Ah, it's that time again. It seems like just yesterday we were building a giant red, heavy, Chevy Avalanche for last year's Ultimate Adventure trip, and now this year's trip is coming around the bend, and we're hoping to head out with a little less bulk.
We know many of you are wondering what ever became of the Ultimate Avalanche after the story "Avalanche Goes Home" (Dec. 2003). We promise that within the next few months we'll give you a complete rundown of its current state, but for now let us introduce this year's project, Ultimate Taco.
We decided that we wanted to try something smaller this year. Though the 9,000-pound Avalanche made a big impression (pun intended), we decided that a mini-truck would be an interesting direction for 2004, and when it comes to mini-trucks, Toyotas make some of the best (our 1986 Toy Clampy just can't be killed), so we decided on a Toyota Tacoma. Plus, we thought we'd try to keep this year's rig a little more within reach of the average Joe or Jane. We'll still be pushing the envelope, but others have tried almost everything we will do to the rig, and hopefully this will keep us in the truck and not under it with wrenches in hand.
Finally, our biggest goal is to keep the weight down, so much so that Pw and I have been restricted to just a few Coronas and tacos a week and a healthy regimen of sit-ups (I think we can both do about 15 now before we need to rest with a cold one and some chips). With some simple, strong, and lightweight upgrades we should be able to head down the trail for UA and have a really good time wheeling.
This month we address some lower gearing for our 2001 Tacoma, but tune in next month when we tear into the suspension and start building some protection.
We are starting this year with an '01 Tacoma that we got from Toyota after it had served as some sort of press fleet/test vehicle, and we will eventually return the truck to Toyota (if there's anything left after two years of serious modification and wheeling). Test fleet trucks, like rental cars, often seem to get serious abuse by media folks who think they are pro off-road racers, and from the looks of this truck, it's seen more than a few inches of air time by some Ivan Stewart wannabes. After someone's "test," the frame must have flexed so much that the bed hit the cab and left this dent. Lucky for us Toyota puts a pretty serious semi-boxed frame under its rigs, and this abuse didn't leave any damage to the parts we are concerned with. | 
Amongst Toyota trail-truck owners there is one upgrade that is a near-must for all rockcrawlers, and that is a dual transfer-case setup. What this entails is taking the reduction box part of an early Toyota transfer case and installing it in between the transmission and the current transfer case. This allows for a doubling effect of the low range, and the guy who started this craze in the U.S. is Marlin Czajkowski of Marlin Crawler. We felt it only appropriate to go see him with our new Toyota, so we headed to his Fresno, California, shop to get our slow on. | 
We'll tell you right now that this truck is going to eventually get a solid front axle, and because we planned on that we also had to figure out which transfer case we would use behind the doubler. Czajkowski has kits to run either the older mini-truck passenger-side front-output geardriven case or the stock driver-side front-output chaindriven Tacoma case, and though some of us think geardriven cases are stronger, we decided to stay with the Taco case to facilitate an easier install of the solid axle (no need to mess with the exhaust, plus we can keep the IFS working till we get ready to tear it out). So Czajkowski's tech Rockey Gleson pulled the driveshafts and transfer case to start the rebuild. |
The Marlin Crawler can be installed with a 2.28:1 low range in the reduction box, or upgraded with the 4.70:1 low-range gears that we chose. These gears would then allow for three low-range options from the transfer case alone: 2.57:1 with the rear case in low, 4.70:1 with the front case in low and the rear in high, or 12.079:1 with both the reduction box and the transfer case in low. Here are the gears attached to the MC09 adapter plate that allows the stock transfer case to be attached to the reduction crawler box. | 
In order for the larger 4.70:1 gears to fit in the reduction box, some clearancing must be done to it first. The crew at Marlin Crawler can do this step for you, or it can be done at home with a die grinder. | 
Once the gears are set up and the reduction box clearanced, the unit can be reassembled. Eventually this box will have a shifter that will allow for 4.70:1 low range, even in two-wheel drive. |