IdahoDoug

Former vehicle planner for GM and Lexus here. I suspect your problem is with switching to the electric cooling fan. Too many folks research on the net and find themselves being told "electric fans are awesome" by some 18 year old who did it on his Honda Civic and thinks everyone should. Aftermarket electric fans and the motors that drive them usually/often have less max cooling capacity than the powerful engine driven fan that was replaced. I have over 12k posts on one forum, 3k on several and have seen this internet phenomenon across the nearly 10 makes I currently own and play with. Your engine and its cooling system were designed to work together by one of the finest engineering teams in the world, and the Toyota truck is known as the gold standard in harsh desert environments the world over - particularly 3rd world environments where they are grossly overloaded, and there is no such thing as maintenance. Those folks just fix them when they break. So your cooling system is easily up to the task. Put the original fan back on it, with a new thermostatic hub (these age and loose effectiveness), confirm the sensor is not the issue (good advice above), be sure the radiator shroud is on it, and drive the wheels off it. This applies to anyone here with a stock Toyota Sunrader engine. Be advised, there are more powerful fan hubs likely available for your truck as Toyota made a variety of these hubs to account for extreme applications such as a 1 ton diesel sold into Africa. Both of my LandCruisers got the blue hubs (less slippage, more forceful cooling) decades ago when I learned of them, for instance. Best! PS - I acknowledge you had some kind of overheat issue that caused you to have all that mechanical work done and I'm skipping over it not out of disrespect, but because the amount of work you had/are having done would have corrected the damage, and now having a functional factory fan/fresh hub with a new radiator and you should be ready to go. One comment I allude to above. Do you have the radiator shroud in place? Often, a prior owner will damage it, or accidentally leave it off and then choose not to disassemble everything to put it on. This part is CRITICAL and often missing on vehicles this age. Is yours on?

You have a picture of the steering shaft coming through a black steel bowl shaped structure bolted to the firewall. It would be great to move the steel bowl structure a quarter inch away from the booster, but those are welded on nuts and not easy. My question is, can you instead move the shaft within the bowl by removing the bolts that locate it there, and elongating the holes slightly in the direction you need? The tiny angle change of the shaft will not affect anything, and when reattached, the clamping pressure of the fasteners will easily keep the shaft where you want it. You may need to also elongate another pair of holes on the dash side, but likely not and it's a pretty low brow solution. There's usually a lot of slack for movement of this assembly during the car's assembly due to variations in dashboard dimenstions, etc. Thoughts from the herd?

Wow, I can't believe you got that out the hatch?! Mine had to remain in the rig while I did all the other work, then I slid it back in place. If you are re-using your shower, check my thread on an easy way to keep rodents out from the gaps in the floor where the toilet drain goes.

Sorry, I missed this - yes they overused the silicone holding the toilet flange and it takes force. So, what are you doing - complete shower removal?

I'll get you the model number as the basic data is out there. Wouldn't be surprised to find even though it's larger, that it's only a few pounds more than the old one, due to 40 years of advances in refrigeration and materials. Hard part for you is it's both taller and wider, which might be quite the challenge to simply cut into the existing setup. Though, maybe not. Hmmm...

And today temp installed the furnace and cut the left side cabinet face plate. It's held on with masking tape, and will be on and off as I fit the shelving behind it. Woohoo! My wife needs to leave for the weekend more often to get this project squared away. Trial fitting the doors on the cabinet face. Opted to reuse them as I cannot possibly build them so light, and frankly they make good use of space and will look good when I refinish them. The larger fridge was accounted for with making the cabinet above it a single large space. Cabinet face held in with tape. Wow that was a lot of cutting and I have a lot of time invested in this piece. Whew. That shelf at the top of the fridge enclosure will be closed off, and was my way of maximizing space in the cabinet above - giving it a "dropped floor" that means full size bottles, kitchen appliances and things will easily fit up there. The fridge has to be completely sealed off and vent to the outside, so I figured "why waste that 4" of space. At the rear of the upper cabinet is the open hole where the upper vent grille goes and I've got a piece cut that will be angled and force hot air from the fridge cooling fins out the vent.

Trial fit on new larger fridge looks good - buddy came over to help as it's an awkward object with the weight near the rear. Now building the upper vent, and the lower angled condensation ramp.

Agree - will be great to get it rolling and just do tweaks from then on. Got that bulkhead glued and screwed into place this evening. Now I need a trial fit of the larger fridge, and then I'll put some fiberglas under the fridge as a drip pan and tab it to the side wall. These are also further strengthening the roof, adding to the 14 curved beams I installed and acting as vertical supports.

So, got the super complex next bulkhead cut and it friction fits in place. That feels good: I need to mark it for holes down low for the wiring, water lines and propane lines to go through. The edge closest to the camera pokes out intentionally. Later the last thing I'll do before glue and screwing it into place is mark a vertical line on that edge from the laser sitting there on a tripod. That's the only reasonable system I've come up with to trim all the structure edges (bulkheads, shelves, etc) so they come up against the front face of this cabinet when I later mount it. I have a bizarre plan to put a rough hole in all the openings, temp mount the face, reach in with a bright light and mirror to mark the openings on the back side, then cut the actual openings. Definitely the strangest "build it in reverse....er, sideways, er..." project I've done in a while. Below is a straight in view of the fridge mount. On the bottom there is a missing section by the wall. That's going to be a sloped piece of fiberglass actually fiberglassed against the bottom of the bottom opening. The new fridge is a couple inches wider than the opening at bottom, so it will not have a slope the full length of the rear. I'll use something in that corner to guide condensation out the opening. I also have to build a shallow box against the upper wall that will mate with the fridge's top rear edge and funnel hot air from the fridge out the upper opening. Kind of a false wall. Who knew there was so much going on

Thanks for checking in. Definitely slowed down for summer, travel and camping. In two months time, I've only built the fridge base piece, and just yesterday built a cardboard template for the other side wall that will define the space. Sunday, I'll lay that on more baltic birch ply and cut it, then the fiddly part of filing here and there to a friction fit. If I get that done early, I'll screw and glue it in place. Because of the weight of the fridge, this strong structure will be the hardest part of the left (US driver's) side cabinets. And I'll be glad to be done with it. The rest will simply be storage, and who cares if storage cabinets are off by 1/4" here and 1/8" here due to the walls tapering and the arched ceiling, etc. To finish the fridge enclosure, there is still a top piece as well as a false back wall to do. This false wall ensures the heat goes up and out the upper vent. If you've never seen it, this enclosure is pretty complex. The floor also has to have a sloped section against the wall to allow any condensation dripping to go out the lower vent. I've already given up any hope of using it this season, but haven't lost enthusiasm for what is going to be a pretty cool setup when I'm done. I'll post pics on Sunday.

Well that was a waste of time. The cumbersome factory tub is also not quite square, and also a bit of a pain to mount securely (see photo above) without a bunch of blind screws and bracketry. Opted to toss it after all my work. Switched to a simple cabinet, then realized the wall I installed (see pic above) does not play well with the outside wall paneling, which is not flat. My dimensions were such that the fridge would fit fairly tightly, but wow - literally zero clearance to play with, considering the space would taper slightly on the forward end due to the coach wall. It was going to be SO tight, I could not trust my measurements, and the space is both tapered AND a trapezoid. I'm pretty good with geometry, but lost my nerve. Ended up drawing an exact duplicate of the space on the pattern paper I bought for the dinette project and this stuff. Then cut an exact duplicate of the new/larger fridge's base to lay on top of it and confirm the fit and where the cabinet opening needs to be in this slightly off space. Worked a treat. Ready to build the fridge cabinet floor, and walls now. Which means I have to wait till that's done and installed to mark the opening for the fridge in the cabinet face. Argh. Back at it.

We had to stop back home for something, so here you go!

There is an oil leak fix in a can that works. I have had a bunch of classic cars, and friends who do. Out of town but if you PM me, I will take a pic on return. It swells rubber seals just a bit.

Refrigerator pan and furnace temp installed to mark the cabinet face cutouts. Cabinet face is now in the house where I'll mark each cabinet door cutout. Then cut and temp install the cabinet face. Then each storage area (closet, smaller spaces, etc) will require measuring its 4 walls, temp installing for fit, then for real install one at at time. There's no other way to build this - the largest interior structure. Gonna be laborious but worth it in the end. Strong and light!