Rocinante Sunrader 88

I've moved this post to the suspension page. Sorry, accidentaly posted in the wrong place.

I have been thinking about the same question. I am reluctant to mount to the ladder as it is questionable, starting to split at a step (where can I get a new ladder?). I am reluctant to mount on the back bumper as I have a long (21') Sunrader and it has that cool golf club box on the back, so anything I put on is waaay out there. Any thoughts on this? I had considered putting a rack on the front bumper, but I'm a bit worried about it blocking my view and the headlights.

Have you actually seen black water leaking or are you basing it on the smell? Weird thing about those rear dinette Sunraders. They drain the bathroom sink and the shower into the black water tank. This means that if the water in the sink or shower drain trap has evaporated you can get a smell up. In my Sunrader I also get a smell when the tank is somewhat full if I pull up a steep hill. Last trip it got too full and I had a puddle on the floor as it came up the shower drain. I am looking at what someone on another thread is suggesting, a vent stack top that points rear and pulls air out of the tank and hoping it will cure my smell. I have also stopped using the bathroom sink for routine handwashing, so as to stretch my black water capacity.

I hope that this is the right place to post this. I live in Watsonville, CA, between Monterey and Santa Cruz. I have an 89 21' Sunrader. I am thinking of taking an RV trip to Connecticut, Washington DC and New York in the fall, and am intrigued by the possibility of trading use of my RV in CA for use of a toy in the East, thereby saving all of the costs of driving back and forth across the country. If anyone has tried this sort of arrangement before, I would be interested to hear about your experience.

I have an '89 21' Sunrader with 22RE and an automatic. I just took a 300 mile trip and averaged about 15.8 mpg. This was fully loaded, full tanks, two people and two big dogs. We rarely went much over 60 mph unless we were going downhill or with a tailwind or drafting a big rig, in which case we went up to 65 and occasionally 70. It seemed pretty clear that, headwinds and hills aside, which always end up balancing out on long trips. the biggest factor for us was speed.

In my Sunrader the bathroom sink and shower drain both go into the black tank, while the kitchen sink goes into the gray tank. I have the same problem, and am going to try the weathervane stack Is that an RV store item, or a home supply one?

I have travelled with a small (18) 5th wheel and now have a 21' Sunrader with a 4 cyl motor. I get better milage with the Sunrader than I did with the pickup that I used to tow the 5th wheel. When we park, we just use stacking blocks (thing giant legos) to level and don't bother to put jackstands down, as it is pretty solid just sitting on tis six wheels. We tend to dry camp, so the most that we have to do to run an errand is push in the step, shut the vents and roll. Personally, I much prefer the sunrader to what I had with a pickup and a 5th wheel. The only big advantage of the 5th wheel was that it was easier to carry more junk with us when we travelled, but we tend to expand to fill the available space. Good luck.

I have a 1989 21' Sunrader, with that cute golf club box on the back. It has a factory hitch which is just u-bolted to the 4x4 back bumper. I need a good way to put bikes on it. It is a real pain to carry them in the coach, I don't trust the ladder, I don't want to put it on top (too hard to get it up and down) and I worry about the torque caused by putting a long trailer hitch on to clear the cargo box and then putting a bike rack on it. Has anyone tried mounting bikes on the front? If so, I'd like to hear about your experience. Seems like there is more spare weight carrying capacity in the front than in the rear, so it might be OK...

I'm not sure but I gather that the controversy has to do with whether silicone leaves a residue that prevents anything from sticking the second time that you try and seal. I am trying to deal with that by mechanically cleaning and then cleaning with acetone, but I'm not sure if that's sufficient. I am using non silicone lap cement for all roof applications.

Have you got air bags over your back axle? They are black rubber things that look like two doughnuts stacked one over the other and go between the axle and the frame. Sunrader used those (my '88 has them) and that could be what your inflation valves are for. In the simplest iteration they have two air valves coming out the side of the body, one for each air bag. By varying the pressure between 20 and 90 psi you can take sage out of the rear and even level the thing. Don't mistake them for shocks, if anything I suspect that they make it a bit bouncier, but they do lift that back end up. In the more complicated systems, as I have, they also have a compressor mounted on the frame, an air storage tank, and some control valves so that you can pull into a spot and use them to level with. I just got my system working and have yet to see how well it works for leveling in the field.

This is strange. Maybe they changed how they did it over time. All of these windows have these black foam gaskets and I swear that they look like they are original. They do not appear to be any sort of tape and only have adhesive on the window side, which means that they come off cleanly from the fiberglass body but which also means that they do not necessarily seal that well. I have decided to go with pulling the foam gaskets and using butyl tape, doubling up where necessary. Part of my problem is that in some cases the hole is closer than in others to the window dimensions, so in some places I only have 1/4" or less of actual sealing area. I have heard vocal proponents and opponents of putting a bead of silicone on after putting the putty tape or butyl tape on. Anyone care to enlighten me as to the pros and cons?

Are you using putty or butyl? Was there a foam gasket, and was it intact?

I am rehabbing Rosinante, the '88 21' Sunrader that I got a month or so ago. Then curving front windows show no obvious signs of leakage, so I got white butyl tape and pulled the first two windows, a small slider above the driver's door and the bathroom slider just to the rear of the first. Each came out OK with a little persuasion and a putty knife, and each came off with a 1/8" thick black closed cell foam gasket attached intact. The gasket appeared to be better adhered to the aluminum window frame than to the fiberglass. On the first I stripped the foam gasket from the window, breaking it in the process, and replaced it with butyl tape. It was awful, it did not suck all the way up to the fiberglass to compress the tape even with the screws tight on the inside. I had to pull it off and apply a second layer of butyl tape. That window did not appear to have been leaking when I pulled it, but may be now! On the bathroom window I left on the gasket that was still intact and put down a layer of butyl tape between the fiberglass and the foam gasket and reattached. To judge by what the fiberglass looked like where the gasket had been, that one appeared to have been leaking at the front edge before I pulled it. Also, when I pulled that window it was missing the half dozen or so screws at the front edge of the internal trim piece and their holes were stripped. When I screwed it back in I ended up having to build up a second layer of tape to get it to fit OK and close the gap on the front edge, and to use bigger self tapping screws there. Am I doing this right? I would like to go through and rebed the other windows, but I am unsure as to whether it makes the most sense to keep these foam gaskets if intact or to double up butyl tape, or what. Wisdom would be appreciated. Mike in Watsonville

I did it and it worked. I fished a 12v wire from the ceiling at the back of the closet through the conduit that they had run for 110v roof air and then tied into the closet door actuated light. Onward and upward!

Thanks, the diagram is helpful. I think I have it figured out now. I'm stoked! No check valves in the system. Each gauge shows how much is in that side on the airbag end of the circuit. When I have the arrows on the know straight up then it just allows whatever pressure is in the tank/compressor side to go to the airbag. When I turn the knob so the arrow is down it seals off the line and I can bleed down from there on the airbag side of the control valve by pressing the button in the center of the knob. So basically the knob is a valve that is either open or closed, with a bleed function on the center button. The reason that I could not get the two sides to operate independently was that I had both of the knobs in the arrow up position, so both valves were open and bleeding either side bled the whole system.. Now all that I have to do is order a pressure switch and I'm good! I'm hoping to get this thing out on the road for the first time after the new year.

Good idea, but it's a bit of a clumsy workaround. It seems like the controllers are delivering whatever pressure is in the tank to the airbags. Even if I have check valves, I would have to fill the tank up high and then bleed down to wherever I wanted to be. If I needed to put any air back iinto either airbag, I would have to start up the compressor again, bring them both back up, and then start bleeding each down again.

Here's a picture of the cab control unit, if that helps.

I have a 1988 Sunrader with a factory installed Firestone airbag system that has an onboard compressor and cab control. Per my paperwork, the control system was made in (at least) 1986 and the system is "Cab Control Kit W21-760-2018. When I got it the compressor and cab control were disconnected, both physically and electrically, but despite the fact that the airbags had had no air in them for ten years, they held pressure fine when inflated from the valves on the outside of the coach. I do, however, want to have the cab control system working, as I want to be able to use it to level the vehicle when parked. The compressor has a failed pressure switch, but when I wire around it it puts out air fine and fills the tank and the shocks. My problem is that when I try and use the cab controls all that I can do is push the button on the center of the knob (see picture) to let air out, and it lets air out of both sides, no matter which of the two buttons I push. I am sure that this is not how it is supposed to work. I am pretty sure that I have the airlines running right now. Basically I have a line from the compressor to the tank, from the tank to a tee that goes to each o9f the two control valves, and then from each valve back to the back, where each one hits a tee that connects to an airbag on one side and to one of the two outside valves on the other. Does anyone either have one of these systems or better yet, have either installation instructions or operating instructions for this cab control system? Firestone is no help and google has gotten me nowhere. The cab controller consists of two units, each of which has a pressure gauge and a knob with a button in the center of it. Pushing the button releases air from the system (from both sides at once.) I can pull the knob out and then it will only turn about 15 degrees or I can push it in and it will rotate freely, with no right or left limit. All that seems to do anything is pushing the button in the center of either knob. It's dark here in Watsonville, I'll try and put pictures up tomorrow of the cab control units. Thoughts?

I have a perfectly functional 36 year old Dometic fridge in a 1974 Hunter Compact II that my new Sunrader is replacing. Hard to light, but then it works just fine.

I have the original brochure, and it specifies that all of the models are "pre-wired for roof air conditioner." When I pulled my rear roof vent I found no wiring, but I did find what looks to be a piece of 1/2" copper pipe coming up through the plywood roof from the driver's side and terminating in the middle of the vent cutout. I am going to run a fish tape down it. I would bet that it originally had 110v wiring in it, as there is a funky junction box in the closet for 110v wiring to a microwave. I hope to be able to just snake some 12v wire up the closet and through the roof if I can find the other end of the conduit.

You guys were right. It is the cruise control, as there is another box marked "electronic servo" under the hood connected to the throttle with a cable.

Could be cruise control. I've seen no other evidence of an alarm. Perhaps a transmission control device? It has no mechanical connections, only electrical ones.

Looking behind the kick plate to the left of the clutch pedal in my new 88 Sunrader I found a small (6"x6"x1") black box labelled "electronic servo." It has a light labelled "ignition light" that comes on when the key is on, another labelled "motor light" that presumably comes on when the motor is on, and a hole with an adjusting screw in it labelled "increase) and another labelled "centering." It is connected to a plug that has about 16-28 wires in it. and it has a "not user servicable" label on it with a date that seems to be consistent with the manufacturing date of the RV (although it could be that of the chassis, as they are both 1988.) Anyone have any idea what this is? It seems way too sophisticated to be related to my airbag system and I cannot imagine what else it might be. I would assume that the circuitry for connecting and isolating the batteries is contained in the electrical center back in the coach and in the battery compartment under the hood. If it was a chassis part I would not expect it to be so clearly american made.

I just brought home a new 1988 21' Toyota Sunrader here in Watsonville, and have 3 questions. It came with a busted roof vent and I ordered a FanTastic fan vent. I've been told that one or the other roof vents has both 12v and 110v. I don't see any wiring. In the front (busted) vent I do see what looks to be a 1/2" copper pipe running through the plywood down towards the closet. I can pull it out, but not find the outside end above the ceiling. I see no wires in it. Any thoughts? I need 12v current up there. Second, the step is damp, and the undercoating is pulling away from the bottom of it (It's not glassed.) The previous owner says he was told that some sort of drain conduit from the front windows (?) rand down to the step. Makes no sense to me. Thoughts? Finally, I have some leakage around windows. Can I just pull the screws from the inside of the frame and pop them out, run silicone under them and put them back or is there more to it? Thanks