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So we're making good progress. I'm hoping to get the upholstery done by summer. As a side note, if anyone wants to buy our set of 14" wheels and tires, let me know! ;)

Hi expedition vehicle friends! It's been quite a while since I last posted, but we have not been neglecting our 'Rader. Since my last post, much has changed for us. We now live in Colorado, waiting for our old dog(s) to die before hitting the road for South America. It just isn't fair to a...

Quick update Hi all! So, we've made a good deal of progress on the Sunrader. We finished the cabover and installed LED strip-lighting. We also got new cab door panels to match the cab interior. And, we installed the laminate flooring. It's looking pretty good! We also got new shocks and...

Those look pretty nice! We'll definitely be in the market for low-profile rear boxes. Thanks for the suggestion.

They cost us $90, and weren't too hard to fit in the Toyota cab. We did get the runners and frames off the bottom of the old seats, and without too much hassle we fit them onto the new seats so they could be properly bolted into the cab. The seats are a little bigger and higher than the old...

UPDATE: Cabover, safe, refrigerator Sorry for the long delay between posts. We have been hard at work on the Rader. Here's the latest: We finished the cabover bunk area, with the exception of trim and paint. We used laminate flooring and wood paneling as pictured before. We also wired in a...

Right on! Funny that our Rader has been floating around. Folks who know them well have followed each of the remaining 4x4s for years, through multiple owners. Lots of people have contacted us to say "I know your Sunrader!" Hopefully she'll be even more notorious when we're done with her. We...

Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough response, tanglefoot! We are reconsidering the axle swap since they can't seem to find us a replacement LR axle. Will keep you posted about what we decide!

Right on! You can convert it to 4x4, but your friend is probably right. Clearance is the main issue a lot of the time. I've had 2WD crossover vehicles before, and I took them pretty much everywhere because they had great clearance. The 4WD is nice in sand, mud, snow, etc. We wanted the...

Interesting! We tried holding up the cloth with foam supports and shaving them off afterward, but it was too tricky for the whole beam. I think ours came out well overall, though. Good luck fixing that sag! And yes, we'll be adding locking storage boxes on the back to replace the giant and...

tanglefoot and ejwan - Okay... Here's what the man says about the mechanical stuff: I found out that the timing chain was already done and upgraded to a double chain setup, so we are all good there. We are seeing a temperature spike but it behaves more like a stuck thermostat, and I have a...

Thanks for all the good pointers and food for thought, tanglefoot! We are definitely learning as we go - though we've had travel trailers before, this will be our first RV. I know we decided on a generator mostly for backup... we'd like to avoid using it as much as possible. But to rig up a...

We actually glued up the supports first, using braces to keep the shape we wanted for the fiberglass roof. We glassed in the corners at the same time. We tried to glass the entire support across, but that didn't work out because of the nature of fiberglass. We did screw in a couple of the...

More progress! OK, so... We finished the cabover fiberglass, sanded it down, filled the rough spots with bondo, sanded that down, then primer and paint! Woohoo! We also installed the security divider between the cab and camper using a window from the ReStore, removing the glass panes and...

Cabover update Well, as many people know, fiberglass is annoying, itchy, and messy. But we're done with that part, finally. We glassed over both cabover window voids entirely, and now they just need to be finished and painted on the outside. We leveled the cabover bunk (it has a slight bow to...

We tried that, but fiberglass doesn't like to bend that tightly and it ends up sagging on the bottom of the beam, eating up our headroom if even by only a half inch. So we sanded off that fiberglass support and decided to just fiberglass in the ends. We used resin to glue in the beams, plus two...

Yes, and we are also nervous about custom wheels being stolen while on the road and not easily replaceable. I will post the axle when we get it... the one that arrived was bent (argh), but was under warranty and will be replaced. We are using a combination of 3/4-inch foamular sheathing and...

Fiberglass progress OK, here's our progress from the weekend: 1. Fiberglassed over window void. We used a piece of wood paneling covered in duct tape for the rigid backing, screwed onto the exterior and fiberglassed from the inside. We used three layers of fiberglass and it turned out pretty...

Hi there! Congrats on your 'Rader purchase! We love ours. We're doing some pretty heavy repairs and modifications, including a new axle. She does have the replaced full float, but we're putting in a new axle with single 15" wheels instead of the 14" duallies. You can follow our build on our...

OK, it's fiberglass time! We had some major repairs that we knew would require fiberglass work, namely: the sagging roof in the cabover bed area due to a poorly-installed vent, the warped and leaking front windows, and the drafty gap in our door frame. So, here is what we're up to: 1. Glue in 4...