MontanaChinook

What she said. I did a sloppy job of putting sealant all around the feet, after the job was done. Putting something which just fills the drilled holes around the bolts while you're installing it is the right way to go.

I covered mine with sealant, just in case. I hadn't at first, but I have a leak somewhere in the roof that I haven't been able to track down yet, and one of things I tried was sealing over those artificial gutters. Didn't help...so I can't say if any water was getting in there.

About one week before leaving for a year-long trip in my Chinook, I was working on something, with the key in the ACC position, and started seeing smoke come out from under my dash. I kept looking and looking, with a fire extinguisher right next to me, for where it was actually coming from. Never could figure it out, exactly. But I had wired in 4 new speakers, a new radio and an amp. I went through each connection and actually just decided two speakers were enough, and haven't had any smoke since then. Yeah as far as I know there isn't any stock heating element. Though I was talking to friends a few months back explaining how the heater in their car works, and we got on the topic of "why, with all the advances out there and the more powerful alternators and all the gadgets they're powering, can't there be a little electric heater that allows you get warm air blowing before your coolant warms up?". Heated seats are a step in the right direction, and really the same idea. But to date, I personally haven't seen any vehicle that has something like this. Of course newer vehicles heat up a lot faster and most people warm theirs up before getting in anyway, but still... If it's your resistor, that makes sense. They are one of those things that are "common" to have go out on older Toyotas. Takes a lot more to keep the fan running slowly than it does to just let it rip, so the lower speeds usually burn out and leave full speed functional. Most of my older trucks were missing at least the first setting. I had never heard before that they get hot, but that makes sense.

Ah, creeeeepy.

It is, in my opinion, a very cool treat to hear the wolves howling.

Did I ever mention someone going through a government bidding process for a 3D printer to make camper parts? The idea I was bringing up, which is just a side note to a discussion about making obsolete camper parts on a 3D printer, is that if the government found a use for the technology, they would, as they always do, spend/waste (figured adding that word would make you happy) huge sums of money on that technology. This would allow people in the industry to innovate and streamline the process. One effect of innovation and streamlining of an industrial process is that the industry comes up with a way to do it for less money. A circuit board which, when first invented, was clunky, ugly, unable to be mass produced, and cost $1,000 - gets ordered in bulk for missile guidance systems. That motivation from military interest, plus the capital, allows engineers to think up newer, better ways and materials to build a circuit out of. They find a way to easily mass produce them. Within a small amount of time, they cost $200 to produce. Then $100. Before you know it they're under $10 a piece, which means that now, for only a slight increase in price, you can have a circuit board in your home coffee maker. It's small enough, mass-producible enough and cheap enough. If you want to discuss all the government waste and taxpayer expense that happens between point A and point B, fine, but you'll need to find someone else to do it with. I was only bringing up the reality and history of government/military involvement in a technology eventually leading to a drastic price drop in the technology, and the possibility of that happening with 3D printers. I'm sure you'll understand if I'm done with this thread.

I'm not talking about taxpayers. I'm talking about a new technology, which is at first very expensive, too expensive for most private industry and certainly an individual consumer to buy. The government (military specifically) finds it useful. They place an order for 20 million. This causes, yes, the industry to innovate, and the price to drop. Because of the government demand.

But if hammers are a brand new technology, costing $100 to produce, and the government orders 10 million of them, the process will be streamlined and new innovations will be created, causing the price to drop significantly. That's what I'm talking about. Uncle Sam never has and never will make a hammer. He'll just overpay for one. Everything has always been outsourced, whether to a civilian factory in the US or China. And that's exactly my point. Often it's the government demand for something which causes mass production, and those things become cheaper. Mid century in the 1900's there wasn't a mass production demand for circuit boards or transistors or micro processors. They were too expensive and people hadn't dreamed up a million different uses. But the war machine certainly had uses for them. Millions of them. Which caused innovation of materials, design and production, and a major price drop.

There's nothing I have in mind right now that I'd need, making me post this thread. It was just a thought I had.

I guess we need another war. Oh wait...maybe we already have a couple. If the government got involved and needed things mass produced through 3D printing, the process would definitely start getting cheaper. At least that's what happened to the transistor, microchip and computer industry when the government started needing components for missiles, according to the book I'm reading right now. But maybe this just isn't a technology that's going to take off in that way. But it would be cool if we could all have a small one in our home for certain small household, shop & auto items rather than running to the store. Of course if Amazon is just going to drop them off by drone the same day, then maybe it doesn't matter...

I don't know anything, really, about this technology other than the basics. But I wonder at what point I'll be able to go to my neighbor's house who has one, hand him/her the broken item from my 1978 camper which is not available anymore, and have it scanned and printed? An on an industrial scale...if I had a friend who could, after-hours, scan a 78 Chinook pop top or Newport, and make one out of a strong, molded plastic, kind of like Glasstite truck toppers...sort of a cooler material? I'm assuming that'll be expensive. Probably much more expensive than just finding an old Chinook on a dead truck. But I wonder...at what point will any of us be able to design a camper coach body, sized to fit the vehicle of our choice, completely custom built to suit an individuals needs, and plug that into a computer and have it printed? For a non-astronomical price. I think it's a ways off, and things like auto-driven cars causing none of us to be able to actually drive anymore may kill this possibility before it ever comes to life and destroy the RV way of life (seriously), but who knows?... Somebody with the skills and funding for a very large printer may be able to do a pretty good business on stuff like that.

Yeah don't let us discourage you...if you stick around, you'll see a lot of "tough love" . People come on here with some crazy ideas. Ideas we've all had until we realized the reality of the situation. So when a new person comes to the forum with really big ideas, you'll see some serious "reality checks" coming from experienced members. There are people who then get scared away from their idea, and obviously that was a good thing. Then there are those who do have the skills and ability to make their idea and reality. They don't get scared off, and they proceed with their plans. Once people here know that you have the skills, they'll give any help they can. But first they're going to completely honest and blunt about the difficulty of the job. We never know which kind you are until you let us know...

Someone posted a link to some Wrangler A/T tires a few months back, which actually had some fairly aggressive tread (at least as aggressive as I've seen in 185/14)...can't remember where though. I'll look around. Are you really gonna drive that thing in the winter?? I can't imagine getting it out of a fishtail...and they definitely just start sliding as soon as you hit the brakes on slippery roads.

Yeah I have no doubt there is a Tacoma out there with a Chinook on it. I saw an early 2000's Chevy S10 with a Chinook body on it, in Durango this year. But that photo is photoshopped.

Crazy. I guess the sun just happens to be poking out from above a ridge so only the top (and sides...) of the camper is in the sun but nothing else in the photo has any sun on it, and they decided to pull over real quick on the side of the highway and pop up the top... Stranger things have happened, I'll agree. Of course people are doing all sorts of stuff with Chinooks and Toyotas. But that photo is, in my opinion anyways, photoshopped.

No! But that's some ok photoshopping. I still really want to do this at some point. But having just "finished" my Chinook this year, the memory of how much time and money this stuff takes up is still too fresh...

That's my thing. I still backpack, and still sometimes car camp without my camper, if it makes sense, depending on who I'm going with. I'm not going to turn down a ride from someone and drive the Chinook and have 4 vehicles and 6 people camping, just so I can have my camper. Most of the time... But it's nice to have the thing for all the times that it does make sense. So, just saying...making the decision to completely give up the kind of comfort camping that only an RV can supply is a bold move. And one I respect, though I don't know the exact reasons, and figure they're none of my business.

A bold decision! Hard to go back, once you go RV (sorry that doesn't rhyme), especially as we all get older, so I admire the decision! Good luck.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-neutrality-rules.html?_r=0 This is what I was talking about...

Could you post more specific info?..all I get with a "pure-gas" google search is a bunch of ethanol free gasoline information...I found some "ripoff" site with a whole bunch of rants about a bunch of random stuff, but it looked pretty disorganized.

Are you talking about the government siding with big corporation lobbyists who want to give preference to big websites for internet speed? And basically sites like this and all the little blog sites get whatever scraps are leftover? I think it's an FCC thing? I know there was a huge protest about it when the decision was going to be made. Then I dropped out of contact with the news for a while and never heard what the decision was...

I wonder if people's internet connection speed is what's limiting photos? I've never had a problem. The upload screen says there is a max upload limit of "unlimited", with a max single photo size of 32MG. I can't imagine anyone is trying to upload a photo bigger than 32, so I wonder what the problem is? I regularly uploaded over 5 photos, usually around 4MB each to my project thread. Anyway...looks like you had your work cut out for you! Moose...crazy. I have the feeling that if I even hit a deer in my camper, it'd be all over. A moose, like an elk, I'd worry that I'd just take its legs out from under it, and it would end up in my lap.

Tax the crap out of plastic water bottles. Agreed. Make it part of the sin tax. It is not our human right to do stupid things which destroy the environment. I don't want a police state either, but there are some common sense things people just refuse to do unless coerced with a fine or tax. While they're at it start fining/taxing people who insist of having a golf course for a lawn in the arid west. Fine them for wasting water. Things along those lines are fine with me. It's not a freedom issue. I'm sure glad I live near so much public land...other than National Parks, I'm not sure of the last time I paid to get out in the woods/mountains (other than my taxes, of course).

Sounds fun. Obviously it's your decision and your finances, but having the best of both worlds is sure nice. You can always backpack and car camp. And take the RV when it seems appropriate.

Oh, interesting...I haven't run into that. Not sure what the deal is. I'll be watching this closely. It may never happen, but my dream camper is a Chinook pop top on a more modern Toyota, something with airbags and all that. But I'm done with big projects for a while.