Vanman

Check tire for stone stuck in the tread ??? vanman

No other posts on this yet, is it the same as preivous years in what we bring ????? vanman

Changed oil in motor, generator. Gas filters on both next. vanman

Just called and it sold, did have a microwave and the gen is an Onan 2800 microlite, original owner and was used regulary and garaged. Guy said it looked new. vanman

http://www.rescuetape.com/?gclid=CO-p75C_77ICFQqk4AodDWkA2Q , Don't leave home without it. vanman

I told them I wanted it valued at 15K cause of the condition and, if I can find another model 400 with all the trimmings that's probably what it would cost to buy/repair/upgrade to it's current level. We're getting close to that already and nowhere near finished. I do think I will keep the Onan it just doesn't run ok on a hill but level it's OK, not too noisy and I like just pushing the button to fire it up. Vanman

I am buying the Dolphin from Mary and I've had Farmers for many years with no problems, but no claims either. I went to the office and they wanted 4 picts showing front and a side, back and a side, and 2 inside front and back. Took to the office and they have to get an approval from above, because of the value I told them I wanted, 15K $. Any comments on Farmers pro , con otherwise ????? TIA vanman

If your charger is equivalent to the Battery Tender product line you have a better charger than any of the converters you can get for your Toy vanman

I made spacers out of a piece of 2x2 with 4 U staples and a piece of string to hold the frames tied together but not rubbing. After that bungie cords to hold the tires together seems to work OK. PS I cut a curved arc in the faces of the 2x2's vanman.

Another reason to get all you can before drain/flush is not getting some small peice of stuff in the drain valve seal. I had to replace both of the drain valves on my 91. vanman

Sure, I'll check to see that's the size. I think all the 6 lug 3 hole wheels use the same lugnuts on the newer( 91 Dolphin) wheels. I replaced 'em for looks as I had also ordered the wheel simulators, the threads are ok. I won't ask for anywhere near what Toyota did, anyway they are used, not new. __ vanman

The Toyota dealer we took it to did a lot of work, problems with the tire monkeys and the oil they put in it, but the mechanical work was all done by one older mech who really knew these trucks and no leaks of problems. But the dealer said they checked the valve clearence using an " acoustic test method" plus a compression test. all ok. They won't say how this actually was done, so I am asking this knowledgable group is this valid ??/ or BS ?? vanman

That's maybe my fault. I ordered 24 lugnuts from the Toyota dealer and it took a month for all of 'em to arrive in lots of several at a time from all over. Parts guy said he never saw such lugnuts and initially told me the samples I as showing him were not OEM parts. When they arrived they were exactly what was on it when mary bought it. I didn't like that the lugnuts I sourced locally were smaller, especially when I saw the foot lbs they are torqued to. Maybe no longer available??? Didn't Toyota make many millions of these 6 lug 3 hole wheels??? vanman

Great link, the body shop clips look like both the grey ones under the dash and those larger ones holding the plastic grill to the front engine compartment frame flange. I also want to replace the alternator main holding bolt as the head is partly collapsed. Will call them monday with the measurements sure look a lot cheaper that the Toyota prices. vanman

<p>The conveter you have has 2 12VDC sources. The main one is a regulated, but unfiltered 12VDC supply that runs the coach lites, heater, etc when plugged into shore power, your picture doesn't show it but there should be a small pc board to the right of the isolation relay, this is a trickel charger for the coach battery which is connected to the battery when plugged into shore power. This charger is adjustable, there is a small trimpot on the ckt board. If you will be plugging into shore power for more than several hours with an already charged couch battery you should adjust the output voltage down to a maintain voltage level, around 13.1 VDC or slightly less. If the transformer on the left isn't getting too warm after several hours of run-time I would keep what you have unless you are using appliances that don't like the ripple riding the top of the coach 12VDC, installation of a dual filter capicator will also take care of this. The advantage of the syestem you have now is because the coach battery is seperate from the coach DC you could install a device called a battery tender in place of the original charger, which will do a much better job of taking care of your coach battery that any of the so-called "smart charger / charge wizard" ckts of the 3 sources that I found when the transformer got too hot for me. I replaced ours with the Progessive Dynamics unit so at least I can see what it's putting out in volts, there's a red led whose blink rate changes to tell which of the 3 voltage levels it's putting out, and I can manually change that with the pushbutton on the fuse/charge "wizard" ckt board. For the money I am not at all impressed, and think I will do this myself if I can scource the center tapped transformer in the MagneTek 6335 that came with our 91 Dolphin. Anyway, like you have to blow out the electrostaticly attracted dust from your computer and TV the picts of your converter show it to be in serious need of a clean-up. Whichever way you go good luck. I will say the Progressive Dynamic kit is a neat wellbuilt product that is an easy install. vanman

Another thing is you can use different pressure in each side to help with the levelling blocks when you are in a rugged spot. Our left side has a real slow leak I've been unable to find yet, about several pounds a week. vanman

I called him this morning for the cup shaped end caps, no luck. He did mention the grey plastic side skirts and bumper cover. vanman

If you haven't been to this run before this;http://toyotamotorho...?showtopic=3201is how it went the last 2 years. Sites 116 to 124 fill up first, then those across the road. last year most of sites 125 to 131 were also used.vanman

Our 91 Dolphin has an Onan 2800 that I thought was bad as when I ran it on the hill we park on it would now work properly at all, tried to adjust it no joy. But when I tried it when the rv was level it seems to work fine after slight adjustment, runs everything even the air conditioner and microwave at the same time, not advisable due to the microwaves current draw, just as a test. Our air conditoner claims to be a Dou Therm 11,000 but it draws less then half what the microwave draws. By comparison the the 2 12,000 BTU portable home units I have in the house drew more than twice the amps and put out a lot more air that is a lot colder than the RV's output, So I didn't bother with this http://www.modmyrv.c...start-capacitor . But if you AC is large enough these might help. Vanman

We have the dometic on ours, but it's the kind that doesn't need a cover, it has a series of metal plates that completly cover it when rolled up. I think all these type now come with the spring to roll it up. I did buy a 50' rope and 4 tent stakes, cut the rope in half and run it in a V , one on each end of the unrolled tube at the end to the tent stakes and it ain't going anywhere now, but it might be iffy in a strong wind otherwise. vanman

On our 91 Dolphin the rear brake cyclinders were leaking onto the drum so we replaced everything, poss overkill there, but if you are gonna take the rear assy apart I sure would replace the cyclinders, not that expensive. Ours had 86k miles on it and the shoes were about half worn down and might be usable with enough brake cleen, but that stuff's really toxic. vanman

I called Smithwoods and was told it's on for the Oct 19/20 and they have already rented 5 or so sites so we got the same one as last year. Did I miss a post on this ??? The same sites along the river have been set aside for us as in past years. vanman

The Felton run at Smithwoods RV park has been on the OCT 15/16th weekend the last 2 years. We have attended both of the last 2 and am loking foreward to doing it again this year, hopefully our Dolphin will be much improved by then vanman

We have a 92 Dolphin with a good battery. On our first trip I stopped on the 505 and didn't turn the headlights off. After a while when trying to start it just clicked, no starter. The clicking came from the right side of the passenger foot space. The digital meter said the battery still had plenty of power and did not go down much at all when the key was held on. I got it going again by using the battery powered starter/air compressor/lite unit that I always carry. It has never done that since. I assumed the starter relay was the fault, I've seen this before in other cars, and looked for it. No luck so far, the Toyota manual says it can be in either of 2 locations and it is not. The chilton manual says the same, no go. Is it possible the newer 6 cyc motors are using the black box as the relay?? that's the only component in that space. Anyway I did trace the wiring and installed a remote starting disable switch as a theft deterrent. vanman

Passenger car tires and truck tires are differently designed, built, and labeled. You must use properly rated truck tires on our Toys. You have great tires, I wish I had gone with them over the 185/14 RA08's that we got. Wikipedia has a nice page showing what the labelling means on both kinds. vanman