Shawn Benson wheels the trail...
Shawn Benson wheels the trail in a Jeep TJ, but spends a fair bit of time hanging out with the Toyota crowd. He easily tackled all the trails we ran over the weekend.
Stuck at home on a sunny day is no place to be if you can help it. We got an invite to join up with some of the local Tacoma crew and hit the trails. Our destination for the day was a location near Prescott, Arizona. We went to play on the very southern tail of the Bradshaw Mountains, where the buttes begin to flatten and give way to low desert hills and rocky washes.
In an area commonly known simply as Table Mesa lies a wide array of desert trails and washes that provide a veritable playground for wheelers. You'll find desert arroyos and sandy washes strewn with rocks and boulders. The terrain and geology is varied and the routes here range from the easy connector roads that wind about to some very challenging obstacles that demand you use big tires, low gearing, and have little concern for sheetmetal deformation.
Our group for the day consisted of a good number of well-built, or shall we say rebuilt, Tacomas along with a couple of other Toyotas, and a lone Jeep TJ. We tackled a handful of the medium duty runs but that doesn't mean it was easy going through all the obstacles.
Follow along on our short adventure. We'll show you the rigs out wheeling and tell you a bit about how they're built. We'll keep our story here short and leave more room to let you see more images of our day on the trail.
How To Get There
The Bradshaw Mountains are located in central Arizona, a few miles south of Prescott. Parts of the range are located within the Prescott National Forest, while other sections are privately administered or under the jurisdiction of other government agencies. You can find out more info about local trail conditions by contacting the Forest Service office at 928/443-8000, or online at www.fs.fed.us/r3/prescott.
Uriel would lose a front driveshaft...
Uriel would lose a front driveshaft CV and then need a replacement U-joint on his front spare shaft before the day was over. But he kept on wheeling the hard lines until he suffered front hub failure due to sheared studs and dowel pins. He finished the day in three-wheel drive.
Uriel Varela works his way...
Uriel Varela works his way up a steep rock ledge on the Terminator trail. His trail-worn 4Runner is affectionately know as the "Raisin" because the body is black and very wrinkly. It typically gets the job done and works well with Toyota running gear and 37-inch BFG Krawlers.
We encountered water on all...
We encountered water on all the wash trails as is common during the rainy season. We found areas where the recent flash floods had carved new holes where none were before, and spots that were formerly challenging holes filled in with rock and sand that flooding had carried downstream.
Our day started with a short...
Our day started with a short run down a wide, sandy wash where the Agua Fria River flows. On most days, the river is a low, hub-deep splash in most places, but when a rain shower bursts further north in the mountains, the water level can rise quickly and you can find yourself waiting out a flash flood to get back across.
One of the Tacos suffered...
One of the Tacos suffered a steering bracket failure that necessitated a field repair. A couple of Optimas and jumper cables were rounded up and wired together to do a little battery welding. In the end, it took three batteries linked in series to get a hot arc and melt the plates back on the frame to complete a successful repair.
This 1996 Xtracab belongs...
This 1996 Xtracab belongs to Dan and Sheree Majkowicz. Dan burned the IFS off the frame and put a Dana 44 in its place to work with the stock Tacoma rear axle. He then regeared to 4.88:1s and added Lock-Rights while he was in the pumpkins to allow them to turn 37-inch Interco TrXus MTs on the trail and on the street getting to and from the dirt.
Nate Bordenkircher had been...
Nate Bordenkircher had been busy doing a Dana 44 solid axle swap on his Toyota and was ready to try it out on some tougher obstacles. His '89 truck was linked up front using a set of 2-inch-lift TJ coils and complemented the rear flex afforded by a pair of Chevy leaf packs. His tire of choice was the Goodyear MT/R in a 35-inch size. Here, he tries his hand climbing one of the steep rocks on the trail.
A full-width Dana 60/14-bolt...
A full-width Dana 60/14-bolt pair ensures that Mike Berg's Taco treads a broad path across the rocks, but the added width keeps his rockcrawler stable when perched on 40-inch Maxxis Creepy Crawlers. Mike's truck is a 1999 Xtracab, but he's dropped the bed in favor of rear tube work and shortened the wheelbase a bit by moving the -ton rear axle forward using inboard Chevy springs.
Most all of the trails here...
Most all of the trails here traverse low desert or canyon washes. The easier ones run fairly flat across rock-strewn washes. The more difficult trails climb upward through narrow canyons, and ascending the ledges and waterfalls keeps things interesting. Summer monsoons and winter rains pour water down these slopes and may change the trails from year to year, with some getting easier and some harder.
Mike Nevitt's '87 truck is...
Mike Nevitt's '87 truck is a great example of a solid Toy that gets the job done on the trail. It's had a solid axle slung under 4.5-inch All Pro springs and uses a Marlin Crawler doubler to provide two 2.28:1 reductions at the transfer case. Both axles are stuffed with 5.29:1 gears and spools. A hydro-assist ram helps Mike turn the constantly locked front axle and point the 38.5x12.50 Swamper SX tires where he wants to go.
We like seeing well built...
We like seeing well built second-generation 4Runners on the trail, and Rob Nicholl's '95 is a good example of such. Body armor helps keep the lower body damage to a minimum while he navigates the trails using a 4.7:1-geared crawler box turning 37-inch Swamper Radials. Of course, he's got a solid-axle swap up front with an early Toy 8-inch frontend. Gears are 5.29:1s with Lock-Right and a Detroit Soflocker aiding traction, combined with 63-inch rear Chevy packs.
This is one of the hard-core...
This is one of the hard-core crowd when it comes to full-bodied Tacomas. Eric Mollencopf built up this rig from what was once a two-wheel-drive Prerunner. He's cut it up a number of times and added more steel as needed to fit a coil-sprung and fortified Dana 44 up front and leaf-sprung 14-bolt out back. A 2.7L I-4 followed by an automatic spins a Marlin Crawler adapted with a 2.28:1 reduction in front of the original Tacoma transfer case. Tires are 40-inch Maxxis Creepy Crawlers.