nibs

Wales, the common wisdom is to use the same putty tape that the manufacturer used. If this was a good way to do it, you wouldn't be asking the questions. My years spent building and living on sailboats taught me how to make fittings etc water tight. DO NOT USE SILICON SEALANTS. They break down quickly and nothing else will stick after you have used it. Use a good quality poly-urethane bedding compound. Remove the fitting, clean the old sealant off, put a bead of compound around the opening, and seat the fitting. Put a bit of bedding compound on the hold-down screws or bolts, this will stop water migrating along the thread thats much neater than glorping the screw head after it is in. Its a bit messier than putty tape, but makes a much better job. The old timers are gonna scream "you gotta use putty tape" but if you really only want to do the job one time use urethane bedding compound, it gives a flexible seal with good adhesive qualities. A tip for getting the old sealant off, scrape off what you can, then apply some oil to it and rub off the remainder..........Tony

It isnt hard to put in belts, but they need to be tied in to the truck frame..............Tony

Maineah, I think you'll find that there is a proprietory gasket under the air conditioner. You likely have to yank it & put in a new gasket. .....You might get away with a bead of caulk, and rebedding the hold down bolts but you prolly gotta yank it..................Tony

Mr Chris, I would only use my fridge on 12 volt after my house batt is fully charged. Even then on 12 volt you dont get much cooling. Sparky Pacific Northwest RV supply has a top for your stove (we think its cream colored) they had 2 but we bought the black one, a month ago. They charged us $15. Toll Free (866) 6RV-SHOP (866-678-7467) Fax (541) 736-5573 Email mail@nwrvsupply.com Address 86325 College View Drive Eugene, OR 97405 Open Monday-Friday 9-5 Saturday 10-4

We just did 10,000 mi in our 18' Sunrader, all conditions except snow (whew) I am amazed at the stability in cross winds, (I have driven everything from bicycles to semis. Trucks passing will push you around a bit tho. We left our '67 MCI bus conversion in a farmers field for the winter, I was worried about mice, but had read that they don't like fiberglass resin smell so I left an open dish of resin, and a closed gallon jug (left over from glassing solar panel mounts on the roof) and the catalyst in the luggage bay. No mice, not even any droppings. It is easy enough to put a bit of resin into the coach if you are storing the Toyota for a bit, and the smell airs out really easily..........Tony

There is quite a lot of info over on the Toyota Mini Motorhomes group about this. Current thinking seems to be clean and sand the area to be sealed, wet the area with abs cement, apply fiberglass cloth to the wetted area, and wet the cloth with abs cement. Before doing this to check that the abs cement actually sticks. Apply a drop of cement to a sanded test area and 24hrs later try to scrape off the cement if it has formed a good bond you are set to go. This method makes good sense to me since the cloth reinforces the area, and almost all holding tanks are made from abs. Apparently you can buy a kit that does this or you can get the glasscloth at your flaps and abs cement at any hardware store.

The stock mirrors on my 84 Sunrader are at the end of their life cycle, rusted through or busted, thanks to a tire chunk. Should I replace the 4 mirrors with new ones, or should I replace the whole shooting match with ford style mirrors that will swing flat, the type on a curved bar attached below the window. I find that the stock set of 4 mirrors blocks a lot of the side vision. I realize that the ford style will probably have to have extenders, which I can fabricate. Your thoughts please...........Tony

As I recall, a rod bearing tends to knock when pulling, and a wrist pin tends to knock when being pushed (slowing down) Now this is from many many years back so I may have it bass ackwards, but since you are driving it, check to see if its louder accelerating or decelerating. I suspect a rod would have quit by now. wrist pins go a bit further before they fail...Tony

It won't be too difficult to get the original lengthened, look up driveshafts in the yellow pages. Don't go to 'ace driveshafts' you want it done well, I had one fail on a logging truck once, good thing it was empty. On a down hill you could loose brakes.

The heater is easy, hook it up to 12 volts, and propane & short out the thermostat, it will either light or not. I have heard it said that if you turn the fridge upside down overnight then try it............well you got nothin to loose. If you don't have a better idea, glass in the rotten structural member, then glass in a sister member beside it. The glass is to keep the rot from spreading. When I built my sailboat the deck was a laminate of fiberglass exterior, foam, then plywood skin, worked well under a much higher stress than in a motor home......Tony

Danny, a couple of us over here in N America are interested in shipping our Toyotas over to Europe for a visit. How did you get yours there, any details/ info would be appreciated. As th boys are telling you, a look is worth a 1000 photos. The systems arent that complicated, but trying to understand what some one has done without a full schematic is tough.......Tony PS they are both very knowledgeable and to be trusted.

If the pick up you are looking at is a 22re then it should be injected if its a 22r then it is carburated.

Christian, the only way to learn is the hard way!! Cam, - I dont know but I suspect it is the stock pickup cam - unless a previous owner swapped it. water in oil - What does the oil look like? if it is clear, then the oil is either floating on water, is the dipstick over full? or there is no water. If it looks like cream then the oil is emulsified into the water. Either way, you probably will be all right, it wont have done the motor much good, but probably wont have killed it. If the head gasket is that badly blown, I would worry more about a broken piston than a rusted bearing. If a combustion chamber is full of water, and the piston comes up and hits it, it is very hard on the piston and rod. I have never seen a head gasket that bad, but if the pan is full of water, that may be a problem. Take out the spark plugs and turn the motor over by hand, or with the starter, Put a compression guage on each pot, you wont get a true reading, but it will let you know if you have a no compression hole, if that is the case chuck the motor. My inclination would be to put in a head gasket, check the head for flatness and get local advice on how to torque the head down, get it running and see what you have. The timing chain should be good till 100K mi You have an automatic? changing to a manual is not trivial, you have no clutch so yes you would have to get a new one. Visit your junk yards there are lots of Toyota pick ups around and put in a used tranny. try and get one with less than 200K mi. Make a friend of a small local repair shop, If you treat him/her right, the info you will gain is invaluable. Ask at your small town FLAPS (friendly local auto parts store) who is a good backyarder on Toyotas. they will know. Put your questions up one at a time, it makes answering them less work. (IMHO)...........................Tony PS where in the world are you?

Robert, I spent just about a day mucking with mine before we went south. I noticed after about 6,500 mi that the drivers side drum was heating up a bit, pulled in to a Mexican roadside repair place, asked him to back the star wheel off a bit, it took longer to jack it up than the 30 secs it took him to windem back. I gave him my brake adjusting spoon and $5. Made me feel like a right clutz.................Tony

Three08 I just re-read your post. DON'T LET ANY ONE PUT AN OPD VALVE ON YOUR HORIZONTAL TANK!!!!!!!!! They are not made for horizontal tanks to the best of my knowledge. They will fit, can be screwed in easily, and will dump liquid propane into your system which could spoil your relatives whole day. You wont mind cause you wont be with us. The kids that fill the tanks forget about horizontal tanks (they had to learn it to get their certificate) cause they just dont see many. The tanks fill vertically, and watch that they dont get overfilled....................I dont mean to be sounding so serious, propane is easy to deal with once you get used to it.

Ok, To sanitize the water tank, put in one capfull of chlorine bleach, fill the tank, let it stand overnight and then empty the tank, just run it through the pump. If you can still smell a bit of chlorine, the tank is good, if there is no chlorine smell, double the amount and do it again. If the chlorine is being used up, it means it is working and you arent sterile in there yet. You could put in more say a 1/4 cup and flush over night but that is overkill in most cases. To test for leaks, just fill the water tank turn on the hot and cold taps untill you have good flow, then turn off the taps and listen for the pump, if you hear it cycle every few minutes, you either have a leak, too much air in the hot tank or a weak pump or check valve on the pump. Its easy, just use the system, the pump will let you know if there is a problem. The toilet, shower and holding tanks will let you know really quickly if they have problems. The horizontal tanks (if thats what you have) are exempt from needing an OPD valve - the one with the triangular handle. You can get them certified quite cheaply if you ask around - I paid $8 per tank for that in Oregon. If you have vertical tanks, probably the cheapest is to go to a place that sells exchange tanks and swap yours for certified ones. I have heard that the going rate for installing OPD valves and recertifying a tank is around $30. It isnt likely that the tanks are compromised by rust, but any of the pro's will tell you at a glance. I have read that the propane regulator (pressure reducing valve) has a life cycle of 7years, they are cheap, you micht want to replace it, especially if there is a slight propane smell in the propane tank area. Bed sheets - ah real men don't needem..............Hope this helps ...............Tony-------- 11 yrs full time rv'ing and 8yrs full time sailing.

Hey, Sparky, thats a good tip from Greg, once I had my Toyota level, I put one of those self adhesive levels on the underside of the bunk so I could see it through the windshield, for crosswise leveling, and one above the driverside mirrors on the underside of the bunk, for fore and aft leveling. Now I can see when the rig is level from the driver position.............Tony

Yeah, I got so po'd that I swore to take off the adjuster next brake job. I used a long shank skinny screwdriver, the handle gave me some leverage while keeping my left hand out of the way. The lock was a new one for me too, first time I adjusted brakes since the early 70's bit of a pita. Brake guys will do it in a flash.

Yep, on one side of the star wheel there is a small lever, unless you hold the lever back with a thin screwdriver or = the star wheel will only rotate to tighten the brakes. It took me a day of Far+in about to get mine the way I wanted. I bet if you google it you can find an exploded diagram, no need to pull the drum.............Tony

Bleach is the best mold killer, but it will wreck the fabric. You can buy mildew stain remover at some supermkts or you might go on line at some other sites.............Tony

Of course I'm gonna argue the other side, I tow a trailer. We did 10,000 miles this winter towing a 1,000 lb trailer. Out total wt was 7,000lbs. I would prefer to have brakes on the trailer for obvious reasons. I used to manufacture trailers in San Diego, and have designed and built many. Driving a trailer requires skills that many dont have but are not difficult to learn (I also used to drive logging trucks in the mountains of BC). I absolutely agree that tongue wt is critical and must be kept to a minimum. Towing a car 4 down puts no tongue wt on the Toyota but oh the load on the drive train and brakes. If you do a careful job of installing/engineering a hitch, tow a competent trailer, and drive it within the envelope you will be ok. There is one massive drawback that no one seems to recognize, if you are involved in an accident you could easily be found criminally liable for operating a vehicle loaded more heavily than its rated limit. ........Tony. PS Driving is one of the few things that you do which, if you make a simple mistake, could land you in jail charged with manslaughter. Once I realized this my professional driving came to a quick end.

Apparently there is a product on the market - in auto parts stores, that combines glass fiber cloth with epoxy resin, I read about it in popular mechanics today. I see no reason that you couldnt rough up the surface clean it with alcohol or some other oil free solvent. then lay the cloth & flood with epoxy. Sunrader Bob has better info than I so perhaps you could ask him...................Tony

OOOHHHH MMMMAAAANNNNNN, my heart goes out to you. I hope you find it aint a rod, mebee you left a socket in the bell housing. Any way hang in there, only a few more busted knuckles to get you rolling again................Tony

After living for a total of 19 years with propane fridges - they are the best compromise available. The people I know who have gone electric regret it, they now are tied to shore power..........Tony

What a sad post. For your info, that works the same way, the US border guards won't let a Canadian into the US if there is a similar conviction. Greg, feel free to discard this thread ASAP