Marks4wd Cruiser Crawler Install

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Wrench said:
Haven't heard any other failures. But we drive at a faster speed than they do. That's why they changed the design before. To work with US highway speeds. Remember I DD this thing plus drive hundreds of miles to trail heads. Not sure how many are doing that.
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The highway speed was not the issue. The issue was that one of the gear inside was turning at 10k rpm when the drivetrain was doing 3k. That was the issue with the heat. They changed the designed, reversed the power flow and now it does 1k rpm when the rest is doing 3k?

So you have welded this gear twice? You never got a gear from them? I would not trust the welding of the existing gear. I would get a new one from them and then ask them what the warrantee is on it. Otherwise put pressure on Advance Adapters since they are the dealers for those. We do have a relationship with Mark;s but we are not allowed to sell the crawler boxes or the low range gears.

I never had an issue with mine, other than the overheating. Kirk has it now and I am not aware of any issues that he has had. Gary has one in Project X and no issues, other than the same heating/speed issue that was resolved.









Did you ever do this upgrade or was yours after the redesign
 
there was someone on a different forum who bolted on a tacoma t-case onto the a343f tranny to convert to part time. With this I assume you could bolt on a doubler made for the tacos. of course, i could be completely wrong but its worth giving it a try in my opinion. i think it looks promising
 
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cruiserruf said:
there was someone on a different forum who bolted on a tacoma t-case onto the a343f tranny to convert to part time. With this I assume you could bolt on a doubler made for the tacos. of course, i could be completely wrong but its worth giving it a try in my opinion. i think it looks promising
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Find that link, I would love to research this... Sorry for the highjack!
 
cruiser ruf: From what i have read online (no actuall experience) is that you can use the tail housing from an a340f. Bolt this tail housing to the a343f then put on a marlin crawl box (rf1a). then from the crawl box i would do a fj62 part time case.
However I am to poor at the moment and have not done soo. But soon. So i cant actually tell you if it will work.
 
sleeoffroad said:
The highway speed was not the issue. The issue was that one of the gear inside was turning at 10k rpm when the drivetrain was doing 3k. That was the issue with the heat. They changed the designed, reversed the power flow and now it does 1k rpm when the rest is doing 3k?

So you have welded this gear twice? You never got a gear from them? I would not trust the welding of the existing gear. I would get a new one from them and then ask them what the warrantee is on it. Otherwise put pressure on Advance Adapters since they are the dealers for those. We do have a relationship with Mark;s but we are not allowed to sell the crawler boxes or the low range gears.

I never had an issue with mine, other than the overheating. Kirk has it now and I am not aware of any issues that he has had. Gary has one in Project X and no issues, other than the same heating/speed issue that was resolved.







Did you ever do this upgrade or was yours after the redesign
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No I had it weld once before. This is the second time it broke. Why am I having so much problems? You see the gear. It's welded together. What would make it break apart?
I never wanted a new gear because it would be the same welded gears.The one I got now was new and it broke so I have no faith in a replacement one. And I have the upgraded box. So it spins less. I just have no clue why it keeps breaking. Other than it is weak. But you say others have no issues. So I'm at a loss.
So what would be the best course of action now? This is my DD and I got a rental for 45 bucks a day.
 
Can you get a solid gear made since you are not getting the help from the manufacturer?
 
Wrench said:
No I had it weld once before. This is the second time it broke. Why am I having so much problems? You see the gear. It's welded together. What would make it break apart?
I never wanted a new gear because it would be the same welded gears.The one I got now was new and it broke so I have no faith in a replacement one. And I have the upgraded box. So it spins less. I just have no clue why it keeps breaking. Other than it is weak. But you say others have no issues. So I'm at a loss.
So what would be the best course of action now? This is my DD and I got a rental for 45 bucks a day.
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Wrench, I think one thing to consider is the fact that you daily drive the 80 where as Slee, KIRK, and Gary trailer their rigs to the trail and don't put many if any miles on them (w/ the exception of Ultimate Adventure for the short bus). Food for thought, would love to hear what Marks/Advanced Adapters has to say. I'd imagine that these aren't the only 3 boxes that have been sold in the world and there must be a handful of other people who have them and DD their rigs.

I'm in an ever present quest for a nice crawl box (or the like) for 80 w/out having to the change the engine and trans. Cutting the gas tank floor and anything else for that matter is of no concern and when the solution is failing, it plan sucks!
 
What if the gear got extremely hot? Would that make the weld brittle? I'm thinking maybe the gear is getting really hot over time and causing the weld to get brittle.
 
Man I missed this thread sorry. I have had no probs with the crawler on the bus. I do trailer it everwhere to wheel. I drive it around my farm on the local roads to and from the neighbors but it is always less than a few miles. There is gear noise but other than that its all I can comment.

Can you post up pics of the gear so I can see the design? I have yet to see the innards of one of these. I am foggy on the welded design b/c I have yet to see.

Kirk
 
landtank said:
it is possible that the gear you got had a problem from the get go and a replacement might be just fine. I wouldn't jump to a conclusion about all gears being crap with a single sample. Now have the replacement gear do the same thing where it's 2 for 2, then bash away!
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Highly unlikely since it's just a welded together gear. Hard to mess that up. New one will be the same welded gear. How will that be better?
 
This crawler box seems to be the redheaded step child of the 80 market. I have emailed Advance twice about it and Marks about it once. The first time Advance didn't know what I was talking about and even after I forwarded them Marks email they still were "going to check into it" and get back to me. That was 3 weeks ago......

Ryan
 
Wrench said:
Highly unlikely since it's just a welded together gear. Hard to mess that up. New one will be the same welded gear. How will that be better?
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Honestly? You can't see where a manufactured part could have an issue?

So just one part made that fails unexpectedly and the hole manufacturing process is s***, is that right?

So it's a 100% or nothing when it comes to manufacturing?

If this was your attitude when talking with Mark's and asking for help I don't blame them for the cold shoulder.
 
scottryana said:
This crawler box seems to be the redheaded step child of the 80 market. I have emailed Advance twice about it and Marks about it once. The first time Advance didn't know what I was talking about and even after I forwarded them Marks email they still were "going to check into it" and get back to me. That was 3 weeks ago......

Ryan
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IMHO I think stories like this is why Marks products are not popular in the states. A/A holds them back. Good technical sales, service and stocking the product in the us would make it sell much better. I think A/A just sells it bc Marks is a factor in A/A's presence down under. Marks could pick a much better distributor in the US.
 
kirk said:
IMHO I think stories like this is why Marks products are not popular in the states. A/A holds them back. Good technical sales, service and stocking the product in the us would make it sell much better. I think A/A just sells it bc Marks is a factor in A/A's presence down under. Marks could pick a much better distributor in the US.
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X2, OR Inchworm/Marlin/or SOMEONE could adapt another box to the 80. it MUST be doable ;). and Yes I am beating that dead horse of a subject on 80s and gearing to death yet again! At this point, I think that if I had an engineer who was qualified to develop that product for me I'd hire him own the IP myself and start making a box for the US market "PKP80CRAWLER"
 
PKP80 said:
X2, OR Inchworm/Marlin/or SOMEONE could adapt another box to the 80. it MUST be doable ;). and Yes I am beating that dead horse of a subject on 80s and gearing to death yet again! At this point, I think that if I had an engineer who was qualified to develop that product for me I'd hire him own the IP myself and start making a box for the US market "PKP80CRAWLER"
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There has to be an engineering student on here that could possibly do this as a project and use university tools to help develop at least a gear i would think. Isn't that kind of how Kurt with cruiser outfitters kind of started? Using the U of U engineering department on some projects?
 
I put almost 1k miles on my 45 last summer on the street and dont have a huge heat problem after the fix Christo speaks of. It still leaks, but has performed fine. I only dealt with Mark, never with AA, but Marks service is not much better.
 
PKP80 said:
X2, OR Inchworm/Marlin/or SOMEONE could adapt another box to the 80. it MUST be doable ;). and Yes I am beating that dead horse of a subject on 80s and gearing to death yet again! At this point, I think that if I had an engineer who was qualified to develop that product for me I'd hire him own the IP myself and start making a box for the US market "PKP80CRAWLER"
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X8..... you hear all the stories about how marlin used to pull forklifts apart to adapt their tranys to the early mini's or how he ordered a crawl box from iceland and pulled it apart and made it better and beffier for the US customers. Why haven't they done it for the 80. This topic gets brought up about every 8 months and every 8 months the answer is "it's in the works" and then no one ever hears anything about it.

I've already set my mine on changing to whole drive train to get better gearing.
 
lt1fire said:
X8..... you hear all the stories about how marlin used to pull forklifts apart to adapt their tranys to the early mini's or how he ordered a crawl box from iceland and pulled it apart and made it better and beffier for the US customers. Why haven't they done it for the 80. This topic gets brought up about every 8 months and every 8 months the answer is "it's in the works" and then no one ever hears anything about it.

I've already set my mine on changing to whole drive train to get better gearing.
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I think that question has been answered before by smart vendors like slee. The answer is because (just like landtank's turbo manifold) there is a lot of talk of "I would buy one" but when it comes out and a vendor or manufacturer has put up the cold hard cash to build it, no one comes through and buys them like they said.

I bet if someone right now said i will make these just like everyone wants but it will cost $1300 each. You would have a bunch of people saying they want it but then they never buy it. So the vendor is stuck with $50,000 in inventory. Just pulled those #s out of my a$$ but you get the picture.
 
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