James McCormack

Thanks, guys. It did turn out to be the head gasket, and we had no fluid because the engine sucked in all of the coolant to save itself. I'm very, very glad that my GF pulled over right away, because beyond the gasket, the engine was not damaged. We got the other stuff looked at, and everything is ready to go. The guys at the repair shop told me that when the previous owner installed the rebuilt engine (which is a good one), he didn't torque it properly. They tinkered, and now it runs so much nicer! I used to watch myself losing a fair amount of speed on even small uphill grades on the highway, and thought it was due to driving a heavy vehicle (never had anything larger than a Volvo before). Now it zips along nicely, and while I'm not going to win any races with it, I'm not the guy doing 50 with the pedal to the floor on a small incline. Besides, I didn't need that money for my trip, right?

My GF and I were driving our '87 Dolphin and our old Volvo from Mass down to Virginia. The Volvo is going to her family, and the Dolphin is coming west with us. For the whole beginning of the ride, we stayed in sight distance of each other, switching off who drove what vehicle. I did the first stint in the Dolphin, and got pretty comfortable with the handling. We were doing mostly freeway driving, so I was maintaining a speed of about 50-55 mph, occasionally easing off the gas on the downhills and letting gravity get me up to 60-65 mph. The temp gauge looked good, and the Dolphin was handling well. We pulled off the freeway down in the beginning of NJ and switched off, and I took the Volvo. I didn't make a light and we got separated. No big deal, we said. "Meet you at the first rest stop on the Turnpike!" (We were on 287 south.) About a half hour later, my GF was driving along and said there was suddenly a sharp rise in temperature. She pulled over immediately, and the temp never got into the red zone, but had hit the top white line. She threw water on the engine to cool it, checked the coolant, and realized the resevoir was completely empty. She filled it with water and waited for me to come back, and we hobbled it slowly off the freeway (the good part of breaking down within yards of the exit) and parked it in a random parking lot and bought some coolant. The thing is - I had the coolant flushed days before we left. It should have been full. My mechanic even pointed to me that my fan was defective, and we had that replaced. We let the engine cool for about two hours and then restarted it. It was shaking pretty bad - I realized that we had probably blown the head gasket. It was Sunday night, so we left it parked and put a note of "sorry to leave our vehicle here, be back in the early AM" and found a hotel, and we called Good Sam ERS in the morning. Yup, it was the head gasket, at least. It's at the mechanic now, and I have my fingers crossed that the quick pull off the road meant that the engine never got damaged. Here are my questions - 1) I know that my GF can be a bit of a speed demon, and I also know that we were probably cutting it close on the weight. (Ironically, we were to go to a scale about 20 miles south of our meeting spot, and shift stuff over to our car if necessary.) Could the combination of speed and strain caused a sudden upspike like that? (If the temp gauge were slowly building up over time, that seems more plausible. But maybe not.) 2) Why would we have NO coolant in the resevoir? Could it have been boiled off, or perhaps did our mechanic forget to fill it all of the way? I mean, I watched him do part of it as we looked at the fan, and I can't imagine we made it over 200 miles without any coolant in there. 3) In your experience, when/why have your Toys overheated? I should be talking to the mechanic again later today, and should find out if a busted thermostat or water pump, etc. was to blame, and whether we can get on the road again without major engine work. If we do, I just want to make sure that this doesn't happen again!

I just have to say that your remodel is looking great and you're definitely inspiring me to spruce up the inside of our Toy! The dinette cushions should be done next week, but now I am turning an eye toward the ugly old carpet...

Thanks! I have an appointment lined up tomorrow morning to do an oil change, flush the coolant and change the fuel and air filter. I asked them to check the transmission fluid for me, and so far the tires seem good, but I'm definitely taking the gauge on the road with me! I'm going back through the records for the rear end diff. fluid change - hopefully that's been taken care of recently enough. Once that's done, I can start loading my gear!

Hi! I'm a newbie with an '87 Dolphin. My partner in crime and I are planning on taking her (and our two cats) across the country, from our old home in Western Mass to our new home in CA! We're shipping most of our possessions and loading the rest (carefully) into the Dolphin. Everything goes on a scale and is logged so that we don't put too much weight in! The rig is in good mechanical condition - new tires, new exhaust, engine has about 50K on it, no rust and drives beautifully. We definitely have the six lug axle w/duallies, so no worries there. After driving her around on the back roads of Vermont, we fell in love and drove her home to Mass at the end of the week. It's been checked out, registered, inspected... water system works, electrical works and it came with a 12V deep cycle battery in good condition... I'm about to take the panel off of the converter to see if it is the 6300 one that ya'll say boils the battery, and if so, we can swap that out. We're planning on getting the $300 solar kit from Costco, particularly since we don't have an inverter and that comes included! We're planning on staying at hook-up spots every three to four days, and would like a way to maintain our battery in between. Our Dolphin is well loved, but very bare on the inside - the prior owner was a minimalist, and ripped out the oven (stove is still hooked up), the frig, the couch, and the bed above the bunk, and installed crates all over the bunk. (They were bolted down. There was a lot of cussing involved in removing them.) We have the original foam for the dinette cushions, but only covering on two out of the four.... that's not a problem, as our first stop on our trip is for a week with family in Virginia, where my partner's Mom has volunteered to help us reupholster them! We're using a futon mattress for the bunk, so for now we're going to just install a sheet of plywood across the bunk and watch our heads going from the cab to the coach. We're seeing this as a long term project, and we're going to learn a lot about RVing and the Dolphin in particular. We've got Good Sam ERS in case of a breakdown, and this forum has been extremely helpful. Hopefully I can avoid a few newbie mistakes by scouring all of the posts! Any other advice on things to check before we hit the road?