jmowrey

We had ours rearched and the helper springs added. The way it was explained to me by my mechanic (who did the replacing but not the rearching) is that this process is more an art than a science. He sent the springs out to someplace that has expertise in doing this. The result was fantastic. Our rig rides higher and is far more stable than it was. It was money well spent. Hope this helps in your decision.

We found our 85 Dolphin in Michigan and it is a real peach. Absolutely no rust whatsoever. It lived indoors all its life and was never taken out on salty roads in the winter. In addition, it had been carefully undercoated to protect from any corrosives. A possible advantage to shopping for rigs in parts of the country where the winters are heavier is that they may have lived indoors rather than being left out in the elements in the off season. This is a huge factor. 30 years out in the Southwestern sun, for instance, will have taken its toll. So don't be afraid to go a little further afield in your search.

As Linda points out, there aren't many people refurbishing Toys and then selling them as drive-off-the-lot perfect RVs. So whatever you get, you are going to have to do some work on it. And in my opinion, this is going to be an ongoing adventure. These things are 30 years old! By the time you upgrade everything, it'll be time to start back at the beginning again. It's kinda like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Once you finish, it's already time for the next coat. But to me, that's part of why we get ourselves into these sometimes aggravating and hairpullable little motor homes in the first place. They are project homes. Very utilitarian (or at least ours, which we've had for 3 seasons now, has been), but you always have to be noodling with them to keep them in shape. The guy we bought ours from (and ours was a real peach on a lot of levels) told me, "Don't buy one of these unless you are ready and willing to have a screw driver in your hand at the ready at all times!" But what else would we do with our spare time. And from what I've heard, even a brand new 100,000 motor home has problems the develop on an ongoing basis. I suspect it comes with the territory when you put a house on wheels and roll it down the road. Stuff will be jarred loose, abused and need repairs. At least with our Toys, we didn't drop $100,000 on them at the get go! Whatever you get, have fun with it. Learn to smile and grimace and enjoy the unique nature of these classic little RVs. Joe

Safety is a concern for us. No airbags, etc. We love our Dolphin, but let's face it, these things are death traps. We take the measured risk for our camping excursions. But I wouldn't want to up the ante by driving it around in city traffic on a regular basis.

I hate to be a buzzkill here, but have you thought about the safety issues involved in tooling around with your kids in the back of a Toy motor home on a daily basis? One small crash and there is likely to be serious carnage inflicted on anyone back there. All it takes is one idiot smashing into you. A side impact on the coach won't be pretty. I know a lot of people take kids with them for camping trips. But to use it on a daily basis? Just saying.

Great work! We also removed our flip couch. Makes for a roomier sofa experience. I, too, wonder what material you used for the splatter guard on the side of the stove. Good idea. Enjoy! Joe

Pull up on those and they drain all the water out of your system onto the ground through tubes in the floor for winterizing.

Here are the answers to your questions: Yes. Yes. Sometimes. Oh boy... No. Might as well. Joe

We cut reflectix panels to fit in each window. I attached a piece of wood just below the windows to serve as a ledge for the panel to sit on. The curtain itself holds the panel fairly well against the window. These roll up nicely and can be stored under our couch area when not in use. They do a wonderful job of keeping the Dolphin cool in direct sunlight and also keeping it warm on cold nights.

Nicely done. I'm a carpet guy too. Cozy for our toes, plus the dog won't slip and slide.

I think you are tempting fate. You have an open flame within two feet of gasoline fumes. Chances of an explosion may be slim, but It only takes one disaster to make you, and possibly other innocent people nearby, very sorry. Saying, "Some folks at the toyota forum said it would be okay," after the fact won't help much. Perhaps you could ask another customer at the gas station to help you relight your frig. People are often very willing to help out. All you need is someone to hold in that button while you do the lighting. Also, if you keep the frig door closed, it will keep things cold for many hours. Could you wait until you get to your campground to relight after fueling? Surely you can get someone at the campground to help you. Better safe than sorry when in comes to explosive fuels.

I installed these on both vent pipes on our 85 Dolphin with good results. One other thing to check, though: the vent pipe from our black tank comes out right next to the vent in the ceiling of the bathroom. I have a Maxx Air vent cover installed over that bathroom vent so we can leave that vent open all the time (also very helpful in keeping bathroom odors to a minimum). http://www.amazon.com/Maxxair-00-933066-White-Vent-Cover/dp/B000UUMM6K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445695237&sr=8-1&keywords=maxx+air+vent+cover The problem was, the vent pipe was venting directly into the bathroom roof vent. So I installed a piece of plexiglas as a deflector between the vent pipe and the vent. I was able to anchor it by screwing it into the side of the Maxx Air vent cover. This made a huge difference in that it keeps the odors from venting right back into the bathroom. Check the position of your vent pipes relative to the roof vents. Might be another solution to odor problems. Joe

I installed a computer vent fan in my stove hood to replace the old jet engine that was in there. (1985 Dolphin) Got the idea from this forum! Thanks. The install was pretty straightforward. I was even able to use the holes from the old fan for the mounting screws. There was a slight gap, as the hole was somewhat bigger than the new fan. But I sealed that up nicely with some gorilla tape. It's very quiet and does a good job. It draws enough to hold a piece of paper sucked up against the metal screen/filter. They say it pulls about 75cfm. That's about the same as the low speed on my stove hood vent fan in the kitchen in the house. $18 bucks. A cheap solution to a noisy problem. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002XISTXM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

I'm glad to hear from two long-time owners that our frig is probably okay. Janice and I have decided to go into the, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mode. We've never had a problem with food going bad. And the freezer has never failed to keep ice and ice cream (most importantIy!) solid. I only started in on this notion of the frig having a problem because I decided to put a thermometer in there. Sometimes too much information can be a bad thing. I'm pulling the thermometer out so I can relax and enjoy the rest of the season! Thanks for the replies. Joe

I'm contemplating removing and replacing the frig in my 85 Dolphin. I'll be using essentially the same model, a Dometic 2410 (the original is a Dometic 2400) so there should be no issues on getting it to fit. I'm a fairly handy guy, more of a carpenter than a mechanic. But I can usually muddily through stuff. Looks like I can get a new unit for somewhere in the $700-$900 range, including shipping. But I"m getting conflicting information on the need for this replacement as well as on the complexity of the project. Three questions: (1) The reason I want to replace it is because it's temperature range had been getting pretty radical. It would vary from as low as 28 degrees up to 50 degrees. This was with the temp control turned up all the way. And it was more or less the same on gas or electric. So I went and noodled around with it and discovered the propane heating element had slipped down away from the insulated tube/tower thing,leaving a big gap, and was not properly aligned. I realigned it and secured it properly (a couple of screws had fallen out). Now it's working much better. With the temp control turned way down, it's ranging from about 32 to about 42. The several tech places I have talked to tell me it sounds like my cooling unit is going bad. Since I'm seeing this much improvement after my repair, I"m wondering if that's true. Should my temp be varying by this much? (2) Seems to me the only way I'm going to get the old one out and the new on in is through the cab. And I will have to remove the passenger seat and one of the chairs by the table in the coach. I have the rear door, rear kitchen and bath model. Any thoughts from anyone on this? (3) Is the actual connection job as easy as it looks? I'm assuming the entire new unit comes fully assembled and all I will have to do is connect the gas line and and then plug the unit in. I'm hoping the gas connection will be in a similar place on the new unit. But I realize I may have to cut or extend the gas line, depending. I've worked with a gas line before when I installed a new cooktop. It seemed pretty easy. Likewise for removal of the old unit. Looks like I just need to disconnect the propane line and unplug. Once I find all the screws holding it in, in theory it will just slide out into the coach. Also, it looks like it will barely have room enough to slide in far enough that I can begin to maneuver it through the coach and out the cab door. But it should work. Any help or advice on this before I begin is appreciated. We have a real lack of reliable and competent RV repair places here in Santa Fe. I"m not excited about attempting this. I'd rather pay the price to have this work done, but not if they are going to mess it up. I'm thinking I probably can't screw this up too much more than the idiots we've worked with here before. But then again, maybe I can! The alternative is to drive it to Albuquerque, 70 miles away, and leave it with Camping world. They have a big operation down there with lots of repair staff. I've heard they are fairly competent and reliable. But, of course, they will be incredibly expensive. And I won't know how good they are until they mess it up for me. Thanks for any info that might guide me on this.

I ordered the next size down for a better fit in my range hood. It supposedly still moves about 75 cfm, which should do it. It will sure beat listening to the jet engine I've got in there now! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002XISTXM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

Thanks for the input. I wrote to Noctua, the company where I can get the right size fan, and they wrote back immediately. I can us the black and red wire on their 3-pin fans, the black and yellow on the 4-pin fans. I'll be sure to watch out for the flow arrows. I plan on making the fan easily removable for cleaning. Looks like it should be pretty simple to create a mounting situation in the existing space.

This has a 4-pin connector. How would I connect it to the two-wire (one black, one white) connection which my existing fan uses?

Here's a link to an excellent post from this blog. It gives step by step instructions on how to properly winterize your unit. We use this every year, to be sure we aren't missing anything. http://toyotamotorhome.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=4308&hl=winterizing

In theory, the pink RV antifreeze that we use to winterize our rigs (NEVER use the green deadly stuff) is non-toxic. But like Totem, I'm not willing to bet my health on it. That being said, we never drink water from the fresh water tank anyway. If it's been sanitized, it's probably okay, but I don't want to find out the hard way. In addition to possible bacterial contamination, the plastic these older tanks are made from leeches unpleasant things into the water. So we carry drinking water with us. Besides, we have the most lovely-tasting well water at our house. So we always bring that with us.

Where are you located? I have a stove I removed from my 85 Dolphin which you can have for free if you can pick it up here in Santa Fe or pay someone to pack it for shipping. There are a couple of places here in Santa Fe that do that. I could drop it off there if you are interested. It's in great shape. Looks to me like the oven part was never even used. The cooktop works fine. It is not a piezo type though. You have to light it each time. I am attaching a photo.

55 pounds is way more than you will need. And the old plumbing in your unit may not like that. We use a pressure regulator and set it to 35 pounds. This one is working fine for us. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JWPYHW6?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00 35 pounds provides us with plenty of pressure, even for a shower. Even if you don't use an adjustable pressure regulator, you should definitely get one of the simple regulators that set the pressure to 40-50 automatically and use that whenever you hook up. They are very affordable. http://www.amazon.com/Camco-40055-Brass-Pressure-Regulator/dp/B003BZD08U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436110017&sr=8-1&keywords=rv+water+pressure+regulator I've recorded water pressure readings as high as 90 pounds at some campgrounds. That would be a plumbing buster for sure. Joe

Just as a point of information. We recently took an inline water meter with us on a trip. It takes .1 gallon to flush the toilet. Not much. A shower was 2.5 gallons for me, 3.6 gallons for my wife (including a shampoo of her hair which is quite long). Washing dishes is a big consumer. 1.5 gallons for breakfast dishes, 2.2 gallons for dinner dishes (just the two of us and we use real dishes, not paper plates, and we cook serious, three or four course dinners, so lots of pots and pans, even though we grill our entree outside). So our most serious concern is not water usage, when hooked up, but storage space in the grey water tank. We use a pan in the sink to wash dishes and dump that water on trees outside. That helps a bunch. So filling up the black water tank is not a concern. At .1 gals per flush we figure we can go a long time and not fill that tank.

We had the leaf springs on our 85 Dolphin re-arched. They also added one new spring to each side. It made a huge difference, not just for the leaning problem, but to the overall ride. It cost $600, but I think it was well worth the money.

I see several other people have mentioned that they put memory foam over their existing foam mattresses. We also did this and it makes for a very comfortable bed. In addition, we put a layer of reflectix between the memory foam and the original mattress during cold weather trips. This made a huge difference in the temperature in the bed. Really kept it cozy up there. I remove it once the weather warms up though because it can actually make it hotter up there at night when it's warm outside.