Another good tip is to use google, if you put in site:board.marlincrawler.com and then what you are searching for you'll get a lot of good results. The search function on the forum kind of sucks sometimes.
Learning to search effectively will help you so much with whatever you are trying to learn or build in the future.
Peterbuilt84 makes a great point. To amplify some of his advice, you can also modify Google searches such as “site:board.marlincrawler.com” to omit specific information from your search results by using "-keyword" formatting or even omit certain date ranges of postings by using Google's "Advanced Search" option for dates and time. A lot of the board members are familiar with advanced Google search methods, but I will give you an example to illustrate the point.
Let’s say you really want to build a unique Toyota 4x4, and your idea starts with obtaining a smog exempt, TRUE first generation 2WD Toyota truck, such as one of those manufactured from 1969 through 1972.
Well, you could begin an advanced Google search of craigslist.org for all Toyotas for sale with the model years of 1969 through 1972, by typing “Toyota 1969 OR 1970 OR 1971 OR 1972 site:craigslist.org” By typing “OR” in upper case between keywords, you allow your search to pull all postings that include either OR of the two or more keywords. Once, you do this search, you will find that your search may turn up ads for Corollas, Landcruisers, Carinas, Starlets, Tercels, and other models that you may want omitted from your results; therefore, you can type “-Corolla -Corona -Carina -Tercel -Starlet -Celica -Landcruiser -Land -Cruiser Toyota 1969 OR 1970 OR 1971 OR 1972 site:craigslist.org” and any keyword which is directly preceded by a minus/“-“ will omit results with those words.
You may ask why not just search for Toyota Hilux, which you surely can do, but as you will see, a lot of people out there who are advertising such vehicles do not know some of the specialized names and may just advertise the vehicle as a Toyota truck. Or on the other hand, you may find that some people only use specialized terms in their ads such as “Toyota 4x4 with 2LT for sale” and nowhere in the ad is the term “diesel” used.
Finally, when you search craigslist you will need to limit your date range of your search by selecting the “Advanced Search” option on the Google search page and choose to search for web posts that are only a month, a week, or a day old. If you do not limit the date range of your searches, you will also pull a bunch of expired or deleted posts.
However, when you search for info on building your truck here or on pirate4x4.com for example, you will not want to limit your search date range because, as KneedownNate mentioned, a lot of the more basic questions that you have may have been answered in threads from around 2002.
I know you're a newb, but the absolute best things you can do is use the search function when you have a question, then when that fails, manually look through the various threads in each section to find the info you need . I can guarentee you the answers you seek have been answered many times over, and there's rarely an original question on these boards.
The answers you seek are out there, and board members will respect you more if you've exhausted the available search avenues. I'm not talking a couple minutes of looking, but hours, if not days. I'm not picking on you, and there will always be members who'll chime in, but similar questions are frequently asked. This thread was started over 5 years ago by Kyota (rip) for this very reason: http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=16818.0
And I will throw you a bone, in good faith that you'll do your own leg work in the future. As I've said in recents threads of the same nature, I have 4.37 and 33's. It does fine around town and on reasonably level ground, but throw a little hill in on the highway or freeway and it falls on it's face.
Take KneedownNate’s advice above, you will learn a lot more in general by finding answers yourself through searching rather than asking.
It’s a bit of an art form when it comes to searching, and some searches are just not easy. For instance, try searching for a rust free 2nd generation Toyota long bed pick up box as a replacement for a rusty one that you might have on your current truck. Because the words “long bed” are often used to describe the entire truck rather than just a bed box, you may have to sift through a ton of posts before you find what you want if you find it at all. Also, there is a question of spelling the word or words "long bed" or "longbed," which causes problems as well, and when it comes to finding what you want, you may have to search for keywords with the idea in mind that internet posters do make errors when they type, and they may disagree with how a term should be spelled or identified. For example, is it spelled Extra Cab or Xtra Cab or King Cab? The guy who is writing about it may not know himself.
Because searching can take a ton of time, and a lot of the senior members on these types of boards have spend a ton of time finding what they need, they can get pretty frustrated when new members don't take the time to do what the senior members have done, and instead the new members clutter up the boards with questions that have been asked and answered. Having said that, I really appreciate veterans such as OOPS who take the time to help the less knowledgeable out, rather than simply exhorting the newb to "SEARCH!!!!" but that's just me.
For better or worse, I don’t ask many questions in forum posts, but I read a ton, and I also consider my searching skills to be pretty decent. I personally search all over the place, too, including the Marlin board, IH8MUD.com, Pirate4x4.com (as a Red Star member), toyotadiesel.com, toyotaminis.com.
Good luck!
