'84Toyota

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.

OK, Got it. That makes sense. Thanks! 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?

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!

The first one describes it best.

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!

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!

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.

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).

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).