Bob C

Last week we had plans to go camping for a couple of days but things came up and plans changed. We took care of what needed to be done and decided that since we live in the middle of nowhere anyway, we would camp in the back yard. We had a campfire, cooked supper on the picnic table, ate s'mores, and slept in the RV. The coyotes sang us to sleep and the coons visited us before we put the fire out. Living in the woods is great.

I was having problems with my stock tail lights and finally replaced them. I could not find anything that was semi-recessed like the originals so I went with a surface mounted set that was slightly smaller than the Bargmans. To make up for the size difference, I made a surface plate out of aluminum diamond plate stock to cover the original hole and surface mounted the new units. Everything was sealed up with butyl tape when I mounted it. I used a set that I bought from fleabay. I tried to find them again for my nephew but have not been able to. The diamond plate came from a box that I bought from a local scrap yard. It cost me $20 for the whole box, if I bought it new from our local welding shop, it would have cost me much more. Now I have a bunch of extra diamond plate for a couple of other projects.

JD, There is currently something called the Great Lakes Compact. " The Great Lakes Compact is a formal agreement between the Great Lake states. A parallel agreement includes the two Canadian provinces that border the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. In these agreements, the states and provinces agree to manage the water in the Great Lakes watershed collectively. The agreements also ban Great Lakes water from being "diverted," or piped out of the basin with a few limited and strictly regulated exceptions." I don't mean to start a political arguement about the subject, just throwing out some information.

Welcome aboard. Ask all the questions you want, there are many very knowledgable people on the site. Post a picture of your new to you RV so that we can all see what you have. Bob

Thanks for the correction.

Maxxfab made (past tense) 25 gallon tanks that fit our motorhomes. He got the extra capacity by making the tanks with square corners instead of being rounded. He also had the tank shaped like an inverted "L" with the section of the tank that protrudes hanging out over the drive shaft. I wish that I had gotten one of his tanks. He did point out that the fuel gauge did read the level of fuel correctly. The gauge would go down very slowly for the first 1/3 of the capacity due to the tank being very wide at the top. When the gauge read 3/4 full it actually only had about 8 gallons left in it. I could have lived with the gauge not being correct because I would know to plan accordingly.

Welcome to the best site on the net for Toyhouses. How about some photos of your RV. The people here can answer just about any question that you have. They have been very helpful with the issues that I had with my RV.

I found it interesting that while we were at Fort Wilkins State Park near Copper Harbor we had wifi but no cell service. The park has a pretty good free wifi network. They said that it gets a lot of use and slows down in the summer but while we were there my wife's tablet worked well. We had to get closer to Hancock to get cell sevice with US Cellular.

I live in Wisconsin and the vehicles here rot out real fast. The probability of finding a used gear set and housing is almost zero. The scrappers only keep parts vehicles that they know they can turn multiple sales from, everything else goes to the crushers. I stopped at one of the bigger scrap yards and asked if they had any one ton Toy trucks and the guy laughed at me. He said that the last one he saw was 20 years ago, Maybe I can find a setup like that on fleabay. Your documentation of your project is great. If I can find the parts, I may do that swap also. I have a 22 Re with overdrive auto tranny. I think that with the 4.56 gears I may be able to use overdrive without going downhill with a tailwind. I like the idea of coming off the line with lower gearing also.

I carry 5 gallons on my back bumper also. I have a steel cargo carrier with a plastic tool box on the back that sort of gives the illusion of protecting the gas cans. The carrier has led taillights mounted on it because the tool box partially blocks the rv mounted taillights. I have only used the spare gas once in Idaho because we had driven over 200 miles and the gas gauge needle had gone below empty about 20 miles ago. The wife was not happy so I dumped the spare gas in. At the next gas station, the cans got refilled. On several trips I have had to top off the gas tank with only 75 miles driven because the next gas was another 150 miles down the road. I don't want to annoy my woman any more than possible so I don't push my luck. I could probably make it 225 miles but it is not worth the noise in the cab to see the needle drop below empty again. I have a 17 gallon tank and on several occasions I have had to put in 15 gallons to fill up.

We looked at a few "roads" that were shown on our Delmore Gazetteer and decided that they looked more like 4 wheel drive truck trails. I wanted to stay at a couple of state forest sites near Grand Marais but the wife decided that those roads would not be as good idea, I think she was right. We were at the River Mouth campground at Tahquamenon Falls State Park 4 nights ago. We saw 3 Toyota motorhomes while we were on our trip. We saw a Dolphin with a Michigan plate at Point Iroquois Lighthouse, a Winnebago with retired navy front plate at Whitefish Point Lighthouse, and another Toyhouse north of Houghton on Hiway 41. We did not get to talk to any of the people because we could not determine who owned them.

My wife and I just got back from a very relaxing 9 day trip through and around the UP (that is Upper penninsula of Michigan for all of you from the rest of civilization.) We had a great time with weather ranging from 95 degrees when we left Baraboo, Wi on Sept 6 to 39 degrees at Copper Harbour. We had sunshine, fog and rain, sometimes all at the same time. When we were on Machinac Island we had the hardest thunderstorm I have been in for most of the afternoon. We still had a great time because we did not let the weather wreck the day. We decided to drive across the Machinac Bridge to go to a museum on the south side of the straits. Going south we had no wind to speak of. but going back north, the wind picked up and we were informed that due to the wind, our speed limit was 20 mph on the bridge. While at the Soo Locks, we saw the only ship locking through for the entire afternoon. I asked the information guy about ship traffic and he said that due to the much larger ships, traffic is down about 40% from 30 years ago but the tonnage hauled is about the same. While we were at Whitefish Point lighthouse, we had fog, then rain, then sunshine within 30 minutes. All that day we kept going in and out of rain squalls that made driving difficult followed by beautiful sunshine. I was glad that we were in the Toyhouse instead of riding our Goldwing. The colors are just getting started in the UP and will probably come on strong real quick. We had a narrow window to take this trip because my wife starts her seasonal job on Tuesday. If it was not for her job starting, I would have taken the trip in about 2 or 3 weeks. If you go to the UP, don't be in a hurry. All but the main roads are best seen at a relaxed pace. Take your time to stop at museums and talk to the locals. They are very friendly and will point out many interesting spots that you will not find on a map.

Use a continuity tester to find out which of the wires is the ground. That will be your negative wire.

I am in the middle of installing solar to my Escaper. I mounted the Windy Nation controller in my closet. I reinforced the floor of the closet and put another battery in there also. My electric distribution center is only 2 ft away so I don't have a lot of wire to run. I used 30 amp Anderson powerpoles (quick disconnects similar to yours) My 100 watt solar panel is currently portable but may get mounted on the roof. The system is as follows-100 watt panels wired with 10 ga marine grade wire & QD connectors near the panels. The wire goes into the RV through the shore power door. The supply wire goes to the controller with a self resetting circuit breaker in line. From the controller, the power goes to the battery mounted on the floor of the closet and then to the power panel to connect to the original coach battery. My controller will handle 400 watts but I will probably top out at 200 watts. I have a 12 volt frig and according to my controller, I use more power than my 100 watt panel makes in a day with good sun. Luckily my wife and I don't stay put in one place for very long. With my 2 batteries fully charged when we start, I have enough power to last about 2 days and not run by batteries down too much. M frig runs about 30 to 40% of the time when lightly loaded. I know that it runs less when full. I normally keep 3 ice packs in the the freezer and it helps keep things cold longer when we are not driving. I will be posting pictures when I get everything done.

A question for Don - How much bigger of a footprint do these tires get with low pressure? I would think that with such stiff sidewalls, it would not help much to deflate them.

1. Drive the vehicle to get everything up to operating temperature. 2. Park the vehicle on a level area. 3. Shift the vehicle through drive and reverse letting the tranny fully engage in drive and reverse. Remember to put it in park before you get out. 4. Leave the engine runniing. 5. Pull the tranny dip stick out and wipe it off. 6. Push the dip stick all the way in so that it is fully seated. 7. Pull the dip stick out and check the level. If you don't bring it up to temp, don't shift through the gears, don't park on the level, or otherwise skip any of those steps, you will not get a good idea of what your fluid level is.

I had the same problem when I bought my Toyhouse. The fan did not turn at all. I disassembled the blower, cleaned it out and replaced the fuse and now it works fine. On my '88 Escaper the fan is under the dash on the passenger side. It is kind of a pain to get out only because of the tight area. I think it was 4 bolts and an electrical connection. I pulled the fan out, vacuumed out what I could and then used a leaf blower to blow air into the vents, defroster, and heater vent to blow any leftover mouse nest out. I am glad that I did the last part because a lot of garbage was blown out of the vent tubes. I would suggest wearing a respirator when doing this job because mouse droppings can make you really sick.

Let the road trips begin.

Rhenkes, Do you have air suspension under your RV? If you do, try reducing the air pressure and see if that makes your ride a little better. If I run above 70 psi, I get a pretty severe ride.

My RV 22Re engine had about 30,000 miles on it when I bought it. When I started the engine, I had to put my foot on the gas pedal and run it at a fast idle for about a minute before it would smooth out and run good. When I was ready to do a valve adjustment, I ran it for 10 miles to get the engine up to temp and worked as fast as possible to do the job with hot parts. To start with, all of the valves had zero clearance when I started. Every valve as tight. I completed the adjustment as described in my shop manual (I can't remember off hand what the clearance should be) and put everything together with new valve cover gasket and end plugs. I started the engine, it ran smooth and sounded great. After letting it cool off, I turned the key without touching a gas pedal and the engine fired up and ran great. My gas mileage didn't change but the engine sure sounded smoother. I think that it cost me about $25 for the gasket kit and the job took about 1 hour including cleaning up and putting the tools back in the cabinet. Before removing the valve cover, I labelled everything that I disconnected. It makes reassembly easier.

I thought that your numbers seemed remarkable. I checked a mileage converter and found that 15-16 liters per 100 km converts to 14.7 - 15.7 mpg. That is still very good.

I have had great luck at Napa but high prices. I just put a new hub assembly on my wife's Merc that I bought at O'Reilly's. The first one arrived with the wire for the antilock brakes broken off. The second one I installed and less than 400 miles later, the sensor assembly fell off of the hub. The third one has lasted 200 miles so far. The part from O'Reilly's is made in China and I wish that I had paid more for a better part. I went with O'Reilly's due to low price. After pulling the front hub twice and having the car out of service for a week, it did not save me anything.

Gas ovens do not have any top heat. The heat comes from the burner under the oven compartment. This is true of RV and residential gas ovens. I have good luck cooking pizzas in the Toyhouse oven. I preheat the oven for 15 minutes, start cooking the pizza on the bottom rack and then put the pizza on the top rack for a couple of minutes when it is almost done cooking. The top gets nicely browned and I get a crispy crust. If you don't preheat the oven, you get a mushy pizza.

I was wondering if anyone made a drain plug sensor. Does anyone have a part number and a gauge to go with it.

I replaced my water heater when I bought my RV. I got lucky and found a direct spark ignition, 6 gallon Attwood for about $150 plus shipping. I still have not used it.