Vanman

Our 22 ft 1991 Dolphin is @ 6000# , 2300# ft , 4400# rear. If you believe the manufacturers data plate, which also says 36 front and 45 psi rear for tire pressure and boy do they ever flatten out with the rubber that low!!!

Not on the coast, but we really enjoyed Crater Lake and Lava Beds Park, close to each other in southern Ore.

It must be the breaker humming because it only hums when that 15 Gen purpose breaker is on.<br /><br /> Is that General Purpose breaker supposed to be charging the battery? On Mary's 91 Dolphin that breaker has 2 wires on the bottom, one to the 120 AC outlets, the second is to the converter/coach battery charger. It was humming so I found out the small relay coil that seperates the batt charger from the 12VDC convereter output/coach DC got warm and made some humming noise, but the transformer on the converter made most of the noise. Unfortunatly after less than a hour of operation the transformer got too hot to touch without burning my finger, this level of heat isn't good and after hours of operation is began to make that bad electronics smell I am so familiar with. I was happy with the design of this unit, but wasn't able to find a replacement transformer as this is a Voltage Doubler type full wave rectifier and they don't seem to be using a lot of center-tapped transformers anymore.I replaced the unit with a Progessive Dynamics model PD4635V. If it's not getting hot you may be able to just keep an eye (finger) on it. If you keep the old converter and you spend long periods plugged in to shore power you may wish to lower the charge voltage of the trickel charger ckt board. It was at 14.6 volts, I think, and I setttled on 13.35 as I remember. The wiring diagram from Magnetek says to adjust to 13.8 to 14.2 , which is too high. Vanman EDIT: also check the white wires on the buss bar on the top rear of the power box, you'll have to prop up the couch to work on these, but the buss is too big for the small size wires. The large ones with a slug were loose, but the small ones were really loose, one actually fell out as I was just checking. They are secured with a short screw and the head of the screw bottoms out on the top of the buss before making a tight connection. You could replace the screws with longer, or with slugs, what I did was strip the wires more and bend the wire back on it'sself, what we used to call doubleing the copper. That gave me a good connection. The RV rides rough and it seems to loosen all kinds of mechanical connections, but loose electrical connections can cause arcing which starts fires, not a good thing.

'dayoff53' I love driving the old US Highway system - off the freeways and through all the little towns that once thrived along the highway and are now declining as the freeway traffic buzzes by, oblivious to the history and beauty of the old highways. Route 66 symbolizes the by-gone era of highways that went to and through, instead of around, the communities of small-town America. It has been a dream of mine to travel all, or at least a large portion, of the old Route 66 sometime. Now, it occurs to me that it might be a fun thing to do as a Toy-In. I'm envisioning a trip on the old Route 66 from it's beginning in Chicago to it's end in Los Angeles, with people doing as much of it as they want, joining and leaving the parade along the way. Or, perhaps, several groups starting at different points along the route at the same time so that we collectively cover the whole Route 66 in just a few days of travel each. I think this would be an interesting and fun trip. I also kind of like the irony of a bunch of homes on Japanese-built trucks traveling the quintessentially American Route 66.<br />This is not something I envision doing in the immediate future - for me, it is two or three years in the future, perhaps more. I just want to see if there are others who see merit in the general idea. In my fantasies, there will be a groundswell of excitement building over time, so that eventually we have a parade of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Toyhomes America's main street, the Mother Road, historic Route 66. Who's with me? That's too far for us in total but we could meet up somewhere closer to Calif and go the rest of the way. Have you done any research yet as to good campgrounds on the route??? vanman

what about it fellas? Surely somebody has successfully added a second coach battery to one of these "late" model Winnies or Itascas... How about outside??? like on the bumper, inside a small vented box or on a small box/tray on the hitch??? I am tired of the Onan bs and am thinking of putting a nice med size Honda or Yamaha on the hitch mount from Camping World sold just for that. Would be nice 2 ways, now I have a nice lockable storage where the Onan was and also can put the gen in the home for those nasty natural suprises we seem to be having with increasing regularity. vanman

<br /><br /><br /> When I was working we painted the machine room floors with a really tough bright red epoxy paint but to make an easy clean we used Future floor wax, it seemed the best in protection and looked great, but inside an elevator mach room may not be comparable to an RV parked outside. vanman

Went to West Marine to check out the products and remembered that the Star Brite was easy on really, really hard to buff off, I got a Wen orbital buffer just because of that. The thing is with the boat I could bear down on it, with the RV the surfaces are vertical and some require a ladder so the Star Brite was a no go. They recommended the Meguiar's # 50 Marine•RV cleaner wax one step, which I got. I've been using Meguair's products on all my cars/trucks/motorcycles for many years with great success, so I got it. I compared a patch done with the # 50 only to one I did in a 2 step process: 1) strip with Meguiar's #2 Professional Fine-Cut-Cleaner, buff off and 2) apply Meguiar's # 20 Professional Polymer Sealant. Both look the same, which is great!!! So I'll fire up the Wen and hope the 32 oz. bottle is enough. I've been using the Maguiar's Plastic-X for the black rubber/vinyl trim as a cleaner and it works super, but have been using the # 20 to protect same. They said I should be using a dedicated vinyl protectorant instead????? Your thoughts ????? vanman

When we had a boat I used a product called Star Brite for fiberglass, which we got with the boat and worked great, but thta was some years ago. The outside of our 91 Dolphin looks to me like it's coated with fiberglass and I was wondering what works well with our Toy's, ie what are you using on yours ????? John & Mary

How much does the AC weigh???? if it's nearly as heavy as my small home units putting weight that that high up off center might be a problem ???? vanman

&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;<br /><br /> I was correct about the valve stem, I took it to Giusto Tire, where I bought the tires, and he had to break the outer end of the valve core to get it out and after close inspection it was also bent!!! I had them put one of the old stems back in after installing a new O ring and valve core. He was also suprised a "dealer" had done this. I asked him to check the balance of the tire while I was there and he tried every which way but couldn't mount those big wheels on any of his equip. Which is what the dealer said, he sent the wheels out to a "truck place" for balancing. After all that he wouldn't take any money!! I know where I'm buying my next set of tires from!!! I experimented with the breaker bar, the Toyota lug nut wrench, and my torque wernch. I have good feel for fasteners as I've been wrenching for many years and the torque wrench says I'm setting them by hand to 155/159 ft #'s. You can go more, but thats good to me. Something I've noticed over the years is that on all the cars and trucks I've had the lug nut wrench supplied by the manufacturer will remove a properly torqued lug nut if you use your foot on it hard. This also applies to the excellent extended wrench supplied by Toyota, but after using my Lincoln floor jack on the rear of the RV I'm going to get a bigger jack than the one it came with!!! vanman

<br /><br /><br /> When you first turn it on with the rocker switch at the top of the tanks and battery gage panel does it make any noise at all, if not maybe check the switch ??? Maybe a bad fuse ?? Vanman

<br /><br /><br /> That's what she told us when we registered but I think the Hwy 50 closure and recent weather maybe had an effect. We're in 65 or 66, she changed us and I can't find my note. For people coming east on Hwy 50 the closure is well after the turn off to the resort, and I looked at the section of Hwy 59 from 80 ( Aurburn ) to the resort with the hybrid satallite/map from Yahoo and it looks fine for a RV of our size. We took ours down Skyline to Alice's Resturant today to check it out and I'm pleasently suprised how well these TOY's handle twisty mountain roads. We came back on Hwy 208, will check the gas mileage tomorrow. John & Mary

<br /><br /><br /> Well this monkey bites!! I got it back, the rep said torqued to 142 ft#'s and 60 # psi each, wheels better, we'll take it. Go home check tire pressures all at 60 # I'm thinking it all good till I notice on the outside rt rear the nice metal valve caps I use is replaced by a plastic one. Ok so I goes and gets a nice new metal cap outa stock and I cannot get it to go on. An inspection mirror and flashlite reveals the nice new shiny brass stem is bent, threads buggered. I removed it and put the spare on and am glad I did as it's not even round anymore and is distorted such that I am sure the valve core is no longer removable. I would not drive a car with a wheel in this condition. Now I inspect all the others and instead of rotating them to proper fit the ones off were simply bent, but not damaged. This is confirmed by the shop work order that states " used vise grips to bend stems, put tape on jaws to finish ". I await the response from Toyota but I am taking the wheel and tire to another shop to look at it tomorrow. I will probably use them to replace the stem as this can be done without having to re-balance the wheel. If the Toyota dealer isn't willing to give me a new one I wil re-use one of the old ones as they seem to be in excellent condition except for the O ring , which shows slight permanent flattening top and bottom from being compressed for 20 years. I'm gonna measure it to see exactly how much this is and measure the compressed well size, probably doesn't need to be replaced anyway. So if we don't show up at the TOY-IN you'll know at least we tried, really really really tried. John & mary

<br /><br /><br /> When we got it the oil and ATF looked really good. I just wanted to start from a point where we knew at what time and mileage the last change was, this whole process has turned out mucho more complicated that I had ever dreamed!!!! It's back today at the Toyota dealer as when I picked it up saturday all the tires were between 29 to 35 Lbs. and several of the replaced valve stems several are not at the center of the triangular wheel cut-out. The left front was so far off I could not get a tire pressure gage into it !! We had asked for them to put the wheels back in their original positions, for apperance sake, which they had not done. Also the dealer does not have the wheel mandrell to balance the new tires so they sent it out to another party, who used some sort of internal-to-the-wheel 4-jawed device to clamp it. I noticed this as they let what was the spare slip and it made groove cuts in the wheel. I don't think they are deep enough to be a structural problem, but am gonna have them make that the spare again so I can sand and paint it. All the lug nuts were too tight, I couldn't get any of them off with a 1/2 in breaker bar bouncing up and down on it and I weigh 185 #'s. All the other work was done by the a mechanic, who has been there a long time and knows these trucks, he showed us a bunch of things to look for, broken wheel stop bolt left front, and he fixed em all. We feel good about the quality of his work, but there is a remark in one of tire posts about "tire changers" that fits here. It's ready now, wish me luck. vanman

I would use this, http://www.marinetex.com/ , Vanman

Yeah that does seem too high, I would think it would be less than .1 V, does it get warm to the touch, a bad sign. A bad connection could cause the resistance, which the reason for the voltage drop. The first thing I would do is to open the connection before the wires on the breaker it'self and check the resistance with your meter, then start looking at the wires, terminals, and the breaker to find the cause. Another thing to check is for a partial ground in this ckt, that would explain both your symptoms. John & Mary

<br /><br /><br /> Well we changed everything and dealer says with better coolant, leaks fixed, and synthetic oil it will run cooler and better. We'll see about that but since the tranny is cooled from the radiator as long as I can keep the temp gage normal, to the left of straight up, won't I be ok ???

Looks great !! Our Dolphin has the same shag everywhere but no backing. I don't know how thick that carpet is but one thing to watch on the Toyotas is the accelerator clearence. When we got ours it seemed ok around town but on the highway it was a real dog, I couldn't believe this was a 3 L 6 til I was passing someone and found if I pressed real hard on the gas pedal it picked up some power!! Turns out the floormat/carpet combo prevented anywhere near full throttle. With the thick floormat cut back pushing down all the way to the carpet gives me full throttle and now it goes much much better.<br /> Vanman

Say 88WIT, does DPT tag RV's with the 72 hr notice like clockwork in your neighborhood like they suddenly started to do in mine??? Those 3 rows of glue on the tag only come off with solvent, sure glad it's on the glass. Vanman

Thanks, I didn't see the towing option before. I signed us both up for AAA, but that was before we got the Dolphin so I have to check on that. Think I'll go for it but will check AAA first, then decide about the tow ins. I have Farmers on all my stuff, Mary has ins on the RV, but don't know who by. Are you going to American River?? John & Mary...

<br /><br /><br /><br /> Thanks for the help, the plugs are ok, but wrong kind he says. They are platinum and they want to put in non-platinum?? they look great and the compression is; 1,2,3,6= 160#, 4&5= 155# , he says thats really good for that milage and an audio check says the valve clearences don't need to be done. By the time we're done it'l be too close to 3,000 $$ But I cannot work on it in the street around here and this dealer is highly reccommended.<br /> Again many thanks John & Mary...