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Most Recent Three Posts
- thewanderlustking
  
  Posted 31 minutes ago
  
  How capable is the 4x4 Sunrader?
  
  13 minutes ago, thewanderlustking said:
  
  1) I want, perhaps even "need" a shorty 18' 4x4 Sunrader. I greatly enjoy camping in out of the way spots, so an overlander type setup, but OG Sunrader style, would be awesome.
  
  Ironically right after I wrote that in my other thread, the woman calls me into the other room and declares that she "needs" a vehicle with a snorkel. Now after seeing her white knuckled as I drove through yesterdays disaster zone left by Hurricane Ian, I translated this into she wanted me to have said vehicle. So I told her that 4x4 Sunraders all have snorkels -=cough=- and was told I could get one. Lets see how that holds up in the morning hahahaha! Timing was perfect though and I went off on a tangent in that thread before I edited it all out.
  
  Bound For Nowhere's horrible experience with theirs though makes me ask, how truly capable is the Sunrader 4x4? I mean it is based on one of the most legendary 4x4 platforms out there, so what went wrong with theirs? I really want to rewatch that whole series with this in mind. I think I could even put it up on the bigscreen and get her to sit down and enjoy it. But yeah that is bit difficult right now. My internet is down for who knows how long, and tethering to my phone is pretty slow.
  
  I don't expect this to be a crawler, but not being afraid to take it down a forest road, or drive it through flooded out roads would be awesome.
  
  I came into this whole ToyHome ownership thinking I wanted a Dolphin. I had fallen for them after working on one of the older foolie versions years ago. I looked and looked but never found one at an affordable price, or close enough to get to it. My Mini Cruiser came up and met the affordable and nearby criteria, and I really liked the layout. (Although now I realize how much better most of the Dolphin layouts are...) Anyways, as I have leaned more about Toyota trucks and also the ToyHomes, I have been drawn to the Sunrader. So much easier to get structurally sound...
  
  I LOVE my Mini Cruiser, but I would seriously contemplate letting it go if it got me close enough to make the stretch to a Sunrader. Sadly, I am pretty sure that won't ever happen... Perhaps a 2wd one, but the 4wd ones are stupid prices. These seem hard to find cheaply in either configuration. The conversion from 2wd to 4wd I could do. But I would want one with a nice interior cause that would stretch the budget thin...
  
  Anyways while this is a dreaming of kicking the tires thread... getting an 80's/90's era 4x4 Toyota of some sort is in the cards. I could even afford one now if I sold the Porsche.
- thewanderlustking
  
  Posted 2 hours ago
  
  Mobile internet, what do you guys use???
  
  (Disclaimer Linda, I stuck this here as the subforum it probably should be in doesn't seem to get any traffic, but if you decide to move it I won't be offended. This new forum setup might eliminate that issue anyways, I don't know. Anyways...)
  
  So I have been having an adventure of things here. Hurricane Ian just went through and DEVASTATED a huge swath of Florida. I wasn't in the eye, but it was still sustained cat 3-4 conditions here approaching 5 with winds hitting 155mph. It is one of the biggest hurricanes ever recorded. Here in Sarasota, we were WELL prepared. I think we all remembered Irma just a little too well. And Irma probably already had taken down all the weakest trees. We were ready. But further South, they only had maybe 12-18 hours of warning when the eye shifted lower.
  
  Just 20 miles from me, it is an ABSOLUTE war zone. What is normally a 40 minute trip, took almost 3hrs each way. I75 is now closed down. Conflicting reports of just flooded vs an overpass was taken out. The flooding is so deep I am not sure anyone can tell without scuba gear! It was an adventure for sure. And I came to two conclusions.
  
  1) I want, perhaps even "need" a shorty 18' 4x4 Sunrader. I greatly enjoy camping in out of the way spots, so an overlander type setup, but OG Sunrader style, would be awesome.
  
  Wow that takes me down a whole tangent for another thread... Lets move on. I should post that on its own...
  
  2) I need mobile internet.
  
  I have a ToughBook problem. All my laptops (except my MacBook) actually have built in WWAN cards (cellular modems). I went off to ask questions over on my favorite ToughBook forum, ToughBookTalk. But then I realized that this is probably an even better resource to utilize!
  
  What do you guys use out on the road for internet? Tethering to my phone is cheap and easy. It works well enough. But if I spend more than 30 seconds writing a post, the connection goes dead and I have to reinitialize it. It is super annoying. I have the built in modems, but those do take an extra data plan and I am unsure yet if I can use just one sim and swap to whatever laptop (physically easy to do), or if I lock the sim to the particular modem.
  
  I figure most RVers aren't using military laptops with night vision capable monitors and cellular uplinks. And especially our extra frugal and more analog ToyHomers. I am super curious as to what you guys do???
  
  Tethering was not working well yesterday when it actually was a SHTF situation. I needed real-time road condition updates. By the time we made it in and were ready to head back, road conditions had changed DRASTICALLY. Randomly, carplay on her Subaru also stopped working with my phone. Still, this doesn't completely shut down the just "using my phone" option. But I know that stressful situations can easily occur under normal driving conditions where trying to use the phone for simple GPS navigation can cause disaster. The fewer layers of technology that are involved, usually means the more reliable.
  
  I need to take a look at the current options for Garmin units out there, but at best that would only solve part of it and not give me an internet connection.
- thewanderlustking
  
  Posted 6 hours ago
  
  Saved an 1983 Dolphin from a salvage yard today. Drove it home.
  
  Well Linda you are darn lucky to have two, and they are equally lucky to be yours!
  
  But seriously, awesome save! Out of curiosity does it have the evil bad axle?! Not starting the whole OMG its unsafe ordeal, just wondering lol.