Mark Krueger

Today our Wisconsin Dolphin moved on to a new home. Camping at Oshkosh was just getting to be too difficult with my Dad’s limited mobility, so we decided it should end it’s garage queen status. I hope the new owner makes a lot of wonderful memories. If she happens to find this thread, I think she will recognize it. Always feel free to ask me any questions about it; and I’ll do my best to help any way I can. I still have it’s sister 1992 Dolphin out here in San Francisco (as seen in my profile header photo). My Dad’s RV and mine were built just a few months apart.

Your Freewheeler is awesome! I love the simplicity of a rock solid engine, manual transmission, short length, etc. The best motorhome is one that lets you get out and GO without too much maintenance hassle.

Congratulations Tone! You’re going to love traveling in your new (to you) Toyota. I live in SF and my Dolphin lives in Daly City, so I’ll be sure to wave to you if we pass each other on the PCH someday ?

On the Dolphin there is plenty of room to work when the sofa is "half way" switched. So we can easily reach in there and work without having to remove anything. We had to re-schedule; but I will post pictures when we do the swap.

This is very helpful. I get what you are saying and it makes sense. I wonder how much I would need to advance the idle; and if there would be a trick to kind of temporarily switch the idle into high...maybe with a switch or something. I actually sat in the driver seat and revved it a tad at idle once during the trip thinking that might be the issue and it did seem to stay cooler. Yeah, I totally get that this is the normal solution. It's just a lot of weight and hassle to have a Gen for this very rare occurrence (for me). And I am way too used to having that generator compartment as storage. I have dual house batteries and this provides me with plenty of power when dry camping for everything but the A/C. I'm actually quite relieved that my temps are normal and WME gave me a couple possible solutions for the rare situation.

I don't know Lenny. The marketing department says 70; but I think it's usually more like 64 in our fair city :-) Or probably you just live in a nicer part of town :-D 64 and a little fog is perfect for me though. Always just right for a hike or run.

LOL yes. 115F is too hot for humans or dogs. And it was over 120 not far south of us. One night when it had only cooled down to 95 at midnight -- and we were stuck in a spot with no electricity -- I just got up and drove us an hour to higher altitude. Ah so much easier to sleep! When it got down to 75 just pulled off the road on some BLM land. Plus family was able to go right to sleep as I started driving with A/C on. Sorry to those I woke when I >>very quietly<< exited the campground at midnight. I felt bad about that. Luckily the Toyota runs quiet. We may have gotten too ambitious this trip heading to the desert during summer and a record setting heat wave as well. Our little Toy performed quite admirably though. Climbing mountains in that kind of heat caused plenty of very modern looking motorhomes to be pulled over with open hoods on our trip; but as usual the Toyota just kept on cruising. Only when I tried to make it into a parking lot air conditioner did it complain ;-) Even then it was running smoothly when I got scared by the gauges.

Interesting redskinman. Thanks for the info. Let me know how things go this weekend. I think this might be the video you are referring to:

Good question. I'll pop the hood, check it out, and take some pictures tomorrow afternoon.

The new Shur Flo includes nice tall rubber grommets that should do the trick. Or at least they seem far superior to the plastic base on the original equipment pump.

Yes, meter shows power at the pump. But I will double check with several on-off cycles of the switch while my daughter watches the volt-meter just to make sure there aren't any secondary issues. I'll bring some switch cleaner with me just in case. That does sound nice, but too late :-) I went with this Shur Flo: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C1M6B1C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I guess in the grand scheme of things I decided I'm more into reliability than noise...as it really isn't running that much. Good point on the shower head though. I've been waiting for my 10 year old daughter to have time available from her busy summer schedule to do the installation. I feel like this is a great opportunity to teach about DC motors, sensors, and plumbing; so she is going to install it tomorrow afternoon with assistance from me. I'll post here after installation in case anyone is interested. In the mean time I have my refrigerator half un-installed to fix some mounting issues that effected the door...so that has kept me busy. What a mess my normally orderly RV is in at the moment. This is all part of the fun though :-)

During my recent 3000 mile trip to Monument Valley and back I got to experience temperatures outside what I am used to. It averaged 95 to 115F daytime the entire trip. During this trip I attempted to do something I would normally find wasteful: I ran the Toyota A/C at idle. This was basically to keep my older dog cool while he and I waited in a store parking lot for my wife and daughter to shop. I do not have a generator as 99% of the time I do not need it -- but it would have been nice for sure. After idling for about 20 minutes I glanced at the dash and noticed the temp indicator very close to the red. I also have an after-market gauge installed, and it was reading between 220 and 230F. The highest I normally see it get on the highway with A/C on is around 210 or a tiny bit higher. Average is probably 195 or 200. I turned off the engine and opened the hood to let it cool. It wasn't easy getting that hood open as it was uncomfortably hot. It was probably 105 ambient with low humidity that day. I did not attempt to do this again. My questions: What is maximum safe operating temperature of the 3VZE? The PO installed a larger than normal engine cooling fan as well as the gauge. Is it normal for the engine to overheat in this situation? I don't recall hearing the loud sound of that fan spinning up to max. I have heard it crank up before while driving; but very rarely. Even when it's running quite hot. I wonder if whatever controls the fan needs adjustment. What diagnostics should I do? I'd like the option of A/C at idle for traffic situations or the rare situation above. It's rarely above 65F where I live in SF; which may make experimentation tricky. I wonder if this could be a similar situation to : But since that thread is the 22R it doesn't seem applicable. Thanks for any ideas. The trip was awesome despite the temperatures.

Thanks much Linda. I'll look for a similarly spec'd Shur Flo and post my results here for the community. I agree that pump has had an amazingly long life -- so much of the equipment on this RV was really well made.

My water pump (in the sofa) has been intermittently failing to function, and I think it finally gave up the ghost. I've checked the electrical side and all is well. It appears that either the sensor part or motor part has been dying/has died. What pump do you recommend to replace it? It might be nice to have a quieter one; but my priority is reliability I guess. If you would like to see and hear my pump; here is a short video of it's death throws. Sorry for the poor quality: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9larettgyn6klv9/File Jul 05%2C 10 27 21 PM.mov?dl=0 Let me know if this video is difficult to view and I can upload to my youtube instead. My thought is I will replace it and then disassemble the old one and attempt to rebuild it for learning purposes and to have a spare.

I just did a 3000 mile trip from California to Utah and back. I tracked mileage throughout and am pretty consistent at 12.5MPG. I run tires at 50psi and generally 55 to 60MPH. Note that I run pretty heavy (full water tank, partially full waste tanks, two adults, kid and dog + lots of cargo). Also lots of mountains on this trip (constantly going up and down).

Things have changed a bit...thought I would update. We decided driving the RV 2200 miles out to California would make it hard to get it back another 2200 miles to Wisconsin for next years EAA. It would end up being a constant loop of driving every year. I really want to keep taking my Dad for that camping week as long as it is possible for him. So I'm leaving the Wisconsin RV in the garage in Wisconsin. Instead I found a 1992 Dolphin in CA and purchased it last week! Complete lack of rust is a bonus (got to love CA climate). Phew, here we go. I'll post new pictures when I get the chance. It has 60K miles and is in great shape; with much work done to the V6 a couple years ago. Am I now officially a Dolphin collector? I seem to be not alone in this :-)

Hi Everyone! I hope it's OK for me to post an "introducing myself" thread here. I recently became the owner of a 1992 Toyota Dolphin V6 with 55,000 miles, and am very excited to begin traveling the US with my family. Here is a little bit of my Dolphin's history: My parents have owned 3 Dolphins. The first was a 4 cylinder. The second was a V6 similar to mine (which they lost when a trailer crashed into them on the interstate). And the third was this 1992. They didn't use it as much as the first two due to their age (my father just had his 90th birthday). That is why it is only at 55,000 miles :-) My Dad is meticulous about maintaining his vehicles, and built a garage specifically to fit the Dolphins; so it has been a garage queen for it's entire life. My parents decided they are now done with their RV adventures, and have sold it to me. My name is Mark, and I am 45 with a wife and 10 year old daughter excited to begin adventuring. I hope I can do justice to this incredibly well maintained vehicle. I'm sorry I don't have great pictures; but figured I should at least share these two. The external shot was taken about 2 years ago. It looks basically exactly the same today; as my parents have only added 300 miles to it since then. That's me sitting on the step in the "outside" pic, and My Dad is center in the inside pic. I'll be sure to take more before we begin transporting it home; as it is a real all-original beauty. I have a few projects to complete before we can begin our adventure. We live in San Francisco, so the first is securing a good parking place before transporting it here from Wisconsin. Luckily my father-in-law owns a lot where he kept his Class A RV for many years before selling it. It is a concrete slab with driveway that I believe has plumbing and electric! I just have to re-assemble his tent-garage-structure and we will be ready to store our RV. I will be taking a look at that this evening. Next I'll have to figure out the logistics of driving it home. I'd like to make a trip out of it; as there is some beautiful country between Wisconsin and California -- as well as a lot of empty space. The dolphin has the extra-large gas tank option; so that should help with the long drive West. What kind of mileage do you all expect from the V6 on flat highways (I'll probably be a slow driver to save on gas)? I don't think I will have much maintenance to do to the RV itself before the big trip West. The tires were all replaced 10,000 miles ago. My father has been doing regular maintenance as far as oil-changes, muffler, brakes, etc, at a local Toyota place. He keeps excellent records. Please jump in with advice on anything I should be sure to check before the first voyage. I will also read all the existing threads on maintenance. I'm especially curious about the "air bag" suspension system I noticed when doing a walk around with my Dad. I'm not familiar with those; hope I won't run into any pitfalls with that due to its age. I'm looking forward to re-doing the interior myself to bring the shag carpet up to something more modern, adding a solar system and battery pack to reduce reliance on the Onan generator (which is reliable; but quite loud), and lots of other ideas. I'd like to prep it for dry camping to maximize our adventure options; as well as hopefully camping at some free/low cost options whenever possible. But it will also need to be very comfortable for my wife. I wonder if replacing the driver/passenger seats would be a good idea for more comfort on long trips. Anyway, thanks for reading. Many thanks to all those responsible for this amazing forum! I'll keep posting in this thread over the coming months as our Dolphin moves Westward. First my Dad and I have a camping trip planned at EAA Airventure in July -- which is only about 60 miles from the Dolphin's current home. Maybe I'll see some of you there. We will be camping just outside the grounds near the ultralight area entrance (red barn). I am hoping to bring it West shortly after that trip -- if all goes well with preparations.