T100 Central America Surf Hunter (1 Viewer)

[Travelin2gether]

My wife and I were living on Maui when we decided we were going to drive from California to Panama, so we were starting from scratch when our plane touched down in California. Luckily we had generous family that allowed us to occupy their spare rooms and garages.
Step 1: Get way too excited about purchasing a 22 year old truck with nearly 200k miles

purchase

• Travelin2gether
• Apr 13, 2017

We decided on a 1995 Toyota T100 4x4 with a manual transmission.
I did a bunch of maintenance work and fixed a couple small issues.

Next, I got to work inside the cab. We ditched the bench for bucket seats and removed half the rear bench for extra storage/dog bed.

We also installed a 150ah house battery. It is wired through a solenoid to be charged by the alternator while the truck is running and will also be charged by a 300 W solar suitcase.

 

[Travelin2gether]

OK. Next, we got to work on the camper.
We started by purchasing a used fiberglass shell off of craigslist for $90 and cutting the top off with an grinder and cutting will.

I then used 5mm plywood and 6oz fiberglass with epoxy resin to build a tall camper with cab-over storage for surfboards.

With a bit of paint and a 8x8 ARB awning mounted on the side, we thought we were looking pretty good in a clearly DIY kinda way.

 

[Travelin2gether]

We then turned our attention to the inside of the camper.
We constructed a sleeping platform that rests on the bedrails and a divider wall built out of 1-inch angle iron and 1/2 inch plywood.
The platform itself is 1/2 inch ply with 1/2 ply supports glued and screwed at the unsupported edges.

We built our own fridge slide to accommodate our 66L SnoMaster fridge/freezer using angle iron and drawer slides.

Here's a shot of the inside once we started packing.

 

[Travelin2gether]

And a few shots just to show that it actually works

 

[PAToyota]

Nice setup! Looks like it works well for you!

 

[Travelin2gether]

Thanks, Pat. We've been living out of it for 10 months and it hasn't let us down yet.

 

[chappohj47]

Great mate

 

[thelal]

v. nice. Like the DIY canopy/roof.
Was in Panama as part of Alaska to Argentina a few yrs back but only for a couple of days

 

[Travelin2gether]

v. nice. Like the DIY canopy/roof.
Was in Panama as part of Alaska to Argentina a few yrs back but only for a couple of days

Thanks.
You must have been feeling some pressure from your shipping date to only spend a couple days in all of Panama.
We're planning 2 months in Panama, but no South America for us. Always tradeoffs. Hopefully we make it down there in a few years with some replenished funds