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Toyota Sunrader Pick-up and Pics

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For unrelated reasons, I was off work Friday. This gave me a chance to run to the DMV and get the title transferred and get the tag. My son and I drove to the seller's house Sunday and arrived at 1:00 to pick it up. I'd already secured storage earlier in the week. The seller showed us around it a bit more and demonstrated how to light the hot water heater (6 gallons) and turn the inverter (1500 watts) on and off. It has two batteries, although only one is wired into the 12-volt electric system and the inverter. The wiring is in place for a second battery, but that will be a separate post. I drove it back to our cul-de-sac so we it to the wife/mom, and then we headed off to an industrial park for my son to practice driving it. It's a 4 speed manual, and although he's driven his sister's car (also a manual), he probably has a total of an hour operating a manual vehicle, and only under practice conditions. He does, however, play Forza on his Playstation 3 with wh

Quick Update - Bought the 1984 Toyota Sunrader

Yep, finally pulled the trigger, and purchased the Toyota Sunrader I looked at on Tuesday . It's got some quirks, but the guy did a really good job of renovating it. Completely redone interior and a ton of new parts on the engine. I've got to secure storage and complete the title transfer. He's letting me keep it parked where it is until I can get that don'e Hoping to pick up up this weekend. More to come, including photos!

Getting Down to the Wire - a Toyota Sunrader

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Here we are, about a month away from my son's high school graduation and ~6 weeks away from trip departure... and still no RV. I've recognized in myself a reluctance to act when I'm unsure or uncertain. The whole trip is rather foreboding, as is the expense of a motor home (and my lack of associated knowledge required to operate it), so I've been procrastinating. With the ETD (estimated time of departure) looming, it's time to kick the ball. Although I've been keeping an eye out on Craigslist, RVTrader, and local RV dealer sites, I haven't seen anything I'm interested in. I know I want a small one, this being my first RV, and because of the planned length of the trip, mileage is important. Plus there's only the two of us, so we won't need much. I headed back to the Cruise America site. Again. And discovered they didn't have any of the 19 footers in stock. Last time I checked, maybe 2 months ago, they had maybe 10? In one sense, I

Cruise America Resales

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So after spending a couple of months now looking through Craigslist ads, and visiting two older RVs for a look-see, I'm thinking I might bite the bullet and go with a Cruise America resale, specifically the Thor Majestic 19g. I've known about he Cruise America resales for a while - I ran into them early in my motor home research - but I've only recent;y begun to seriously consider them. I'd written them off earlier for two main reasons: Price - these unit run anywhere from $26,000 to almost $30,000. That's considerably more than the max $15,000 I was looking to spend on a used one. Miles - these things come with a stack of miles, anywhere from 130,000 on up.  These two factors had me eliminating Cruise America as a potential source. But I've begun to change my mind. For one thing, I did a bit or research, and although I can find plenty of people cautioning against buying a Cruise America resale for the very reasons I listed above, non of these nay-

1989 Chevy Escaper

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We've had our eyes out for a good motor home for months. I want a small one,20 feet or less, and those seem to be few and far between. And when they do crop up, they tend to go pretty quickly. I've had several that I've called on that are already gone in the few hours since the ad was posted and I made my call. So when this one cropped up on Friday, I called the guy and made an appointment to go see it Saturday. Although the ad doesn't say, it's a 1989 Chevy Escaper, 20 feet long. I called again Saturday morning just to make sure, and it was still available, so my son and I drove up to have a look at it. It was about an hour away. We had a good chance to crawl all over it - the RV was in a consignment lot, and no one came running when we pulled up. I gave my son the camera and told him to give us a tour. The tires are on 16.5 inch rims. A guy in the know on RV's told me these are the expensive tires because only two companies make 16.5 in tires.