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Blah, Blah, Blah what is this RV community anyway?


Back East Don

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Blah, Blah, Blah indeed.  It is commonly called wasting bandwidth in many of these kinds of forums.  The moderator’s intention is often to keep the information neat and tight making it easily accessible for the one asking questions.  This does a lot of things.  Civility for instance.  Stay on topic and the conversation doesn’t devolve into political or religious debates for example.  This is a privately owned, password protected web site and the owner is free to run it any way he likes.  In that, my opinion don’t mean squat.

But here’s the thing.  I participate in forums small and large.  Even some niche ones that still have thousands of active participants.  Of all of them, this has to be the smallest group of core active participants I’ve seen.  I have a hard time seeing this community grow out past what it is.  So what exactly is this community?  What does Greg envision this place he created is and should be?  I’d be very interested in his perspective.  He can look through all of my past participation and will find that I’ve been a good citizen in this community even though I’m a prime offender in the Blah, Blah, Blah.  This place would be awful dry without it.

There have always been contentious relationships among members here.  On the web this happens because it is a lousy interpersonal communication medium.  A bit of levity and some off topic engagement can help foster a sense of connection.  Seems like a bit of that could go a long way here.  It is hard to dislike someone you've met in person.  If you go through life doing so, it is time to look in the mirror.  Online it is far to easy to loose sight of this.  Food for thought those who participate online should give some consideration to.

I don’t see any of the core participants on this forum coming here solely for Toyota discussion.  That is just an area of interest we all share.

So what is this RV community anyway?  Why do you come here?

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Looking into my crystal ball, I see this group getting smaller. Simply because the number of running Toy MH is steadily decreasing. They aint making any more.

I enjoyed my Toy and had some hard learned lessons that I'll pass on at the subject arises

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20 minutes ago, WME said:

Looking into my crystal ball, I see this group getting smaller. Simply because the number of running Toy MH is steadily decreasing. They aint making any more.

I enjoyed my Toy and had some hard learned lessons that I'll pass on at the subject arises

I totally agree. Greg selling his and moving on highlights the point.  I don't know if this is true for you but I envision once I move up in size, the Toyota will see less and less use.  Like Greg, I'll probably pass it on.  Then what?  If that is the case with you, I still wonder, what are your reasons for remaining active on this forum?  I suspect I know the answer, just wouldn't presume.

For me, I take these communities for what they are and not solely what they are about.

Edited by Back East Don
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I have 3 motorhomes. My Toyota Sunrader is my home for 1 week a month when I return to the Bay area to work. The others are a Nissan Sunrader V6 and a Tiger Provan both in various stages of restoration. Now that I am semi retired I expect to have the time to finish those projects and maybe look for the next one. I'm thinking seriously about a Sunrader coach on an F250 diesel chassis  and there is also a Creger sitting in a back yard near my new home I'm going to have to talk them out of. I'm not going anywhere.

Linda S

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8 minutes ago, linda s said:

I have 3 motorhomes. My Toyota Sunrader is my home for 1 week a month when I return to the Bay area to work. The others are a Nissan Sunrader V6 and a Tiger Provan both in various stages of restoration. Now that I am semi retired I expect to have the time to finish those projects and maybe look for the next one. I'm thinking seriously about a Sunrader coach on an F250 diesel chassis  and there is also a Creger sitting in a back yard near my new home I'm going to have to talk them out of. I'm not going anywhere.

Linda S

Respectfully, the response misses the point.  You always seem genuinely interested in the people who come to this site with their problems and go out of your way to be helpful.  What motivates you in that?

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I originally came here looking for some first-hand, hopefully accurate into, on Toyota RVs. That was back when I'd never owned one yet. Also after hearing all the plus-20 MPG myths for years.  I had gone from Chevy camper van, to a K5 Chalet camper van, to a small Champion Class A, to some smaller rigs.  Small "foreign" vehicles has fascinated me since the late 50s when they were not "cool."  That includes mini-trucks, cars, and RVs.  I have worked my entire adult life as either a mechanic, electrician, builder, and records-researcher.  The latter after I broke my neck and could not do much hard physical work for a few years.  My point being I am technical minded and that often causes arguments in certain forums.  I will note that I moderate two forums (high tech) and my experience is - in higher-tech forums - hard feelings are arguments are rare.  People post facts back forth and back them up best then can.  The get called on them; some are shown to be wrong, but arguments are rare.  I find that is NOT the case with forums that are less tech-orientated like this one.  That is not a  complaint. Just one person's observation and take on things.

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Personally I like this place to get part information but also to discuss ways to make the impossible possible and solve problems. Just because I tell some people in here that something wont work doesn't mean they need to file thought police inquisitions to the high council, but rather it seems to egg them on to succeed. So hate on ole' Totem if you like, but know that secretly, if you make the contraption work I am really routing for you. Hard work and determinism is a value; something our world lacks these days and when people are motivated whether through pride or proving someone else wrong, we all benefit with the wisdom of the path. I love seeing new cooling tech in here; from swamp coolers to hybrid inverters, if you didn't have people in here as passionate as we, then you would have just the transient passer by that scavenges solely for  parts alone. I love goading people into showing what they know also and evidencing it. Of course its a privately owned forum, and it can get shut down tomorrow, our posts deleted, or accounts suspended for thought violations or perceived slights... That just makes the site more and more a twitter or facebook in the end. Alas if it devolves into that the law of diminishing returns is in play where each year more things are an offense to the lessor remaining few. Challenge the establishment with ideas, knowledge and truth and you have done no worse or better than any great man/woman. Anyone can be a czar or dictator, but very few can be a magnate.

 

 

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I found this site looking for info on a 1978 Toyota minimax that was given to us by a good friend. I had by then had 5 Toyotas, but never a RV. no one in my family ever had a camper of any kind. so I was in the know on the chassis. I was totally clueless about the aspects of the RV part. and did not know about the axle problem.later on I bought a 87 dolphin my seventh Toyota my first automatic trans. I have very much enjoyed this group and site . I learned a great deal about all the aspects of the motorhomes. I have no desire or need for a larger unit. I know I have been able to help some who had never owened a Toyota. thanks for putting up with my spelling.many thanks to  Greg for having this site and too Linda for being a faithful moderater. I don't get involved in political or religious disputes. I have my own religion.

Edited by 5Toyota
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18 minutes ago, 5Toyota said:

thanks for putting up with my spelling.

It would be the last thing I would ever be critical of anyone for.  My father dropped out of school at 15 when his older brother died and he then had to take over the family farm.  Add to that English wasn't his first language.  I married an extremely intelligent woman who's first language is also not English.  So she is a little grammar and spelling challenged.  Just another one of those things people don't take into consideration when dealing with people online.  It doesn't take away anything away from who you are.  Always happy to hear from you.  Don't ever let something as trivial as this stop you from posting here.

Edited by Back East Don
Had to edit because apparently, I can't spell either
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19 minutes ago, 5Toyota said:

I found this site looking for info on a 1978 Toyota minimax that was given to us by a good friend. I had by then had 5 Toyotas, but never a RV. no one in my family ever had a camper of any kind. so I was in the know on the chassis. I was totally clueless about the aspects of the RV part. and did not know about the axle problem.later on I bought a 87 dolphin my seventh Toyota my first automatic trans. I have very much enjoyed this group and site . I learned a great deal about all the aspects of the motorhomes. I have no desire or need for a larger unit. I know I have been able to help some who had never owened a Toyota. thanks for putting up with my spelling.many thanks to  Greg for having this site and too Linda for being a faithful moderater. I don't get involved in political or religious disputes. I have my own religion.

Hey five toy, guess what I got to shoot over the weekend>? - A Martin Warthog, and by the looks of it an early specimen. I shot it and a much much newer bow as  my buddies had an "intervention" with me to leave crossbow hunting and to try bow hunting.. I replied that They'd need to pull a Warthog out to get me to do that and they did. They ended up giving me a fairly recent Parker to use this season. Should be fun and I was pretty good at it two, won two dollar shoots out of 3.

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ha ha not likely been hard enough to learn how too use a computer  still learning both . spent my whole life working with machines and tools. and agree there are aways some people in life you meet or here from and you will never miss

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I love this site.  It's a wealth of knowledge and I enjoy my Toyota Motorhome porn pictures.  That's right.  I get more excited looking at the photos of your work than I do of naked ladies.  Does that make me strange?  Maybe.  Do I care?  Nope!  

I appreciate all of the info I've found here and all of the discussions.  I regularly check the unread content and lurk in the shadows learning about my motorhome and acting on my voyeuristic impulses. :)

I also can't wait until I get my rig in working order and am able to attend a rally somewhere to meet some of you.

Happy Toyotaing!   :)

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Some say altruism is a paradox.  At least one philosophy prof. I know.  He says if you know you are being altruistic, then you are being self-serving, to make yourself feel better.  So according to that "logic", I guess a person cannot win.  Screwed if you do, and screwed if you don't.

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For me it is about learning, sharing, and being inspired. 

Kind of an odd take away perhaps for a 30 year old vehicle project.  However, it does seem like there are some very nice and generous people on this list.  I like to have my better tendencies reinforced and this is a place where that happens.

I belong to a similar group for my also outside of the mainstream motorcycle. Have met some of those people in the real world and I truly enjoy their company.  Hopefully one of these years I will be able to meet some of the people on this community and I am sure I will enjoy their company as well.

Wade

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On 8/19/2016 at 2:22 PM, 5Toyota said:

ha ha not likely been hard enough to learn how too use a computer  still learning both . spent my whole life working with machines and tools. and agree there are aways some people in life you meet or here from and you will never miss

I've noticed your computer skills have improved since I have been here.  Don't worry about spelling,  my last year in high school I got a 32 in English.  I'm grateful for spell check!

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I found this site while I was looking for a Toyhouse.  We had always used a tent or popup camper until my wife had a stroke.  She needed a bathroom close by so I thought a small RV would work good for us.  Due to the information that I got from this site, I avoided some total money trap junk heaps that I may have bought without more knowledge.  The RV I bought had a few issues that I was able to repair myself with help form the forum.  I keep coming back because I can occassionally offer my experience with the Toyhouse.

 

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I find it strange that I ended up here at all.  The story of our Toyota RV is odd in that I wasn't interested in camping in the first place.  I was pretty caught up with my career.  My wife had watched some DIY show where someone bought an old RV and fixed it up.  She talked about it for a number of years.  It stuck and became a dream of hers.  I pacified the idea of it but did nothing to engage it in reality.  Being a guy who ended up with a RV because of their wife was often a joke around the office.  I've known many guys who ended up with pop ups this way.  My stubbornness was because I understood what "we'll" work on it meant.  I held it off till she actually found one she wanted me to look at.  I looked at nothing but the mechanical truck side and as it was just a couple grand, I caved in.  Once I got it home, I quickly came to realize all was not well with the house side.  The effort to get it done began in earnest but the pressure to get it done so we could go camping that summer was intense.  I call this the summer of my discontent. I finally put my foot down and was just about ready to send it to the motorhome scrap heap.  I declared that I needed a break from it and would decide what to do the next spring. 

I did finish it.  It is solid, dry and everything works now.  Yet I am still working on it 6 years in. 

Part of our transition into the next phases of our lives has been owning this RV. Change is however a constant in life and we are still discussing and trying to figure out the next steps.  The possible outcomes are many.  Right now my wife is far more interested in being on the water than being near the water, which means boats.  We've been community shopping along the shoreline including this weekend.  We start at the local marina.  This week I asked her about motorhomes.  Seems in her mind, travel outside the northeast coast to see other parts of the country is on the back burner.  This all certainly pokes holes in what I thought was the direction we were heading in.  It doesn't surprise me and with a bit of reflection, I'm not that far off in her thinking.   Summer is winding down and we will see if winter changes the thinking in this.  What is starting to seem clearer is that the Toyota will get swapped out for something larger regardless if this is or isn't another motorhome.

I too like this forum.  My main interest is in the new people who post here.  Anything I can do to help someone avoid the troubles I had is good for my karma.

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I joined this forum to learn about the Chinook I bough and people like Linda, Derek up North and others have been very helpful for me sharing their knowledge and information.  Thank you to all of you.

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On ‎8‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 8:44 AM, linda s said:

I have 3 motorhomes. My Toyota Sunrader is my home for 1 week a month when I return to the Bay area to work. The others are a Nissan Sunrader V6 and a Tiger Provan both in various stages of restoration. Now that I am semi retired I expect to have the time to finish those projects and maybe look for the next one. I'm thinking seriously about a Sunrader coach on an F250 diesel chassis  and there is also a Creger sitting in a back yard near my new home I'm going to have to talk them out of. I'm not going anywhere.

Linda S

Linda, you mentioned that you have a Tiger Provan.  Is that the Astro Tiger Provan?  If it is, How you like it?  I am thinking that for me the Astro Tiger Provan might be a little more comfortable than the Chinook on road trips.  I would like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

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Mine needs front end work and lots of interior work. That said after it sitting for a couple of years It started right up and I drove it 330 miles to my new home. Gets just as good mileage as my Toyota motorhome and runs like my Ford Explorer as far as power and comfort. That drive was the first time I realized how wonderful that huge front window is. 101 from the bay area to Eureka is a beautiful drive and the big front van window gives a panoramic view. Yes it's an Astro. 1993 and still has less than 100,000 miles on it. Ya want it? Trust me lots of work to be done. Mine is not a pop top. It is the XL model with a permanent high roof and a bed up there in the overhead

Linda S

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On ‎8‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 8:12 PM, linda s said:

Mine needs front end work and lots of interior work. That said after it sitting for a couple of years It started right up and I drove it 330 miles to my new home. Gets just as good mileage as my Toyota motorhome and runs like my Ford Explorer as far as power and comfort. That drive was the first time I realized how wonderful that huge front window is. 101 from the bay area to Eureka is a beautiful drive and the big front van window gives a panoramic view. Yes it's an Astro. 1993 and still has less than 100,000 miles on it. Ya want it? Trust me lots of work to be done. Mine is not a pop top. It is the XL model with a permanent high roof and a bed up there in the overhead

Linda S

The XL high roof would not work for me because in SF I need to garaged it, I would have to go with the GT.  I heard some negatives that the Astro could not handle to well the camper portion.  Have you had problems with yours because of the weight of the camper?

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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. 

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I have never heard such problems. The problems with mine are that it was owned by a tweaker nut case. He went to jail and his father sold it to me. Hey your current camper is on a Toyota truck. The Astro has a much higher load capability and the campers are very small. 16 feet or so. This is on Bay area craigslist now. You should at least go take a look and drive it since it's so close

Linda S

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/rvs/5742699199.html

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Hi Don!

This is one of the best titled threads I've seen on here.  Caught my attention.  Everything that could possibly be discussed or problem encountered must have been covered over the history of this forum and then some.  Some topics just seem to come up over and over and that can get a little stale reading the same questions.  I very much enjoy reading the enthusiasm of the honeymoon stage of the acquisition while chuckle a bit, but with great empathy, for those that get in over their heads deconstructing their vehicles to a mere shell.  

Greg has to be commended for keeping this place going (even when over ambitious members accidentally delete entire databases... oops!) and it's always fun to stop in now and then and see the veterans still offering their genuine and sincere advice.  The social media networks certainly have changed the way communities engage in conversation.  Most things today are a simple "thumbs up" along with the occasional two or three word comment.  Always nice to read a little more content in the old style forums such as this.

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That Ebay Provan looks like a good deal for someone. Price is kind of high, but I've certainly seen higher.  I still kick myself for not buying the one that was near me when I had the chance. If I owned one, I'd beef up the rear.  

Image1complete.jpg

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Kind of interesting that the road-test shows virtually zero payload capacity once the RV has any passengers in it. Yet, the 1992 and 1993 ads advertise it with up to a 1700 lbs. payload. How the heck is that accomplished?  Note that although this 1993 ad shows a full-size truck along with the Astro, the  1992 ad only shows Astros and still claims "up to a 1700 lb. payload."  From what can tell, that is not possible unless the van is ordered empty with no fixtures inside?  Or is it possible that somebody found a way to beef up the Astrovan in 1992-93?  Seems the heavist-payload Astro ever built by GM is listed at 5600 lbs.  The Provan Tiger with two passengers weighs around 5400 lbs., so I don't get it.

ProvanTiger4_93.jpg

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Originally I started this site to backup the yahoo group "Toyota Campers". At that time there were two yahoo groups. The owner of the now non-existent group got tired of fighting all the spam and deleted the group and all the files that had been uploaded. And if my memory serves me correctly Yahoo had a cap on the number of files that could be stored. So to add new old had to be deleted. There are still remnants of those backups in the gallery here. Another thing about Yahoo in those days is that it was just one long mess. When we bought our first Toy the Sunrader Turbo 4x4 I had no vision of what this would become. I honestly still have no vision other than it needs to exist for all of those who need and want to help regarding our Toys. The reality is our coaches other than being on the back of a Toyota are almost no different than any other RV on the road. Where help comes into play is all the flavors of Toyota chassis years, axles, finding the correct tire sizes etc. Yes we are letting our Gulfstream go, reluctantly I must add. I could have had it ready to sell months ago but for some reason I am procrastinating. My plans with the site? Keep it alive!

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8 hours ago, Gulfstream Greg said:

Originally I started this site to backup the yahoo group "Toyota Campers". At that time there were two yahoo groups. The owner of the now non-existent group got tired of fighting all the spam and deleted the group and all the files that had been uploaded. And if my memory serves me correctly Yahoo had a cap on the number of files that could be stored. So to add new old had to be deleted. There are still remnants of those backups in the gallery here. Another thing about Yahoo in those days is that it was just one long mess. When we bought our first Toy the Sunrader Turbo 4x4 I had no vision of what this would become. I honestly still have no vision other than it needs to exist for all of those who need and want to help regarding our Toys. The reality is our coaches other than being on the back of a Toyota are almost no different than any other RV on the road. Where help comes into play is all the flavors of Toyota chassis years, axles, finding the correct tire sizes etc. Yes we are letting our Gulfstream go, reluctantly I must add. I could have had it ready to sell months ago but for some reason I am procrastinating. My plans with the site? Keep it alive!

You can be very proud of this site Greg, it is the best most user friendly rv site on the web that I have found!    Jim

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2 hours ago, Derek up North said:

We'll have to see what happens to all the Yahoo Groups now that they've been sold. I hope/assume that the Group owners are taking steps to protect themselves. Having a 'Plan B' is always good to have. :)

I've no love for the Yahoo group.  I tried once to assist someone in an area where I actually have some experience.  If this place becomes like it, I'm done.

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