Builds BigMike's 2016 Tacoma Trip & Trail Log

[BigMike]

BigMike's 2016 Tacoma Trip & Trail Log

Wassup Mudders! Since April '16 I've been the proud owner of a new 3rd gen V6 AccessCab 6-speed manual 'TRD Sport' Tacoma, and now that I've got experience on a few trails I'd like to share my trips with my friends here at Mud.

It took 8 dealerships 261-days to finally build this truck from Toyota's Texas plant; It was one colossal mess. I have a build thread that explains all over on our MC forum: BigMike's Big Journey: A 2016 Tacoma Build Thread The build thread is over a year old and already has a few trip reports posted to it, so I've got some catching up to do here.

I'm excited to see if there are any 3rd gen Tacoma owners here on Mud and looking forward to sharing my experiences and new Tacoma products from Marlin Crawler with everyone!

Trip #, Date, Description. Click each image-group to view each trip.

2016
Trip 1: April 18-24: Picked up from Texas after waiting 261 days to get this special truck


Trip 2: April 26: Tacoma meets Hilux!


Trip 3: April 30: Toyota Land Cruiser Association (TLCA) Bakersfield Land Cruiser Rally (booth event #1)


Trip 4: May 3-8: TLCA Cruise Moab (Cruise Moab - Toyota 4x4 event in Moab, UT) -- Chicken Corners & Booth Event #2


Trip 5: June 3: First Bald Mtn Day Run


Trip 6: Dec 3: Valley Children's Hospital Toy Drive



2017
Trip 7: May 4: TLCA Cruise Moab (Cruise Moab - Toyota 4x4 event in Moab, UT) -- Fins & Things & Booth Event #3


Trip 8: May 5: TLCA Cruise Moab (Cruise Moab - Toyota 4x4 event in Moab, UT) -- Flat Iron Mesa


Trip 9: June 24: 31st Annual Moonlight Madness -- Bald Mountain Trail


Trip 10: July 14: 29th Annual TLCA Rubithon (Rubithon – The Official Event of the Toyota Land Cruiser Association) -- Rubicon Trail

 

[BigMike]

reserved for later use

 

[BigMike]

Trip #1 - Getting the truck! (April 18-24, 2016)

To kick off the thread here is a map of my Journey to purchase this elusive truck

Excellent in-flight reading material

After waiting 261 days for 8 dealerships to produce this truck, it truly was love at first sight!

Only 3 miles old!

Marlin, Texas!

 

[BigMike]

Outside the San Antonio Toyota Factory where the truck was built only eleven days prior!

 

[BigMike]

Various pics from the drive back to Cali

 

[BigMike]

After traveling about 5,500 total miles I arrived safely back home!

 

[BigMike]

Trip #2 - Tacoma meets Hilux (April 26, 2016)

Location: Millerton Lake, CA

The next week I introduced the Tacoma to my 1981 511:1 Triple Transfer Case Hilux Rock Crawler and took the two to a local lake for a quick photo shoot. Nothing too special to discuss. It was neat having my two trucks together. The Tacoma got a good look at what it's near future is gonna be like

Basic specs for my 1981 shortbed Hilux are:
Purchased and built back in 2004 (build thread)
World's first 2.7-liter 3RZ-FE Tacoma 4cyl swap into a 1st gen Hilux
Marlin Crawler W56-A-HD manual transmission
Marlin Crawler Heavy Duty Clutch Kit
Marlin Crawler Triple Ultimate (MC08 + MC08-R10 w/4.70C) 6-speed Transfer Case System
--511:1 Final Drive ratio featuring 30-forward gears & 6-reverse gears
Marlin Crawler 5" USA-made Betts Leaf Springs F&R
Marlin Crawler USA DOM-steel full body armor
66.5" Front Diamond Axle (64.5" + 1" wheel spacers) with FJ80 High Pinion 5.29:1 + Toyota E-Locker
Original Longfield 27-spline Chromoly Axles (not the 2014 and newer junk Chinese-made Longfields)
63" 1st gen Tacoma rear axle (60" + 1.5" wheel spacers) with 5.29:1 + Toyota E-Locker
37" x 12.5" x 15" Interco IROK tires on 15" x 8" Allied Beadlocks
Truck makes 20 MPG @ 70 MPH and since I've owned it, it has never been trailered: I drive it to-and-from every trail

 

[BigMike]

Sweet pic

Found a ditch for some flex action

Comparison

Little hill climb on 7th day of ownership

And lastly I topped off both gas tanks (20 gal for Hilux, 21.1 gal for Tacoma) and weighed them back-to-back

Fully-built 1981 1st gen Hilux Rock Crawler: 3,780 pounds
100% Bone-stock 6cyl AccessCab manual transmission 3rd gen Tacoma: 4,420 lbs

Wow! The Tacoma is only just a baby boy and is already more than a quarter ton heavier than a fully built Rock Crawling elder haha

And that's it for when the Tacoma met the Hilux!

 

[BigMike]

Trip #3 - TLCA's Bakersfield Land Cruiser Rally (April 30, 2016)

Next trip was having my Tacoma at our booth to support the introduction of our newest "TacoBox" Dual Case Crawl Box for 1995 and newer Tacoma/4Runner/FJ Cruiser/Tundra/Sequoia/T100!

Here's the Tacoma with only our second time seeing family friend Kay Spector after the passing of her beloved husband Marv :'(

 

[BigMike]

Trip #4 - Moab! (May 3-8, 2016): The Tacoma does it's first trail

Event: TLCA Cruise Moab (Cruise Moab - Toyota 4x4 event in Moab, UT)
Approximate miles driven: 1,750
Trail name: Chicken Corners
Location: Moab, Utah

This trip was discussed on pages 7 and 8 of my build thread, so I'll copy much from that here.

Traveling alongside the most wheeled Toyota truck in the entire world!

Arrived to Land Cruiser heaven!

 

[BigMike]

From main camp I headed south-west and finally made it to the trail. The guide book wasn't kidding: It was easy. A Subaru could make it through most of it. Nevertheless it provided some good fun and good pictures

My first time airing down! Having these fancy tire pressure sensors will be interesting once beadlocks go on

There were many by-passes that looked like this...

...so of course I had to try them all.

Already dragging the rear tow hitch LOL

Backing down I incurred my first "trail damage"

So off came the front valance! Goooooood riddance

 

[BigMike]

Some misc pics

 

[BigMike]

Following the Colorado River

Didn't even find large enough ledges to break traction.

 

[BigMike]

I can see this sat nav is going to be much fun

Got the tires to chirp a little here

 

[BigMike]

Nice vistas out here-

Sharp drop-off to the left

 

[BigMike]

Random pic from the driver's seat. The fake hood scoop takes up precious viewing real estate.

Finally got the Taco dirty

Back at camp the Tacoma was in it's second trade show booth in only 2 weeks of ownership

The Taco photo bombing a busy pic of Marlin explaining the new TacoBox

The drive back west was a bit slippery

Maintenance Required only after owning the truck for two weeks? Something must be wrong

And that's it for the Tacoma's first Moab trip! Averaging nearly 325 miles per day for half a month

 

[BigMike]

Trip #5 - Bald Mountain (June 3, 2016)

Trail name: Bald Mountain
Location: Shaver Lake, Central California

This trip was discussed from reply #229 of my build thread, so I'll copy much from that here.

A few weeks after Moab I slipped away and did a quick run up to our local Bald Mountain trail with "TURBO" Tim. Bald Mtn is a proper trail that provides a great overview of our popular High Sierra Nevada wheel'n: Large exposed granite, tight tree squeezes, steep and sharp climbs and descents, loose rocky sections, and a few high speed sections. It is our only trail (out of a twelve trail network) that is traditionally open year-round and also the only trail without any lakes.

One caveat with this trail is that it lacks gatekeepers from either entrance and all major obstacles may be bypassed. For these reasons it is common to find vehicles that we don't normally see on other trails, such as Bronco-IIs, Blazers, Rangers, Frontiers, and so on. It also means we see a few Tacomas with lightbars, smoked tail lights, and much chrome so it's a good place to do some proving of the new Tacoma

Here I am next to our newly updated Trail Condition Bulletin Board (Google Street view of location):

Bald Mtn trail head

Stopped to air down

I'm love'n this live tire pressure monitor. "The future"

 

[BigMike]

Starting out strong with some mad flex

Our beautiful central California granite

The visibility out of this thing is horrendous

My first trail glamor shot!

Made it up a descent crossed-up section without the "Auto-LSD" engaging but with a lottttttt of clutch slipping.

 

[BigMike]

At this point I had encountered my first two annoying characteristic of the new Tacoma.

Old School Rock Crawler's Off-road Impressions I

• The V6 flywheel must weigh a full metric ton. If you try jam'n through the gears in low range the RPMs don't fall at nearly a quick enough rate. I have no doubt this was done for better fuel economy as well as less apparent mistakes to novice gear jammers. I already have a simple solution for this in my mind.
  
  
• The Hill-Start Assist is a major pain in the butt off-road as it prevents the ability to rock the vehicle back and forth in search of traction or a line adjustment. This is important especially on snow runs. If you're unfamiliar with it (like I was), the truck will hold the brakes for about 2 full seconds while you make a gear shift from a stop. The reasoning is to allow time to engage a gear and begin disengaging the clutch before the truck has a chance to roll down a hill. I can see this being a helpful feature for all the Tacoma owners who use the truck to take their cats to the pet groomer every Wednesday before picking up their kids from soccer practice. But come awn man people want to drive stick shift for the love of toe-and-heal clutch work. Afternoon cat food delivery Tacoma trucks have automatics by definition. With a manual trans Tacoma, they should at least provide a way to defeat this. It's not that hard: I'll just simply remove the clutch engagement switch from the system whenever in low range (insert relay, done). Now the ECU won't know when I'm using the clutch. Problem solved.

 

[BigMike]

I've always wanted an XtraCab, aka Access Cab. The stock ground clearance is pretty sad...

...especially the horrendous design of the exhaust crossover. What was Toyota thinking here? The exhaust pipe is lower than the cross-member. It will, at least however, not be in the way of our Dual Case products which is nice but definitely I'll have to improve this.

At the base of Hollywood Hill

Up the approach to Hollywood Hill

High-centered again