rusty-greatwhitenorth

I had to repair water damage on my '83 dolphin this past spring, and it was a huge job......I figure it cost me about $1000 in supplies and my brother and I put in I'd estimate about 200 hours labour. So, if I were you I'd look carefully and try to avoid a camper with water damage......eventually the damage will have to be repaired, and it will cost you a lot of money or a lot of time, or both.

Hey surfer dude; The other comments about axels, mold, soft spots, working appliances, etc all make good sense......basically keep your eyes open for generally good condition of the unit, if it looks abused and dirty, it probably wasn't cared for too well. As far as the 4-cyl goes, I've got an '83 dolphin with a 4-cyl, 4-speed, and it hauls itself around quite well......the mileage is great, but these things don't go fast.......expect to cruise down the road at about 55-60 mph. They don't exactly zoom up hills either, I took mine through the mountains from Canada to the Carolinas and back.......it did climb the hills, but I was going slow with the 4-way flashers on. But honestly I wouldn't expect much more grunt out of a 6-cyl. One thing I like about mine is it has a mech fuel pump and a carberator, which saved me once already.........my alternator died 750 miles away from home, and I had to make the trip runnung off the battery.......an impossible feat with an electric fuel pump and injection. That's just my preferance though, I like old tech stuff......it's simple. One other thing, it seems the camper of choice is a fiberglass body sunrader, they're just a little more stout than a tin-body camper. Good luck finding a camper, I'm sure you'll have a blast with it when ya find the right one.

well, that sounds good that you have no damage to the walls...........remember water runs downhill, so find out where it came in, and fix that leak. It is a time consuming job though, take your time and good luck.

If you're handy you can do this job, but be prepared to do much more than just replace the plywood....I did the same job on my dolphin this summer (refer to my post "oh the pain, water damage") I doubt you can get away with just replacing the plywood as once you get into the job you will surely want to rip out anything that's been water damaged because if you don't there's no point in starting the job.....you can't put good material next to rotten stuff, it's just a waste of time and effort. I believe the warrior is a fiberglass laminate construction, and if so I'm unsure what you can do if you have de-lamination.......my camper is "stick & staple" with aluminum siding so I didn't have to tackle de-lamination, but the rot behind the interior walls was rude. I hope this helps you, the toy campers are awsome, but you have to protect them from water damage.

Hiya Smitty; I'm not sure what you mean about "laminated framework", clearly your camper is of a different construction than my Dolphin, but I have to say that the caulking tubes of construction adhesive that I used fixing mine worked well, they will permanently glue pretty much anything to anything according to the label. As I got further along in my project the camper got more and more rigid, I glued and screwed every layer in so it worked out well for me. I hope this helps. Rusty

This is sorta a road trip story, but I'm singing the praises of old technology.......I recently made a trip from home (north of Toronto, Canada) in my '83 dolphin to the Syracuse N.Y. area, and had a little mechanical trouble. The alternator died on me, and I couldn't get one soon enough to be back at work on time, so I "rolled the dice", charged the battery, and headed home (350 miles) running off the battery. Unbelievable as it may seem, I made it right into my driveway........if I had a newer camper with fuel injection and electric fuel pump I doubt I'd have made it 25 miles. java script:emoticon('', 'smid_9')

Ok, a little more info.....it seems all the panelling is masonite which absorbs water like a sponge, the structural sticks are mostly 1/2"x1/2" stapled togeather, and very little fiberglass insulation. I tried to use actual plywood type panelling, larger sticks, and styrofome SM insulation (the dense blue or pink stuff). I screwed everything togeather instead of staples with many tubes of construction adhesive (around 15 tubes). As well as all that, I sealed every crack and seam on the exterior with silicone.....I know water isn't likely to get in through the seams in the aluminum siding, but I sealed all of them as well to keep dreaded water out as well as insects, and I hope to give the exterior shell a bit more rigidity. I believe I used around 20 tubes of silicone. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures, but sometime in the hopefully distant future I'd like to do the same upgrade to the rear half of the camper, and I'm rolling around the best way to redo the roof without dropping the interior celing.

I was warned to watch out for leaks on my dolphin (actually on this site). I didn't know I had a leak, and it seeped in all winter and rotted the entire front bunk, walls and support structure.....commonly refered to as "sticks" as in "stick and staple" construction. That's the bad news, the good news is now I know the front section of the camper is SOLID.......I've got around 120 hours labour, $700 in supplies, and I know the construction is sound and rock solid. Just wanted to mention this so others might want to get up and check their roof carefully for leaks, if you think the caulking on your roof is getting old........FIX IT NOW!!!! It only gets worse later.

check out e-bay folks, a very cleen chinook for sale...item #4621718503

check out e-bay dude......there's a sunrader for sale there

Hi folks; I know how rare these things are, and the demand for them so I thought I'd pass along that there's a 17 or 18 foot sunrader on e-bay located in california. It doesn't look like the cleanest unit around, but when I saw it the reserve bid hadn't been reached....current bid was $1050. I hope this helps somebody looking for that fix-er-upper.

hi there chainlink; I was looking through the 4x4's on the link you included in your post, and am interested in the bonza coach from indiana, but can't locate them through a google search.....any suggestions???

Thanx Greg and Bill; From your comments it would seem my unit is running ok, maybe not 100%, but close enough. It is the square vent type so, I guess I'll try some fans to help it along as I'm not real excited about the cost of replacing it......besides that, the only way to get it out of the camper is to remove the rear window. The gaskets seal fine, and I don't "graze" in the fridge for food often, so maybe in hot weather the fans and a block of ice on the bottom shelf will be enough. Thanx again. Rusty

Ok Greg; I follow what you're saying about fans in and behind the fridge, they probably would help some, but I'm more inclined to think the fridge is just old and tired. I admit we were traveling during hot weather, but the fridge just didn't seem to do very well....I'd estimate the interior temp somewhere between 45-50, while the freezer section would make ice. I'll see if fans help as I'd like to avoid replacing the unit if I can, but I have to sort this out as spoiled food is no fun. One thing I tried that seemed to help some was to remove the fridge and "roll" it over a few times......I was told the ammonia in it crystalizes and clogs the tubes. I know that is a bad thing to do to a freon fridge, but these ammonia units are different I hear. I ran the fridge on propane almost all the time as it seemed to perform better.......yes, I ran it on propane while driving, and it never blew out the pilot light. Any more comments you have would be appreciated. Rusty

Hi there Greg and all others; I'm relatively new to this toy RV thing, I bought an '83 20' dolphin a little over a year ago and my only regret is not having purchased one earlier. I'm not new to RVing, as my family did the trailer thing when I was a kid, but this toyota-based RV is the cat's behind!!! I do admit the sunraider is probably better constructed, but I have the dolphin, so that's what I'll run. I did a few weekend runs last summer and a 3,000 mile shake-down cruise from Ontairo, Canada to South Carolina and back as well.....my girlfriend and I had a blast (she won't let me sell it now..........ever). As it turns out I did fairly well purchasing the dolphin...they were asking $9000, and took my offer of $6000 (that's canadian funds). The dolphin has the full-floating 1-ton axle, and was in excellent shape as it was from Florida so it was rust-free (a big issue up here in Canada), and it only has 70,000 miles on it!!! I have some things to tinker with....I replaced all the camper body lights as the stock ones were crap....had to run the marker lights with a relay, but no big deal. I have some plumbing to sort out, probably have to re-do the whole mess as they sure did use the cheapest fittings and hardware they could find.....I'm fixing and up-grading as I go through the thing a little at a time. The only big thing on the list is my fridge.....it just doesn't get quite cold enough, and it looks to me like I'll have to replace it, if I can I'll try to track down a 3-way unit that will fit instead of the standard 2-way. Any suggestions?......not sure of the dimensions off the top of my head, but it's a Swedish-built unit. That's about all my rambling for now, except I'm real impressed with your web-site......excellent job, lots of great info!!! Rusty