MR.D

Congrats on the new purchase and good luck with the blow dryer. Let us know how that works, I have the same issue myself around every win dow of my '90 Dolphin. I'd love to pull all the windows and get the crud off of everything, and then reseal properly, somday...

With all of the rain we've had in So Cal the past three weeks, I've discovered that two of my roof vents leak. They didn't leak the first day or two, then they started to seep in around the vents wetting the ceiling about 1" around the vent on all sides. The temp fix has been a 12'X25' tarp. So my next winter project will be to remove the the two vents and likely replace them while they're out. I'd like to put a Fantastic Fan or that other brand Greg's installed in his rig. I don't know that there's power at the vent, but there is a light fixture pretty close, so I can likely get power there.

All the more reason for some of the yahoo-ers to start posting over here. I bet if some of them tried out your forum they'd quickly realize the superiority of the forum interface to what yaboo provides

I really don't get why people haven't started to use this forum. It's so much more user friendly than the yahoo group site...

It really was a great group of people wasn't it? The trip for us was 740 miles roundtrip, we averaged about 14mpg. The RV didn't have a single problem, knock on wood... Here's some of our pictures, also pictures from our big Yellowstone/Montana/Black Hills SD trip in August. Toyota Motorhome Trips

We won't be getting there until Saturday morning around 11AM. I'm concerned about the traffic coming through LA from San Diego, so we're going to leave at 4AM. It'll be great to meet everyone and check out all the Toys in one place. We'll be staying until Monday morning.

Do your tires not have the DOT code at all or just not the triangle? If there's no DOT code try looking at the inner side of the tires, every tire should have them. Or take them to any tire shop and they'll gladly read it for you. I bought a '90 Dolphin about 4 months ago and the tires looked perfect but had some minor cracking. When I read the DOT code I relized that 5 of my tires were made in '93 The other two were from '00 and '01. I had the six drive tires replaced, the '01 tire moved to the spare and I kept the '00 just in case I ever get to do the ALCON We just got back from a 3,400 mile trip and knowing I had 5 new heavy duty tires between my family and the road was great piece of mind...

Thanks Greg, I've been in touch with Tika about it. I can't believe it's only about 2 weeks away. We're planning on being there from Saturday morning until Monday morning. The trip went great, we had only put about 500 miles on the Toy prior to heading out so I was a bit worried as to what problems I may run into. Luckily nothing whatsoever went wrong with the Dolphin. I learned a great deal about driving the unit and using it's auto/OD tranny. As I've read, I found the OD of very little use. I'd love to add a tach which would give be a lot more info about what's going on with the engine. I also finally found use for the ECT button, it does actually work and help in hilly terrain, without the tranny never wants to shift to second, or does so way too late. In the really hilly areas I did a lot of manual shifting from 3rd to 2nd, otherwise the tranny would hunt back and forth. I found that I could easily cruise at 45-50 in second, althouh I'd love a tach to see what sort of RPMs I was pulling when running it up to 55 or slightly more prior to shifting to 3rd. We really enjoyed the 16 nights in the RV and have really come to love our floorplan, the L-shaped dinette, barrel chair and couch. With the table stored away we've got tons of room, even with the lower bed made out. Although it made driving a little less enjoyable we found it easiest to just leave the upper bed made up at all times. Our fridge got a little warm the second day out and concerned us a bit, but then we realized that if we weren't careful it didn't make a complete seal at the bottom when closed, once we figured that it worked great. We only used our shower a few nights preferring to use that space for storage and using the much larger campground showers. Being on such a long trip ment we needed to bring quite a bit of clothes, and as I'm sure you're aware our units just don't have a lot of clothing storage. The sites were incredible in the Tetons, Yellowstone, and Montana. We found a wonderful little KOA campground in Montpelliar that we stayed on the way that we'd highly recommend, the one in Red Lodge was nowhere near as nice. All the campgrounds in Yellowstone were wonderful. We found that sightseeing in the Toy was better than we'd anticipated. It really wonderful being able to park in normal sized places everywhere we went, a real plus to our units

Greg, have you heard anything from Tika on this event? It's less then 3 weeks away and I haven't heard a thing. I hope it's a go and that it hasn't filled up, we've been planning on going all along but never heard a word about signing up for it...

We made it! The Dolphin ran flawlessly and averged just under 15mpg running mostly 60-62mph over the 3,400 miles. I drove from the Black Hills to San Diego in about 32 hours and only 5 hours of sleep, so I'm beat now. I'll post more trip details tomorrow if anyone's interested...

Thanks Greg, I appreciate it. We took a 350 mile test run last weekend and all went well mechanically, although the welds on the rear bumber broke. Glad I got to the bottom of that before heading out tomorrow. I'll post here from South Dakota once we get there and let you know how it's all gone... I'll look forward to meeting you at the Labor Day CA Toy-In. Anything new on signing up for that? We definitely plan on attending.

My wife, 4 year old son, and I are off on a 3,500 mile trip Friday afternoon. We'll be leaving San Diego and heading to Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs for a week, and then taking the Beartooth HWY to Red Lodge MT to meet my mom at Red Lodge for 3 days. From there we'll follow them back to their log home in the Black Hills of SD for about a week. Our drive home will be a 2 day blast through Wyoming and Utah on the way back to So Cal. Hopefully everything will go well, I've been prepping the Dolphin for the past week so I'm pretty confident, but mentally prepared for the worst. Wish us luck, I'll let you guys know how it's going once we get to SD.

That's awesome Greg, wish I had a 3-way refer to use it with... I've always used my refers on propane on the road, as has pretty much everyone I've ever known with an RV. If I had a 3-way I'd go your route for the extreme safety, but I've never lost any sleep over it and this lastest story won't cause me to. I remember once as a teenager working on a gas line leak on my '54 VW. My grandpa was leaning over me smoking while I laid in a puddle of gas, I yelled at him to put his cig out. He laughed and threw the cig in the puddle of gas after I crawled out, it went out as if it were a puddle of water. He had run a gas station for years and claimed gas fume explosions were one in a million events, especially out in the open. I'm not a bit worried gasing up with the refer on, I do however believe in the idea that a ruptured propane line could be deadly. That'd most likely occur in a car accident and RVs are deathtraps in that situation anyway...

Finished my screen door and got it installed yesterday! It looks like it was always there, it did take quite a bit more work then I'd planned to get it right. Having it will be a big improvement for our coming trip...

Don't take this wrong, because there's no doubt that the rear of our RVs' undercarriage could have been better built. But considering your week old used RV has 170k miles on it, it has held in there. And who knows how that thing was driven and loaded over those 170k miles. National RV has a better than average reputation in the RV industry and there are thousands of very happy owners. I'd imagine that if you got under the rear of most if not all Toyota based RVs you'd fine very similar designs. Just out of curiosity, what did you pay for that thing? Did you have any idea about the frame damage when you got it, because I find it very hard to believe that the previous owner wasn't aware of those frame cracks...

Same plan exactly as mine, which is a '90 Dolphin on an '89 Toyota. Ours only has 77k, but as I said I'll definitely be keeping a very close eye under there. Is this RV a recent purchase? Keep us posted as to how everything goes with your situation. Good luck with it!

Mine looks perfectly fine. It's identical to yours in the pictures, but no cracks. I'll definitely be keeping a good eye on it from now on. Are you sure that National RV cut off the frame because I don't think they really did, our 22' Dolphins are much longer than all the 1 ton dually work trucks I see around, I'd say that our original frames end at nearly the identical spot where the dually 1 ton Toyota truck frames end. I'm not an engineer but would it really have been better to have started the frame extension connection and welds behind the suspenion mounts just floating in thin air?? How many miles are on your coach?

What floorplan is that, the barrel chair and L-shaped little dinette? Also what's the manufacture date of the coach and truck? Does it have a generator installed, looks like it in the pics... I've got a '90 Dolphin that I've only had about 3 months, I'll get under it in the AM and check it out, IRC its frame extensions start about halfway between the rear wheels and the rear of the coach, not just behind the wheels, at least I hope not! I'll post in the AM with what I find on mine.

That does seem weird. Were 4WD trucks ever offered by Toyota with the rear duals or was that something the RV manufacturer added? If so it could be that sticker is just referencing the max weight that Toyota gave the 4WD trucks with single rear wheels?? We don't leave on our big trip until 7/28, we're headed to Dinosaur NP in Utah for 2 nights, Grand Tetons and Yellowstone in Wyoming for 5 nights, Beartooth HWY up to Red Lodge MT for 2 nights, and then on to the Black Hills in SD where my mom lives in a log cabin out in the Hills for 5 or 6 nights. Our time in the Black Hills is also the week of Sturgis Bike Week which my brother and 4 friends are attending on their Harleys. It should be a great trip...

GAWR is your max weight for each axle, on my '90 Dolphin the GAWR adds up to 700lbs more than my GVWR. My numbers are front 2300lbs, rear 4400lbs, total GVWR 6000lbs. I'm almost afraid to weigh it to see what it actually weighs. I'm just praying that I don't exceed that total number of 6700lbs fully loaded with passengers and that my front and rear numbers are close to those 2300 and 4400lb numbers. My wife, 4year old son, and I are headed out on a three week 4000 mile trip 3 weeks from Thursday...

I bought a used screen door in excellent condition including all needed parts for only $5 yesterday. It's too big for our Dolphin but I've already disassembled it all and just need to cut it down so that it's about 4" shorter and narrower. All the hinge hardware was still on my coach so it'll be very easy to attach the door once I have it reassembled

Just wondering if anything's been heard about signing up for this event, don't want to miss it! I've been in Hawaii for the past week, awesome trip!!

Wow, that seems pretty heavy, what's the weight rating of your coach? I' haven't weighed mine yet but I do plan to sometime this summer. I'll let you know what our '90 Dolphin weighs...

Wow Greg, that place and campsite look absolutely incredible! Where exactly is this place, I've never heard of Utica Res. We're in extreme So Cal and aren't familiar with any of the places you mention. Could a standard Toy like our '90 Dolphin fit into that place or is it 4x4 only?

Thanks Greg, but no luck. Home Depot has the stuff to make a screen but no parts to make the sliding door to access the door handle and locks. I did talk to a guy at a local RV place who said he had 3 or 4 used screen doors, he told me to measure mine and one of his used ones might be close enough to fit, or need only a slight modification. Any ideas on how I could jury-rig a screen to use as a screen door, I can easily make a frame and screen from Home Depot parts, it's the door handles that'd be a problem...