jayemright Posted May 20, 2008 Share Posted May 20, 2008 Greetings! My partner and I just purchased a 1985 Sunrader in Detroit Michigan. We live in New Brunswick, Canada. We flew to Detroit from Portland,Me, picked up the camper at my parent's house ( I am originally from there) visited and took of for the 20 hr trip to New Brunswick. The camper runs great. I did run into a few issues and wondered if you can help me with them. 1. I damn near blew up a gas station the first time I filled it up. I was fueling away when suddenly I heard gas flowing on to the pavement. Scared the crap out of me. Would a rusted tank be the most likely cause? 2. A bit more surface rust on the frame than I would like. How much surface rust is too much? 3. The fellow I bought it from claimed that the appliances all worked but there was not any propane in the tank. The tank is a bit rusty. Anything I should do before I try the furnace, stove, etc? 4. The ehaust piping is new (still silver) but it broke behind the converter which is quite old. Can I just get a generic converter 5. It is an automatic. I could hear it shift 3 times, so I assume it was kicking into overdrive. The button doesn't seem to make any difference. Could this be a fuse or something? To get it to shift down I just floored it, and that got it to kick down. 6. Overall we just love the vehicle. Got pretty good mileage, but it was hard to tell just how good because of the gas issue. BTW-It only has 44K on it and had a new Trans put in about 3 yrs, and 4k miles ago. 22re engine. Anyway, 1200 miles later, we're home and looking forward to adventures with our Sunrader. Any and all advice would be welcome and greatly appreciated All the Best, James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyonthespot Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 welcome to the forum! and congrats on the 'rader wonder why it needed a trans so early? not that that would scare me off... my 83 dolphin had a 3 inch binder full of maintenance records... mine has had 2 or 3 clutches, timing chain... i just hope i dont have to spend all that much keeping mine running... but good luck... you can already tell how much fun these things are... My first time out, I had several strangers stop me to tell me what a neat little camper I have... POST SOME PICTURES! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motoyhomme Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 James You probably have a leaking fill hose connection. Over time some of the fill hoses shrink and pull back from the fuel tank inlet. You're OK as long as the fuel is below the level of the fuel inlet. When full, fuel will spill out. You may need to either replace the fill hose, vent hose, or reclamp at the tank. If you have the optional Sunrader 26 gallon tank you may have a faulty gasket on top the tank where the sending unit enters the tank. Scan down the main forum page and go the Fuel Tanks Forum. This problem is covered in detail. The Sunrader optional tank is covered by sitztoy. Surface rust on the frame shouldn't be a problem, but you may want to crawl under there and check areas where road salt could collect causing rust through. Fill your propane tank and turn it on and check for leaking gas inside and outside of the camper. Use your nose and some liquid spray gas leak detector and no flames. Turn on one appliance at a time and try to light it. It may take a while because of the air in the lines. If it lights, turn it off and go to the next. Always be alert for gas odors. Generic catalytic converters can be installed and may be available from auto parts dealers. I ordered one from JC Whitney for a car once and it probably worked, at least it filled the gap. My Sunrader had it's entire exhaust system replaced by the previous owner including installing a generic converter. I have the 4 speed manual trans so can't help with the auto. Allen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayemright Posted May 21, 2008 Author Share Posted May 21, 2008 Thank you very much. I had a mechanic look at the tank today and he said there didn't seem to be any corrosion on the tank, so I think that might be it. I will look at the remedies and see where to take it from there, or just refrain from filling it up all the way. I got good at that on my 1200 mile trip from Michigan to New Brunswick. Thanks for the advice on the propane as well. I will follow your steps very carefully. The mechanic is going to try to use some pipe to patch into the existing converter. We'll see how that goes. He wasn't too concerned about the frame rust. Thanks again for the advice. I see that you have a Sunrader as well. I really like the fiberglass. I used to have a homemade version of a Scamp trailer. I used to think "If I could just mount this on a 4 cyl truck, that would be ideal" Well, lo and behold....... Have a good one James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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