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Skydancer2992

Toyota Advanced Member
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Posts posted by Skydancer2992

  1. Some pictures in the yahoo group Here

    Remember to replace the front bushing first on the spring. Much easier with the shackle on the rear disassembled.

    Prothane supplied the extra bushings I needed at no charge, not even shipping.

    My previous post on the yahoo site:

    "Using the Prothane web site, I found the appropriate kit for the 1990 Toyota pickup. The rear spring kit was about $30 but the entire vehicle kit was about $75 on Ebay, so I ordered the larger kit.

    I propped up one side of the Warrior with a large hydraulic jack and then added a jack stand for extra safety. I removed all three wheels off the starboard side and ended up priming and painting them a nice silver.

    Then I found a half inch thick coat of tar and pebbles inside the wheel well. After three cans of engine degreaser and a roll of paper towels and some rags, the wheel well looked much better. I don't like carrying any more dead weight than necessary.

    With the weight off the suspension system, the rear spring rear bushings came out pretty easily. The old bushings were in bad shape. The one in the spring was completely worn through.

    The new bushings went in easily enough. Aligning the spring so that it matched the bolt hole took about an hour. Using the cab jack in various configurations and heights, I was able to the match the bolt holes and bolt it together.

    The front bushing of the spring was also completely worn through. However, the bushings provided by Prothane were much too fat to fit. The front bushing needed to be the same as the rear spring bushing. I ended up using the ones for the other side of the camper.

    I called Prothane and they agreed to send four more of the thinner bushings, no cost so that I can finish the port side. Good company.

    With the new bushing in place, I could not get the spring to come forward enough to match the bolt hole. After a couple of hours of jacking the spring to various heights, still no luck. Finally, I moved the jack stand right behind the spring so that it could not pivot aft. I put a wood block to the jack stand and put another jack horizontal to push the spring forward enough to bolt the forward end in place.
    "

  2. Rockauto has 10 different models to choose from ($77 to $120) with good descriptions.

    If you failure is due to corrosion, there could be other potential leaks. Better to go new.

    Also, my fan shroud was very brittle and I ended up cracking it in two places. I repaired it with fiber glass and resin. Looks like new ones are not as expensive as they were several years ago. Treat yours carefully to avoid my mistake.

  3. Uhaul would replace the timing belt and water pump at 90K intervals.

    On the yotatech site, many guys go 150K miles or more on their trucks.

    I changed out my 4Runner belts at 200K and then 140K later.

    My camper, I changed it out since I didn't know what the previous owner had done to it. The kit that I bought on ebay for about $100 came with OEM belt, water pump, seals and pulley. It took me about 16 hours due to my lack of experience to put the belt and pump in.

    Since the belt is coming off the cams, it would be a good time to get the valves adjusted. You can probably negotiate with the mechanic on getting the belt, valves, water pump in one job since the hardest part is to get all the stuff off the front of the engine is common to all three jobs.

  4. The clicking sound is a high voltage spark that should be going to your spark plug but is going somewhere else.

    On startup, the air may have been more humid, reducing the resistance. With engine heat, the moisture dissipated and your problem disappeared.

    Your engine probably needs a tune up. Large gaps on the plugs increase the resistance to the flow of the electricity. The rotor may be worn down, increasing the resistance to the desired path. The distributor cap may have burned areas where the arc is occurring.

    Check by examining your rotor, cap, plugs. By the time you do this, it is just as easy to put new ones back in. Rotor and cap , you can do it yourself in 20 minutes. Plugs take a little longer, especially if they've been there a long time.

  5. Aesthetics need some help. A 94 chassis means more power, better transmission, one ton axle.

    The pictures show that someone put serious effort into this camper. A previous owner probably allowed water damage to occur over the cab area and someone worked hard to replace the damaged wood. The rest looks ready for you to decorate.

  6. "Check to see if the rotor is worn down and inspect distributor cap condition"

    Good point. After my purchase I found the rotor was worn down and the distributor cap showed signs of arcing directly to the rotor.

    Also, my spring bushings were completely worn out, metal on metal contact. However, my Toyhome had over 200K miles so not everyone's experience will be similar.

  7. The car magazines used to mention that car manufacturers would have the tires shaved down, removing most of the tread, before a car was submitted to EPA for testing. My own cars do seem to get better gas mileage as I let the tires go down to almost no tread before replacement, followed by a drop after replacement.

    My most common gas mileage is 15 mpg at 55 mph. This was confirmed last week. With a strong tailwind on the return trip, I was getting 17.3 mpg at 65 mph. On the outbound on I40, going into the wind gave me 12 mpg at 70 mph. However, on the state highways in Arkansas, consistently 15 at 55.

    From my flying days and ship days, each vehicle had a chart showing fuel consumption at different speeds, resembling a bell curve. Go too slow and your systems are not at optimum efficiencies, go too fast and friction becomes dominant. At the peak of the curve is the maximum efficiency.

    My hybrid Civic seams to reach peak efficiency around 48 mph at about 50 mpg.

    A Toyhome is likely to be slightly less due to the aerodynamics but not much depending on where overdrive gear is for the V6 or 3rd gear for the 22R/RE.

  8. I feel the same as Linda about mechanics and tire monkeys. After one tire monkey used an air ratchet that tightened the lug nuts so tight that I feared breaking them off to remove the rim, I never let anyone else mount tires on any of my cars. Another mechanic ruined my disks after a bad resurfacing and then trying to correct the defect. I bought a factory manual from Toyota and began doing everything myself. What the manual does not have in detail, somebody on youtube will have made a video (like how to remove the main pulley off the engine without the Toyota Special Service Tool).

  9. I had a similar experience last year. Starting a trip to Chicago, the camper had some vibration from the rear. I attributed it to flat spots on the tire from sitting for a couple of months. Limited to about 55 because of the discomfort. About 30 miles later the vibration became a jack hammer and the inside tire on driver side dually blew. Looked like tire had developed a bulge. No damage around the fender. This was one of the Goodyear tires that came free when I bought my dually wheels from the Uhaul shop. Date code around 2005 but tire looked brand new. 3 of 5 Goodyears have bit the dust now. One is now a spare and the other in my garage.

    Night time on a dark road in the country. Drove 15 miles to the first gas station near Dyersburg, TN on Highway 51.

    Changed the tire myself with the Toyota jack. The spare was good. The clouds of mosquitos were not. Got a lot of curious looks from locals stopping to buy beer at the convenience mart.

    After an hours delay, continued trip to first stop at Scott Air Force Base campground, arriving around midnight (bought a Hankook in Waukegan near Great Lakes Naval Base, continued south to the Mid West Toy-in).

  10. I owned Toyotas since 1986, putting about 200K on each before selling/trading/divorcing. When it came time for a camper, the choice was a Toyhome.

    Mine was listed on Craigslist, a silent auction at the Hotsprings Habitat for Humanity. The camper was missing part of the corner over the driver side and was taped over with metal tape. No bids except mine, $2500.

    After some fiberglassing and repair of wood rot, the camper has worked well for me. The camper part takes more work to maintain. The Toyota part seems to keep on going without complaint.

    My Warrior is a 91 model but the chassis is a 1990 Toyota. My impression is that many others have a similar combination of camper/chassis being a year's difference. As for wear and tear, she is over 236K but doesn't show it on the Toyota side.

  11. Most likely your springs are sagging and the axle is contacting the rubber bumper on the frame (bottoming out). Check the clearance and determine if you need to increase it.

    If air bags are too expensive google zuk mod. This involves putting a coil spring between the axle and the frame. I bought a set of coil helper springs from Amazon and mounted them over my dead air bags. Cost $25.

  12. Depends on the amount of driving. The full synthetic will yield a slightly better gas mileage due to its superior tribology but the higher cost may outweigh the savings.

    The priority should be to warm up the oil periodically to keep the condensation out or to keep the oil refreshed.

    Carbon in the oil combines with water to form a weak acid. Water can also absorb other impurities to coagulate or foam, reducing the effectiveness of the oil's friction reduction.

  13. XLH3_ShuttleBus_Cutaways_Strip_Chassis_D

    XLhybrids systems are being installed on some of our company service vans.

    This is an aftermarket installation which is advertised to take less than six hours to complete.

    Braking recharges the battery for later use.

    The cost is supposed to be less than 10K US dollars.

    Currently available for Ford and Chevy vans.

    When I have excess cash, I'd like to be the first on my block with a hybrid Toyhome.

  14. All this talk of Avatars gives me flashbacks to the movie Officespace: the guy with the Swingline stapler

    office-space-7.jpg

    Milton Waddams:

    "But then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll, I'll, I'll set the building on fire..."

  15. Installed Bilstein shock absorbers on the rear axle of the Warrior. The passenger side shock was an easy job, maybe 30 minutes to undo the two bolts, knock the shock off the pins with a 2X4 and hammer and install the new Bilstein.

    The driver side job was much harder due to the muffler assembly and some poorly placed air bag hoses. Trying to mount the new shock was really difficult due to the confined location, reaching up and around the muffler to try to push the Bilstein onto the mount. The key to success was a five inch C clamp with 2X4. The pressure of the C clamp "convinced" the shock to move onto the mount - first top and then bottom.

    One of the old rear shocks was getting weak. It had about 50% of the resistance to contraction that the Bilstein or even its mate had.

    My speed on the last trip was limited to 60 mph due to vibration. The tire on the passenger side front was showing uneven wear on the inner edge. Coincidentally, this was the same location as the completely useless front shock, a Toyota, which may have been the original factory part. I'm hoping the new shocks will resolve the vibration problem.

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