House Battery Suggestions

['84Toyota]

Yippy! (or, "Hello, all you ToyHome owners, I'm a new member to this exclusive club!" or "I just bought my first Toyota MH and have a bunch of questions--I'll get to them in time")

I just purchased an '84 Toyota MH. I'm in the Seattle/Tacoma area looking for the best (most cost effective also) mechanic, so if there are any suggestions for that, I'd be grateful. 

My plan is to tour the nation, but I have a few things to take care of before that can happen. Right now, though, with this cold weather, I need to make sure the furnace is working. Good news is that it does! Or at least it did for the first 2 nights. It still works fine, I'm sure, but only blows cold air now. By looking around on the forum here, I figured out that the house battery is not keeping a strong enough charge to power it. I confirmed this by trying it while plugged in, and sure enough, the furnace works well. So, I'm hoping that I only need to replace the house battery, which does fine to power my LED lights and charges all my devices but doesn't seem to get charged up enough from driving to power the furnace. 

What battery should I choose? Any suggestions? It needs to fit into the current battery location, which is a standard size battery under the hood. 

I drive between a half hour to 1 1/2 hours daily; is this not enough to charge the house battery off the alternator? Do I need a stronger alternator (my last RV had an upgraded alternator and was able to charge my house battery bank (which was embarrassingly large, lol), but that was an upgrade the previous owner made, and I know nothing about it). I would rather not have to do that if possible. I really just need enough juice to charge my hotspot and phone and to power a couple conservatively used LED lights, AND the furnace on cold nights. 

What say you? 

Also, both batteries are grounded to the body; a friend who looked it over for me said he would prefer they were both grounded to the block, but he didn't point out exactly where for the house battery. I'd love it if someone could tell me where exactly is the best place. Pictures would be awesome. 

ETA: I forgot to say that the house battery seems fairly...aged (shall we say). 

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by '84Toyota

[Maineah]

9 minutes ago, '84Toyota said:

Yippy! (or, "Hello, all you ToyHome owners, I'm a new member to this exclusive club!" or "I just bought my first Toyota MH and have a bunch of questions--I'll get to them in time")

I just purchased an '84 Toyota MH. I'm in the Seattle/Tacoma area looking for the best (most cost effective also) mechanic, so if there are any suggestions for that, I'd be grateful. 

My plan is to tour the nation, but I have a few things to take care of before that can happen. Right now, though, with this cold weather, I need to make sure the furnace is working. Good news is that it does! Or at least it did for the first 2 nights. It still works fine, I'm sure, but only blows cold air now. By looking around on the forum here, I figured out that the house battery is not keeping a strong enough charge to power it. I confirmed this by trying it while plugged in, and sure enough, the furnace works well. So, I'm hoping that I only need to replace the house battery, which does fine to power my LED lights and charges all my devices but doesn't seem to get charged up enough from driving to power the furnace. 

What battery should I choose? Any suggestions? It needs to fit into the current battery location, which is a standard size battery under the hood. 

I drive between a half hour to 1 1/2 hours daily; is this not enough to charge the house battery off the alternator? Do I need a stronger alternator (my last RV had an upgraded alternator and was able to charge my house battery bank (which was embarrassingly large, lol), but that was an upgrade the previous owner made, and I know nothing about it). I would rather not have to do that if possible. I really just need enough juice to charge my hotspot and phone and to power a couple conservatively used LED lights, AND the furnace on cold nights. 

What say you? 

Also, both batteries are grounded to the body; a friend who looked it over for me said he would prefer they were both grounded to the block, but he didn't point out exactly where for the house battery. I'd love it if someone could tell me where exactly is the best place. Pictures would be awesome. 

ETA: I forgot to say that the house battery seems fairly...aged (shall we say). 

 

The entire frame is grounded to the block along with the 120 volt wiring, starting battery and on many the aluminum siding. 

[5Toyota]

for the start battery . it should have the ground to the block . from the block take a short double loop end termanel type                          cable and go too the body . then you have a good frame ground also. and yes a weak rv battery did the same heater problem on my dolphin. I personaly use  a standerd  flloded  deep cycle type. under the hood ones I think are the group 24 which is the smaller size . I by my batterys at les shaub but that is me . they only serve the western u .s. most often on the front left side of the block forward of the motor mount you should find a threded hole that is a common place to put one .

Edited February 6, 2019 by 5Toyota

['84Toyota]

22 minutes ago, 5Toyota said:

for the start battery . it should have the ground to the block . from the block take a short double loop cable and go too the body . then you have a good frame ground also. and yes a weak rv battery did the same heater problem on my dolphin. I personaly use  a standerd  flloded  deep cycle type. under the hood ones I think are the group 24 which is the smaller size . I by my batterys at les shaub but that is me . they only serve the western u .s.

Thanks, 5Toyota! There is a Les Shaub nearby. I was going to go to O'Reilly's, but I'll check out what Shaub has first.

The guy who looked at it for me showed me where on the block I should ground the start battery, but he just said "to the block" for the house one. So, am I just supposed to pick a bolt for it? 

I had told him my suspicions about why the furnace wouldn't work, and he said that he can't really explain why, but he has always had batteries do better when ground to the block. 

28 minutes ago, Maineah said:

The entire frame is grounded to the block along with the 120 volt wiring, starting battery and on many the aluminum siding. 

This is good to know! Thanks, Maineah. As power diminishes over mere inches, and the ground is a very important part of the system, I can see why, even though the frame is grounded to the block, it would probably be even better to ground the battery directly to the block (even if I don't really understand, myself, why the block is the ground point, LOL. Someone has figured out that it is, so I'll go with that).

[WME]

As a new owner, this will become your new BFF...https://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?dir=asc&order=EAScore%2Cf%2CEAFeatured+Weight%2Cf%2CSale+Rank%2Cf&q=voltmeter

Get one and learn to use. You need to check the truck battery voltage, the isolator v in&out,  house battery v. All with the truck engine off and running. You will also have to check the v at your fuse panel.

Your Toy is 34+ years old, you have no idea what has problems from old age and what is bad from poor decisions by a previous owner (PO)

['84Toyota]

1 hour ago, WME said:

As a new owner, this will become your new BFF...https://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?dir=asc&order=EAScore%2Cf%2CEAFeatured+Weight%2Cf%2CSale+Rank%2Cf&q=voltmeter

Get one and learn to use. You need to check the truck battery voltage, the isolator v in&out,  house battery v. All with the truck engine off and running. You will also have to check the v at your fuse panel.

Your Toy is 34+ years old, you have no idea what has problems from old age and what is bad from poor decisions by a previous owner (PO)

Thanks, WME! Gotta voltmeter; kinda know how to use it. On my last RV, I put a color-coded cheatsheet up near the 12-volt outlet that we kept the charge meter thing plugged into. LOL, the colors were coded as per what to do: Red--turn everything off and charge batteries. yellow: no more TV; charge batteries, and so on.  

It's been a couple of years, so I will need to get reacquainted (not that I ever had a perfect grasp anyways). 

It is odd to own an RV with such limited information and having been owned by more than one perfect original owner. I wanted one of these Toyotas when I bought my first MH 5 years ago, but it just wouldn't accommodate my family at the time. So excited to own one now. I have things to do to get her just right, but this forum is so helpful for knowing what those are. 

BTW, I see you are in a Brave. My first MH (purchased 5 years ago) was a 72 Indian. One of the vintage ones, with the eyebrows. If you have ever seen one of the Tonka Winnebagos, I drove around in the real version of that. People loved seeing it. I think of the original owner of that as some sort of guardian angel. He made perfect choices with it for everything from purchase choices (largest possible of all tanks and doubles of water, gas, and propane) to upgrades. He even put a rounded rubber roof on her, so I have never had to worry about leaks. And totally redid the electric to be completely awesome even without solar. He also did all sorts of things to the engine. He was awesome. That RV is awesome. Took us all over the western US. But it's a gas hog and too big for my current wants and needs. 

This one came with some scattered documentation, but nothing like the meticulous records the owner of my first MH kept. That one is 12 years older than this one. It is weird to own one where I can't just be confident that every change that has been made to it over the years has been well thought out and expertly executed. 

ETA: forgot to say that I haven't worried about the voltage because I am pretty sure I just need a new battery. I'll break that thing out (and chew some nails) if that doesn't solve the problem. Putting in a new one seems like a good place to start, and from what I've read on this forum, may just solve the problem. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by '84Toyota
air head/forgetful

[REALLYRURAL]

"What battery should I choose? Any suggestions? It needs to fit into the current battery location, which is a standard size battery under the hood.  "

The Starting battery "under the hood" is really sized to just run the truck.  Not enough amp hours to run any rv furnace for long and you may find yourself stranded with a dead battery.

Every Toyhome I have seen has a house battery or two.  When you plug the shore-cord in the charger tops off the house battery.

If you do not have a house battery then adding an rv battery or two six volts  for the house will provide extra power.  It will still be questionable if you can get enough amp hours to run the ;furnace for any period of time without either shore power or a generator. 

Maybe your real question is how to heat a ToyHome? Even better how to survive heating a ToyHome?

A good circuit tester should be on the shopping list. (this is a decent one)

https://www.amazon.com/Gardner-Bender-GFI-3501-Receptacle-Extension/dp/B00170KUPC/ref=asc_df_B00170KUPC/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309819400004&hvpos=1o3&hvnetw=g&hvrand=397671077230100967&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002847&hvtargid=pla-437068953998&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=60510211606&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=309819400004&hvpos=1o3&hvnetw=g&hvrand=397671077230100967&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002847&hvtargid=pla-437068953998

After plugging in the shore cord look at the tester to see if things are wire right. 

On any RV  I always touch them with the back of my hand before proceeding further.  If you feel a tingle that  is stray current that needs to be addressed  before going further.

Congratulations on your purchase,  You are going to have to look it over with a fine tooth comb, then have many years of adventure to come.

Hope to meet you on the road in the future.

 

[Maineah]

12 hours ago, '84Toyota said:

Thanks, 5Toyota! There is a Les Shaub nearby. I was going to go to O'Reilly's, but I'll check out what Shaub has first.

The guy who looked at it for me showed me where on the block I should ground the start battery, but he just said "to the block" for the house one. So, am I just supposed to pick a bolt for it? 

I had told him my suspicions about why the furnace wouldn't work, and he said that he can't really explain why, but he has always had batteries do better when ground to the block. 

This is good to know! Thanks, Maineah. As power diminishes over mere inches, and the ground is a very important part of the system, I can see why, even though the frame is grounded to the block, it would probably be even better to ground the battery directly to the block (even if I don't really understand, myself, why the block is the ground point, LOL. Someone has figured out that it is, so I'll go with that).

Think of the frame as a very large gauge cable! The block has a jumper wire frame to block it has to or the engine would not crank. The engine is mounted on rubber motor mounts they are very poor conductors as you might imagine, that basically is the primary reason the block has to be grounded to the battery. In many cases the same cable is grounded to the frame work on it's way to the engine block or a short jumper to the frame. You don't want there to be any potential grounding issues they all must be the same potential or your electrical stuff will do very strange things. Imagine the amount of wire that would have to be connected to the block for grounds, lights, heater fan, turn signals etc you get the picture. The frame will handle hundreds of thousands of amps the weak point is the connecting cables.

['84Toyota]

15 hours ago, REALLYRURAL said:

"What battery should I choose? Any suggestions? It needs to fit into the current battery location, which is a standard size battery under the hood.  "

The Starting battery "under the hood" is really sized to just run the truck.  Not enough amp hours to run any rv furnace for long and you may find yourself stranded with a dead battery.

Every Toyhome I have seen has a house battery or two.  When you plug the shore-cord in the charger tops off the house battery.

2

Hi, REALLYRURAL! 

Mine has 2 batteries under the hood: the start battery and the house battery with an isolator. I guess that is aftermarket; I thought that's how they came. I don't even know what an isolator is (though, I can gather from the name and my limited understanding), but I'm told it was installed properly. I was told that will keep me from running my start battery low. 

Do you mean to touch the frame with the back of your hand while it's plugged into shore power? 

Hope to meet you on the road also!

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by '84Toyota
meant to say "running my start battery low"

['84Toyota]

3 hours ago, Maineah said:

Think of the frame as a very large gauge cable! The block has a jumper wire frame to block it has to or the engine would not crank. The engine is mounted on rubber motor mounts they are very poor conductors as you might imagine, that basically is the primary reason the block has to be grounded to the battery. In many cases the same cable is grounded to the frame work on it's way to the engine block or a short jumper to the frame. You don't want there to be any potential grounding issues they all must be the same potential or your electrical stuff will do very strange things. Imagine the amount of wire that would have to be connected to the block for grounds, lights, heater fan, turn signals etc you get the picture. The frame will handle hundreds of thousands of amps the weak point is the connecting cables.

3

OK; that all makes sense. Except, I didn't follow this part: "In many cases the same cable is grounded to the frame work on it's way to the engine block or a short jumper to the frame."

I do think my cables are weak points; they are so much smaller than the ones on my last RV. But that guy did put in the best of everything and went overboard on some, so maybe I shouldn't be comparing the two like that. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain things to me. I appreciate it!

[WME]

What is your isolator?? A 3x5 aluminum block with fins or the 35mm film can size one??

['84Toyota]

5 hours ago, WME said:

What is your isolator?? A 3x5 aluminum block with fins or the 35mm film can size one??

The first one describes it best. 

[AtlantaCamper]

I ran into an issue with the Atwood furnace where the fan ran my battery down one cold night.  It turns out that the furnace control board is designed in a way that cuts the igniter off if the voltage is too low (or it just doesn't fire when voltage drops) but the fan keeps running.  The result is that once the battery is too low to ingnite, the fan will then run the battery DEAD.  Bad design.  Fortunately there is a fix.  I installed an aftermarket "Dinosaur Fan 50 Plus Furnace PC Board" (or some similar model from that brand, I can't remember the exact version).  It has a smart design that saves your battery if the voltage goes low.  It basically turns off the furnace after the battery voltage drops below a fixed voltage I think.  You are cold in the morning but your battery isn't run into the ground. A hundred bucks or so on ebay for the board if I recall.  You might consider that as an option to improve your rig.  I grew up in Portland and i know you will use your furnace more than your AC there!  Now I'm in Atlanta and it's the other way around.

As I have gone over my Sunrader electrical I have learned that age has not been kind to it.  I currently have a functional electrical system that I'm happy with but it took a lot of work to get there. I had to replace a lot of the original electronics because they got old and flaky or just failed (replaced the charge converter with a Progressive dynamics one, and i installed a WirthCo 20090 Battery Doctor to replace the isolater as two key upgrades).  The key wiring connections were corroded so I put in new ground wire or new connections all around.  (an aside: recently I replaced the original generator with a Honda 2000 by building a sound isolated generator box in the original generator location - that's an ongoing project that I hope to report on this site more completely one day.  Summary is that I've got a small generator fed from the main gas tank that is internal mounted, very very very quiet, and can power my roof AC through the MIcroAir Easy Start.  But that's a story for another day).  

My house battery strategy is to use a deep cycle battery from Walmart  because it's not too expensive (~$100 to $125)  and I can replace it under warranty pretty much anywhere on the road if there is a problem.  I installed a shunt recently that allows me to monitor current in and out of the battery (only $25 for parts and was easy to install as i was doing other electrical stuff at the time).  Now I can tell a lot more about the health of my battery - my favorite part is being able to monitor current in and out.

There are so many parts and pieces on these rigs that have really held up well and are serviceable and so don't need replacment.  The key electrical bits are not in that group.  There is a lot of benefit in upgrading the charge converter and battery isolater (and heater control board).  If you make sure all of the heavy wire between these bits are good with no corrosion at the connectors (don't forget the engine ground) then you will be much happier in the long run if you plan to keep the vehicle. 

[Maineah]

6 hours ago, '84Toyota said:

OK; that all makes sense. Except, I didn't follow this part: "In many cases the same cable is grounded to the frame work on it's way to the engine block or a short jumper to the frame."

I do think my cables are weak points; they are so much smaller than the ones on my last RV. But that guy did put in the best of everything and went overboard on some, so maybe I shouldn't be comparing the two like that. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain things to me. I appreciate it!

Ok the engine needs to be grounded because it is sitting on insulators It is the only thing that has to have a separate wire for a ground yes it can come from the frame as most do as long as it has a battery cable grounded to it. In many situations (such as my Tacoma) the first point that receives a ground from the battery is the body/frame from that point the cable then goes to the engine.  My point the frame is a sufficient ground for anything electrical in any vehicle no matter how big the battery bank is it has a lower loss figure than any cable you can buy because of its sheer size.  

[Maineah]

A big mistake in MH/camper electronics is it is not a house you can not expect to take a washer/drier with you and be able to run it on batteries. You can make an RV sustainable but you have to give up things, reduce the loads, replace the old light bulbs figure out a way to recharge the batteries when you are in the woods. Generators, solar panels and so on. I can run my camper with what I need no problem but not necessarily what I might want AC, electric heat etc. A little fan from the house is maybe 1 amp but because of the voltage difference running it on 12 volts will cost you 10 amps. A 100 watt panel may give you 8 amps on a nice sunny day per hour of direct sun all of this must be taken into consideration. What do you do on the weekend of rain? Your trapped inside with nothing to do and no sun? I tow a camper my camper is wired with a 50 amp Anderson power pole both ends. it is dual purpose, I can plug my solar panel in to either end and charge batteries. I have a matching one under the hood of my truck I can plug the camper into the truck and charge its batteries the same can be done with a MH at a much slower rate it is sort of wasteful to use a vehicle engine to charge batteries not real efficient to use 130+ hp engine a as a battery charger at zero miles per gallon, emergency yes. So DC camping my not be what you want as much as what you need.

['84Toyota]

17 hours ago, AtlantaCamper said:

I ran into an issue with the Atwood furnace where the fan ran my battery down one cold night.  It turns out that the furnace control board is designed in a way that cuts the igniter off if the voltage is too low (or it just doesn't fire when voltage drops) but the fan keeps running.  The result is that once the battery is too low to ingnite, the fan will then run the battery DEAD.  Bad design.  Fortunately there is a fix.  I installed an aftermarket "Dinosaur Fan 50 Plus Furnace PC Board" (or some similar model from that brand, I can't remember the exact version).  It has a smart design that saves your battery if the voltage goes low.  It basically turns off the furnace after the battery voltage drops below a fixed voltage I think.  You are cold in the morning but your battery isn't run into the ground. A hundred bucks or so on ebay for the board if I recall.  You might consider that as an option to improve your rig.  I grew up in Portland and i know you will use your furnace more than your AC there!  Now I'm in Atlanta and it's the other way around.

 As I have gone over my Sunrader electrical I have learned that age has not been kind to it.  I currently have a functional electrical system that I'm happy with but it took a lot of work to get there. I had to replace a lot of the original electronics because they got old and flaky or just failed (replaced the charge converter with a Progressive dynamics one, and i installed a WirthCo 20090 Battery Doctor to replace the isolater as two key upgrades).  The key wiring connections were corroded so I put in new ground wire or new connections all around.  (an aside: recently I replaced the original generator with a Honda 2000 by building a sound isolated generator box in the original generator location - that's an ongoing project that I hope to report on this site more completely one day.  Summary is that I've got a small generator fed from the main gas tank that is internal mounted, very very very quiet, and can power my roof AC through the MIcroAir Easy Start.  But that's a story for another day).  

 My house battery strategy is to use a deep cycle battery from Walmart  because it's not too expensive (~$100 to $125)  and I can replace it under warranty pretty much anywhere on the road if there is a problem.  I installed a shunt recently that allows me to monitor current in and out of the battery (only $25 for parts and was easy to install as i was doing other electrical stuff at the time).  Now I can tell a lot more about the health of my battery - my favorite part is being able to monitor current in and out.

 There are so many parts and pieces on these rigs that have really held up well and are serviceable and so don't need replacment.  The key electrical bits are not in that group.  There is a lot of benefit in upgrading the charge converter and battery isolater (and heater control board).  If you make sure all of the heavy wire between these bits are good with no corrosion at the connectors (don't forget the engine ground) then you will be much happier in the long run if you plan to keep the vehicle. 

I will look into the furnace control board you are talking about. I'm a bit concerned about how difficult it might be to install, though. I hate having other people do work I can do myself, but I'm not always clear on how much I can do myself, if that makes sense. 

I love your thoughts on installing a honda generator where the original goes; I've wondered if that could be done. Awesome! Mine has the space for one, but didn't come with one. I do love the "garage" space it left behind. Also, though, I'm just not much of an energy hog, so these things aren't much of a priority for me right now. LEDs in the lights was the first thing I did. Otherwise, I don't draw much; no TV or blender right now. 

I do plan to travel the nation, and I suspect that I'll maybe want the AC once or twice in that journey, but it's 200lbs on the roof, where I don't need weight (at least, I don't need weight I didn't deliberately decide to put up there), so I plan to change it out for a Maxair or Fantastic fan, which I know will be used regularly (I also have these strange plans running through my head of how to get the air it brings in as it pulls the hot air out to come from under the rig after the undercarriage has cooled, making the air flow much cooler even in hotter areas...it's a thought.)  

I do expect to replace things along the way, but I don't think I need to do it all at once. We'll see; maybe I will need to with some of it. 

I was hoping to just swap out the batteries and not have to get a ToyHome Degree in electrical to fix the problem. I probably need that degree, anyway, though. A new charge converter is probably in my near future. Gotta tackle the furnace first, though. 

Thank you for your battery recommendation!

[AtlantaCamper]

Your existing charge converter and isolater are likely fine for the time being.  If they are not working well then the worst is that you can hurt the battery - which is why the 2 year free (5 pro-rated) Walmart battery is a good idea.   Killing batteries in <2 years is how I figured out my converter was sketchy.  For now maybe just get a new battery and make sure to clean up or upgrade the critical hot/ground cables/connectins going to the battery.  Your charging options are to run the motor or plug in to "Shore Power" (AC).  Just make sure both options are putting >13V to the house battery in charging mode.

The board swap on the furnace isn't really all that hard.  It took some time to take it apart, and I replaced the igniter and a few other cheap parts while I was in there.  But it didn't take major surgery to put the new board in.   

Depending on the time of year you travel will determine how much you want that AC.  There in the NW this camper was hard on that heater, but when it moved out South (Atlanta), that AC unit gets a workout and the furnace not so much.  Maybe consider travelling in the cooler months if you can.

These Toy homes do require a fair amount of work to make them reliable.  The earlier suggestion about changing a tire on friendly ground is a really good one.  My first trip out on my own I didn't get more than 30 miles before I blew a rear tire.  I was totally unprepared to change it and it sucked.  Oh, check all of your tires carefully and replace any that are no good.  Tire health is critical.  Feel them after you have driven a bit.  A really warm one indicates a problem.    I started going out on 1 night adventures just to start figuring out the critical things I needed to address before doing longer trips.  This allowed me to knock out the big problems and then anything that happened was relatively minor on the road.

['84Toyota]

18 hours ago, Maineah said:

Ok the engine needs to be grounded because it is sitting on insulators It is the only thing that has to have a separate wire for a ground yes it can come from the frame as most do as long as it has a battery cable grounded to it. In many situations (such as my Tacoma) the first point that receives a ground from the battery is the body/frame from that point the cable then goes to the engine.  My point the frame is a sufficient ground for anything electrical in any vehicle no matter how big the battery bank is it has a lower loss figure than any cable you can buy because of its sheer size.  

OK, Got it. That makes sense. Thanks!

 

4 hours ago, Maineah said:

A big mistake in MH/camper electronics is it is not a house you can not expect to take a washer/drier with you and be able to run it on batteries. You can make an RV sustainable but you have to give up things, reduce the loads, replace the old light bulbs figure out a way to recharge the batteries when you are in the woods. Generators, solar panels and so on. I can run my camper with what I need no problem but not necessarily what I might want AC, electric heat etc. A little fan from the house is maybe 1 amp but because of the voltage difference running it on 12 volts will cost you 10 amps. A 100 watt panel may give you 8 amps on a nice sunny day per hour of direct sun all of this must be taken into consideration. What do you do on the weekend of rain? Your trapped inside with nothing to do and no sun? I tow a camper my camper is wired with a 50 amp Anderson power pole both ends. it is dual purpose, I can plug my solar panel in to either end and charge batteries. I have a matching one under the hood of my truck I can plug the camper into the truck and charge its batteries the same can be done with a MH at a much slower rate it is sort of wasteful to use a vehicle engine to charge batteries not real efficient to use 130+ hp engine a as a battery charger at zero miles per gallon, emergency yes. So DC camping my not be what you want as much as what you need.

Yes, sustainable RVing is what I'm looking at. But I don't have a generator and I don't plan to install solar. I'm in the PNW, and solar just doesn't seem to make sense. I know that seems weird considering that I plan to go elsewhere. I'm also OK with changing my mind along the way. I am very conservative, and when I don't have power, I just figure, OK, I don't have power (people did it for thousands of years; I can probably make it a day or two, LOL). 

Bottom line: I don't need much, so I'm not looking to go extravagant on creating power to have all the comforts of home (this is my home; it's quite comfortable, LOL). I do have a washer and dryer, though. It's called a Wonder Washer and a clothesline. Oh, these modern conveniences; what'll they think of next? 

['84Toyota]

48 minutes ago, AtlantaCamper said:

Your existing charge converter and isolater are likely fine for the time being.  If they are not working well then the worst is that you can hurt the battery - which is why the 2 year free (5 pro-rated) Walmart battery is a good idea.   Killing batteries in <2 years is how I figured out my converter was sketchy.  For now maybe just get a new battery and make sure to clean up or upgrade the critical hot/ground cables/connectins going to the battery.  Your charging options are to run the motor or plug in to "Shore Power" (AC).  Just make sure both options are putting >13V to the house battery in charging mode.

The board swap on the furnace isn't really all that hard.  It took some time to take it apart, and I replaced the igniter and a few other cheap parts while I was in there.  But it didn't take major surgery to put the new board in.   

Depending on the time of year you travel will determine how much you want that AC.  There in the NW this camper was hard on that heater, but when it moved out South (Atlanta), that AC unit gets a workout and the furnace not so much.  Maybe consider travelling in the cooler months if you can.

These Toy homes do require a fair amount of work to make them reliable.  The earlier suggestion about changing a tire on friendly ground is a really good one.  My first trip out on my own I didn't get more than 30 miles before I blew a rear tire.  I was totally unprepared to change it and it sucked.  Oh, check all of your tires carefully and replace any that are no good.  Tire health is critical.  Feel them after you have driven a bit.  A really warm one indicates a problem.    I started going out on 1 night adventures just to start figuring out the critical things I needed to address before doing longer trips.  This allowed me to knock out the big problems and then anything that happened was relatively minor on the road.

Wow! This is all such good advice! I will admit, though, that I am not going to practice changing a tire in Febuary. I spent a great deal of time growing up with a man who is very well known in the 4X4 community around these parts; he had me changing tires on everything all the time (sometimes for no other reason than to prepare me for life). He even showed me how to take the tire off the rim and put it back on by driving on it (not that I'm ever going to do that; I'm not the pro he is! LOL). I've done my tire-changing practice, I think. Also, road-side assistance. 

If the tire is really warm, that indicates a problem? Wow! I didn't know that; such a good thing to know. I will forever be taking the temperature of my tires from now on. Thank you for that! 

The back tires are all new and the fronts are in good shape. 

Honestly, if I end up having to take this furnace apart, I probably will look at putting in the control panel you recommended. And probably all those cheap parts, too. 

As for the AC, I have fake cabinets in my bathroom under the wardrobe. Literally, they go back 4 inches before you see the generator cabinet (which, itself should be cooler than the ambient temperature inside the rig). I'm thinking about putting a false/removable floor in that space (~4"X2.5'), screening it off, and putting some sort of cooling fins there. Then, in hot areas, I can open the cabinets, and remove the false floor, and let the maxxfan draw from there. Should be pulling pretty cool air then, I would think. I could be wrong; these things can often work better in my mind, but they usually work pretty close to how I expect. 

Edited February 7, 2019 by '84Toyota
Time is flying away; it's not January! LOL

[Derek up North]

1 hour ago, '84Toyota said:

I'm a bit concerned about how difficult it might be to install, though.

Watch a few videos before you scare yourself off.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=rv+dinosaur+board+install

[AtlantaCamper]

A warm/hot tire (relative to the others) in my experience means it is delaminating inside.  This makes it a little out of round and heat builds as it flexes going around.  You will also feel this if you are paying close attention as a vibration.  I've had two tires go out just like this.  The last one I was able to catch in time before it blew based on vibration and temperature and got to a safe place to change it in the shade.   

The point of doing a practice tire change is really just to make sure you have the right tools and such to do it on the road.  Make sure all of the lugnuts can be moved by hand.  Some of mine were put on with an air tool and I had to get a cheater bar just to loosen them.  I ended up buying a new jack that could go to the appropriate height plus a nice lug wrench.  Air compressor, a rigid board i can use as a jack platform on gravel, etc.  I learned a lot of this the hard way but now I'm ready to swap a tire anywhere, anytime. 

Derek has a great idea about the videos.  That's exactly how I learn how to deal with these pesky upgrades.    

[Gulfstream Greg]

4 minutes ago, AtlantaCamper said:

Make sure all of the lugnuts can be moved by hand.  Some of mine were put on with an air tool and I had to get a cheater bar just to loosen them. 

The lug nuts should be final tightened with a torque wrench. Can't remember what that number is, maybe someone else knows. 

[Derek up North]

26 minutes ago, Gulfstream Greg said:

The lug nuts should be final tightened with a torque wrench. Can't remember what that number is, maybe someone else knows. 

There are 2 torque values that I have found from Toyota for the FF lug nuts. !988 FSM says 141ft-lb. 1993 FSM (and owners Manual) says 170ft-lb. I could only guess why they increased it, but assume for good reason. For the 1984 5 lug front wheels, I don't know.

Lug nuts could be either 22mm or 23mm (or a mixture), so check all nuts to be sure you've the right tools.

TOP TIP if you need extra help removing lug nuts: us the table leg as a cheater bar.

[Maineah]

One tire warmer than the others can also be as simple as low pressure.

[WME]

K.I.S.S   Fergetaboutalota of sexy modifications, use it basically as it is for 6 months or so. Then you should have a good idea about needs vs wants and act accordingly.

When using a fantastic fan just open windows on the shady side. Make sure they have screens.

If you're not going with a generator or solar, then go through your "house" and replace all the 12v light bulbs with LED bulbs Measure your battery box and see if there is possibly room for the next size larger battery.  The isolator you have consumes .7v. If your cables/connector are off a bit then your battery is undercharged. On a static battery, .7v is the  difference between 100% and 50% charged. Your charging system should deliver 13.5v + to the house battery or your up the creek.

 

[Maineah]

In the case of a dual battery setup the greater battery voltage with try to equalize between the two along with the help of the alternator but charging the rear battery isn't  going to be fast. In order to charge at all will require some thing over 12.9 volts. So at 13.5 charge output and 20 feet of #8 wire and 10 load you are down to 13.25 doable but slow.  

[AtlantaCamper]

21 hours ago, WME said:

K.I.S.S 

Yes, this is good advice.  In fact, the furnace board swap really isn't necessary because it's main benefit is monitoring voltage and shutting it down if it gets too low.  Well, you can do that yourself if you monitor the voltage and turn off the furnace if voltage gets too low.

A simple approach for you would be to get a new battery and then make sure that your charging system is working correctly from both the alternator with engine running or the charge converter when on AC power.  Leave everything else the same and off you go.  You could even keep your old battery as a backup in case the main house battery goes flat.  This might be a rather heavy backup plan but if it's easy to swap house batteries out under the hood then it might be a good idea.

As others have pointed out a volt meter is a pretty essential tool.  You have to  confirm that you are getting decent charging voltage at the battery from both the alternator and the charge converter.  

One widget that might help you keep track of how your battery is doing would be a cigarette lighter type USB charger and volt meter combo.  Or something similar.  A cheap and easy way to make sure your voltage isn't below the level that will cause the furnace to malfunction.  

[Maineah]

If you rely on your furnace to keep you warm then a modern board will be a big benefit. The original board will fire once if it fails it will sit there and blows cold air until the battery goes dead. The modern one will try 3 times if all attempts fail it will shut down. Two of the last boards I replaced were intermittent sometimes they worked fine other times I had to get up and start the procedure all over again they got replaced shortly there after.