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I just got done reading a tech article titled "UP your RV current for air-conditioning." Note it is dated July, 1970. I find it kind of fascinating since many specs are listed for under-the-hood generator to run AC. Note the popular AC units for RVs were 6K and 10K BTUs. I was going to scan and post -but I suspect not many find this stuff as interesting as I do, and scanning and compressing images is work. The smallest self-contained generators recommended are 2.5 KW unitls with 3000 watts surge-rating from Onan and Kohler. Note the Kohler has a 24 cubic inch engine and the Onan a 25 cubic inch engine. Note that the Honda 2000i only has a 6 cubic inch engine. The under-the-hood generators run from 1500 watts to 5500 watts. Note that the 1500 watt unit is rated for a 2000 watt surge (like the Honda 2000i) and is recommended for a 6K BTU air-conditioner max.

Don't forget the shoes are not exactly the same and can be easily mixed up. Toyota uses a "Simplex" brake design with one trailing-shoe and one leading-shoe. Trailing-shoe usually has less brake lining.

Having a print-out of a photograph of what it looks like before you take it apart helps a lot! Also - I suggest you get your hands on some simple drum-brake tools. A good set of brake-spring pliers are almost a must. The two in these images are what you ought to have. Note - NAPA is expensive. If you buy tools and can't way to get them on-line - Autozone is usually cheaper.

What is it with Michigan ladies and running around naked? Some people bought 20 acres of woods next to my 40 acres (where we live most of the time). We are one of the few that live here full-time. Most properties around here are hunting camps or summer-time four-wheeler camps. I'm in Hawks near Rogers City, surrounded by woods and swamps. Anyway - the land "next-door" got sold and I assumed some hunters got it. One day, me and my little boy were walking through the woods, on OUR land - and there's a woman laying on a blanket - totally naked. She saw me, threw a towel over herself and ran away. Did NOT even stop to say "hello." Ends up it was our new "neighbor" and I guess she did not know where the property lines are. That was a year ago and we've never seen anyone come back. They had cut in a driveway and hauled in a camper-trailer and not it's all over-grown. Maybe she thinks she has a pervert for a neighbor. Or thinks I'm some troll who lives in the woods and only comes out when there are naked ladies present? I've got to spend a full day in your area next week. That is, an entire day in Petoskey. My 80 year-old mother-in-law has to have some skin-cancer removed and it seems nobody where she lives in Alpena can do it. So she has been referred to get it done in Petoskey. You guys must be more civilized then we are here. Last specialist I had to see was also in Petoskey. McLaren Northern.

YOU got off easy. Your rear is not rusty like many I've worked on. Every one I have ever taken apart had the bearings soaked with gear-oil. It's better then grease so not something to worry about. If it leaks into there - it has to be coming past that little seal that rides on the axle shaft. Toyota/Dyna FF rears and the ones used in Nissans are the only ones I've ever seen that made an attempt to separate gear-oil in the differential reservoir from the end axle bearings. Why they bother is beyond me. Grease is just 30 weight oil suspended in clay or lithium soap. 90W gear oil is also just 30-40 weight oil but it certainly flows better then oil in clay or soap. I've thought about leaving the seal out but seems the oil-fill/check plug is not at the correct height in the center-section for the oil to be allowed to flow freely into the ends. That being said, I've seen one that was assembled with those little seals left out and it worked fine as far as I know.

That Toyota part # crosses to the hoses I posted. Can swear any #s are 100% accurate. Pretty easy to verify with a tape-measure.

1978 in the USA with a long-bed is a RN28. What IS confusing is this. I suspect the cab & chassis trucks have less payload ratings then standard pickup trucks. A cab & chassis truck is built with an assumed assembled weight with the new added body of 3450 lbs. Since the max total rating is 4600 lbs. - that makes it an 1150 lb. payload truck. Now - standard pickup is a lot lighter then the 3450 lbs. of an assembled cab & chassis truck. So I guess someone could say the standard pickup has more payload capacity then a cab & chassis truck?

For fans - why re-invent the wheel? We have a Fantastic vent-fan and we love it. But sometimes - we just use little clip-on fans from Walmart. They work great. Paid $13 each. Nice thing is - each person who wants a fan can have one without blasting everyone with the Fantastic fan on the ceiling.

There are some people that send me private messages that I never get. Yet others do it and I get them fine. I have no idea what is going on but I have no control on my end. The Centric # you ordered is for a "3/4 ton truck" whatever that is and that hose is only 10 1/2" long. The 1978 Toyota cab & chassis truck is rated 1150 lbs. payload, so technically it is a 1/2 ton truck. Correct hose that shows in the Rock Auto catalog is the Dorman H27301 and that is 17 3/4" long. As far as I know, Toyota never made a 3/4 ton truck for sale in the USA in 1978, so I don't know what the reference of 3/4 ton is for.

This is the correct hose as I recall. 17" long.

No real insult intended. I was kidding. I was at Kent State just after the shooing but it wasn't my choice. I was a long-hair idiot hitch-hiking back from California. A VW bus full of hippies picked me up and insisted at stopping at Kent State to see the bullet marks in the wall and whine and complain with their incense burning. Looked like some of them had not recovered from Woodstock yet. So I was there, and also did NOT like the 3.2 beer - but that was almost 50 years ago. I camped in Ohio last year and had a big surprise. We were coming back from a trip to Kentucky and not long after we got into Ohio - there were some beautiful places along the Ohio River. I was joking with my wife saying "are you sure this is really Ohio?" We camped in a totally empty rural campground (note it was very early spring and cold). that was Beaver Creek State Park. The next morning - we started to drive and found out we were right near a bunch of nuclear power plants. By the way, I like black squirrels. I don't know what they were in Ohio - but here we have the little red squirrels in black, as well as the bigger grey squirrels in black. Now my daughter?? She moved out of central New York to Bowling Green, Ohio. After a year - she got weirded out and moved back to NY. She said people in that area were just TOO different then those in NY. Note she did not say they were "worse." Just different and of her medical co-workers did not warm up to her very well (as she tells the story).

Looks like a great deal. I'd buy one in a flash for that price if it was close enough to pick up. I can see that the wear-pattern looks pretty much perfect that makes me think it is an OEM setup and not aftermarket.

I'd love to have an Astro Provan Tiger. I regret passing one up last year for less then $2000. I cannot see how there is any doubt about the rear axle being inadequate though (by US standards). The same rear-axle as used in the Provan was also used in Sunraders, Dolphins, etc and were considered unsafe by people at the NHTSA. No remedy offered for a fix though, like they did for the Toyotas. I suspect one reason being they were built in low numbers. If I got my hands on a Tiger, I'd upgrade the rear axle. Maybe like the guy with the S10-Mirage is doing right now as described on this forum. Provan Astro Tiger weighs around 5000 lbs. with NO cargo and NO passengers. So seems fair to expect it to weigh 5600 lbs. or up when used. It has a GVWR of only 5400 lbs. Also - the rear is a little lighter and smaller then was many have removed from their Toyotas (or kind of condemned by the NHTSA). To be fair - the same axles that were considered "dangerous" here in the USA are still used on heavy Toyota trucks in the rest of the world. Not with duals though. So who knows? If the Australians get along with the light semi-floating axles in trucks with over 6000 total weight ratings - then it seems a well taken-care of Astro might do all right here. Again though, the rear-axle in an Astro is lighter then was used in a 1978 Toyota pickup truck. Smaller axles, smaller wheel bearings, and smaller ring & pinion.

I suggest you make sure you've got a hammer-impact screwdriver like Harbor Freight sells for $5 - $10. I don't know what it is with the Japanese using Philips head screws that are hard to remove without stripping. Not just Toyota dually rear-axles. Many places on motorcycle engines too. I know that on the last two Toyota FF rears I had apart - those screw heads on the bearing lock-plates wanted to strip until I used a hammer-impact on them. Then they came out fine.

That is the most sensible guess I've heard. I saw one person claim it is "axle", "axle" and "center-section" and that makes no sense to me. What about the rear-axle-housing? Seems most any car has three essential items to make it go. Engine, trans, and rear (assuming it is rear-wheel drive).

Probably the easiest place to get new wheel cylinders is through NAPA. Part # ATMP9466 $14 each. I get mine from Rock Auto cheaper - but that means a wait for stuff to come in the mail.

Yes, me and my "new" bride who I found a little over 20 years ago. She is 12 years younger then me and it all evens out since we all know how much mature women are compared to men. Right? I still have hair and it is not grey yet (unlike my wife) - so it provides me with the illusion of being younger. I think even my daughter is grey but she won't confess and colors it (I think).

I never heard it called a "third member" before. Must be a regional term. What makes it 3rd? Better put, what is 1st and 2nd? In the areas where I worked as a mechanic - any rear-axle-assembly with a removable differential unit was usually called a "Hotchkiss" and any that did not have a removable unit was called a "Salisbury." Note that after you unbolt the axles by removing the nuts - they will NOT just slide out. There are tapered lock-rings on each stud and can get pretty stuck. To be technical, even with the nuts off, the more you pry on them, the tighter they get. I usually heat them a little and then tap on the axle flange to make it vibrate and let the harmonics shake them loose.

Your are actually going to Ohio on purpose? I went there once in the 70s and got to see the bullet holes in the wall at Kent State right after the National Guard shootings. Had a few beers and they were terrible. It was some sort of watered-down 3.2 beer. Only thing I found interesting were the big black squirrels.

Supposedly - the advantage to a 3 or 5 cylinder engine is natural balance. Unlike a four-cylinder that has lots of balance problems. In fact, many larger fours have to use balancing boxes or balancing shafts to keep them from shaking apart at certain RPMs. Toyota seems to have done a good job without added balancers though. Anyone remember Plymouth's "Silent Shaft Arrow" in 1976 with the "silent shaft", 2 liter four-banger? It was Japanese, but Mitsubishi, not Toyota. John Deere did the same in most of their four-cylinder tractor engines. Some of those Winnebago Rialta RVs have 5 cylinder VW engines. Not sure how well they have held up. I don't see many.

Just two wires. One goes to NEG on the coil and other to the POS on the coil. Same hook-up as much of my old Allen test equipment hooks up for "tach and dwell" readings. Has a three-position switch. 4, 6, or 8 cylinder. So I guess if you have a car like a 1973 Honda AN600 with a two-cylinder engine - you are out of luck. Same for 3, 5, 10s, or my old Jaguar V12. Also any newer cars and trucks with multiple coils are also out. I never heard of a tach needing a trigger as long as it is designed for a gas engine with just one coil. Diesels - yes. Triggers or alternator stator-taps.

That dirt road you speak of, with all the wash-boarding, is where the chimney broke off from the burner on my refrigerator on my Toyota Minicruiser. NOT a great road for a Toyota RV and I know exactly what you mean. I have a special attachment to Paradise. Maybe because of the paradoxical name since it can be so miserable there. Or maybe because I read a series of books based on a retired-cop-character and sidekick Indian that is focused there. There is a nice rural state campground just outside of Paradise on the way to Whitefish Point and the roads are all good going there. I know what you mean about spell-check. It helps to make many of us not only get dumber, also looked dumber. I waste a lot of time fixing my spell-check errors. When I was a kid in school - my name often got spelled wrong so it became "Marias" and then got pronounced MARE-EE-behind,with an emphasis on the behind. Quite different from the way it is supposed to sound - i.e. "MARE - AY" with the silent S. In Quebec, it is spelled "DESMARAIS." While in the general area - do you ever stop at Oswald's Bear Ranch? He has quite a few Toyota RVs on site. Kind of neat place.

We go there often. It is "Grand Marais", not "Grand Marias." Easy for me to remember since it is also my last name that also gets spelled wrong a lot. "Big Swamp" in French. We go there for a whitefish get-together every year and we own land not too far away in Paradise. When we go to Grand Marais, we often camp at Blind Sucker campground. We do "photo-ops" by the sign every time we are there. I assume you camped at the Lake Superior campground. Gets pretty crowded there - and as you mentioned . . windy. Blind Sucker is just down the road and one of our favorite places.

I agree if you are sure you already had a 4.3 to 1 rear. More of a leap for most that change from a 4.1 to 1.

Gee. If you are picking it up -the seller is likely saving $75 in shipping. Maybe he can take a few bucks off? I did not know that forum users had the ability to remove anything once posted (but cannot say I ever tried).