Hello there, new to the site but I joined because of this post! I’ve had my shortbed 82 for some time now and absolutely love it, I also currently have an 88 vanagon in which im planning to sell to get a longbed 80s toyota and convert it into a chinook, perhaps a sunrader. My question is before I begin going through all of this is how did you end up registering the truck? As the 1977 or the 1988? Was this a pain at all? I’m sure it will be for me because I live in California but i’m just curious how it went for you! Not sure it you had to deal too much with it since the po did the conversion, but was just curious!
Welcome to the site! As far as the government is concerned, SuperTruck is still just a 1988 Toyota pickup. The registration and the insurance both reflect that, so no pain whatsoever. I never cut the cab, so realistically, the only integration of the shell would be the mounting bolts, a wire to charge the camper battery while driving, and some radiator fluid to the Vanagon heater core located under the jack-knife seat.
All of that said, I'm not sure of the laws of California. Rural Kansas is pretty laid back. A Sunrader might be a little different, since they have a bathroom and I'm not sure what the definition of an "RV" would be. I would think it should be up to the owner, whether you want to insure it like a truck or an RV.
On a side note, I actually sold SuperTruck because I was fortunate enough to find and buy one of the 28 or so factory 4x4 Sunraders. The chinook felt like it was as off-road capable as any Toyota pickup, whereas the Sunrader definitely feels more top heavy (duh). It depends on what you're looking for. A bathroom, room to stand up (I'm 6' tall and about 2" too tall to walk around freely in the Sunrader, but it's much more convenient to not deal with raising the pop up roof), and having 2 beds is great for camping, but the Nook could get much further up the trails. I don't have a build thread for the Rader yet, but I did start an instagram account for it. @atlas_explored, my personal IG account is @captnblack and I posted a lot of build pictures of the Nook back in the day.
Cheers!
