Do and dont's

[Supurcar]

I have a few questions I thought of that I should know before we leave to California. I was hoping someone would know the answers.

Questions like if the RV is plugged in at an RV park, is it okay to run the engine or will it cause electrical problems, or is it okay to warm the engine up while it is still plugged in to a 30 amp hookup.

If I need chains, do I need to put them on both back tires of the dually, by that I mean do I need 4 chains for the back wheels. (I know these are stupid questions).I am planning on bring one set of chains is why I ask.

This is real bad, but I have to ask. There is two wires coming out from between my over cab windows. The windows that usually have the seal problem above the windshield. I am not sure what the previous owner could have had in mind for these wires. I am thinking maybe he had a box speaker system or something. Any ideas???

By the way my Torpedo came in, and this thing is a gas. I can plug in my VCR (because it also has a tuner) and project the image on anything or anywhere. I found it online for $75.00, and it has a built in speaker. It reminds me of the drive-ins, I could even put it on a park bench and show a movie on the side of the RV if I wanted. For now I use a spring loaded curtain rod across the top rear of the RV and slide a sheet over it for a screen. Not the best picture, but perfect for watching a movie at night while camping.

We are off on Saturday night late and home to reach California by Monday.

[futar]

I just want to comment on the chains. You just need two on the outside. The inside is problematic as they can rub on the axle, break drum and lines. The tensioner can not be easily attached either. I hope that you're talking cable chains. The regular ones can beat the wheel well to death. Definitely get the rubber tensioner that goes across from one side to another. You still have to carefully watch how fast your going. They are not for highway speeds.

By the way, the dual rear wheels (depending on the tire tread of course) have an amazing amount of traction by themselves. Don't rushing to install the chains unless you really need them.

[bufbooth]

Not sure about running the engine while plugged in, it all depends on

your charging system and the condition it is in.

How about instead of using your engine/cab heater for heat, take a

small electic heater with you ($15 at Walmart) and use that for heat.

Since you have 30 amp electic, you will have no problem, you do not

have to rely on your propane heat or your engine, which both could

increase the CO2 levels if they are not working properly. Also, if you

go for a $30 heater, you can get one with a thermostat.

Dennis....

[motoyhomme]

Robert,

I keep my Sunrader plugged in to AC power year round to keep my batteries tip-top. I periodically check the water level in both and they never need filling. Whenever I get ready to go somewhere, I start up the engine to let it warm up. While it's warming up, I then unplug the electric cord and do a walk around last minute inspection. I have never had a problem with the engine running and still plugged in to AC power.

Jerry

[Supurcar]

Thanks for the tips guys, we made it to California and it was a nice drive spare a few things.

As we got thru middle Oregon I lost my overdrive. There was no running condition(slipping etc.) but simply would not shift into 4th. This was no problem really as 4th is a funny gear anyway, I will speed up to 70mph in 3rd it would drop to 4th and then it can not hold the speed and slowly drop back to 60mph and drop into 3rd again and then zoom back to 70mph and drop into 4th, and repeat this cycle endlessly until we lost the 4th gear that is.

Well we stayed the night near La Pine Oregon, and resumed travel in the morning. We encounted very strong winds in Shasta area and slowed to about 35mph about half the speed of the winds ha ha, to keep from getting blown into the median. Funny thing on the way down Shasta heading south the 4th gear started to work again. I had checked the fluid the night before and it was just above the hot level line maybe 1/8 inch or so, maybe the shop overfilled it last month or electrical issue. This problem plus loosing the light for my aftermarket fuel gauge is the only issue sofar. about 2 1/2 tanks of gas so far in over 900 miles maybe $200 worth since departure and I still have half a tank now.

Thanks again!

[Shoprat]

Howdy Robert

I seem to recall a post here a while back about the overdrive not working above a certain altitude. Think it was by our fearless leader. If my screen door memory serves me correctly, it was designed by the factory to do that. Lessens engine strain.

Course, if your overdrive went out on the plains, I never made this post...

Gotta protect what's left of my ego...

[Supurcar]

dang, sounds like you hit it on the head if that is true. We where taking off from the Klammath falls area and heading up Mt. Shasta, and 4th was not working, on the way down all of a sudden it went into 4th again. go figure.

[McShank]

My '88 Sunrader 22RE Auto shifts out of overdrive when climbing at about 3700' elevation and kicks back in below 3300'. I put around 2200 miles in the mountains of Colorado last fall, all of it with no od, went over 4 passes of 11000'+ and still got 15.9 mpg. The od kicked back in one hour from my home in the Arizona desert. I had read there is a way to override this feature but once I figured the mileage I decided to leave the Toyota engineering alone. I was impressed with how well this motor chugged over the passes but still daydream about putting in a V6 so I wouldn't hold up traffic behind me so much on sustained grades. But 16 mpg is great and I wonder how much my mileage would change with a V6. My next long trip won't be until next spring so my daydreaming will continue.

[Shoprat]

Thanks for the backup mcshank. I was a little concerned about my memory on this. I will now go back to happily stacking my BBs in the corner.

One----t-t-two--thr--thr--threee...

[Supurcar]

Yes this is correct, it happened again on the way home while going thru Mt. Shasta. We made it home with only some minor issues, fuel gauge (Napa) light bulb burned out, and then when I filled up the tank the gauge went haywire. Pegging between E and F a thousand times a second while the truck was rolling. When I slowed down or found a smooth road it would kinda flicker around the actual reading. Very irritating when driving thru the snow at dusk, but we made it, and always knew how much gas we had or when we needed gas anyway. I think it must have a loose wire somewhere.

getting back to the smooth ride, I had read many places where the tires should be around 50PSI, and since there was no sticker on my door jam from Toyota I did my best to figure what the PSI should be, I had the tires at about 46PSI for most of the trip. But then when I was putting on my seatbelt one morning I noticed a sticker on the side of the cab, and it read 28PSI for the tires. When I spoke to a tire retailer, they said to do what the manufacturer says, not what the tires say. I have attached a photo of the label inside my cab, I lowered my tires to 35PSI at the next gas station, it had a huge effect on the bouncy ride and crashing noise everytime we hit a bump, it was smooth and quiet. Any thoughts on this???

[bufbooth]

The sticker looks good, but you probably do not have the same exact tires

on your rig. I would go by the tires first since they are not original. If the

weight is still correct on your rig, the front weights 2050 pounds and the

rear weights 3700 pounds. You need to figure out the needed psi that your

tires need to support these weights, each brand of tire is probably going to

be different. Also, I would not rely on the posted weights, since your rig

fully loaded probably weight a bit more (+500 pounds?), and I would personally

like to have a few hundred pounds in reserve for the next pot hole or sharp

corner that I might take.

On your tires it should state the weight at max psi. You would need to probably

contact the tire company on what the reduced weight load is at lower pressures.

For example, if you tires stated 1500 load pounds at 50 psi, your load pounds

could be at 1000 at 30psi, which might put you into risk for overheating/over-loading

the tires.

Dennis...

[Supurcar]

Howdy Robert

I seem to recall a post here a while back about the overdrive not working above a certain altitude. Think it was by our fearless leader. If my screen door memory serves me correctly, it was designed by the factory to do that. Lessens engine strain.

Course, if your overdrive went out on the plains, I never made this post...

Gotta protect what's left of my ego...

1987 Sunrader 4cyl 22RE EFI

I should modify this to topic to "should nots and shouldn't haves", let's just say I had a wild ride these last two weeks. We had just returned from California, the next day we recieved some real bad news....the worst kind.

We had to return to California on the Christmas day, so we had just barely finished clean up from the previous trip and had to turn around and go.

First off my fuel gauge stop working on the last trip, so we had to manually calculate our mileage, no problem.

But we had to go thru the mountains again, only this time when we got to the 3500ft. altitude the over drive stopped working again, but a running condition developed as the engine appeared to be chugging a small bit about the time the OD stopped working. The condition quickly went away and we finished our journey to Ca. 5 days later we are on the return trip and get to the higher elevations again, but this time the engine started to chug really bad. if it was a carburator I would have guess the accelorator pump was gone, if we gave it any gas at all if would bog. So here we are after a difficult week, in the middle (or on top of) no where, in a rig that would not pick up speed, you could toe tap the gas and get a minimal thrust. The engine temp seemed fine, the check engine light flashed once or twice but never stayed on. We prayed to make it to a gas station, any gas station. Eventually we did make it to Madras and idled in to a station. I topped off the tank and checked all the vacuum lines under the hood, we also took a break for a while.

I went to start it a while later and it ran fine and I could then rev it up, which puzzled me, it seemed to fix itself after it cooled off, or maybve going thru the warm up cycle changed the fuel ratio setting on the EFI. I can only imagine that maybe the tranny had overheated and boiled a gas line (vapor lock) or an enrichment selenoid froze up when the thing went into high altitude mode. Anyone else have this happen??? about 2.5 hours later we came down below the 3500ft altitude and we got OD back. A few moments later on a hill the OD went out again and we had the engine/transmission chug episode again, but only briefly and it settled down and we made it home only we got in at 3:00am instead of 11:00pm like we should have.

[turtle]

check the fuel filter and also the screen in the line coming into the float bowl.

I've had issues like this before where there was rust in the screen at the fuel inlet and when pressure was dropped (pump stopped engine stopped) the rust would shift and the screen would open up and allow fuel to flow but would clog after driving and the carb bowel would get low and the engine starve for fuel.

Also look at the accelerator pump. Run the engine to get fuel pressure and the carb bowl full of fuel. Remove the air cleaner and work the accelerator to see if you have a good squirt coming from the accelerator pump.

Rebuilding carbs can be done but I have found that it is best to just replace them with an aftermarket Weber as they are much better built units and have less issues than the stock carbs.

You could also have an issue with the distributor advance but this would be a constant issue (would not go away).

[Geysergazers]

I had read many places where the tires should be around 50PSI, and since there was no sticker on my door jam from Toyota I did my best to figure what the PSI should be, I had the tires at about 46PSI for most of the trip. But then when I was putting on my seatbelt one morning I noticed a sticker on the side of the cab, and it read 28PSI for the tires. When I spoke to a tire retailer, they said to do what the manufacturer says, not what the tires say. I have attached a photo of the label inside my cab, I lowered my tires to 35PSI at the next gas station, it had a huge effect on the bouncy ride and crashing noise everytime we hit a bump, it was smooth and quiet. Any thoughts on this???

We run the P195/70R14 tires on our '86 21Ft Dolphin (5950Lb rolling) at 36PSI Back and 30PSI Front. Even tire wear across the tread says this pressure is about right. If I go above 30PSI Front the steering gets too sensitive in wind buffeting.

Lew

[Fupi]

Robert,

Since my new home is a 1986 and has the same power plant as yours, I was thinking as I was returning from just south of Phoenix and heading "up" the hill to where I live in the southeast corner of Arizona; some of the reasons for the lack of power-torque-fuel- keep it from being able to hold onto OD. I think that it just might be the lack of oxygen at higher altitudes.

I have spent a load of time analyzing this perplexing question and I can't help but think that one of the main culprits is the lack of air volume at higher altitudes. I examined my air filter, and it isn't very dirty, so it isn't blocking the flow of fresh air, but the design of the air intake really puzzles me. It comes into the filter almost to the left of the driver's position, and then takes a very circuitous route over the radiator, and turning too many corners before it gets to the throttle body. I am contemplating replacing the factory intake but am not familiar enough with all the alternatives to really make an intelligent choice yet.

Have you thought about this possibility yet, and maybe some of the others might have some suggestions about air intake and altitude?

Tim

Edited December 31, 2007 by Fupi