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(Disclaimer Linda, I stuck this here as the subforum it probably should be in doesn't seem to get any traffic, but if you decide to move it I won't be offended. This new forum setup might eliminate that issue anyways, I don't know. Anyways...) So I have been having an adventure of things here. Hurricane Ian just went through and DEVASTATED a huge swath of Florida. I wasn't in the eye, but it was still sustained cat 3-4 conditions here approaching 5 with winds hitting 155mph. It is one of the biggest hurricanes ever recorded. Here in Sarasota, we were WELL prepared. I think we all remembered Irma just a little too well. And Irma probably already had taken down all the weakest trees. We were ready. But further South, they only had maybe 12-18 hours of warning when the eye shifted lower. Just 20 miles from me, it is an ABSOLUTE war zone. What is normally a 40 minute trip, took almost 3hrs each way. I75 is now closed down. Conflicting reports of just flooded vs an overpass was taken out. The flooding is so deep I am not sure anyone can tell without scuba gear! It was an adventure for sure. And I came to two conclusions. 1) I want, perhaps even "need" a shorty 18' 4x4 Sunrader. I greatly enjoy camping in out of the way spots, so an overlander type setup, but OG Sunrader style, would be awesome. Wow that takes me down a whole tangent for another thread... Lets move on. I should post that on its own... 2) I need mobile internet. I have a ToughBook problem. All my laptops (except my MacBook) actually have built in WWAN cards (cellular modems). I went off to ask questions over on my favorite ToughBook forum, ToughBookTalk. But then I realized that this is probably an even better resource to utilize! What do you guys use out on the road for internet? Tethering to my phone is cheap and easy. It works well enough. But if I spend more than 30 seconds writing a post, the connection goes dead and I have to reinitialize it. It is super annoying. I have the built in modems, but those do take an extra data plan and I am unsure yet if I can use just one sim and swap to whatever laptop (physically easy to do), or if I lock the sim to the particular modem. I figure most RVers aren't using military laptops with night vision capable monitors and cellular uplinks. And especially our extra frugal and more analog ToyHomers. I am super curious as to what you guys do??? Tethering was not working well yesterday when it actually was a SHTF situation. I needed real-time road condition updates. By the time we made it in and were ready to head back, road conditions had changed DRASTICALLY. Randomly, carplay on her Subaru also stopped working with my phone. Still, this doesn't completely shut down the just "using my phone" option. But I know that stressful situations can easily occur under normal driving conditions where trying to use the phone for simple GPS navigation can cause disaster. The fewer layers of technology that are involved, usually means the more reliable. I need to take a look at the current options for Garmin units out there, but at best that would only solve part of it and not give me an internet connection.

Well Linda you are darn lucky to have two, and they are equally lucky to be yours! But seriously, awesome save! Out of curiosity does it have the evil bad axle?! Not starting the whole OMG its unsafe ordeal, just wondering lol.

I don't have a fleet. Just 2 Sunraders. They are little and don't take much space to store. Linda S

Good for you and nice save.

And so it starts… In 5 more years you will be just like Linda and have a whole fleet of them! Sounds like a really good plan! Keep at it lol! 🤣

I think a 14 year old. Kept talking about having to buy a gun to be safe driving anywhere. Yeah all those campgrounds are full of gangbangers. Weird though they look 70 and they need walkers Linda S

7 months later? Everybody take a chill pill. Linda S

Who was the member you got rid of?

Allow me to personally attack you Fred. Your a eeeeeee moron and have helped a hijack a very nice informational thread. You suck and have added nothing to the coversation. Maybe you have no skils to offer?

Fred with all due respect. I consider it a personal attack on myself to have a moron or multiples of morons question hard facts of how an automatic transmission works when I have rebuilt hundreds of automatic transmissions and have tried my best to provide a guide that will help members of this forum. I was trying to provide a how to with pictures. Others just provided nonsense. What can you provide on the subject?

I got a tip from a neighbor that this was at a local salvage yard. Not sure how I am going to register this but here is the build plate. Any thoughts? I drove this home from the salvage yard that has dozens of rvs that have been driven in and are now worthless. It needs new floor pans on the pass and drivers side. 270 bucks on ebay and some skill set. Make sure the lights work and replace the floor pans this rig is good to go camping. Not full rv but camping without laying on the ground. The four speed 22r was a hoot to drive and the engine runs like a singer sewing machine.

I purchased a 1983 Dolphin today from a salvage yard and drove it home. It needs new floor pans on pass and drivers side and attention paid to the lights. Other than that it runs and drives like a singer sewing machine that is well oiled. This is the first time I have driven a toyhome with a 4 speed. It was a complete hoot to drive. Just stick your foot in it until it starts to rap and shift. My 91 with the 6 cylinder is not anywhere close to fun to drive as one of these four bangers. Thanks for all the pictures. I can use them as a reference. Please post more pics of underneath and engine bay if you can. Best of luck

Well Ian was pretty destructive and very catastrophic to many, just fortunately not us. Standing on my roof and every house around me suffered either damages, or massive trees down, or both. For once it is nice to see that my over obsessive preparations actually were worth while. My neighbors are probably convinced now that I’m crazy as I was excited the RV didn’t leak! I will probably use the stove in it tonight to make dinner too! I have been thinking about that problem…. There is some flex to the exterior braces. If I can keep the ends pulled down while pushing up in the middle, I could make the interior support beams from 2-3 pieces of oak each and laminate them. My interior is such where I could do this all in place. But…. Doing it out of there on a jig would give me way more control and I could get it even. And again I don’t need a lot. Half an inch to maybe an inch. I need to under engineer my over engineering bran and work on the idea until I come up with an effective solution for this particular use case lol. Less work always wins, especially if I can make it effective. The only hard part of this idea is to figure out the geometry of it and how to make a jig simply enough.

Well Ian was pretty destructive and very catastrophic to many, just fortunately not us. Standing on my roof and every house around me suffered either damages, or massive trees down, or both. For once it is nice to see that my over obsessive preparations actually were worth while. My neighbors are probably convinced now that I’m crazy as I was excited the RV didn’t leak! I will probably use the stove in it tonight to make dinner too! I have been thinking about that problem…. There is some flex to the exterior braces. If I can keep the ends pulled down while pushing up in the middle, I could make the interior support beams from 2-3 pieces of oak each and laminate them. My interior is such where I could do this all in place. But…. Doing it out of there on a jig would give me way more control and I could get it even. And again I don’t need a lot. Half an inch to maybe an inch. I need to under engineer my over engineering bran and work on the idea until I come up with an effective solution for this particular use case lol. Less work always wins, especially if I can make it effective. The only hard part of this idea is to figure out the geometry of it and how to make a jig simply enough.

Glad to hear things were just scary instead of catastrophic. The normal leaky AC thing on old Toyota's is the roof is bowed in. A 1/16" of of bow is as bad as 1". The water just pools and fines a hole. Any thing you can do to raise the center will help. Looking at your setup, can you raise the ends of the cross beans any?? Raising the ends and a bolting through the roof in the center might be enough.

Ok, so I spoke too soon about the “bolt on” part regarding the Jaguar alternator swap. As it turns out, the Jaguar part requires an offset extension to the lower bracket in order to be usable on the 3.0. The stud used to attach the main power cable is also larger, but that is a bit easier to adapt. i will post a picture of the adapter drawing used to attach it to the original slotted bracket when I get it sorted out, in the event that someone else is looking to go with the swap.

Well it survived a cat 5 hurricane with almost no leaks! It leaked through the makeshift plywood patch, but I knew it was going to as even in a more mild rain it was dripping. So I put the ac cover pan underneath it. Was a great place to store it out of the hurricane anyways. There was another small leak either in the back where I didn’t reseal, or right on the border where I stopped, I can’t tell exactly where yet. The rest is bone dry! I call that a win! Our main house did fine, our second house for Mom sustained unknown damages, but we can’t get there yet to see how bad it is. The in-laws lost their house completely. But they fortunately were up north. Anyways, this isn’t a pity party but FINALLY some good news that the roof is sealed up! That Henry 887 stuff worked AWESOME! The generator we got a couple years back for hurricanes/power outages is STUPID QUIET. I will check it with a decible meter later, but I think it could be run in a campground without being too disruptive. It is also light. Rethinking utilizing it for the RV. And it could have been way worse. It was a scary storm!

That dual stage thermostat looks like a really good idea! I will defiantly set up some temp monitor alarms too….

When you first light it the flame is orange and yellow and you can see that. After it warms up, ideally it is supposed to be a tiny blue flame. That is not easy to see. If your worried that it may have gone out, try hitting the pezio a couple times. The spark will make the flame flare up orange again. If you just see a spark the flame went out. Unfortunately, laying on the floor is always going to be your best viewpoint Linda S

Small hand held mirror might do the trick.

I agree, I have to close the bathroom door, close the window blind and get down on my knees and cup around that glass with both hands. I hope someone has a suggestion I don't.

Hello all. Hope you have enjoyed your RVs this summer. Since moving back to west Michigan from Kansas I've been able to use it a lot more and take the kids to see all kinds of things. Our fridge is working great but it's been really hard to see the flame when it's lit through the sight glass. I've cleaned both sides of the plastic, but still can barely see anything when the fridge is running on propane. Any suggestions?

The lower line to the converter from the isolator apparently was cut and re crimped at some point. Corrosion and a lose connection from forest road bumps. I’ll have to extend it a little, but after putting in a new connector and heat shrink jacket, all seems well. Still replacing the converter, but at least it isn’t as top priority. Thanks All

The Toyota factory answer to the problem https://www.lceperformance.com/2-Stage-Thermostat-OEM-22R-22RE-190-Degree-p/1032081.htm

Cover the roof with 4x8 sheets of pvc from HomeDepot and secure it with 3m 5200 and self tapping screws on the edges. Cover the seams with overlapped strips of pvc.