ChrisInVT

Local auto parts stores don't have any listings for shocks. I went to rockauto (where I order everything from) and all they have are the KYB's - and front only. There's a guy on eBay selling Gabriel shocks for about $16/each - but I have NO experience with them, and at $16/ea it makes me wonder how good they really are! Now the catch is these aren't for my camper - but for my box truck. I was looking into getting those helper shocks (the ones with the mini-coilovers) but nobody has a listing for those either. With 240k of moving people's crap on the clock, the rear leaves and front torsion bars have pretty much had it. Truck has a very soft and squishy ride (doesn't help all the shocks are blown out). I'll probably put some airbags on the rear axle in the near future, but for now I just really need to get some shocks in that thing! What do you guys use as a truck when you search rockauto? I tried the hilux, the pickup, the different models of pickup.. There's just no winning. Even when I went to U-Haul to rent a tow dolly they were trying to tell me my truck didn't exist. I was like dude, this truck WAS A FREAKING U-HAUL, don't tell me it doesn't exist. I don't care if it's the size of a shoebox, it's still a 1-ton. See the duals in the back? See the huge box on the back that use to say U-HAUL? Sheesh.

Well, I never got around to even getting those pictures off my camera. I've been in this mad dash to turn a car into a pile of scrap, and use the bits and pieces of that to get my winter car up and running again (since I refuse to drive the Toyota in the salt). Who woulda known after sitting for over a year in the grass that the whole unibody would be rotted out. I've had several days of cutting and welding behind me, and I'm almost close to being done. After I get that off the lift I have a few things to do with the box truck, and then it's time to start working on the camper! It looks so sad sitting behind the shop with no bumper and all six bald tires. Which brings me to my next issue. ALL THE TIRES ON THE CAMPER ARE FREAKING PASSENGER CAR TIRES. How did I know this? Well, I stole all the tires off the camper and put them on my box truck. Didn't look at the sizes or anything because I just assumed they were the right ones. I just unbolted them from the camper and bolted them on the truck. I didn't realize they were the incorrect size until I took them to get balanced at the local truck tire center and they pointed this out to me. Not only are they passenger car tires, but they're TOO BIG! Grrrrrrr.... I don't load my truck down often, so I'm not going to worry about it. Especially after paying $20/tire to get them balanced properly. I think it would be a bigger issue on the camper, that is ALWAYS heavy. After I get the frame welded up, I need to fix the lighting issue and make sure the shell is situated properly on the frame and not sagging or twisted anywhere. Once that's all done it's going to my friend's house for a little while to get a custom warn-like bumper built from scratch. The bumper is actually for the box truck, but since the camper's bumper is ON the box truck, I figured I could just let him use the camper instead (since I daily drive that thing). If I like ti enough, I might just end up keeping it on the camper As a side note, I'm glad to start work on the camper soon, especially now that I've finally found the keys. Yes, that's right - I lost my ONLY set of keys to the thing for two weeks. I dropped them in the back yard and was unable to find them for two weeks. I was not impressed.

I checked the fluid last week, and it was at the right level. I looked today and there was a puddle underneath my truck after being in a store for a few minutes. It was transmission fluid. A LOT of transmission fluid. I checked my dipstick with the truck warm, on level ground, running in park - and it showed the level was OK. I waited a few minutes and checked it again, and it didn't even register on the dipstick. I waited a few more minutes again, and checked it - and it showed full. VERY annoyed, when I got home I swapped the dipstick from the camper and the box truck. They're supposed to look the same, but the one from the box truck was screwed up. The zig-zags at the top were all sorts of messed up. I checked the fluid again after this, and it showed it was low. I added two quarts and it's at the level it's supposed to be when hot. I'll see if this fixes the problem (I'm hoping). I've fixed the leak already, it was where the rubber hose meats the metal line on the external transmission filter. I have this same leak on my car, where the rubber hose meets the metal line on the transmission cooler. I've had that car for 5 years and put 60,000 miles on it and no matter what I do I can't get it to stop leaking. I guess I'll need to be more religious on checking my fluids. Instead of every 500 miles I'm going to make a habit of checking every Sunday. Wish me luck on that was the problem. Leaky transmission line and a messed up dipstick. It doesn't surprise me because I usually have to fight with that thing for 5 or 10 minutes to get it back into the transmission. Both dipsticks on the camper just slide right in. And both dipsticks on the box truck I have to fight with for 5 minutes. I think I need to find a new/used dipstick and tube. I went to the autoparts store today to get a gasket and filter so I could drop the pan, and they didn't have any; and couldn't get one. It seems to be such a PITA to get parts for this truck. I'll have to go to UHAUL's website and see if they sell any type of transmission service kits. I need to get order myself some tires from UHAUL, possibly some pads, rotors, drums and shoes while I'm at it... Brakes are getting kinda shaky.

This is a new one for me. Every-so-often, the transmission in my '89 box truck w/ the 3VZ will "pop" out of gear. It's exactly like what happens in a manual transmission, it just jumps out-of-gear like it's in neutral. This happened first about a week ago. I pulled up to a stop sign, let off the brake and hit the gas, and the truck didn't go anywhere, just revved up really high - and then it "remembered" it was in drive and banged into gear. I thought maybe the shifter wasn't fully in drive, but it most definitely was. Fast forward to yesterday. I was at a store with the truck on a slight incline trying to pull out of the parking lot and onto the road. I was waiting for traffic to pass, and when there was none I let off the brake. Truck didn't roll backwards but as soon as I hit the gas the engine revved up and the truck started rolling backwards!!! It scared THE CRAP out of me. I slammed on the brakes, and once again checked to make sure the shifter was in drive (which it was). While I was pressing the brakes, I pressed the gas and the truck wanted to move - so I let off the brakes and pulled away. Fast forward a bit to 4 hours later. I'm on my way home driving through town... I'm going up a hill and an idiot dead stops in front of me to make a turn. I stop, and the idiot turns. I hit the gas and start to drive away, and within one second, I the engine revs up and the truck stops moving forward, but then jumps back into gear and drives normally. This is pissing me off. Transmission shifts and acts normal, no issues other than this. After hour of searching all I can find is to replace the "shift lever bushing" but it only seems to apply to manual transmissions. My first thought was possibly the shift cable, because if I manually put the truck in 1st of 2n gear there doesn't seem to be any "slop" in the driveline - and it also doesn't seem to have this problem (although I haven't had the chance to test this theory TOO much - since this problem is random). Anyone have any other things to look at? I'm going to look at the shift cable today if I get the chance, but it goes in PRN21 fine without jumping out of gear, so I dunno.

Yeah, that's like two hours there two hours back... It's usually cheaper to get stuff offline after you factor in gas and wasting the better part of a day; mostly gas.

No junkyards, they're basically illegal to operate in this state due to the rednecks that have about 30 cars in their front yard. Everything I buy for my vehicles has to be at the autoparts store or online, it's a HUGE PITA. I forgot about the main website, thanks for the link to the classifieds on it. I'm going to upload some pics tomorrow illustrating what I talked about.

As a side note, I've noticed there isn't a classifieds section on this forum... Is it safe to post a "Looking for" thread in the "General Discussion" board? I really, REALLY need myself a set of bumpstops...

So, to update this thread... I've started stealing parts off the camper and putting them on my box truck. I've already stolen all the wheels and tires, along with the hubcaps and lugnuts. They're all on my box truck at the moment. I'm going to be pulling off the grille, corner markers, and bumper for the box truck soon. As soon as I can remember how to remove them, I'll be taking the HVAC controls, A/C switch & clock for the box truck too. I want the tilt column (which has cruise & delay wipers; I never knew how much I loved delay wipers until I drove a truck without them) but that's going to be too much work. Before you think I'm stripping it, I'm not. Since it's going to be sitting until spring, I can put all these parts to use until I have the truck repaired and drivable. So, not sure if this is good news or bad news, but I think it's good. I put the camper up on the lift yesterday... I stole all the tires and looked at the underneath. It doesn't leak anything but gas (I'll fix that line eventually) which is good. The 3VZ in my box truck goes through about a quart per 1k miles, so no leaks is a thin of love for me. The TOYOTA frame is in good condition with no rust, but the frame that Odyssey built is a FREAKING DISASTER. Where they cut the Toyota frame with the torch (and didn't clean it up), it's really bad. All their welds are complete trash, I could train a 7 year old how to weld better. So the reason the whole shell leaning and sagging is because their CRAP welds have broken all over the place. The shell supports have snapped clean off the frame at the welds, and where they haven't snapped off - they're bent and sagging. HORRIBLE horrible HORRIBLE work by Odyssey!!!! I was able to jack and lift up on the shell and have everything "go back into place" so-to-speak. Before snow flies I'm going to jack up all the busted supports, and level out the whole frame which should bring the shell back into shape. After I have everything welded up, I'm going to brace and reinforce Odyssey's joke of a frame so this doesn't happen again. My welder is a little 100A wire feed flux core, so when I have everything done I'm going to bring it to my friend to burn with his 220 MIG so I know the welds will outlast the truck. When all this is done, I'm going to have to cut out a section of floor where the initial sag is, because that wood is all rotted out (under the "kitchen"). I noticed they used press-board (!!!!!!!!!!!) to construct this thing - so that's going to be replaced with something a bit better in the quality department. I have to strip one car, fix another car with the parts, then do a complete drivetrain swap and solid axle swap in my truck before I get around to doing all this though. And oh, did I mention I have to do all this in the period of a month and a half? I'm going to be VERY busy! If I can get the car and truck done in time, I'd like to fix the bathroom and make this semi-livable so I can hang out in there over the winter time, like my own little clubhouse or something Wish me luck.

I fixed the vents several weeks back (and by fixed I mean covered with several bags and duct taped the everliving oooo out of them). So now - onto the pictures.... Overall, you can see how the corner is sagging. Note the angles, especially where the stove used to be. That's not sitting right. Ouch. This shows the extent of structural instability... Not good.... Slight sagging throughout. Here you can really see some problems. Overall view where you can see how messed up it is. Door has been hitting the roof for some time now. It must have had a generator somewhere???? Not sure where that goes, there's no spot for it. Bathroom, in serious need of repair.

Wow, I'd even take MY caper over that one...

Yeah, it disappoints me because I would have liked to restore it. If I do end up parting it out (or repairing it), I won't be doing anything to it until the spring because I currently have WAY too many projects. Only thing I want to get done before spring is get the leaf spring perch re-welded to the "frame" and steal the good tires for my box truck

I don't know where they're getting the shorter claim from, because I was in another Odyssey the other day and it was smaller than this Americana. And yeah, there's a bunch of headroom. I was messing around inside it again today, and I don't think it's worth fixing. The whole shell is leaning to one side, it looks as if it's caving in and falling off. I'll get some pictures of what I'm talking about - it's pretty bad.

Well I messed with it some today. Hooked it up to the 110 in my garage and started messing with things. All the interior lights work. The A/C doesn't work correctly, the fan works but when the compressor tries to kick on it dims the lights in the camper AND my house, then stops trying to run. Selecting heat does absolutely nothing. Fan runs but that's it. Upon further inspection I do have a working water pump, but there's no hot water heater. The microwave also does absolutely nothing, like it isn't getting any power. I climbed onto the roof to disassemble the AC unit, and noticed that the roof is concave, bit in the wrong direction! I'm going to remove the AC/heat unit and see if there's anything I can do about the roof. The cabinets don't bother me all that much, right now they're the least of my worries

As a side note, I REALLY hate this forum software!!!! Every time I make a post it gives me this error: An Error Occurred Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information. [#20310] Your secure key, used to verify you are posting the topic, did not match the one submitted. Please go back, reload the form, and try again. Then I have to copy down the HTML code, log out and log back in and then paste it. I've had to do this with EVERY post so far (the one with a list was a HUGE pain in the behind to fix). I'm not fixing the above post, I'm sick of having to re-do every single post on this forum

Yeah, I have a shop with a lift, I have a welder, and everything I need to repair the frame rot, and the hack-job damage Odyssey did. I was working on repairing the wiring harness until I found the fuel leak and gave up. I don't know if I can get this on the lift to do the work that's needed since the rear frame is made out of tube, angle and what looks like random scrap. I really need to powerwash the outside since someone decided to use it as a paintball target. <br><br>What worries me the most is the roof, it doesn't leak, but it majorly sags. You can see in these following two pictures what I'm talking about. Look at the roof line in front of the bathroom door by the air conditioner and look at the cabinet door next to the microwave. You can see how it's all slanted. There's no frame damage underneath that would cause this, so I'm worried what the problem might be.<br><br><img src="http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff19/ChrisInVT/odyssey/IMG_3697.jpg"><br><br><img src="http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff19/ChrisInVT/odyssey/IMG_3702.jpg"><br><br><br><br>I'll see if I can get some better pictures sometime today. And yeah, I'm about 5 minutes from St Johnsbury town.<br>

Doing it at night wasn't exactly the plan, but it worked out OK because there was less traffic (I did 20MPH most of the way, but did 30 on the interstate). My girlfriend followed behind me in her car to make sure nothing fell off and in case anything happened like it fell off the dolly and rocketed across the interstate on it's side Now that I've got it home and looked at the undercarrage closer, HOLY oooo this motor coach company is a bunch of hackjobs!!! I've never seen such horrible frame work. It looks like they cut the frame up with an oxy-acetylene torch, then welded hacked up angle iron and tube that was also cut with an acetylene torch with no edges ground down or good welds - nothing. The welds on the frame are so bad, that the spring perch they welded on to their "frame" on the rear sheered right off. They also didn't paint any of the frame or coat it with anything so it's rusted pretty badly. So now on the to-fix list: Spring perch needs to be welded on correctly Exhaust system needs repair Needs new fuel lines Needs new wiring harness from axle back Bathroom needs complete remodel as floor has been cut out Vents in the roof need replacement Roof seems to be sagging near the air conditioner, bathroom door doesn't open unless you push up on the roof, and cabinets in the area are noticeably leaning. Needs a Fridge, stove, battery isolator & tires

Well, finally got it home tonight.... It was a fun trip.

If I do, I'll keep you in mind. I think I may just pull the engine/trans, remove the rear axle and wheels and scrap the whole thing. I really only bought it for those anyway... Would've been nice to have in working order - but it seems like it's going to be nothing but one problem after another. I may be renting a tow dolly in the next few days so I can tow it home (behind the box truck - THAT is going to be interesting!)

Alright gentlemen, for some not-so-good news... I just spent the past several hours trying to make this thing road-worthy enough to drive it home. All the wiring from the rear axle back needs to be replaces, I'm talking about butt connectors connected to butt connectors connected to splices connected to more splices connected to some more butt connectors... Seriously, every time I touched a wire it would fall apart in my hands. After several hours of trying to un-hack the hackjob wiring harness, I found out the fuel lines were so rotted out that they drained the 10 gallons of gas I put in the tank out. I put a few gallons in to move the camper so I could work on it, and as soon as the pump kicked on fuel was spraying everywhere. So that's another thing on the have to replace to make it roadworthy list. And the fun part is it's the fuel lines that run from the pump hanger, through the frame and across to the other side of the truck - so i have to drop the tank to replace them. Another issue is the exhaust rotted itself off the truck (like I mentioned in my last post), BUT THE GREAT NEWS is that it's held on by a series of coat hangers! The nightmare doesn't end there... To add to these issues, the back of the frame is severely rotted out, and the whole bathroom floor was cut out of the truck with a sawzall. The frame will need to be replaced from about the rear axle back if I want to keep it, because it'll never pass inspection. And as for the last thing, the whole entire shell seems to be sagging and tweaked. None of the cabinets open or close properly, the bathroom door only opens a couple inches, to open it any more then that you have to push the roof up with your hands so it doesn't hit... The more I look at this thing, the less I want to fix it. What do you guys think, still worth restoring? As of now it looks like I'm going to have to get it towed to my house, because I don't want to deal with dropping a gas tank in the dirt and trying to replace the lines where it is.

Well, you'll all be happy to know that now you've made me want to restore this thing now (as if I needed another project! ). I went and took it for a spin on Saturday. Drained the gas and put some fresh fuel in and she fired up and idled nice and smooth. Exhaust is rotten out and hanging, but I have a tendency to install Flowmaster 40 series on everything I own anyway. That little 3.0 sounds pretty mean dumping right after the cat! Brakes are a bit spongy, but the more I used them the better they got (no surprise). It has a slight misfire under load, but if I downshift the misfire will go away. Has some getup and go to her, more so than my box truck (or so it seems). So the bad is none of the lights are working. I have my headlights, front parking lights and one blinker in the bumper. Other side is probably the bulb. None of the lights on the camper shell are working, maybe one front clearance light and the RH tail light - other than that nadda. I thought it was a ground and climbed underneath to check the wiring and WOW what a rats nest of a hackjob for the wires! I also noticed someone cut out several large sections of the frame to fit a larger waste tank in the back, and it's severely rotted. I'm going back this weekend to fix my wiring and then I'll get a better look at it when I bring her home. Didn't get to see all that much because it was 9pm when I was tinkering with it. I'll keep everyone updated.

I've been browsing Craigslist for people parting out campers to see what's out there. There's a few people out there, so I might look into finding some "gently used" parts if I restore this. And what drugs are you on that it never gets hot enough for A/C up here?! August and September I feel like I'm going to melt, low-to-mid 80's and 80-100% humidity is a killer. Couple weeks ago it was in the mid 80's with 80-90% humidity and I just about felt like I was going to die. Then, it was 35* at night and everything frosted over. Since then it's been 45-65* and raining. The weather up here is crazy.

So maybe it's something worth restoring... I haven't messed with the A/C unit at all, so I'm not too worried about it yet. IIRC the carpeting in the camper isn't bad, but that's definitely what I'd do. My neighbor has a camper and the carpeting was replaced with composite flooring and it looked 1,000x better. I live in North-Eastern VT, not much for salvage yards around here. I know I'm going to have to get all the parts online, which worries me when ti comes to shipping (ie, getting a fridge, stove, etc shipped - that can't be light).

Water damage in the bathroom, but it's all torn apart anyway. The bathroom vent is busted and it's been sitting that way for 3-4 years now. The other vents seem to be in-tact and there' no "smell" or sight of water damage, but I didn't check it out thoroughly.

haha, you guys are too much I've considered taking the shell off and turning it into a flatbed, but then I'd need a new cab too so that's not happening. I edited my first post, like I said in my edit what I do with this guy depends heavily on the driveability of this thing. Gotta go and drain the gas and put some fresh fuel in and drive it around, see if there's any issues with it. Once I get it to my house I'm going to put it up on the lift and check out the chassis. If she's mechanically sound, I'll want to fix it up instead of stripping it; I already know that

Hey guys! I signed up for this place a while back because I own an '89 Toyota U-Haul and there was some good info on here that applied to my truck since it's somewhat related to the campers being a 1-ton and all. Well, I recently bought a 1990 Toyota Odyssey for parts from a friend for a steal. I haven't moved it yet actually because the thing barely runs. I recently replaced the battery and the next step is to drain the gas tank and put some fresh juice in it. Gotta take it for a test drive and see how road worthy it is, and make it drivable again. It's amazing how much a fuel injected vehicle hates 4 year old gas! I purchased it with the intent of ripping the camper shell off and turning the cab/chassis/drivetrain into several shelves of parts for my x-U-Haul. Get me some nice chrome wheels and a new fender and grill for my box truck Well after going and taking a look at my recent purchase, I've been weighing the option of possibly fixing it. The guy I purchased it from bought it as a fixer-upper and started tearing stuff out to replace - and then got deployed to Iraq for several years (so far). The camper needed to be moved from my girlfriend's parents house since it's been sitting for three years Anyway here's some pictures, I figured I should stop lurking and ask your opinion. Think it's worth fixing or should I stick to my original plan? I know right off hand it needs the bathroom re-done, a stove, a fridge, a water pump - and I don't know if the roof A/C does heat or not; but I didn't see a heater. I haven't priced anything out yet, and I suppose I can't make a solid decision until I experience the driveability and get it up on a lift to check out the chassis. The U-Haul: The Odyssey: