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I recently purchased an 86 dolphin. We are renovating it currently. Our model has the two club chairs and small table in lieu of a dinette. Has anyone done this before? Any reason not too? To me a dinette seems more practice than the club chairs. Here is a picture of what I'm dealing with lol. I have both the chairs and the base box out now. Everything is currently stripped to the plywood. Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

I'm thinking about moving from Wisconsin to Maryland, and taking my 1984 Toyota dolphin with me. Is anyone familiar with the inspections process in Maryland for RVs? Do RVs even get inspected there? If so, what does it take, and possibly more imporantly, how much might it cost, to bring a 1984 vehcile up to modern standards for emissions and such?

Pardon my ignorance and thanks for any and all help. I have an '85 Sea Breeze and am wondering if I can run my outlets off of my coach battery? It works when plugged in to 110 but hoping there is a switch somewhere to allow the 12 volt to run the outlets. Also, my coach battery, while old, worked well then weakened and lost all power. I plugged my RV in (supposedly charges both engine and coach batteries) and left it for a few days (I have done this before and thought it was appropriate). Nada. I hooked it up to a battery charger and later realized it was almost completely dry and of course would not hold a charge. It seems by leaving it hooked up to 110 I may have boiled the water out of the battery. I read online that sometimes an RV's charger can take batteries to 13.4 volts which will do this to a battery. Is that bunk? Or should I not charge my coach (and engine) battery by plugging my rv into 110? Again, Thanks for any help. Bassnwhaler

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I just got our first RV / Motorhome - 1986 Dolphin. The engine is in good shape and just needed a tune-up, hoses and belts replaced and the fuel filler line. The hoses and line will be done early June and I already did the tune-up. It needs new tires and found some 185/R14 tires for about $600 (for all six) online and found a place to mount and balance them for $15 / tire. The inside is a little rough, I think it must have had a leak at some point and the cabover and rear have had some surgery done. As far as the inside, they did a horrible job re-paneling the walls. the carpet was hideous and they only appliances that were working were the burners and the fridge off of AC (or so we were told). The water heater is there, but I'm not going to try and hook it up again. It's set for bypass and the hot water lines are cut.. since the shower is gone I don't think we'd use hot water anyway. I started checking out the appliances and after confirming that the fridge works on AC, I totally blew it out with some compressed air and was able to get it working off of LP as well. The guy said the furnace never worked (they only owned it 2 years) and wasn't even hooked up. I got all the manuals online and started checking it out and it LOOKED like it was OK, just didn't have the thermostat hooked up.. which was disconnected and just laying in one of the upper cabinets. I figured out where to hook that up and fired it up (with LP off).. the fan came right on.. good sign. I turned the propane on, it tried three times to light and didn't. I turned it off and back on again and it lit on the first try and within a couple of minutes we had nice hot air coming out! All four burners and the oven work.. don't imagine we'll ever use the oven though. The electrical outlets work off of AC and the DC lights seem to work fine as well. Toilet is there and works, but rear sink and shower are gone.. there's a closet where the shower used to be so I built some shelves in there. So far we've replaced the floor, made covers for all the cushions, added shelves, fixed drawers, made some window coverings, got the furnace working, got fridge working on AC and hung a toilet paper holder (saved best for last). We have a few more things to do before we take it out, mainly the hoses and tires and we plan on taking it out for Father's Day weekend. Over the winter I'm going to gut it and replace all the walls and ceiling, as well as build some additional cabinets. I've created a site if anyone is interested in looking at / tracking the progress: http://86dolphin.blogspot.com I have some before and progress pictures and I'm trying to update it at least every other day. I'm on the Yahoo Toyota-campers group, but just signed up for this site as well and it looks great! Thanks.

Hi , I just purchased a 1987 Toyota Dolphin with a Chevy Camaro v8 engine in it. It has 30, 000 miles on it. I know * nothing* about engines other than what this guy told me..so I am asking here to see if anyone has thoughts or advice about this. He said I could drive it around a few days and if I didnt like it..could return it. I didnt want to turn it down as it seemed like a great deal that i should snatch up..so I went for it. Can anyone tell me about this engine and weather this sounds like a good swap for the original Toyota 22 ?

I just purchased a 1985 Toyota Dolphin, and have a few projects I want to work on (well, many projects, but a few in the near future). Based on other's experience, what is the best way to run wires though the body of the coach? I want to install a backup camera on it, as well as a solar panel setup, I want to add a Tachometer, the one guide I found said there should be a green wire attached to one of the green cylinders near the corner of the drivers side of the front windshield, under the hood. I found two cylinders, but no unused wires.

I just purchased a 1985 Toyota dolphin, and I want to make sure it doesn't leak. The skylight over the bathroom, and the one over the ?bunk? both have damage and I would like the replace them. The bathroom vent looks like your standard RV vent, but the bunk one does not. Does anyone have any recommendations on finding a replacement vent for the one over the bunk? While I'm at it, Does anyone have suggestions on products to seal the roof with? Is it best to clean the roof and apply some sort of rubberized coating over the top of the aluminum?

After a complete successful rebuild of the entire passenger side of my baby summer/fall 2014 the northeast had a SERIOUS amount of snow (like over 10 feet in 4 weeks) well, I live in San Francisco and the motorhome is stored at my mother's in Connecticut - do the math. Came back east to go up to New Hampshire and rebuild the interior and found the lyrics to The Grateful Dead's 'Brown Eyed Women' ringing in my head as I viewed my poor Dolphin : "Snowed so hard that the roof caved in." https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s6zbz557naukc3f/AABreFk9-ckj_NoiGdNuZOMya?dl=0 I am fully not kidding one bit when i tell you that I literally called the local dump and asked if and how they would take my R.V. off my hands...THEN just on a whim I went on Craigslist for the Hartford Connecticut area, typed in R.V. repair or something, and found this AMAZING DUDE that comes to you with all tools needed for around $30 an hour in his awesome little redone sweet 1978 motorhome and does R.V. REPAIR. Together we jammed it out in like 3 or 4 days. Very much easier to write about it and read about it, but basically we peeled back the aluminum top like a sardine can. Assess the wood on the top of each side's wall. I had just completely rebuilt the passenger side wall and thank God the driver side wall was still in decent shape. Making sure to create and restore the convex shape of the roof,we used one of the original pre-shaped cross-sections as a template and replicated it using about 8 to a dozen 7 Foot pine wood 1 x 2 boards. We matched or improved upon the construction around the middle vent and the forward vent. We put quarter inch plywood on top of the cross sections- and then did my best with the ripped aluminum -banging it out tucking back in the creases etc. Stapled it down and replaced the moldings with a set of new screws. Make sure to have a pad of paper masking tape anything you can do to write down the routing of the wiring and label the wiring as you will have to drill holes in these cross-sections 2 route the wires. EPMD self leveling sealant by dicor over the Staples and the cracks and the holes and the seams.

1985 Toyota Dolphin Motorhome. Owned since 1998 . Totaled by an F150 (right rear) fall of 2005. Re-man engine in 2007. Collision with a MOOSE June 15,2008 (right front) Time and pressure led to bowing and opening up a good bit. BEFORE : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v0psst7xu30l7dw/AAAD2CG8PIJpNRIXcLxtNOm0a?dl=0

Hi everyone, I've spent around 10-15 hours on this forums and others reading about toyota motorhomes and decided they were the best choice (gaz, realiblity and price) wise. Fast answers would be great since I'm meeting the guy again the 24. They're pretty rare in quebec, canada. Today I've found one, really well maintened with a nice guy who loved it. He has in his garage the Upgraded axle (true 1 ton) 6 nuts. He is asking 4000$ cad for the rv (93000 miles) standard all in working order exept the water heater. I just want to make sure that the axle it has right now is the dangerous one ( see the photo in black) , if so I will try to discuss with the guy and find a deal, I don't want to kill my girlfriend and I if it snaps off. (He never overloded it and always checked and greased the bearing, but what about the others owners, I don't want to take any chances. Do national rv still honor their warranty? Two main questions: 1. If we change the rear axle for the safe one, are the 5 nuts in the front safe enouph ( I don't plan to overload and I will will check the bearing for any loose, grease them 1-2 time during long trips, etc). Are they hard to change in the front? 2. Any guides, info out there to help us change the rear axle? Around how many hours? He thinks he have everything we need exept a few bolts that we should be able to get from toyoto (hopefully). I'm going to meet to guy again on the 24 and depending of what kind of deal we have, buying it on the 25 if I can/or we can do the upgrade. Thanks a lot for the input and I'm looking forward to be lucky enouph to drive this jewel ( we'll do 10 000 -15 000 km in 2 months ) this summer so we want something safe. Cheers! -Emmanuel

Greetings All, I am a total noob. I just purchased my very first motorhome, a 1983 Dolphin with the 22R truck. The floorplan has the door, stove, and bathroom in the rear. Any help I could get with any aspect of the thing would be greatly appreciated. I'm such a noob, I don't even know how to drive the thing yet (its manual), so that is my first step. I am also going to be cleaning it up and putting in new window coverings and possibly wood veneer floors in the meantime. The bad: There are some old water stains around the roof The gas gauge doesn't work The good: It runs! Only 38,000 miles (supposedly) All of the appliances work (supposedly) I have very little clue about how all of the various components of the motorhome work, so I am researching them, but if anyone has any basic tips (e.g., how to hook up to electricity, water, etc. and pump waste) I would be ever so grateful! Once I can drive the thing, my plan is to take it to the local RV mechanic and have them look it over to see what it needs. I can do some engine work on my own, but given that it seems to run fine and that I just bought it, I am going to have a professional address any immediate or major needs and give it new fluids, etc. So, anyway, if anyone has experience with this year and model and wouldn't mind holding my hand a bit through this initial phase, that would be fantastic. Either way, I am very glad for this fantastic forum and all of the great info/people in. Cheers!

This is a Renogy 100 watt kit. Under $200. I'm quite happy with the results, though I had to do some things to make it work better as a portable system. The main problem was that the wires from the battery and the solar panel had to be screwed into the controller. This would be fine for a nonportable setup but since I wanted to use it as a portable, it was too much work. It took too long and it was obvious that I would eventually strip the head slots on the set screws rendering the controller useless. Now the solar panel rides in the cab bed and it only takes about 5 minutes to get it working. The wires from the panel came with disconnects so I screwed them tightly into the controller and then squirted a bead of epoxy around each wire where they entered the controller. These wires are very stiff and would eventually work loose with movement without some serious stress relief. Hopefully they're attached permanently now. Then for the battery. I'd like to thank the person on this forum who pointed me to the needed quick disconnect. That's the little grey box in the picture. Actually I think I bought one size too big. But better too big than too small. For that I had to cut the battery wires and torch solder four connectors onto the wire ends. These connectors come with the the quick disconnect and snap into the gray box to provide good contact. If you do it right it is henceforth impossible to connect the battery with the wrong polarity. After soldering I snapped on the two halves of the gray plastic connectors. Then I tightened and epoxied the two short pieces of wire into the controller, making sure polarity was correct. After that it was simple to attach the the long wires onto the coach battery, again triple checking polarity. Now I just snap the disconnect together and I'm juiced. You have to connect the battery first with this solar controller. Then the panel or else it gets all confused. In the picture I have the controller hanging on the battery door with velcro tabs. I also have velcro on the back of the solar panel and that's where the controller rides when not being used. They give you a lot of wire with this kit and I can lean the panel anywhere around the Dolphin to get the best sun. I haven't had to deal with high winds yet. I might have to lay it flat on the ground for that. So this solved my main problem. Which is that I can't plug in where I park at home. I was lugging a generator up there and running it for a few hours. Now 3 or 4 hours of sun and I'm fully charged. The refrigerator is long gone out of my Dolphin and all I have is one of those 12 volt TE coolers. I've found that with the solar and a couple jugs of frozen water, I can boondock all weekend and everything is still cold. If I unplug the cooler at night. Those TE 12 volt coolers are better than an ice chest but the problem is that they run constantly. I hope to be able to afford a regular 12 volt refrigerator by next year. I've heard that the 12v. refrigerators actually use much less battery than the coolers because they shut themselves off. I know that a propane refrigerator is the best way to go but like I said that's long gone. The vents are boarded up, I'd need a new propane line. Maybe in the distant future. Too many other things to fix first. So this old man is happy with his first solar project. It's like magic to me.

So I got my dolphin a month ago and slowly working on repairs needed to get it in liveable shape. I would love any help/ input on things many of you might have dealt with already. First up...

I have a 1990 Dolphin with a fridge (Dometic RM 2401) that is not working. I plugged it in to electric while the RV was on power and it "ran" but did not get cold. Also lit the propane and ran with that on max cold and it did not get cold. After running a bit I opened the door to the fridge and could smell ammonia. I mentioned this and was told that any ammonia smell means the unit is dead. After this I was told: I am going to give this a try as either way the fridge needs to come out as I have an AC dorm style fridge I plan to put in there and use with an inverter. I am wondering if anyone has advice on the easiest/best way to remove the unit. I am particularly concerned about the gas line. My plan was to turn off the propane at the tank and then unhook the fridge, but I am not sure the proper way to cap the pipe or hose that runs to the fridge if there is no valve there. Thanks!

Having a hard time figuring out if the rear axle on this 78 Dolphin is safe. It's a 5 lug single axle. Guy wants to trade it for my slightly larger 85 Dolphin with the upgraded dualies. If this one is good to go, I'd rather have the smaller rig with the single tires on the rear. Seems to have better clearance and would be easier to lift a bit for travels in Baja. Thoughts?

I have just purchased an 86 dolphin and it needs major rebuild I have not been able to find the floor plan for this particular model it has a lot of water damage, possibly fire damage? due to past electrical problems. Looks like old owner tried to re-wire certain parts, I feel like the rv is missing a couple things My 86 Dolphin is an Efi with the table in the very back, as soon as you enter on the side you immediately hit the bathroom and on the sides are the sink and other side is the oven If anyone can help much appreciated! ive uploaded some pictures

Hello Folks, I'm new to the RV world. I just bought an 1983 Dolphin RV from a neighbor. I flushed all the fluids, new sparkplugs, and wires. I tried to call the manafacture which apparentely is out of buisness for hope of getting ahold of the manual. Does anybody know where I could get a chilton-type manual for this beast? I noticed under the hood that there are two batteries. Does the battery that doesn't run the engine; run the refridgerator, auxillary air conditioner and water pumps? What do the different color tanks signify? How would I test if all the water pumps work? Where is a good place to find parts? i.e. skylights, appliances, roof racks, ladders, new air conditioning cover Thanks in advance Anson

Renovating my 82 Dolphin this summer and could use some advice on how to repair the rot in the cab over portion. ive rebuild the entry step and re welded the aluminum door frame. took out black water tank for new straps and all new fittings/ grommets. It all looks like really simple to repair but leme know what to look out for ! and what to replace wile your tearing it apart and have things exposed. mods or upgrades !

While I was eating my pop corn with my fine Jamaican rum, I was thinking about making my winni leak proof. I think have over a dozen marker lights in the front and rear of the camper (I have a 90 winni). I am thinking of plugging up the all the lights and keep just the min required by DOT. So what can do here? just 1 at each corner?

Hello everyone, First post ever, so I'll introduce myself. I'm 33-years-old, single guy, a hopeful writer who pays the bills as a website/app designer, able to work anywhere with Internet. Just arrived back in the States from a couple years abroad, the last year living in Goa, India. While in India I learned the joy of living simply--cold showers, no furniture, power cuts--and after living the past few years out of a suitcase mostly (longer story), I feel little fear in living longterm (or at least until Life changes my path again) in a small space with few things. The only small fear might be of loneliness, but that's a familiar foe So about a month ago, I wake up on my mattress on the floor in India, and there is the urge to go back "home," to America. And the next thought is of one of my favorite books, Travels with Charlie. So now, here I am, at my parents' in Missouri, looking for a reliable cost-friendly mode of transportation for my next adventure. I know this will likely not be a short drive in the woods. I'm expecting to be on the road for 1-2 years minimum. Possible destinations are anywhere that can be reached, possibly Alaska or Mexico or even South America if I have the nerve. All my research has led me to the mid-80s Dolphin models. I feel reasonable sure, that with patience, I can find one around $2,500-$3,500 in reasonable condition. Reading your helpful forum, I know to look for one with the upgraded 1-ton rear axis. Since I will probably be traveling up and down mountains, possibly the 22RE is better than the 22R? What I'm not so sure about is whether to look for a V6, or the 4-cylinder with better mileage? What is the difference between, say, a 1983 Dolphin and 1989 Dolphin other than engine? The layout with rear kitchen seems well suited to a single traveler, but also intrigued by the rear-dinette layout. Wondering how hard it is to rip all that seating out and make it into a little desk and office space? I'm not expecting much company. Sorry, guys, if my questions are mundane and have been asked a hundred different times. I'll probably ask more in the future ... I'm a novice, and fortunate to have a father who is mechanically inclined. I'm looking forward to working on this with him, especially since we haven't had much time to do things together in the past couple years. Thank you for any help or advice you can offer. Safest travels! Tumbleweed Joe

I have a 17ft 1979 toyota dolphin. Code named "Mr Jones". A little back story to start things off. I am 25 and the fourth generation to own this camper. It was my great grandfather the original Mr Jones, who bought it new. Each male in my family has owned it since. So it has great sentimental value. I myself have called it home several times in my life. Unfortunately it has come to a point where Mr Jones needs to be retired. The dry rot is terrible, most of the appliances don't work. However...the pickup is in running shape, it just needs a new clutch kit. All the men in my family appreciate the value of hard work. As the truck can still be of use the surviving members of my family believe stripping the coach is the best course of action. Even so, my father burst into tears the first time I suggested it. So keeping in mind that this truck is as much of a member of my family as it is a tool, I'm looking for opinions and tips on how to best strip the camper away with the most respect I can. As an add in. Tips on how to seal the cab once the camper is gone would be extremely helpful.

Rollin with Bert ... Movie San Carlos coast .. Mexico

This is the 1st Toyota in about 4 months since I bought mine. http://albuquerque.craigslist.org/rvs/4436193879.html Dana

We will be installing 3 100W solar panels on the roof of our new 86 Dolphin. Panels are 47"x21". Each panel comes with 4 brackets and each bracket has 2 holes. It means drilling 24 holes if I go simple way. Seems kind of a lot. Any alternatives? Maybe I could get two aluminum rails and install them parallel with just 4 holes in total. Then mount the panels on two rails. How do you find the best place to drill in the roof? The top layer of the Dolphin roof is aluminum, or am I wrong? Maybe somebody can advice what is the sandwich of the roof? Is it wooden beams-plywood-aluminum? Thanks a lot for any advice.