kgibson4

Whoa! That fuel tank on the old Toy 1-ton looks huge!

I'm enjoying this. Thanks for the report and the recommendations.

Tea tables were not generally "knock down", being small and not heavily loaded. I think Lee Valley is offering a simple solution to a fairly complicated joinery project; a "quick and dirty" solution for the hobbyist woodworker who is their bread and butter. There are numerous surviving tables with the dovetail attached legs perhaps just not in your experience.

The line drawing appears to show the attachment of legs to a pedestal-style tea table, generally with three legs. Traditionally this was done with a dovetail on the leg, cut into the pedestal.

We saw this beautiful little Dolphin on our yearly trip to Wyoming. This picture was taken at Navajo National Monument about 20 miles west of Kayenta AZ, the southern entrance to Monument Valley (UT). If you ever get a chance to visit Navajo Nat'l. Mon., take it! The scenery is beautiful, the ruins fascinating, open year 'round. Camping is FREE with heated, flushing restrooms. Running water to outdoor service sinks in temperate weather. The parking spaces are too small for the big mh's, just right for Toy homes.

I have been told that MPPT charge controllers will allow you to save to your batteries more of the energy you collect than PWM controllers. Any thoughts on that? Are MPPT controllers worth the extra cost? MPPT= Multi Power Point Tracking PWM= Pulse Wave Modulation

I agree this sounds like a poor connection somewhere. When changing a battery it's always a good idea to clean the insides of the cable terminals, where they mount to the battery posts, with a wire brush. The connections need to be reasonably tight, too. Hope I'm not giving you info that is too basic, here.

It's kind of hard to get a good picture with the coil in the way, sorry. Here's the best i could do without disassembling anything. I know, I know, just being lazy. I suspect tofubiscuit's isolator has/had a similar label, but it would be on the side facing the firewall. Her's, of course, being a little different in that it is a 3-post and ours is a 4-post.

jdemaris, Thanks for your input and expertise. I just hope that tofubiscuit can get her wiring restored to original and that it works as well as ours does.

At the battery post.

So just to verify, I put the multi-meter on it. With the stock alternator and this isolator it was charging at a rate of 14.24 volts. Good enough for me.

If this will help, here's a picture of the isolator in our '87 Odyssey. The wire from the alternator (black) is connected to post A. The coach battery is connected to post 1 through the breaker on the left. The truck battery is connected to post 2 through an after-market ammeter which most Toyhomes probably don't have. Coach battery to Post 1 Alternator to Post A Truck battery to Post 2 Nothing to Post E This set up has worked great for us.

Would it be possible to attach a cloth "liner" to the outside of the shade to defeat the filtering effect and still retain the interior appearance? Probably a lot of work, though.

This does appear to be nice unit. How fast it goes up grades will depend a lot on how much you load it up. Since it doesn't appear to have coach A/C or a generator that is a plus, weight-wise. It looks like it has the six-lug full floating rear axle but one should ask. The front hubs are 5-lug so a spare will be another consideration. If that solar equipment is good quality the prices seem good. Just my 2 cents. Ken

I think the higher pressures that we run in our tires tends to telegraph the minor irregularities in the asphalt like cracks, patches, roughness,etc. that softer tires wouldn't. This results in noise and rattles in the coach that add to the perception of a "rough" ride. I've noticed that I feel a lot of the roughness of local streets that is a result of the deterioration during the recession, and yet when I get out on the relatively smooth highways everything is quiet and comfortable.

One pain in the neck about changing the gasket in camp is dealing with the fluid. Collecting the gallon or so that you drain out, getting it into a pourable container, and getting it back into the transmission when you are done. Getting it back in requires a long necked transmission funnel, at least on my '87, anyway. It's a job I would rather do at home but is surely doable in camp.

Oo! Oo! White sidewalls! On the picture: "White sidewal makes charming driving all around"

Just got back from a trip to the Gila National Forest using the great tip from Debbit. The drive from Silver City, NM up to Meadow Creek Rd was fantastic; a great forested relief after a couple hundred miles through Southwest desert. The Forest Service road is great though a little daunting for my first time off pavement with the Odyssey. Taking it slow and easy, the Toy was more than up to the task and we ended up at a beautiful, quiet and level camp. Didn't even need the leveling blocks! I spent a few days exploring and enjoying the cool and then headed back to Tucson. Stopped in Silver City to check out "Big Ditch Day", a local celebration of the flood in 1895 that swept down main street and left a 50 ft deep ditch. They made it into a park in the '70's. The highlight for me was a local acoustic band with guitar, banjo, mandolin, bodrun, bass fiddle, and 6 or 7 violins! Great tunes and some regional culture dances, too. Silver City, don't miss it! Lots of history and great people.

Actually, the regulator was just loose, flopping around in the propane compartment and connected to the tank and the main coach supply line by rubber hoses. I intend to mount it vertically to the side of the compartment, provided of course, that I can get the tank out past it when refilling. This was apparently all cobbled together when the tank and regulator were replaced sometime after '02. Thanks for your help.

Linda and JD, Thank you so much for alerting me to this situation. I never would have known. Here's a better pic of the regulator. I take it that bell-shaped business on the left side with the screen over it is the vent and it should point down. I will take care of that! Thanks

Would there be any problem with mixing LED bulbs and incandescent bulbs in the same fixture?

This is the tank in my '87 Odyssey. It apparently needs to be removed and set vertically to be filled. The regulator seems to be a 2-stage and is separate from the tank. I haven't yet had to fill it.

Since the belt is off, manually spinning the pulleys on the pump and the alternator would probably put the question to rest. I just don't want the OP to replace the belt and then not be able to make it to the garage before the belt failed again.

I'm wondering why a recently replaced belt would fail. "The previous owner had just changed them all." If i recall correctly, the alternator belt also powers the water pump? Perhaps the water pump or the alternator itself has frozen up causing the belt failure? Ken in Tucson

Once again, good work, JD! Nice write-up, too. Looking forward to the temperatures you record. The mechanical gauge that mine came with is hooked into a fitting that was brazed into the pan so I imagine the temperatures will be somewhat different than yours.