Lee & Joan

I've been away from this forum for a few years. I finally retired and was ready to "Rock and Roll" down the camping road, but first... Four disks needed to be taken out of my neck and a titanium plate attached to 5 vertebra , both hips needed total replacement, and just when I thought that was it, a hernia surgery. That wasn't in the plans nor were the forest fire evacuations. But now, dusting myself off... I've got the 21' Sunrader RD 22RE running again, and the rear brakes are really not very good. The totally new front brakes (Calipers, Pads) will lock up on dry pavement, but the rears are just plain pathetic. So I have been tooling around this site looking for part numbers for all of the parts needed for a totally new rear brake rebuild. From the Master Cylinder to the wheel cylinders, rear shoes, hoses, and the seals required to do the job. I have already blocked the load proportioner valve totally open. I have read that aftermarket shoes don't seem to match the drums. Can you steer me to the appropriate links?

I heard the Diablo Nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo was plumbed in a mirror image backwards, but it still works.

State Farm has a cheap endorsement for roadside assist, a few bucks per 6 months. I also have AMA American Motorcycle Association membership which will roadside service ANY rig you own. Georges Auto in Crescent City is JUST GREAT for electronics from old farm equipment to the modern world !

Hi Kale, I had my transmission rebuilt by Transmission Exchange http://www.txchange.com/ Right there in Portland. It cost $1500 plus I added their biggest transmission oil cooler. My local shop took it out, shipped it there and back and put it in, put in 8 quarts of synthetic fluid, added the cooler for $640. Same deal with mine, I lost reverse.

Wow, that was exciting, it was upside down !!! Felt like a jet plane ride... Keep the picture coming, you do know how hot Grants Pass has been this last week, right?

When I bought my rig the first owner keep MPG logs, and he was getting more like 16.5 to 19.5 MPG. These looked like legit logs he kept to see what his MPG was. Now this was in the 1980's like Linda said, and gasoline was 100% gasoline. Now I am not going to downplay Ethanol, but I think they should give that to you in a shot glass and put the gasoline in the camper, you know. "here's your gallon of pure ethanol everclear for your kitchen, and here's your 9 gallons of gasoline for your motor home". Go on vacation and come home with a years supply of pure corn mash booze. I have an 86 Toyota 22re 4x4 extra cab that gets 19 MPG until I put my bike trailer on, then it gets 17 MPG. So If I can pull that trailer with my Sunrader and get 13.5 MPG, and have a place to sleep and cook in, well that's a great deal. After looking at all my trips and trying to figure out why I got high or low mileage on certain segments of the trip I generally came to no conclusions. Except headwinds and tailwinds which you can't do much about. For every up there is a down, low MPG on the way up, great MPG on the way down. Some of the steepest climbs gave me some of the best MPGs, go figure! High speed on freeways with headwinds were the worst. But high speeds on freeways with a tailwind were pretty good MPG's. Rural two lane slow roads generally gave good MPG's, even when having steep (slow) climbs.

I have driven 16,165 miles almost always hauling a motorcycle trailer and motorcycle, mostly on mountain roads in northern California and Oregon. Sunrader 22re automatic tranny. Speed range 45-65 MPH. Average = 13.56 MPG Highest=16.87 Lowest=9.0 Standard Deviation=1.56

Yesterday I was all set to replace the original (crappy) vinyl (rubber) molding strips that go around the center body joint where the two fiberglass (upper & lower) body sections join together. Well I saw a bunch of rusty Phillips screws holding the aluminum molding so I decided to unscrew a few to see how bad they were...quite a few were broken off or semi headless. So today I put a new stainless steel #10 screw (old ones were #8 galvanized) between each of the old screws before replacing the vinyl molding strip. I have never heard of a Sunrader opening up like a clam-shell at speed due to rusty screws, but I did not want to become the first. It takes a couple 25 foot rolls of molding strip and about 100 screws to do this. I found that the strip from the cabin front door around the cab over and down the drivers side is 25 feet 4 inches, a hair over a 25' roll.

I have had two 22re starters fail abruptly. One was a 250000 mile stocker, the other a 75000 mile made in Mexico. No warning on either. The after market one failed a month ago, I went into a parts store to pick up a master cylinder, came out and no starter... went back in got a starter, got a push start 5 speed manual trans pickup, and had two fix it jobs instead of one.

It takes a well trained pro to set the gear pattern. you can't just bolt in parts and be done.

BTW, where are you going to see the eclipse?

In little Brookings town (pop6000) we have a shop that rebuilds starters and generators, he is in the auto parts store. There is one also in nearby Cresent City, also a small town. Get in the phone book and look for auto electric, if they don't do it ask them who does. Get it tested on a bench, it may not be worn out but it might be thirty years of spider webs, dirt, rust, lack of lube, or whatever in there.

Mattieice I would definitely use the 4:88 With your bigger tires you really don't want the 4:56, but it works well in the V6's. The hardest part of this swap is getting the cone washers off the axle cap studs. The link to "Brake Job" shows how to do it. There are lock cones under the nuts, a puller just makes them tighter. Put the nuts on just a bit, take a slightly larger piece of pipe and smack it with a BFH. If things go right the cone will pop out and the nut will trap it, do it 5 more times. There 2 threaded holes in the axle flange screw in a couple of bolts then slowly and equally turn them in and pull the axle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSD03At4mOE this is how to do a brake job you just need to watch to 45 seconds where she “smacks the crap out of them”, don’t go any farther…you just want to be able to pull the axles out enough to clear the pumpkin. Yeah Linda ~ I should have gotten the 195's oh well next time I will know better.

I wore out the copper commutator contact rings in my stock starter and got them from the local Toyota dealer, put them in and am at 275000 miles on my 88 truck.

Is this why my cab AC will not cycle on and off, it just remains on and will freeze up the lines. I have been manually cycling it with the green light dash button. Is there a temp relay that I am missing? When I got the rig there was no wiring to the compressor so I ran a wire into the cab unit to power the clutch...