YotaTech Member Guides Us Through His Cool Chinook Build
Alongside his wife, YotaTech member is restoring his 1973 Hilux Chinook camper for tons of adventures to come.
Who remembers when you could get a Toyota truck as a camper? One of the first companies to slap on a liveable space behind the cab was Chinook of Union Gap, Washington, just south of Yakima in the rain shadow of the Cascades. While the company made their own RVs and converted a few vehicles from other brands into campers, our favorite campers were first built in 1973, and were sold through 1978, when Chinook stopped building them.
While those days are long gone, there are still plenty of these neat campers either on the road today or waiting to return. Once such Toyota-Chinook, owned by YotaTech forum member Jason Hess, is in the process of returning to the open road and adventure. Thankfully for all of us, he’s also decided to chronicle the build in our forums.
“Hey, so my wife and I recently bought a 73 Chinook and are doing a light restoration on it,” Hess said in early May, when the thread was started. “I’m finding that sourcing parts for this rig is pretty tricky, but I’m having a lot of fun working on it. I thought that doing a build thread would be a fun way to share the project and, hopefully, get some good information about tracking down parts.”
The Toyota camper was purchased in February from its previous home in Richmond, Oregon, then brought up to Hess’ home in Portland for the build. As he noted early on, things were a bit messy on his new rig. The Aisin carb rebuild “was a nightmare,” mainly because the kit didn’t have enough pieces to get the carb into shape, and the gaskets “were ambiguously sized.” The camper section, meanwhile, had seen better days, as did the brakes and bearings.
Later on, Hess swapped in some seats from a 1982 Corolla for a more comfortable ride in the cab, attaching them to the floor with the brackets from the original seats. From there, a new radiator was installed, followed by a new fuel pump to help the 18R-C move everything along at higher highway speeds through its four-speed manual, and a new heater after the original core fell apart in his hands.
After the mechanicals were more or less settled, Hess and his wife went to work on making the camper end as comfy as the cab. The old carpet was stripped out, the countertop received a makeover, and the folding roof was disassembled and rebuilt.
There’s a lot more ahead for this project, so it’s the perfect time to jump in and see where it goes. In fact, Hess has even put together a photo album with even more from the build. We can’t wait to see this Toyota camper return to the woods and beaches.
Photos: Jason Hess/YotaTech Forums
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