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Hi Darlene Owners manuals tend to be somewhat generic mostly in the area of appliances. In other words a lot of coach builders use the same stoves, refrigerators, water heaters etc.. The actual coach owners manuals may cover locations for items such as fuse panels, drain valves and basic coach care. Most if not all can be found by searching the INTERNET or asking in the forums for info on specific appliances. The truck part of the RV is a Toyota pickup of that year. Chilton's is a good manual. If you can get your hands on a factory repair manual for that year even better. Any how there are some manuals in the gallery section. You might find some covering your years appliances. Greg

Hi Lee There is a device that senses altitude and cuts out the overdrive. Not exactly sure where its at. Later today I will pull out the service manual and give you a better description. So just so you know its not a defect, its a default. Greg

I think you have a few options. Oil press, trans temp etc can be put in a door pillar gauge such as this one Pillar Gauge Pod As for better in dash instrumentation I would call a few wrecking yards and see if I could find an instrument cluster with the tach. There might even be a digital cluster available. I know that my owners manual for my 86 shows a digital cluster with tach. Probably hard to find though. Should be a direct replacement, just plug and play. Of course your other option for a tach is an after market. They work just as well if you are willing to have some of your instrument cluster blocked from view. For trans temp gauge I reccomend getting a digital one. Much easier to read than the analog models. You will have to get all the parts together your self as there is no real kit. A brass tee with barbed fittings for your hose. One thing to be careful of is to make sure the sensor does not protrude into the oil stream and impede the flow. Any how JcWhittney has some good gauges for that and at a reasonable price. All the fittings should be available at a hardware or auto parts store. I have one of the three gauge door pillar pods. I have very little room to mount gauges under the dash. The pillar mount is easy to see and safer to look at. Greg

Hello Fellow Toyota Motor Home Owners! I just came in to ownership of a 1981 "Wanderlust" Toyota Motor Home, 20R 4 cylinder engine, 4 speed transmission, dual rear axles, tag axle with electric brakes. Only 30,000 miles! Floor plan has bathroom directly behind driver's seat, followed by the refrigerator, with the dinette bringing up the rear, and the kitchen on the passengers's side. I would appreciate any direction in getting documentation for this baby, including an owner's/user's manual, etc. Thanks! Paul (haggardoldman)

I have a sunrader owners manual posted in the gallery it can be found here Sunrader Owners Manual. If you check it out you will see that many things like locations of valves just are not in the manual. It tends to cover general operations and safety. You may be able to find a manual for the truck chassis for that year thru ebay or even a chiltons repair manual but as far as finding something specific for the rv coach that may be very hard to find. I will say if you do, and you are willing, I would very much like to be able to post a reproduction here. What I found with my 86 Sunrader is that I had ti discover many things myself. I crawled underneath and saw a pipe with a cap on it, but had no idea what it was. Sometime later I pulled (removed the screws) plywood cover under the dining area passenger seat and found a valve that was hooked into the fresh water tank. It was the pipe that I saw underneath that was capped off. It was actually a drain to drain the tank. So long story short is I have all the original documentation, even the bill of sales for my rig. There is a big portion of stuff that just has to be discovered. No documentation, no manual etc. I found valves on water lines inside a compartment that probably turns off the water supply to the shower but I have not tested it, no mention of this valve in the owners manual. So I hate to say it but much of it is left to discovery. Greg

Hi Greg! Nice looking unit! The previous owner has several "component" manuals that were included with the unit; What I am looking for is a general "owners manual" like the binder that came with our 1985 Suncrest E-350 Ford based motor home (another story for another day) that describes the general systems and their operations, locations of valves and switches, etc. It does not have to be original - a clean photocopy will do. I am not even sure of the name of the unit; "Wanderlust" is what is on the spare tire cover - the closest I have seen in pictures is a model named "Heritage" any direction on identifying my unit is appreciated. Thanx! Paul

Hi Paul and welcome to the group here. There is some documentation such as refrigerator heater etc type manuals in the files section of the gallery. You may find that a manual even for a different year or model appliance will still give you the information. Certain appliance models were used by many coach builders for several years. Greg

thanks for the information . i will check out the charging system on the onboard charger. It would be nice if i had a manual so i could do it myself. LOu

I have been mulling the purchase of a Toyota based motor home. I found a 1984 Huntsman for what seems like a reasonable price. From consulting this forum I learned of the back axle issue of which I was not previously aware. Good information! I wondered what other issues I should be aware of with a Toyota based RV? It is a 4 cylinder model (22r?) with a 4 speed manual trans, around 90,000 miles. I am pretty well versed on the RV side of things having owned several but I am not so well aquainted with any eccentricities of Toyotas (if any). Any help would be appreciated.

There is a relay. The bad news is I have looked both thru my service manual, owners manual and chiltons and can not find where it is located. There is also a temp sensor for the transmission. The transmission is supposed to be 122 degrees plus or overdrive will not engauge. Possible the temp sensor is bad. Under the hood on the passenger side there is a fuse box along with some relays. I know some of the relays are for the headlights but maybe its there.

Just went thru the Toyota manual for my 86 Dolphin and came up with the following for the 22RE engine with Auto trans and overdrive. 116 Horses at 4800 RPM 140 lbs torque at 2800 RPM Maximum speed in 2nd gear 68 MPH Maximum speed in 1st gear 44 MPH . I would think 4800rpm is a bit much and 2800 not enough. Obviously you would have to meet or exceed 2800 for max torque and any more would help on the horses. Without a tachometer, it seems to me that 3500 would be a good speed for the engine to run which may put you at about 50 or 55 mph. . Has anyone tried to come up with details on this while driving? Just curious. Jerry

I have to agree with Jerry. The truck manuals are all the same and the coach manuals basically just cover safety issues and care. There are many manuals available for things like refrigerators, stoves, water heaters etc. So don't sweat it about not having a manual specifically for your coach. Some coach builders did include a wiring diagram though. Greg

Hi James: I myself just got a 86 Dolphin with ALL the documents included. Unless I am mistaken, the only vechicle information for repairs, etc would come from a Toyota truck repair manual, Which I just got for $9 total from E-Bay. You should be able to find an original ownere manual for another $5 or so. As for info regarding the vents, doors, air conditioning, heater, etc, if you dont have the operating instructions for each individual appliance I very much doubt if you would ever be able to locate them. Jerry

Get a volt meter and verify that the pump is getting voltage when the key is on. I can not tell which wire that would be but there should be two sets, one for the gauge and one for the pump. Unplug one and see if the gauge still works. If the gauge still works you got the right wires. If you end up with 12 volts dc at the connection then maybe the pump is bad but maybe not. The next step would be to verify that the pump is not pumping fuel. Could be something down the line stopping the fuel flow. Maybe disconnect the line and run it into a bucket, etc.. I do not know if there is a secondary pump, maybe someone else can answer that. There is no easy way to replace the pump. Gas weighs almost the same as water, 8 pounds to the gallon. Its suggested to drain the tank then drop it with a floor jack. The fuel pump is installed thru the top of the tank. A panel unbolts and the entire assembly pulls out. Remember though, gas itself is not flammable, its the fumes that ignite. Never use light bulb type drop lights when working with gas systems. A droped light and broken bulb when on can blow you up. Any how just my suggestion to verify power and pressure before pulling it out. Can be many reasons for no power. A chiltons manual with a wireing diagram. Its more complex than just getting power from the ignition switch. Have you verified that the fuel injection system has no problems? Greg

My two cents worth. If you can afford it look for something with at least a 22r fuel injected engine. Also find a floor plan you really like. We have a Sunrader, the pros are its all molded fiberglass with few places for leaks. Its aerodynamic in the front so maybe easier to drive because of that. Ours has a rear dinette with a great view out the back. Really easy to drive and park. Only drove a 21 footer once and it was ok but I could feel the side wind alot more. The cons, it took awhile for my wife and I to get a system down for moving around inside at the same time. The bathroom on our 18 footer is really small, no sink in there. The larger units benifit having a larger bathroom. Same for storage space, not much. Storage space can have an evil side though, just too much you don;t want to do with out and next thing you know the rig is over weight. I say stay away from the aluminum sideing rigs. Many of the newer rigs even though they look like aluminum its actually fiberglass. One of your main concerns is water damage. Pull the cusions, look in cabnits etc for water signs. Rot is one of the hardest to fix. The mechanical aspect of them is all easy compared to rot. P.S. Welcome, glad the manual entry worked. Greg

I can not see why not. Check with Toyota on the 1 ton Prop valve. Have no idea how much. The only problems I could see is mounting holes and maybe the size of the brake lines. Which wheels are locking up? The way the valve works is when you break the front of the truck dives down and the rear raises. The rod on the Prop valve moves with the rear axle, as the axle becomes farther away from the truck the valve is supposed to apply more braking power to the front and less to the back. You need to get a chiltons or toyota service manual to find out where its supposed to be adjusted to. From what I have learned mine was upgraded to the 1 ton valve but only because my rear axle has larger brake drums and cylinders for the 15 inch wheels. Hope that helps. Greg

Thanks Greg, I've been in touch with Tika about it. I can't believe it's only about 2 weeks away. We're planning on being there from Saturday morning until Monday morning. The trip went great, we had only put about 500 miles on the Toy prior to heading out so I was a bit worried as to what problems I may run into. Luckily nothing whatsoever went wrong with the Dolphin. I learned a great deal about driving the unit and using it's auto/OD tranny. As I've read, I found the OD of very little use. I'd love to add a tach which would give be a lot more info about what's going on with the engine. I also finally found use for the ECT button, it does actually work and help in hilly terrain, without the tranny never wants to shift to second, or does so way too late. In the really hilly areas I did a lot of manual shifting from 3rd to 2nd, otherwise the tranny would hunt back and forth. I found that I could easily cruise at 45-50 in second, althouh I'd love a tach to see what sort of RPMs I was pulling when running it up to 55 or slightly more prior to shifting to 3rd. We really enjoyed the 16 nights in the RV and have really come to love our floorplan, the L-shaped dinette, barrel chair and couch. With the table stored away we've got tons of room, even with the lower bed made out. Although it made driving a little less enjoyable we found it easiest to just leave the upper bed made up at all times. Our fridge got a little warm the second day out and concerned us a bit, but then we realized that if we weren't careful it didn't make a complete seal at the bottom when closed, once we figured that it worked great. We only used our shower a few nights preferring to use that space for storage and using the much larger campground showers. Being on such a long trip ment we needed to bring quite a bit of clothes, and as I'm sure you're aware our units just don't have a lot of clothing storage. The sites were incredible in the Tetons, Yellowstone, and Montana. We found a wonderful little KOA campground in Montpelliar that we stayed on the way that we'd highly recommend, the one in Red Lodge was nowhere near as nice. All the campgrounds in Yellowstone were wonderful. We found that sightseeing in the Toy was better than we'd anticipated. It really wonderful being able to park in normal sized places everywhere we went, a real plus to our units

MR D You are probably on your trip, hope it is a great one. Catch ya when you get back. The GVWR still makes no sense to me. As I said my truck manual has a 5080 GVWR for a single wheel rear axle and that's what the sticker says on the truck. Its got to be higher for the full floating rear dual wheel axle. Greg

I am really suprised at the weight. I have searched the internet to find what the GVWR is for a 1 ton toyota pickup with no luck. My manual says 5080 lbs. for a 4x4 pickup. Both tags on the door frame say 5080 lbs. So what is the actual GVWR supposed to be with the full floating axle? I will give Toyota a call on tuesday and see what they say. The stickers below reflect stock pickup GVWR I think. It does say 15x6 rims, at 32 psi cold dual. But like I said the manual for a stock 4x4 without duals is 5080. My guess is I am reading it wrong. What is GAWR ?

According to the sticker from Sunrader the GVWR is 5080 pounds. But that is the same as the Toyota sticker. That seems like it would be a stock pickup GVWR. I will find my manual and see. Greg