteed up to a 40" tire:



Dang sexy!



Once installed they interfere with All Pro's lower ball joint bolt which has to be ground down for clearance



Close up of the area that'll need to be ground down. The axle isn't fully inserted in these pics



As a temporary solution to my tire-to-fender interference issue I experienced on the Rubicon in July, I installed 1" total of spacers to the front shocks and added half an inch to the rear. I say temporary because despite already having a ground clearance issue I do not want this truck to get any taller. I'm planning to do a lot of trimming and ideally possibly lowering the truck an inch from where it is now. But to get through the trail without more pointless fender rubbing, I added some spacers.



Here is the front end back together and ready for another visit to the Rubicon

 

I was rushing and didn't get a pic of the rear 1/2" spacers going in. I only have this pic of the driver rear spring pack being partially disassembled:



I owe a lot of gratitude and thanks to Nathan who helped me the entire day with this plus helping our warehouse guys pack the large number of supplies we have to haul in for the event. Here we are grabbing a late night dinner before our date with the 'Con. His 4R is on 35s:

 

September 13, 2017: Final Rubicon Trip #2 Prep (2 of 2)

Wednesday Sept 13 was the day we were supposed to have an 8am drivers meeting at the Loon Lake Staging Area and hit the trail. That morning I was instead at an appointment to get my alignment done after the front suspension modification:



After that I returned home to finally get packed and by about 2pm we were finallllllly on the road heading off to one of my biggest Rubicon adventures of my life!

California State Highway 99



Grant Line Rd ARCO



Pollock Pines, CA



We made it to Loon Lake, CA around 11pm, set up our tents and crashed for the night.