Got my eye on this build, hopefully you will document every step on this build to a tundra. I have a1980 I've been slowly stripping to rebuild, I'm needing a lot of fiberglass repair and flooring. Looking to spend time shoring up the roof and changing the cab passage too maybe just a door. As well cutting out the rotting floor and replacing it with some like nidacore which should not rot. My 80 sunrader didn't come with A/C but still sags and since I want to add A/C I want to shore it up. My intension is to put it on a tundra like a flatbed camper that could be removed when not in use or when camping and not want to lug around a camper to just drive around. A while back a guy that went by the name bajadulce build one such with a sunrader and t100
"Hey! I'm planning to record as much as I can; hopefully, it will be helpful for you. I was dreaming about a pass-through between the cab and the camper on my first build but decided not to do it. I still have mixed feelings about it, especially when it's pouring down rain and you need to go from the truck to the camper, hahaha. Building a removable camper shell on the flatbed will involve more planning, such as the location of grey/black water tanks and all exhausts for heaters if you're planning to install them. Other than that, I don't see any problems! Go for it! Sunrader is such an amazingly well-engineered creature!! :)
@@trvlhard Ugh! Didn’t think about lowering the floor. I left about 2 inches of fiberglass around the edges for something to attach back to the floor. Not 100% happy with that as it isn’t super secure. If you removed that fiberglass “ledge” you’d have to build some sort of bracket system to reattach the floor to the shell. i might still lower it now that idea is in my head lol. Would be nice to not have to duck inside. Most of the sides aren’t too stiff tho so idk yet how you’d do it without using the fiberglass layup “ledge”. Let me know if you’ve got any ideas! Went back and forth on how to recreate the floor. It’s like 1/2” plywood, 1x2” ringers with roll insulation to fill the gaps, 1/4” plywood, then a tin or aluminum sheet which trapped the water and caused the floor to completely rot out. Ended up just copying the manufacture although not sure just replacing it with like 1” hardwood plywood might have been better. I found a (interior) destroyed 1989 Toyota Odyssey 21 ft model was thinking of using the frame and build a garage or extended cab to fill the 18’ to 21’ gap. Would like to keep some of the nostalgia but the Tundra 4 seat seams like a more practical/ simpler route. Not super big on safety but it would be nice to have something to strap car seats into besides the back Sunrader bench seats 😂. Looking to forward to following your project. I’m gonna fill in all the fiberglass holes and wait for you to get ahead of me so i can learn from your mistakes lol.
Side note… planning on the R2.8L Cummins, AX15 5spd transmission to Toyota transfer case, 4x4 conversion (obviously!) with spring Tuktoyaktuk, Yukon trip from Anchorage goal of completion.
@@samuelb3786 Sorry for the late response; I just got back from Iceland. An Alaska trip is on my bucket list! The floor in my Sunrader is actually in decent condition, but I need to rebuild it anyway because the distance between the chassis and the top of the cab in the Tundra is larger/longer than in the old Toyota truck. So, I need to lower the floor by about 8 inches. I was talking to a guy from a fiberglass supply company, and he suggested using composite core material (I guess it wasn't available in the 60s-80s when they used BALSA and plywood) for the floor. However, I would need to create a sandwich panel myself by infusing fiberglass resin on both sides. I've seen these types of panels, and they are incredibly strong; I couldn't break them with a hammer, hahaha. But I decided that it's too much for me right now because I would need to figure out how to do "vacuum resin infusion." So, I've opted to go the old-fashioned way: I'm welding a frame for the floor, covering the bottom with sheets of aluminum, and planning to use 1/2 inch BALSA from the top. Toyota used BALSA as a floor core in the original Sunrader builds. Then, I plan to fiberglass the entire floor "sandwich" to the shell!"
Got my eye on this build, hopefully you will document every step on this build to a tundra. I have a1980 I've been slowly stripping to rebuild, I'm needing a lot of fiberglass repair and flooring. Looking to spend time shoring up the roof and changing the cab passage too maybe just a door. As well cutting out the rotting floor and replacing it with some like nidacore which should not rot. My 80 sunrader didn't come with A/C but still sags and since I want to add A/C I want to shore it up.
My intension is to put it on a tundra like a flatbed camper that could be removed when not in use or when camping and not want to lug around a camper to just drive around. A while back a guy that went by the name bajadulce build one such with a sunrader and t100
"Hey! I'm planning to record as much as I can; hopefully, it will be helpful for you. I was dreaming about a pass-through between the cab and the camper on my first build but decided not to do it. I still have mixed feelings about it, especially when it's pouring down rain and you need to go from the truck to the camper, hahaha.
Building a removable camper shell on the flatbed will involve more planning, such as the location of grey/black water tanks and all exhausts for heaters if you're planning to install them. Other than that, I don't see any problems! Go for it! Sunrader is such an amazingly well-engineered creature!! :)
Doing the same project and like 2 steps ahead of you. I had to remove all the flooring and installing that back in today.
@samuelb3786 Sweet!! Did you lower the floor? Are you keeping an original truck or moving it to another one? I’m moving it to Toyota Tundra
@@trvlhard Ugh! Didn’t think about lowering the floor. I left about 2 inches of fiberglass around the edges for something to attach back to the floor. Not 100% happy with that as it isn’t super secure. If you removed that fiberglass “ledge” you’d have to build some sort of bracket system to reattach the floor to the shell. i might still lower it now that idea is in my head lol. Would be nice to not have to duck inside. Most of the sides aren’t too stiff tho so idk yet how you’d do it without using the fiberglass layup “ledge”. Let me know if you’ve got any ideas!
Went back and forth on how to recreate the floor. It’s like 1/2” plywood, 1x2” ringers with roll insulation to fill the gaps, 1/4” plywood, then a tin or aluminum sheet which trapped the water and caused the floor to completely rot out. Ended up just copying the manufacture although not sure just replacing it with like 1” hardwood plywood might have been better.
I found a (interior) destroyed 1989 Toyota Odyssey 21 ft model was thinking of using the frame and build a garage or extended cab to fill the 18’ to 21’ gap. Would like to keep some of the nostalgia but the Tundra 4 seat seams like a more practical/ simpler route. Not super big on safety but it would be nice to have something to strap car seats into besides the back Sunrader bench seats 😂.
Looking to forward to following your project. I’m gonna fill in all the fiberglass holes and wait for you to get ahead of me so i can learn from your mistakes lol.
Side note… planning on the R2.8L Cummins, AX15 5spd transmission to Toyota transfer case, 4x4 conversion (obviously!) with spring Tuktoyaktuk, Yukon trip from Anchorage goal of completion.
@@samuelb3786 Sorry for the late response; I just got back from Iceland. An Alaska trip is on my bucket list!
The floor in my Sunrader is actually in decent condition, but I need to rebuild it anyway because the distance between the chassis and the top of the cab in the Tundra is larger/longer than in the old Toyota truck. So, I need to lower the floor by about 8 inches.
I was talking to a guy from a fiberglass supply company, and he suggested using composite core material (I guess it wasn't available in the 60s-80s when they used BALSA and plywood) for the floor. However, I would need to create a sandwich panel myself by infusing fiberglass resin on both sides. I've seen these types of panels, and they are incredibly strong; I couldn't break them with a hammer, hahaha.
But I decided that it's too much for me right now because I would need to figure out how to do "vacuum resin infusion." So, I've opted to go the old-fashioned way: I'm welding a frame for the floor, covering the bottom with sheets of aluminum, and planning to use 1/2 inch BALSA from the top. Toyota used BALSA as a floor core in the original Sunrader builds. Then, I plan to fiberglass the entire floor "sandwich" to the shell!"
Excited to follow the build.
Thank you! I'm jumping back to the build! More videos are coming soon!
I'm working on a 21 footer - looking forward to seeing where this goes!
Are you interested in selling the 82 Toyota donor?
Sure thing! I don't have any plans for it, but it's a diesel one! It starts but doesn't keep running.