Topic: BigMike's pictures

[81yotalove]

bigmike i have wanted to ask you about your opinion on toyota short wheel base verse long wheel base. aka your truck vs. marlins. i know you have wheeled plenty in both. i have a swb 81. so im just curious if you like one better than the other and pros vs cons in your mind.

oh and whats your frame height on your truck after you dropped it down a bit?

love your truck its my inspiration!

thanks in advance.

[BigMike [OP]]

Hello fellow 1981 superior truck owner

This is a good discussion that is largely opinionated. I take the pro and con approach and settle on the compromise.

Marlin's truck will definitely out climb mine. It just does. I have to run less air pressure to follow his same line. Also, I've wheeled with 88pathy and Jason from Jay's Custom Bends, who both drive XtraCab rigs. They will walk straight up steep slabs that I just sit and spin tires. On the east side of V-Rock at Bald Mtn there is an exceptionally steep climb that 88pathy went straight up that I had to surrender to.

But on the flip side I grossly out corner him. I don't know if my truck is some sort of savant, but it corners exceptionally well. Marlin's truck feels like a school bus in this regard. And I'm not talking about cornering in the granite bowl on Rubicon, I am talking about navigating the extremely confined thick forest of the 36-mile long Dusy/Ershim trail. The only other vehicle I've driven that out corners mine was our old Formula Toy. It had a shorter wheelbase and a different caster configuration with the front suspension.

So the compromise is to have a short wheelbase truck and stretch it, which many of us have done. I'll try to get some height and also wheelbase measurements for ya sometime soon. I've moved my front axle forward about 3-inches and the rear back about 4-inches.

My personal advice is to build a short bed and stretch its wheelbase. Then run some cutting brakes in the rear (a setup similar to what I'm working on) and you'll be able to out corner a Suzuki Samurai and still have decent climbing ability.

Another way I like to look at this, which does not favor the shortbed, is to think about holes in the trail. There are more short wheelbased vehicles than long wheelbased out wheeling this great country of ours. You've got 4Runners, Cherokees, Bronco Is, new longer Jeeps, etcetera that have a wheelbase closer to ours than to a long wheelbase Toyota. This means that the majority of the holes on a difficult line will be a closer match to our wheelbase. I see this a lot in comparing the Crawler truck to mine. Very rarely does the Crawler Truck find itself in a simultaneous 4-tire hole, but this occurs regularly in my truck. I have to choose my lines better to stay on top of the terrain. Sometimes I'll struggle in a particular section that Marlin will just walk straight through. It's like, whaaaaaa that wasn't even my fault LOL

There are other drawbacks of the short bed, such as much less cargo space, especially if you bob the bed. Marlin's truck has been bobbed, giving him a better departure angle and yet he still has more cargo space than I do. When I sleep in the back of my truck I can touch my head and feet on both ends (with the tail gate up of course), but in Marlin's truck there is another foot and a half of space back there. Also our gas tanks are smaller, but that can be reconfigured (I am running a 19.5 gallon 3rd gen XtraCab V6 tank thanks to WHITE_TRASH ).

Good times
Mike

[81yotalove]

Thats good to know about the gas tank. i might look into that. i'll look through your last build thread for it. i hvaen't read it all yet. my axle will be pushed forward like 2-3 inch (i dont want to tub the cab) and i have thought about moving the back but i dont want to cut up my bed for it nor am i bobing mine. thanks for the info bigmike.

[BigMike [OP]]

No problem man. Some info on the gas tank conversion can be found starting with reply #287 of my first project thread.

I am running 37" tires and they do not rub my stock, unmodified cab. I haven't hammered back the spot weld seam even. But keep in mind I do have a 1" body lift (I regret making the body lift, but alas it has paid some dividends). As for the rear, yeah... my rear axle has been pushed back probably about 1.5" too far and I've had to install limiting bumpstops to prevent the tires from tearing up the stock 4WD flairs. But then again I have a lot of rear flex for a leaf spring setup.

Mike

[81yotalove]

i followed that link to the gas tank modification, i will definietly be doing that at some point in the future. and extra 6 gallons would be awesome!

i also looked through all the pictures in this thread again to get a feel for how far you moved your axle back. There is only two pictures only showing the side of the truck and your tire looks pretty much centered in the fenders. my question to you is: does the factory not have the axle centered in the wheel well? or maybe i just could get a good angle to see it pushed back. im just trying to get a definite answer that i can push it back an inch or two without having to cut up the rear of the fenders.

im very curious of your frame height because your truck seems the flex a ton and leans at extreme angles for extended periods (enough for pictures) without rolling.

thanks again for the help.

[BigMike [OP]]

Remember the axle will swing rewards during suspension a cycle, a factor controlled by the shackle length and angle. Having the axle centered in the wheel-wells is atheistically appealing but leads to body interference given enough suspension compression.

I don't have any specific pictures for this illustration, but details can still be found in a couple pics. For instance, if you look at the coloring at the rear trailing edge of my stock 4WD bed fender flares, you can see black tire scuffing marking in these two pictures:

(click an image for a larger view)



Before I slapped on some bump stops, it got so bad that I have torn seams in both flares now, it really sucks.

This picture explains it all. Look how far the tires cave the bed sides in. Forget about the fender flares, this is an all out war. I should probably retract my previous statement and say its a good 2+ inches back too far I'm sure people will recommend me to simply trim the fenders but I like the stock fender dimensions of the 1st gen and I don't want to modify them.



Look carefully near the side support of my rear bumper in this final picture. There is a shadow in the body from the tire pressing the bed in. This is a permanent dent the body memory can't recover from. When I first saw this I seriously was wondering how a rock got beyond my bumper side guard and dented the bed like that. I had a small "OHH NOW I GET IT!" moment

[81yotalove]

ah i see what your saying now. without being there in person it looks like it stuffs in there nicely. it doesn't look to bad from those pictures though.

[Bazzi]

nice threat

[yoshaleng]

Great looking truck BigMike

[83 Crawler]

i  this truck 1 of the reasons why i got a first gen

[81yotalove]

So the compromise is to have a short wheelbase truck and stretch it, which many of us have done. I'll try to get some height and also wheelbase measurements for ya sometime soon. I've moved my front axle forward about 3-inches and the rear back about 4-inches.

bigmike just checking in seeing if you have anymore pictures to share with us and if you ever got some measurements for me. just love these first gens.

[BigMike [OP]]

April 30, 2012: Mud'N'Yer Eye Frolic

A few pics from Mountain Transit Authority's Mud'N'Yer Eye Frolic in Hollister, CA, April 30, 2011

[twistedtoy92]

Your truck is a classic, I love that thing!

[howyadoin]

Really nice rig Mike, one of these days I've got to build a first gen.!

[Wermz84]

Nice pics.

I have poison oak scars from my last trip to HH.  lol.

[BigMike [OP]]

Thanks for the comments guys

I am immune to poison oak/ivy, so, you know, SUCKS TO BE YOU !!!

[Wermz84]

Thanks for the comments guys

I am immune to poison oak/ivy, so, you know, SUCKS TO BE YOU !!!

   

If that's how it's going to be, then where are the pics on Jungle?  

It really does suck to be me with poison oak.  


  when you comming back down?

[81yotalove]

bigmike your truck is just sweet! those pivot blocks definitely do their job back there. Lately i have been thinking of a tacoma, something newer, stronger engine, more comfortable but seeing these pictures just whacked me in the head and instilled why first gens rule!

[83 Crawler]

DAMN PICTURES DONT WORK ON THIS ONE EAITHER

[toyrova]

I really like this 1st Gen. i love the setup and stance on it and the configuration of the bumpers and armor.

Awesome BigMike!

[BigMike [OP]]

Thanks toyrova Looking at the pics here make me want to dig the truck out from my cluttered garage

[toyrova]

Thanks toyrova Looking at the pics here make me want to dig the truck out from my cluttered garage

I know the feeling

[BigMike [OP]]

Aug 11, 2012: Sierra Trek

CAL4WD's 45th Annual Sierra Trek last weekend. First time I've been to Fordyce Trail since the 80s? This is a really tough trail! I'd say it's comparable in difficulty to many Hammers trails

Truck is running just great. Everything works great, made 19.4 MPG averaging 70 MPH on the freeway (loaded and with a passenger, 37" MTRs + 5.29 diff), nothing ever breaks, I hardly do any maintenance any more, I just jump in, turn the key, and she goes where ever you point it. I love this truck and she loves me!













Walking my Crawler in front of a crowd up winch hill number five:













After having built the truck almost a decade ago, using Marlin's high quality parts is really starting to sink in now. Nothing has broke in such a long time. I can't understand how people can put up with continually replacing cheap Chinese knock off parts.

Do yourself a HUGE favor, build your truck right the first time so you can enjoy trouble free operation. At least for me looking back at all the truck has done over the years, it's really amazing that I've done so little maintenance to it and it continues to perform at a high level.

BigMike

[83 Crawler]

sweet hat mike!

[BigMike [OP]]

ha ha! Thanks man, got it from the Florida everglades last month I've always wanted an Indiana Jones style hat and finally found one It's helping me become less of a red neck.... in a literal sense that is

[83 Crawler]

haha i think it we sweet to have one as well

[builttoabuse]

that trip looks like alot of fun! btw sick truck man!

[HogCanyonHopper]

awesome pictures!!  wanna do that trail but I need to get a few more things done to my truck. When is the next run?

[BigMike [OP]]

Upcoming runs are next weekend at Dusy/Ershim, then for Labor Day weekend I'll be at the Rubicon Staging Area for the Cantina for the Con (but most likely without my truck), and then I'll be at Rubicon again two weeks later for our 11th Annual Round Up.

[John Doe]

I am certain that the info is somewhere in this thread, or the 3rz thread, but How much does your truck weigh? And fast were you able to average up the steeper grades on I-80 heading to the trail?