Gulfstream Greg

I am really suprised at the weight. I have searched the internet to find what the GVWR is for a 1 ton toyota pickup with no luck. My manual says 5080 lbs. for a 4x4 pickup. Both tags on the door frame say 5080 lbs. So what is the actual GVWR supposed to be with the full floating axle? I will give Toyota a call on tuesday and see what they say. The stickers below reflect stock pickup GVWR I think. It does say 15x6 rims, at 32 psi cold dual. But like I said the manual for a stock 4x4 without duals is 5080. My guess is I am reading it wrong. What is GAWR ?

That sounds like a great deal. I once priced out gettting one made and was given a price of over $200 because it was custom.

According to the sticker from Sunrader the GVWR is 5080 pounds. But that is the same as the Toyota sticker. That seems like it would be a stock pickup GVWR. I will find my manual and see. Greg

On my last trip on the way I had my toy weighed at a public scale. 6840 lbs with out me in the seat and only a ? tank of propane. So 7000 lbs would be an average weight. More than I expected. Has anyone else weighed their rig? Greg

Hi Jeff and welcome. Besides the axle I would look for signs of water damage everywhere. Don't be afraid to move cushions or look inside cabinets with a flashlight. At the same time look at all the screws checking to make sure they are still tight. Even look under the rig for signs of trouble. Look for signs of oil leaks. Examine the bottoms of the holding tank valves for signs that they may have hit something. If it?s an automatic pull the dipstick and give it a smell test. Sometimes it?s helpful to smell the oil of a transmission you know is ok to compare. Rev the engine with out a load on it, listen for signs of rod knock. Valve train noise is common with these engines. If the owner will let you perform a compression test on the engine. Greg

My screen door was a success! It was a little stiff and needs to be longer and mounted higher. It need to be made out of netting instead of screen but otherwise it worked well. Only time some biters got in is when I left the cab doors open. The dog goes in and out like its not even there. As soon as I can locate some bug netting at a good price I will make another, this time setting up a template so that it is made to exact size. Originally I made one panel cut down the middle and sewn at the top to overlap. The next one will be two seperate panels sewn together at the top. Greg

I think it would be tuff to get a 21 footer in there but maybe not. I actually pulled in forward and then turned around in the spot. It was some maneuvering to get all the way around. Not to mention soft ground. See picture below of the trees that have to be driven through. My mirrors are too wide to fit through and I had to drive through on angles right then a left in order to get the mirrors to clear the trees. Also after getting in there I had to dig two holes for the front wheels and put the rear on large rocks to level the rig. I found at 7000 plus feet even with 4 wheel drive plus low I did not have enough power to back up onto the 12 inch high rocks (I did not build ramps) and had to pull forward to get up onto them. Utica reservoir is located on Highway 4 just west of Bear Valley and Lake Alpine, CA Those trees in the front are closer together than my mirrors are wide. I pulled in front end to the left side and then backed around the tree you see in front of the toy. It would be very difficult to back through those trees. This is only a view of some of the trees, there are some big rocks also that might give the lower rigs a problem. You would not want to get stuck in there up against a tree. Not having the lower gears might be a challenge at high altitude. Greg

We recently took the Turbo on a trip to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A place called Utica Reservoir. We stayed our first night at an RV park called the Golden Torch just below Dorrington CA.. I had wanted to stop there and see if it would be a nice place for a toy in. More on that at a later date, now on to Utica. The reservoir is located at around 7000 feet. We have camped there many times but on this trip we found a new spot that blew our doors off. We had planned to park in our usual spot but the creek crossing was too deep to 4x4 thru. So we were off to another area at Elephant Rock lake. A nice spot but not on the lake. On the way as we passed one of the Utica Reservoir public campgrounds I said lets walk down there and see what kind of spots there are. We walked into a camp site that was right on the lake. It was a tight fit between the trees but we made it. I leveled off the toy and we were set. We spent three days there just relaxing! The mosquitoes were not bad but I was sure glad my new door screen was on. It worked really well for a quick put together. I plan to make a new one and better refine it. Weather was perfect. Actually a bit hot the first day, in the upper 70?s. Refrigerator had a bit of trouble cooling down that first day but got down in the 30?s over night and remained there until the drive home. Enjoy the photos below. Greg How close can you get? Nice sunset! View out the back windows. Stuck my polarized sun glasses in front of the digital camera lense for this one. These three Geese would hang out there every day. Even saw a family with two babys.

You might have a standard size screen door for RV's. Try rv-parts.com, they might have the exact fit door you need. We just got home from our trip, my new screen door worked really well. I do have some modifications to do on the next one though. Greg

Jay My guess is the computer needs the road speed for some emisions calculations. Probably a sensor in the instrument cluster that gets its info from the speedo-meter. When the computer stoped getting a signal you got the engine light. I have now idea how critical it is but it must have an effect on timing and air/fuel mixtures. Hopefully its just the cable. Probably not the speedo-meter its self. And hopefully not the drive gears in the tranny. Keep us posted on what you find. Greg

I have no idea. You may have to have one built. I know that there are companys that will fabricate a screen door for most RV'S. But its not cheap. Look on the Yahoo-campers group and do a search for rv wrecking yards. Seems to me there was talk about one in Arizona that might be the place to look. As for sunrader, they have a custom door and frame that does not allow a standard RV screen door. So I came up with my own. Still in the protype phaze, some minor changes. I will probably build a new one and insread of using window sgreen I am going to try and locate some mosquito netting. It will be lighter weight and easier to walk thru. Any how this could be a solution for you too. When I get it complete I will post some photo's next week of what it looks like and how it mounts. Greg

For some time I have been hearing a rattaling noise under my rig right at the transfer case. Not good I thought. So I crawled under with a stethascope and took a listen. The scope was worthless. Then I thought to myself, the rig is in park, nothing is moving in the transfer case. The noise was coming from the inside of the catalytic converter. Took it off and here is what I found. It must get really hot in there. I bought a new one, its the same lenght but overall size is smaller so I am taking it back. Hope I don't have to buy it from toyota This is the inlet side. This is the outlet side. This is a new one.

Taking a trip to the Sierras next week end, staying at a spot where we once arrived at midnight and were eatin alive by MOSKEEEETOS . So as anyone knows who owns a Sunrader there is no screen door or even one available. It was time to make one. Using regular window screen it is split down the center and held together with magnets. I rigged it so that it is held on the inside of the door frame with velcro. The very bottom has fishing weights (bb's) sewed in to keep it down. The Velcro on the inside door frame is put where ever there is a screw, keeping it from pulling off. Over the top of the door frame the Velcro is stapled in place. The Velcro I put on the screening will be sewed in place but for now I used a paper stapler and attatched them. I made the mistake of buying the velcro with the glue backing and was unable to sew it on as everytime I tried the glue would gum up the needle and break the thread. I am going to the fabric store tonight and getting the sew on Velcro to finish the job. It works really well except that it would be better to mount it as high as possible over the door, That would give it more opening width at the top. I mounted it about 6 inches above the door and it will not open as wide at the top as it does at the bottom. But higher mounting position would help that. Only took about four hours so far. Not sure if I will extend this one or make a new one. I will test this one first against the little biters first. I will be posting some pictures and more details but not sure when. Greg

Nolan Do you know how that rod works? I have not a clue how that whole contraption works. Greg

I think Tika has one of those, not really sure though. I use the sun shield on the windshield and have been thinking of making something for the inside of the side window. Only thing is my dog likes to sleep in the front at night and look around. Greg

I hope that one day both can live together. Seems like everyone on yahoo likes the yahoo format. Everything tends to get lost though. I just spent 15 mins looking for the beginning of a thread. Thats a pain. One of the great things about this forum is you can subscribe to a thread and be notified if someone responds to it. Not to mention if your gone for a few days, much easier to find where you were. Give it time. Not much action here yet. When the number of members grows the amount of conversation will also grow.

I was told by the previous owner that my proportioning valve had been upgraded to the larger 1 ton version. So that brings up a question is there two diferent ones. pre 87 etc.. Here is a pic of my valve. 86 Sunrader

Thanks Tom, thats great information. I will contact them next week and see what they have to say. Greg

A question on the toyota-campers group regarding the repair of the 120 volt ac side of a refer. Not sure if mine is the same model or not. There are two coils in mine, a 12 vdc and a 120 vac. The 12vdc one can be identified by the slide on terminal on its side. The 120vac one has the wires feeding directly into it with no terminals. One way to check it without taking everything apart is to pull the plug and test the resistance across the plugs prongs. It should basically show a short. If it acts like its open (no continuity) then the coil or the selector switch is bad. The next step would be to locate the correct coil. They are inside a sheet metal cylinder. There are some tabs that must be bent out in order to open the cylinder. That will expose the coils. Locate the one without the side terminal and trace the wires. You will have to check continuity of the coil, if its good then you have a bad selector switch, etc. There is a measurement of resistance in ohms the coil should have but I do not know that value. Hope that helps Greg

Once I get the sender out I will be able tp see what the travel is. The parts guy said that the resistor packs get corroded. Be a few weeks before I can pull it out. I suspect as you say, the tank is deeper and the float does not reach the bottom. Might have to work it over.

Called the tank builder today. Got the same info Tika did, except I was told by the parts dept. that it would have to be a min of 10 tanks, he could have been wrong. Good news for me is that the bigger tank uses stock Toyota parts. IE the gaskets, level sending unit and fuel pump. Going on a trip next weekend so hopefully the weekend after I will drop the tank. Not sure if there is a filter on the pickup tube. I think I will buy the stock sender and make sure it has full swing top to bottom. Right now I am finding that it will read full but when its on empty I can have as much as 10 to 12 gallons in the tank. Its been a guessing game. So even though they were the originak manufacturer of the larger tanks if you want a bigger tank you might have to have one built by someone else. Besides, its really only 10 gallons more than the stock tank. Rig two GI cans on the rear and you have that.

Spaceship One entered outerspace the other day and returned to earth with the pilot alive and well. Here is the photo page of the web site.

TECHNOLOGY The Techno Maestro's Amazing Machine Kohei Minato and the Japan Magnetic Fan Company A maverick inventor's breakthrough electric motor uses permanent magnets to make power -- and has investors salivating When we first got the call from an excited colleague that he'd just seen the most amazing invention -- a magnetic motor that consumed almost no electricity -- we were so skeptical that we declined an invitation to go see it. If the technology was so good, we thought, how come they didn't have any customers yet? We forgot about the invitation and the company until several months later, when our friend called again. "OK," he said. "They've just sold 40,000 units to a major convenience store chain. Now will you see it?" In Japan, no one pays for 40,000 convenience store cooling fans without being reasonably sure that they are going to work. SEE THE WHOLE STORY HERE! Motor

Tika Thanks for the info. I will give them a call today about my gauge and gaskets. I would think all the tanks would be the same for any Toy truck. The underside does not change due to the coach on the top. Possibly the fill spout? If you look on the bracket picture the dark area bottom center is actually gas that has keaked from the top of the tank and ran down the side.

Thanks Vaughn and Welcome! The Toyota-Campers group has allot to offer. Alot of great people. I will be both places. If I have not been there for a few days it can be hard to just drop in as sometimes you have to go back a few pages to find the begening of a thread. Your eye catches the title but the content has changed and so you have to start searching to find the start. There is a thread selection for yahoo, worked until I hit previous and it took me back to day 1. The ones here just get dropped down the list, new posts at the top. Make sure you look at the skins you can choose. They can change the layout a bit. You can also subscribe to a topic and will be notified by email if someone posts to the topic. Thanks again Greg