Yeah someone posted that article here. I remember falling briefly in love with a professional snowboarder living out of a 17'
Bigfoot, pulled by a Toyota Landcruiser 5-speed, parking out in the Utah desert. My kind of woman...
Anyway in the end people want what they want, and there's no reason that the most rational thing has to be what you do.
You just need to know what you're getting into, because it's a labor of love, with stress on the labor part. Owning an old Toyota RV, or transplanting one onto a newer truck, is a huge and constant project. Like I mentioned, people do it, but they're people with either a lot of fabrication expertise, a lot of money, or often both.
People also happily overload their trucks, and so can you. But it's a good idea to find your payload limit, add up all your
weight, and see how much more you can actually safely add to your truck, and compare that to Sunrader or
Northern Lite or
Bigfoot slide-in weights, just so that if you are going to overload your truck, you know how much you're overloading it by.
For example, I know I'm over my payload limit by 100-200lbs. I'm ok with that, and I drive cautiously as a result. Your truck may have a higher payload than my earlier model Tacoma, but be aware that I'm over my limit just with a
fiberglass topper, some camping gear and the ~300# tongue weight of my trailer.
Now, if you've never gotten into this stuff before, you can have fun learning the difference between tow limits and payload limits, then figure out what your actual payload limits are.
Easiest way I've found to think about/understand the difference:
Think of strong man competitions. Guys can pull a loaded semi truck behind them on flat ground. But how much weight can they actually load on their back and support? A tiny, tiny fraction of that weight.
Tow limit is what you can pull behind you. Payload limit is how much you can actually support on your back (or truck frame/suspension in this case). I'll bet you could pull a car behind you with a strap attached to your waist. But can only carry a couple hundred pounds in a backpack.
You may be able to tow 7,000 pounds, but can only put 600 pounds of additional weight on your truck after accounting for yourself, your gear etc.