Bikemike

Hello everyone, thanks for looking. We have put about 12,000 miles on our 87 Escaper in the 15 months that we have owned it and it's been running great. On our last trip I let the gas tank get quite empty (1 gallon left). Some days after we arrived at our current location in Oregon, while moving the camper to a shadier spot, the engine stopped running. It made a few feeble attempts at turning over and then, nothing but cranking. It won't turn over. It has gas and good voltage at the battery. I'm wondering about a problem with the fuel pump and or the filter... Any suggestions about an order of things to check? We are thankful to have a shady place to work on it!

A cheap alternative to buying all new foam is using old couch cushions and puzzle piecing them together with contact cement. Some thrift store dumpsters are heaping with them?. You just need to make sure you get all the same thickness and density.

We like the x-cargo. That, and the little "rei-type" thing store all our lighter weight/bulky stuff. They didn't seem to affect the gas mileage. Less sunlight hits the roof, so it should be cooler inside. The wood roof rack distributes the weight well.

I ordered a texsport hammock from dicks sporting goods and it fits perfectly along our bed from wall to wall in our 87 Escaper. The hammock comes with two ~2 ft poles that are designed to spread it out horizontally. We mount it vertically; one end of the pole in a "socket" in the front corners of the bed, with the other end held in place by rubberized and threaded hooks screwed into the cabinets. The bottom is caribeenered (sp?) around a piece of angle aluminum that we use to support the hatch/bed/door thing. It catches the baby?

Also, the voltage didn't seem to go higher when I increased the rpms.

Thanks. I got 14.5v on the truck and 14.8 on the coach the last time I checked (the vehicle is disabled presently). I think I've seen it a little higher.

I wonder if I should get a new battery isolator...with the engine on, the volt meter says 14.8 or more at the battery. Are isolators supposed to limit the flow of current to the house battery? What is too high of a voltage to send the Deep cycle battery? And how can I control that?

That was it! A previous owner had rendered one of the grounding points for the coach electrical system nearly useless. I was able to pull the wires out by hand! And with a small cloud of dust! With this one set of (three) wires pulled loose from their grounding point the furnace blower would turn on but would not ignite. Once I cleaned up, repaired and replaced the grounding wires/point with dielectric grease the furnace lit right up! The furnace had been working before a recent trip through Wyoming. I wonder if salts on the road had corroded the insufficiently clamped wires just enough to break the circuit. I'm so thankful that it didn't happen during our single digit time in that state.

Yes, when I started the engine or plugged into shore power the firnace started up. Otherwise, it didn't ignight. Even after being plugged into shore power for days. Then again, last night, it ignighted without being plugged in or engine running??? So, I wonder about a sail switch problem??? Or, maybe I don't have a very good ground??? When I dropped the grey water tank a while back, I noticed a very corroded looking grounding point near the rear left wheel well. Which is where the coach battery is located. Maybe it would be better to move the grounding point to a less corrosion prone area of the vehicle.

I needed to get a new coach battery in a pinch on a recent burry cold night in Wyoming. So I picked up a Maxx-24dc at Walmart. Th 24 was the largest one that fit in the battery box. It kept the furnace going all night. Although, Recently I had a little trouble with the furnace not igniting. I wonder if this was a problem with the sail switch though since the battery was reading 12.6v and above. Now it's igniting. Intermittent sail switch problems? Anyway, just wonder about an expert opinion on Walmart "deep cycle" batteries. Thanks, Michael.

So, dumping motor oil in the cotton wicking didn't last too long. It began to squeal again when the motor was cold and then would quiet down as it warmed up. I was feeling a little fussy about it so I took the furnace apart again and could see that a lot of the oil had dispersed. So this time I smeared a some grease in there...which was a big mistake. No more squealing, but it smelled horrible, like a mechanics shop caught on fire. It got too hot in there for the grease that I was using, I guess. Also, upon further research, the oillite bearings that are used in these blower motors really are designed to work w/...well...oil. 30 or 40wt is what I understand. Again, I took the motor apart and diligently cleaned out any remnants of grease w/ solvent. This time I heated up some 40wt oil in a little pan and submerged the bushings for about ten minutes. The oil was warm but not so hot as to smoke. There were bubbles coming up through the cotton wicking. Now? No squealing. even on a recent trip through Wyoming w/ bitter cold nights. The smell of the burnt grease is mostly gone. I wonder if the bushings got a little impregnated with the grease.

Ok, I did it! The mattress was dry in the a.m. When I put my hand between the wall and the bed and rolled around, I could feel a movement of air. I cut up a bunch of blocks of wood for "stilts" instead of framing to increase airflow. I know I could've bought some Hypervent but this was more fun. We'll see how it holds up. The lattice was half price and the wood 70% off at Home Depots (imperfects)-$25

...ok, I wonder about this for a workable solution. Home Depot sells a sheet of plastic lattice that I can elevate up on some slats/blocks. I can level our bed and get a layer of air under us at the same time.

Thanks, that's helpful. I wonder what a cheaper substitute would be? It looks like the material that is used on floor polishers. It would be nice if I could repurpose some carpet or, even better, some Astro turf....

OK, I figured out the problem. Someone here had posted 22reperformance.com as a useful resource. I called and talked to Jerry, who was very informative. He said it is called an EGR cooler plate. He sells the plate and gasket for about $20. But you have to pull the engine to get to it. He said that he still has scars from the one time that he tried to replace the gasket w/o pulling the engine. So, I ordered it to have it on hand in case something else comes up that could warrant pulling the engine.

Since the weather has turned colder we have noticed A Lot of moisture accumulating on the underside of our 5 in. open-cell foam in the morning. My wife, child and I have been parked out in front of my sister-in-law's house in Salt Lake City for a few weeks while visiting family. We plug in w/ an electric heater pointed up towards the cab over bed and stay comfortably warm under the covers. Last summer I cut out pieces of 1" insulation and "accordion" or "lattice" -taped them together so that the foam could be easily folded up for installation/removal. This also served the purpose of leveling, due to the fact that there is a 1" thick (foam/wood sandwich board thing) covering the hole to the cab area and protruding into the sleepers back. So. Now we have (I think) two layers of insulation plus a five inch foam and a little bit of metal separating us from the freezing temperatures below us. I don't understand why we would still be getting condensation forming between our mattress and the shiny silver 1" insulation board. I realize that our bodies give off moisture and that the 1" insulation will be a cooler temp...but I wonder what else we can do?? Each morning I prop up the mattress to allow for evaporation and remove the mattress occasionally to thoroughly dry it out in the sun. I wonder if this is standard fair for RV sleeping in cold weather? Or a peculiarity of my set up?

Thanks, I will try out some of the salvage yards in this area. The one on eBay looks closer to the configuration than the other ones that I have seen.

Does anybody have an extra stearing column cover w/ the gear indicator on top? The only ones I've seen are w/o the indicator and a slightly different shape. Also, I haven't seen a tan one yet, which I would prefer. I don't know why the previous owner destroyed the one that was on there but it sat in pieces under the seat when we bought our 87 Escaper last February. In our searching for a camper we saw other toyotas with missing covers also. It makes me curious if there is any reason that they would tend to be missing... Or just happenstance.

In the end I opted for servicing the blower motor that we had already. I was curious about what it looked like in there. And since we are currently in Montana, I wanted to get the heater going sooner rather than later. The bushings for the motor are round on the outside like a ball and fit into a socket. There appeared to be some sort of medium for retaining lube; fiberglass or something around the ball/socket. I just cleaned up the shaft, filed off some burrs and dumped a capful of motor oil into the mesh. Now it spins quietly and w/ much less effort. If I had some oil around that had more sticktuitiveness I would've liked to have used it. We'll see how long this lasts.

We recently found an exhaust leak on the back of the engine (22re) in our 1987 Escaper. It looks like the gasket needs replacing where the (EGR cross-over tube?) first comes out of the engine. There isn't a whole lot of room to work with back there in between the firewall and the engine. Has anyone replaced those gaskets before? Got any tips? thanks.

Just wondering... is it possible to jumpstart the engine from the house battery at the multi-battery isolator?

Could some one tell me what model # this furnace is? The label is too worn for me to read. I want to do something about the squealy motor...maybe look into getting something with real bearings. I saw the post here about the bm4350,etc. 12v motors and the possibility of them being an improvement over the oillite bearing motors. Has anyone tried them with satisfactory results? Got any part #s?

All guped up and drying. I plan to put at least one more coat on. I drilled holes along the cracks like shoelace holes to give some anchorage to the slurry.

I learned from another posting about sealing cracks in abs plastic with acetone and abs shavings and was able to salvage the black water tank. I plan to try that again with the three sizable cracks on this grey water tank. A friend suggested using a piece of fiberglass house screen as reinforcement in the abs/acetone slurry. Any comments, council, warnings?

Thanks for all the helpful resources. I value being able to partake in all the experience that this site represents. You all obviously invest a lot of time in answering people's questions. Quite a service!