86rader

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Evergreen-ES88-185R14C-OWL102-100Q/54485716?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222227054093153&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=&wl1=s&wl2=c&wl3=154459294787&wl4=pla-267165293678&wl5=9003183&wl6=&wl7=9003205&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=54485716&wl13=&veh=sem 53 bucks, free mounting at wallymart, 9 bucks to balance.

As for wanting a new camper, yeah, a new one would be nice, but not nice enough to make a 6 figure hole in my wallet. I paid my mortgage off a few years ago and am kind of enjoying it. Not in any hurry to take on a new mortgage.

Yeah, mice suck. I plan on buying moth balls by the cubic yard. About the only way I know to keep the little bastards at bay.

I am once again a toyhouse owner (87 Sunrader) 10 years after buying by first. I used to joke that my toyhouse was old enough to buy a drink. Before long, it will be old enough to run for president. This concerns me a bit. Especially given that it is EFI. With that EFI comes many electrical connections. The toyota EFI has proven to be extremely reliable. Will this reliability erode with time? All of these connectors are plastic. Plastic is known to deteriorate with time. Will there come a point where this bulletproof system starts acting like it was manufactured by Lucas rather than Toyota? Worst case, I guess, I could always convert it over to carburetor. As for other areas, I plan on going through a thorough suspension bushing inspection and do some rust prevention underneath. All fluids will be flushed/replaced. The fuel tank/pump/filter are all brand new. Regarding the outside, the gelcoat seems to be holding up well. Hopefully that will continue. Is there any sort of rule of thumb regarding gelcoat finish? It's gotten through 30 years. Can it go 40 or even 50? Gelcoat finished have been around on boats for at least 50 years, maybe 60, so I guess I can find an answer regarding that.

yeah, 20 at highway speeds, aint gonna happen. anything north of 55 will undoubtedly kill mileage, as for hills, gentle rolling hills can actually improve mileage. Fortunately, New England is chock full of them. If you pull the hills with a very light throttle in 3rd or 4th, maybe even 2nd sometimes and coast the downhills, you can do quite well. Where you get killed is the big hills. Crappy mileage going up, then all that hard earned potential energy converted to brake heat going down.

I think a good bit is on the driver. There are some toyhousers who think using the dreaded OD is a mortal sin. I don't. I think intelligent use of it is fine. My rule has always been if it will hold OD with a very light throttle, go ahead and use it. I was able to get as high as 18 in a 22ft Sunrader with 4 people and plenty of junk aboard. I honestly do believe I could crack 20 with a 5 speed, given the right conditions. It that auto ever gives me any grief, I will find out. I find myself almost hoping it does blow up as I really do want a 22RE 5 speed rig. I was this close (currently holding index finger and thumb a mm apart) to flying out to Arizona to get that 5 speed Nova Star.

There are a number of examples of toyhouse coaches built from scratch. I wonder if anyone has ever given any though to ripping the cab off and building a small A class. I realize that this is roughly 1000X more complicated than doing just the coach and would probably be shotdown by most DMVs, but it would be kinda cool.

My vote for most aero goes to the Vixen. One thing I don't get though is that any number of manufacturers seem to spend a lot of time getting the nose aero, but they don't do so with the trailing end, and it is a known fact that a boattail rear end will give some decent gains.

I am going to get a good baseline mpg with the new SR. Then I would like to do a few aero mods to see it I can get the mpg numbers up. If the auto ever gives me trouble, I would like to make it a 5 speed.

Yeah, I know, using the word big to describe a toy house is sorta silly. What I mean is full C size, no pop-up chinooks or mirages that don't really have full size baths. My vote goes to the Nova Star, with the Sunrader next. I think the cabover of the NS is very well done. I talked to the guy in AZ with one for sale a short time ago that had a 5 speed conversion . From talking to him I got the sense that he wasn't full of crap and he claimed that he could make an honest 24 mpg driven 45-50 mph. My guess is that it this might be true, given a tail wind. That part of the country has a pretty consistent 30 mph westerly, so maybe he recorded it driving east. I do recall sailing across AZ and NM pretty effortlessly in my old SR. Don't recall mpg numbers but we were taking advantage of it by cruising along at 65-70.

What is your roof material? If it is Aluminum, I would apply an external aluminum patch that overlaps the hole by a few inches. Then cover it over with lap sealant.

I understand there simply isn't enough roof space to generate enough power to run even the smallest AC out there. My hope was to just be able to run a small one at night while parked somewhere like a truck stop to get a few hours of sleep in comfort. I don't have any illusions of boondocking in florida and having a nice cool camper all day from my solar powered AC.

Stop tormenting us with all this cool stuff.....that'll we'll never own, so long as we live in North America. I really do hope that our fed regs banning these things goes away soon. I would guess that you would see a flood of them here if it ever did.

Geeze, you people with all your practicality and facts raining all over my pipe dreams!!!!! I suspect I will end up doing something that actually works like maybe getting a cheapo gennie. Kinda wishing I had bought the travelmaster with serious roof rot issues I saw a few weeks ago. Could have gotten it for a grand. Could have pulled the onan microlite off of it, had some sawzall fun then sold a low miles (42K) extended flatbed one ton toy pickup to some landscaper. I suspect such a rig would bring 3 grand in the spring. I have decided that I would like to do a solar setup. Probably the single 100 watt panel. I have also been throwing around the idea of going to a pair of golf cart batteries. Just need to see how much trouble it will be to find a home for the extra battery. I do have a small lightweight utility trailer that I would like to drag a light motorcycle on. I was thinking of trying to build a gennie doghouse on it that would do a good job of knocking the sound down to a reasonable level. The trick is to get sound deadening without losing airflow for cooling. I suppose some sort of baffle system coupled with a car radiator fan might work. I don't suppose there are any liquid cooled gennies out there for anything approaching a reasonable price. That might be a good solution

What ^^^^ said. The price difference is astounding. Also, selection is much better. You can generally find one of these places in industrial parks. They are not in strip malls, with the possible exception of fastenal/grainger. As an example, I recently needed some M5x20mm socket head cap screws. Individually bagged at big box stores for a buck or two a piece, box of 100 at industrial supply about 8 bucks. If you happen to be in central RI, actually, anywhere in RI as it is about 5 miles long, these guys are great. http://www.warwickfasteners.com/pfasteners/21.pdf Great service, knowledgeable staff. Kinda like the big boxes were.....25 years ago.

What are you guys talking about? sin- Sunrader owner

Just bought an 87 Sunrader, 22 ft, rear dinette. I would really like to install a fairly robust PV system with the hopes that I might be able to have some ability to run an AC. This obviously wouldn't work powering one all day in the florida sun, but, I think it could work running the AC for short periods to cool a limited space. Here is what I would like to do.... The roof AC is a typical RV unit and it is mounted directly over the dinette. Not sure of its capacity but I suspect it is 13.5k btu. Really wish it was smaller, but it is what it is. I would like to hang an insulated curtain, or possibly even folding polystyrene panels at the forward edge of the dinette. This would turn this area into a fairly small insulated box which wouldn't take a hell of a lot to cool. Obviously the ideal solution would be a marine DC unit, but those things are priced like they are made out of gold. They use roughly 500 watts. A cheapo 5k window home unit uses a similar amount of power, so I don't see all that much of an advantage with the DC unit. I suspect I could cobble together some sort of adapter that would allow me to mount the 5K unit in one of the side windows. Or maybe I could just use the existing roof unit, but it would require a substantially larger inverter. My question is, how much battery would it take to get, say 3 hours of run time with the 5K unit? High capacity golf cart batteries put out 250ah. If my math is right, that is 3K watt hrs for a pair of them. This would be 6 hours of run time at 500watts. Obviously, there are all sorts of losses involved here, but assuming they total no more than 50%, I think 3 hours of run time is doable. And I would think that 3 hrs of run time would keep such a small area cooled enough to get through a decent cat nap during a long distance road trip. I remember our first attempt at a nights sleep in our first trip out west in Sunrader #1. It was in a truck rest stop. It wasn't stifling hot, but it was warm, too warm to close the windows, so we were serenaded by nearby large diesel engines. Would have been nice to not have to listen to that. I would like to do a roof top PV array. Not sure if I have the acreage up there for 400 watts worth of panels, but it would be nice. Any thoughts, recommendations, ridiculing would be appreciated.

Can't help you with interior lights, but superbrightleds.com is a great place to get the marker lights. No more fusing with bulb connections as they are sealed and look great.

LEDs are without a doubt the way to go. I hope to make my "new" Sunrader 100% LED, excluding headlights, which I understand are still junk. I put LED marker light on my first Sunrader. It was a huge improvement.

I found this on ecomodder the other day. Very impressive. WME brings up a good point. Flat roofs suck. Here is an idea. How about a detachable roof? Here is a thought for keeping things waterproof. At the top of the side wall, you angle it inwards at about 45 degrees. You end this section maybe 6 inches after the bend. You then make a roof that overlaps this angled section. You could then have great headroom and still get it inside when needed by popping the roof off.

Went there yesterday, put in 5 gallons fresh gas and a new battery. Doesn't seem to be getting fuel. It will start on starting fluid. So, there is spark. Too damn far away to be going there every day to fuss with it. The PO has a mechanic that he has used for years and trusts. He is going to have a look at it tomorrow. Hoping it is something simple like a clogged filter. I did crack loose the cold injector line and turn it over. I would assume I would have had fuel leaking out, but nothing. Also, I can not hear the pump run. Assuming his mechanic is competent with 22REs, I suspect he will have it figured out quickly and hopefully cheaply.

Didn't notice a plug, but then, I didn't really look for one. I didn't think they had them. Thanks, Linda.

I am the new owner of an 87 Sunrader. It has sat close to 5 years. Yesterday I siphoned out a few gallons of what smelled like lawyer and looked like Guinness Stout. Last night, the previous owner (still in his driveway) put about a gallon and a half of fresh has in and got it to start with the help of some starter fluid. I would like to go ahead and purge it again, but rather than siphoning I was thinking of disconnecting at the fuel rail and purging it until I get fresh gas. Where is the convenient place to do this? Isn't there a shrader fitting for checking pressure? I was thinking of just using a shrader fitting connected to a length of hose and purge it that way.

they may cost an extra few bucks, but I highly recommend going to LEDs. They look great and you will never have to fuss with a bulb again.

We should start a group, Toyhousers Annonymous. Hi, my name's Pete and I'm a toyhouser.