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GinjaTurtle

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About GinjaTurtle

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  • My Toyota Motorhome
    1988 Odyssey Ponderosa 22', 22-RE/Automatic. Upgraded charging and batteries w/Marinco Guest charger and 400w solar.
  • Location
    West Coast; Seattle to San Diego and well beyond.

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    www.ginjaturtles.com

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  1. I think it's not an unreasonable goal at all. I've taken mine up to Prudhoe Bay, AK with the intention of potentially driving to Patagonia. We've gotten as fas as Central Mexico, but the coronavirus has stymied our plans. We plan to store it here and resume the trip at a later date. I have an 88 Odyssey. 22RE with an automatic. A couple modifications i would recommend: Lower gear differential. I am running 4.88:1 rather than the stock 4.10:1. It makes a HUGE difference going up hills and has even improved my fuel economy since I can use my Overdrive gear on the highway now. Improved radiator. The stock radiator in my Toy just cant keep up with 90+ degree weather under load. I bought a brand new aluminium performance radiator and I've never had heat problems again. Be sure to check your thermostat at the same time. Mine was bad. Solar panels and additional batteries. As long as there's at least some sun (or we're on the move) we don't need to plug in except to run the air conditioner. With 485 ah of batteries and 400 watts or solar we can run both our laptops, the TV, heater fan and lights without having to think too much about conserving power. Composting toilet. This is essential once you get south of Baja. There just isn't a lot of options for sanitary RV dumps and you'll be forced to make some pretty unpleasant decisions about where to put your waste. The composting toilet lasts about 6 weeks between changes and can be disposed of safely anywhere you can dig a hole. Extra Spare tire, Fuel cans, spare parts, and some basic tools. There are some very vast spaces without services and you will have to rely on yourself for a lot of things. Do you research on the ferry beforehand. The ferry from Baja to the mainland is a breeze (I highly recommend it), but getting around the Darien gap can be challenging. I have even found it is cheaper to ship from Veracruz, MX (or even Houston, TX) to Colombia rather than trying to find a service in Panama. It all depends on what you're trying to see. Look up the overlanding community on YouTube and Reddit. I have found a ton of good resources through them. Good luck on your planning. I hope you go for it. It can be done.
  2. Our Odyssey is called "Tofu" because it looks like a big block of tofu.
  3. I just got 6 Hankooks mounted, balanced, and installed at Discount tire for $640. They even disposed of my old ones for that. I did have to call them ahead of time to order the tires as they do not keep them in stock.
  4. Hi. I have an '88 Odyssey with 89k miles that we've been running for a couple years now. It just spent 14 months in storage while we were travelling in Europe, and when we picked it up it was just fine. The gas lines were all as good as new and all of my appliances worked just fine. The heaters in them (Suburban NT-16SE) are prone to problems, but are easy to fix. I put a new fan motor and a brain board in mine. Total cost for that repair was less than $250 and it works like new now. The Wedgewood stove/oven combo is really good and i would be surprised if yours doesnt work. The refrigerators are less great, however and you might find that yours has leaks and no longer has ammonia in it. If that is the case, you can get a new core for around $600 or a new fridge for around $1200. I wound up buying a new unit two years ago and it's been great so far. Overall, I'm really happy with my odyssey and highly recommend them.
  5. Another note about weight in the back: i was bottoming out my springs too until I replaced my old worn out airbags with a new set of Airlifter 5000's. Now I can carry all that weight on the bumper and still sit nice and high in the back. I am running 85 pounds in the bags and it makes for a nice smooth ride. It's got way more ground clearance this way and does much better on those rutted mountain roads. I've also had more than one person ask me about my "lifted" toyhome.
  6. These metal gas cans have been well worth the cost. They don't swell too much when its warm (even in direct sun) and they don't spill at all when you're filling. I've run them now almost a year and 15k+ miles and they are still working like the day I bought them. I have never had any plastic cans perform like that. The weight is not too much different than the plastic. I think they're less than 10lbs together.
  7. I looked in to auxiliary and upgraded fuel tanks for a while before deciding it was simply too much trouble. Instead, I'm running two 5 gallon Jerry can style cans on a bumper that I had custom welded to my frame. It comfortably carries the weight of 10 gallons of fuel and my two spare tires. I had a welding shop build it for me and it took them less than 4 hours. With this set up we recently drove to Prudhoe Bay, AK where there is a 250 mile stretch of road with no services. These are the cans I bought. Be sure you get the name brand (Wavian) and not a cheap knockoff.
  8. This is my Alaska bumper. It got us all the way to Prudhoe bay this summer. I could have gotten by with 1 can, but the extra one is nice for piece of mind. The cans are Wavian brand and are the current NATO military issue. They are the best gas cans i've ever had. I haven't spilled/leaked a drop in 6 months of use. Notice the 2nd spare too. We carried two and used zero. However, it is something I would not have gone without. Some of those roads can get pretty rough. The last thing we bought was a CB radio. You'll need it on Atigan pass.
  9. Also, are your windshield wipers working? They're on the same circuit, if they're not working check the fuse. I'm having problems with mine blowing occasionally.
  10. Hi. I just made this change and I love it. I have a 1988 Odyssey 22 foot RV. It is the largest and probably heaviest of these units. I drove it around for about a year on the 4:10's and had more than one occasion where it just wouldnt go up some hills. In April of this year i swapped a 4:88 differential (from a 95 4-runner, $375 from a wrecking yard). My mechanic had it in in under 4 hours and I had no problems with the install afterwards. Just after getting this done, we took a trip to Alaska (all the way to Prudhoe Bay). We drove from Everett, WA through Vancouver and Squamish and past Whistler. In there were many 12% and 13% grades. I am certain I would not have made it up without the lower gears. When it drops down in to first now it will go up just about anything. As for top speed, I have the automatic and I could hardly get out it in to overdrive before. Now I can cruse along in overdrive at 60 quite comfortably. One thing to know is that you need to adjust the speedometer. You can go through old posts on here and find Commercial Speedometer. That guy had mine in my hand 2 days after I ordered it for $80. It's been really nice to have a speedometer/odometer that works properly. You also need to disable the overdrive high altitude lockout switch under the dash. You can just unplug it and jump the two wires together with a switch between them (I have a switch zip tied to the gearshift). All in all I highly recommend this change. Be sure you go to the 4:88's, 4:56 would not have been enough.
  11. I took it apart yesterday and it was just like you said. 15 minutes later I was 20 pounds of junk lighter, and no more brownouts! Thanks for the help. We can mark this one solved.
  12. Oh yeah....of course. I suppose I've already got a 120vac to 12vdc converter....my battery charger. duh. Thanks for straightening me out on that. I am just going to eliminate the old converter (and likely my brownout problems) and just wire the 12v lines together in there. This is going to be very simple and like you said...I'm going to be able to get this ancienthugeheavynoisyhot converter out of my life. As long as the 12vDC amps I draw is less than amps going in i'm still going positive on the batteries. Even if there's a moment where i draw more than the 20amps my charger is making, I'll just dip in to the batteries a bit and it'll make it up when the demand drops back down. This is easily monitored with my meter and i'll be able to take steps if necessary. I'll do the wiring tomorrow and let you know how it goes.
  13. This is what I think i heard you saying: Yes, I should buy this new converter. I can remove the old converter by pulling out the entire power center, removing it and replacing the power center. There are two 12v wires coming in to the old converter. One is to the battery and the other to the load. These will be wired together when hooked up to the new converter. Let me know if i am understanding everything right. If I am, then it sounds fairly simple. I know the system seems elaborate, but it has been working well for about a year now. The reason I designed it this way is that I wanted to preserve the existing house battery (which I had recently replaced) while still adding capacity. This required me to have two separate battery banks and all of the associated infrastructure. Now the second battery acts as a "reserve" and I can switch to it when my primary pack is low.
  14. Occasionally when I am on shore power or running my generator I'm getting brown outs (power failures that last 1-2 seconds) on my 12v systems. I believe the problem is the 12v converter inside my Progressive Dynamics 7231 power box. I have already disabled the battery charging feature (by unplugging the circuit board), now I think the converter is on the fritz. My plan is to replace it with a Progressive Dynamic PD9140AV RV Inteli-Power 9100 Converter/Charger 40 Amp. (amazon link). I intend to find the 12v line coming out of the power box and hook it up to this new box, then wire the 120v AC connection in to the distribution panel directly. My existing set up (see attachment for details) is that I have a Marinco Guest 20amp charger powering 3 deep cycle batteries (as well as 200watts of solar). With this, i do not need the "charge wizard" features of the Progressive Dynamics converters. My questions are: Should I (can I) disable the charging features of this converter? Would it be better to replace the Progressive Dynamics 7231 Power box entirely? I don't really want to redo all of the AC wiring if I don't have to. Can I remove or disable the Converter/Charger features of the 7231 so that they don't power up when I'm on AC power (I believe the charging features are already disabled)? Am I missing something here?
  15. Do you have the one with the alternator input? I have that one, but I haven't hooked up that part yet. I am curious whether my little Toyota alternator is going to be able to even turn that charger on.
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