Pistons & Pivots: Dylan Dunkerton's Monster Toyota

Hi Dylan, welcome to the exclusive NSMB Pistons & Pivots club with a well deserved entry. You are no stranger to NSMB pages, introduce yourself and your bike background.

Growing up I was hooked on bikes, this snowballed as I got older gaining a few sponsors such as NSMB.com, and later Specialized Bikes. I became involved with a few like minded friends.  Collectively we managed to unintentionally turn our passion for bikes into a career and eventually formed “The Coastal Crew”. We handled every element of what it takes to produce high end mountain bike content and films, from building to filming, photography and of course riding. The natural progression led to an opportunity to share our signature style of building with the world -  The Coast Gravity Park.

What are bikes and trucks to you? How intertwined are they? Is one possible without the other where you live? Do they complement each other or compete for attention in your world?

Bikes and trucks, a symbiotic relationship – at least for a lazy teenager and his friends who just want to do lap after lap, and a key tool for local trail access. The ultimate shuttle anywhere vehicle – but it can always be better. Just like a bike - the top of the slippery slope starts with the first mod. At one time this truck and bikes were very closely intertwined in my world, but as things slide on the slippery slope they slid into much more specific roles. E bikes really changed my outlook on difficult vehicle access – what’s the point of driving when the bike goes faster than 4lo and you can pick it up and over any obstacle. At this point I had been modifying my truck for years, but there was a tipping point where this truck turned into something far more off road specific than the bike strapped to the back could survive. Apart from using it for trail building access, the truck started to do much less shuttling. The ability to completely customize, modify and test the truck on the trails scratched an itch that I couldn’t quite reach with bikes. Imagine being able to cut your bike up, modify some tubes and weld it back together in your garage, go for a ride and feel that upgrade? That’s what building these custom trucks allows me to do, something I wish I had the ability or resources to do with a bike. I certainly do find myself planning my weekend and trying to decide whether I hit the trails on the 2 or 4-wheeled machine. Much like biking we go out with a core group of friends, push our limits and equipment, laugh about it, crash, have a few cold ones around the fire and go home wet. It’s a social hobby with many parallels to bikes.

While we have featured some badass Tacomas before, I think this one is peak rig. Tell us a little bit about what makes it unique.

I picked this truck up after getting the first pay cheque from our first feature film “ From The Inside Out” at the end of 2011. Before then I was a broke grom driving a clapped out 91 Yota pick up. The new truck had been imported from Arizona by a fellow mountain biker years earlier. I was on the hunt for a solid stock truck with no rust and I couldn’t find one. I kept seeing this ad for a solid axle swapped Tacoma for cheaper than most stock trucks. I said screw it and went and picked it up. And from there on I was sliding on that slippery slope of modifications and fixes. Almost every piece, part and set up have changed since initially buying it.

In its current state It’s a 2000 TRD trim Toyota Tacoma, 3.4 V6 with 350k on the clock (she has a hankering for the rev limiter), 5 speed trans, dual transfer cases (2.28:1 crawl box and 2.5:1 stock rear case) All running to the diffs through custom Toyota based drive shafts. The general rule for a crawler is to be underpowered and over axel’d.

For the front axle I run a narrowed Ford Kingpin diff equipped with 5.38:1 gears, lock rite locker, 35 spine chromolly axle shafts, spicer greaseable u joints, reinforced knuckels and C’, a big tube/plate skid plate truss, Toyota IFS steering box, with a 2x6” hydro assist cylinder/high output pump, Northwest fab custom high steer kit and Yukon Hardcore locking hubs.

In the rear I have a Sterling 10.25 rear diff with 5.38:1 gears with a solid pinion spacer from a ford 9” and a Detroit locker. Both of these diffs come from a late 80’s F-350. for brakes I'm running late 70’s Chevy ¾ ton front calipers on all 4 corners with a 1 ton chevy master cylinder from the same era. For rubber the 40x13.5 r17 Maxxis Trepador is king, I have them mounted on DIY steel bead locks. This allows me to run low pressure without blowing the bead off the rim. For suspension I am on jeep wagoneer 3” lift springs out front with Radflo 2.5X12” shocks. Out back i'm running the classic Chevy 63” rear springs with some 12” Bilstein shocks. 12k warn winch for getting me out of trouble and few hundred feet of tubing shaped into an exo cage/bumpers and box. I’ve also made custom mirrors out of old U bolts to hold up to impacts, and run a standard cheap round mirror that is easy to replace.

Tell us about the wheel welder.

The welder – the most important tool that keeps the Dunkertown crawler scene alive. You can’t own one of these trucks without one. It is the best tool I own. Miller 220 AC/DC mig, tig, stick machine, meaning I can work with steel, stainless and aluminum. Hiding underneath is my plasma cutter and on the back, I’ve got a bottle of argon for Tig and C25 for Mig. I’ve built the cart using some old obsolete bike parts. Some 26” roval wheels and old avid brakes on each hub allowing me to steer it, roll over things on and off the slab as well roll it down hills controllably.

What is it like as a daily driver? 

Slow. It was my daily for many years and did great for a really long time. For a while after I drove a Mercedes diesel swapped 84 yota pick up as my daily and I currently drive a 2007 Taco. The crawler is built well and done properly. It's quite low, has good geometry and quality shocks, and tires run true with no hops or vibrations, resulting in a fairly mellow driving experience on the road.

Once I caged it a moved up to 40” tires it was just not practical – heavy (5600lbs loaded) and thirsty. With rubber that expensive there is no point in burning them down on the street. That being said, there's no reason I couldn’t daily it in its current state. It drives awesome, stops on a dime and has no problem doing 100k down the hwy.

Tell us a little about Dunkertown and the Toyota Daycare you are running.

It’s the home base and the parking lot for all the homie’s trucks. We are close to the trails so it makes the most sense to start and end at Dunkertown, especially if someone breaks down. I'm lucky to have some space and some great friends who helped develop our little corner of Dunkertown. We built the shop a few years ago, and still have much more to do to it but a covered dry space is invaluable in BC. I grew up on the property and hope to never leave. I'm lucky to have a family who supports all of us idiots who bring home shit boxes and polish them into high-end bush crawlers. It’s a hobby that produces a lot of skills if you are willing to buy tools and put the work in.

You've been with Specialized for a while now. Tell us about your Stumpjumper and how you have it built up. Any unique features and settings?

12 going on 13 years already. Makes me feel old! I’ve been super lucky to have had support from such a prolific brand for such a long time. Sometimes I feel like I am riding a spaceship. I have to give it to the crew at Specialized, they do a pretty wicked factory spec in general, especially on the new StumpJumper 15. My standard treatment out of the box is small grips, the shortest stem I can get and a fresh set of  Specialized Cannibal tires. I wrapped them around the Roval HD carbon wheels with tubes. I find running tubes is the only way I can get the air pressure I want without rolling the tire. Thanks to the extra sidewall stiffness tubes provide -  the thicker casing on the Cannibal also lends to not rolling the bead. I am not a small guy, so sealant spraying out the bead has always been an issue with any tubeless setup I have run. Also, I threw on a set of carbon bars as I really liked the lack of vibration transfer into my hands. I’ve upsized to S5 in frame size this year, being 6ft1” I really enjoy the extra room. That being said it would be too big feeling to me with a stem over 40mm. I run a few bands in the genie shock and that’s about it for set up. It's been a rad bike to get acquainted with. I'm a big fan and I encourage anyone who’s not drinking the kool-aid like me to head to a demo day or local dealer to try one out and see for yourself.