mini-wini-dan

I checked the level on brake fluid and it was a little low. I filled it and still getting the lights on and off. How long do I have before it will start disharging the battery? I was hoping to get it home (600 miles from here) before I deal with mechanical issues. If it goes on and stays on I know the battery will start getting drained.

the charge and brake lights go on and stay on for a few seconds and then go out. This has been going on for several days. There are no other issues happening just the lights on then off. I have checked battery terminal tightness and is ok. I could take off connections and clean etc. Just wondering of there may been some issues with alternator or battery connections. I am on a road trip 600 miles from home and always appreciate the help I get from this forum. Thanks Dan

I will look through the forum for answers to this problem. The burner seems to fail to ignite during cycles of off and on. The blower starts but the burner fails to ignite. I hear the click but burner does not fire. The only way to get the heat back is to shut down the furnace and wait for the blower to shut of and then restart. This usually gets it back into operation but over night it will consistantly fail and I will wake up in the cold with the blower shooting out cold air. I am guessing that the igniter mechanism needs replacement?

Any suggestions on where to get exhaust system parts for an 86 mini winnie? Because of extended length reference an 86 toyota truck system is not applicable.

About 1/3 of the tank is completely gone. There is nothing to work with I'll just need a replacement.

Hi All, The good news is that my 86 mini-winnie is running great while we just accomplished a 6400 mile jaunt across the country. We had a few issues that we shared on the posts and thanks for helping us solve problems. We are currently on the road back from Ocracoke NC and helped some family with construction work in the Washington NC area. While there I must have bottomed out in a field where I parked and camped while helping. Well this caused the loss of a short extension on my exhaust pipe. I noticed a problem with seepage out of my grey water tank after just 30 miles traveling towards Rocky Mount NC. At the next stop I noticed something hanging down in the area and discovered a large hole and plastic strands hanging down from the area.I then noticed the source of the problem when I saw that my exhaust pipe was shorten and was directed right at the area where the holding tank is mounted. I had to find an auto parts store to find an extension so that we would not have exhaust fumes collecting under the vehicle and especially being directed at a plastic holding tank that had already melted enough to make a large gaping hole. I am happy to say that we didn't light it on fire which probably would have burned up our little camper. So anyhow we now need to find a new holding tank. Any suggestions on where to find one?

I have experienced a problem putting gas in my tank on my 22 rec efi 86 winnie on 3 occasions while traveling west. We just returned home after 6400 mile trip to California and back. There were 3 times when attempting to fill gas tank that the gas would back up immediately upon starting to fill. Less than a gallon as though it would only fill up the fill tube and stop. On 2 occasions the only way I could get gas in was to run a garden hose in and fill with a gas can can slowly. That worked and opened it up so I could pump in the rest. I know this is a vent issue and just would like to know what I can do to eliminate this problem. I stopped topping off since I heard that overfilling could allow some gas to enter the vent holes near the filling hole. Any suggestions on this? The vehicle performed very nicely crossing the country once I corrected the minor problems discovered on the way. We got 15.9 mpg on the last fill up and we enjoyed this trip very much. Again we thank all of you in the forum for your input and valuable assistance during our travel.

Hi all, We landed in Mojave desert today. I drove here during the early am to avoid the excessive heat. Our 22 rec efi is running fine and dealing with the heat and elevation issues during our trip cross country. Thanks to all for the advice on solving some issues that are now resolved.

We seem to be having difficulty with the door latch on the coach our our mini-winnie. I could just replace the latch but wondering if anyone has dealt with this. It seems you need to give the latch a quick snap of the handle to get it to open. My wife's wriet is sore from doing this. I hit it with WD-40 to see if that might help with little difference. Any ideas?

Yesterday while driving through Utah from Salt Lake City and on my way to San Francisco my 86 mini-winnie (22rec efi) started getting a little hotter than usual (temp gauge). Then about 20 miles from the border I started seeing a pattern of the flashing (engine check) light. There was a pattern of 5 blinks followed by a short pause. So as I approached an exit just before the Nevada border the engine went dead and would not restart initially. I ate lunch and allowed the vehicle to cool and it restarted. We were very fortunate to have made it across the long span from Salt Lake City. The friendly fellow at the gas station where I was stranded informed me that it was likely that it was caused by diluted antifreeze. He claims that in this area you need full strength antifreeze and possibly an adjustment to carb. He did not know that I have efi on mine so the efi does some adjusting (as I have heard on this forum). So today I will drain my antifreeze solution and add full strength antifreeze and attempt to keep going. Since Nevada has long stretches of desert I will rent an escort car which my wife will use to follow me. Last night I contacted AAA to come and tow us to a dealer so we will not find ourselves stranded in a remote location with a possibility of no cell service. They said they were having problems and no one showed up for 3 hrs. I called and canceled and I am now going to get a rental vehicle for my wife to use to escort this vehicle to our destination which is about 600 miles from here. I am going to drain the radiator add full strength solution and head out again with an escort so I can get this unit back to PA hopefully.

I just drove my 86 22rec efi from PA to where I am now at the border of Nevada and Utah. It did die on me a few hours ago while coming to the border. It completely shut down on me. I had a flashing "check engine" flashing in patterns of 5 blinks and a pause. This went on for about 20 minutes as I was approaching Wendover and the Bonnaville Salt Flats exit where I pulled off to see what was going on. It died on the exit ramp and I went back and ate dinner while it cooled down. I noticed it was going slightly past the halfway point on the trip through Utah from Salt Lake City. I struggled climbing many hills but it ran ok. After it cooled I drove it and it seems to run normally while cool. I think it shut down due to passing the heat threshold. It was over 100 degrees while I was driving from Salt Lake City. A friendly fellow who worked at the gas station where he witnessed my problem informed me that my anti-freeze solution is probably too weak. He also noted that the carb may need to be adjusted for high elevation (4200) where I am now. I was in areas where it was above 7000 I think. I believe today's problem was due to running too hot since I have never seen this vehicle running above the half-way point on the gauge.

My vehicle is an 86 -22 rec fuel injected 4 speed automatic. Thanks for the suggestions. Do most mechanics have method to read the message or should I just go to a Toyota dealer to check message. I have just driven from NEPA Pennsylvania to where I am now in Rawlins, Wyoming. The vehicle is running very well but gas mile has varied a bit from as high as 16.7 to 10-14 mpg. As I noted earlier I lost the overdrive while going through South Dakota.

First of all, I wish to express appreciation for the people in this forum who are assisting me with the recent problem regarding the effects of high elevation travel on our minni-winnie. I have also been seeing the check engine light going on and off intermittently (since leaving PA on Monday). I am suspecting that this could be a fuel filter issue since I notice by taking my foot off the gas and back on the pedal it seems to cause the light to go off. I changed all other filters and had my mechanic do an inspection before leaving but he did not change the fuel. The engine is performing flawlessly so I am hoping to just get the filter changed when I can get it. Where is the filter located?

Thanks for the info

yes this just happened to me today while passing into western south dakota. right now I have no over drive functioning.

Yes this just happened to me today while driving into south dakota. I heard the ticking and then it started jerking in and out of over drive. Now it won't go in at all and I am near Mount Rushmore.

I am en route to California in Mount Rushmore area and today it appears that I have lost my overdrive option. I notice hearing some noises in the steering column area just before I lost it. This must be an electrical problem with the switch? Any suggestions? Other wise the vehicle is running great but I have lost over-drive which will hurt gas mileage. I would like to get this fixed and could have it looked at while in San Francisco while visiting family but that is about 1500 miles away.

I tried the inverter in the vehicle's cig lighter plug in. It worked better there than on the power pack which is a stanley battery jump starter that has a compressor and alternative 12 volt power source. That 12 v power source is built into the unit and looks like a cig lighter power point. This point can power DC appliances and accessories. My main reason for getting this was for jump starting and tire inflation but if I can get it to run a fan while parked without electric hook up that would be why I'm looking for converting a house fan to dc connection. Or maybe there are appliances already rigged for this application?

Sorry to confuse the issue. The inverter is a separate item from the 500 amp unit (which is primarily used for jump starting). It is basically a battery storage device that can be plugged into standard 110v plug for charging and is then portable for traveling. It also has a compressor for inflating a tire and a jack built in for accessing power to possibly run a fan or radio. I am just looking for a converter to insert in it's power point (cigarette lighter type) that converts to plug (female) to plug in standard plug from fan or radio. The inverter I am talking about was supposed to make this happen but I have noticed that it works only sporadically and is basically useless. I know better products are available so I am just asking for a reference to a better product that does this successfully. I tried using this inverter in both power points available the one in my truck cab and the one on my 500 amp power pack.

Just purchased one of these from amazon.com. It did not work. Any suggestions for running off of a cig. lighter power point with a converter that will run a fan or cd player. I have a power pack with 500 amp 1000 amp peak that has a power pt (cig lighter type) for taking power off. I just need a good converter to adapt at this point for powering a fan or radio.

I am holding off on changing it for now. I have thoroughly flushed the system and it is running at a temp reading well below halfway point on the gauge. The engine runs smoothly always and keeps cool enough. I will keep an eye on the temp gauge and may buy a thermostat with the gasket and keep it close by just in case I have an issue. I priced one at Toyota dealer yesterday for $18 but the counter man could not give me any info about the thermostat's temp range for my vehicle so I did not buy it. Thanks again for the info

Thanks John

I have flushed my cooling system and see different options for thermostats. In particular temperature range from 160-180 degrees. Any suggestions for this motor?

Any ideas on this when traveling? There is always bottled water and brita filtering systems but are there good fresh water spots that we can find on the way west and back. Earlier I mentioned our path from i-80 through pa, ohio, indiana, il, then i-90 into wisconsin, mn,, s dakota , wyoming utah nevada and ca then to grand canyon then i-40 through , nm, ok, mo,i-70 il oh, i-57 i-80 pa. about 6000 miles.

I just installed them (before reading your post) at 0.30- hope that is close enough-I had a real difficult time getting plug #4 to seat for threading. Thanks for the info though.