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| [GMCnet] A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167277] |
Mon, 23 April 2012 12:17  |
GMC_LES
Messages: 569
Registered: October 2009
Location: Montreal
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For some reason I'm having trouble emailing GMCnet. Let's see if the entire message gets through this time.
>
> Well I had a busy weekend. Drove around lake Ontario and touched the lower tip of Lake Huron, and was still able to sleep in my own bed Sunday night!
>
> Saturday:
> I left in the morning to head down to Marcus McGee's shop in Rochester. 6 hours on the road to pick up several parts that I needed and to give Marcus several hours of help to move some of his shop equipment. Marcus has quite a collection of stuff and is an interesting fellow. I enjoyed meeting him and giving a helping hand. Hopefully he is able to find safe storage for his 3 coaches and the plethora of misc GMC stuff he has. If it wasn't such a distance away from home, I would have purchased one of his Transmodes and brought it back with me. Left Marcus' shop Saturday evening & spent another 3 hours driving up through Niagara falls and on to Mississauga Ontario where I stayed overnight in a hotel.
>
> Sunday:
> Woke up early to find a damned flat on my trailer!%&#$!!. Fixed the flat, had breakfast, and then slowly headed up to Owen Sound , pulling into Ray McHugh's place 2.5 hrs later. Ray & I spent a few hours separating the front sub-frame from the main frame and then loading all the parts on my trailer.The frame came from his burnt 78 Eleganza which was apparently rebuilt in the 90s by Clarence Buskirk. Several years ago Ray's coach caught fire in his driveway and burnt down to the floorboards. The fire must have been hot because there were molten pieces of aluminum stuck to the frame in several places. Fortunately (for me) the fire's heat was reflected away from the frame by the floorpan, which oddly didn't burn. Ray later removed all of the flooring and rubble from the frame. Only a few rubber parts suffered heat damage, mostly on the right front suspension, the rest of the rubber components on the frame are still intact and useable. Even the black water tank was undamaged. A
n un-named Aussie purchased the engine and transmission from Ray last year and is presently cleaning them up for re-use.
>
> My trip to Ray's yeilded a complete front subframe with all brakes, steering & suspension, a Caspro front anti-roll bar, & CV Axles, A complete rear sub-frame, main frame rails, crossmembers and bogie frame, rear bogies, Black water tank, A front wheel well liner, as well as a slightly burnt ONAN that still has many good parts. Ray had installed all new brakes, Bilstein shocks, and Applied's 4 bagger with the swing-arm center bracket just prior to the fire. The air bags didn't survive, but most of the shocks appear to have survived. only the dust boots melted away, but the yellow paint is undamaged on 4 of the 6 shocks. The rear end of the frame rails got bent accidently by Ray with his tractor, but are repairable with a bit of work. With a thourough cleaning & inspection, and a bit of paint, most of these parts will make it under my coach in the near future.
>
> Once all of Ray's parts were loaded and secured, I left his farm and headed home. 9 hours later I was pulling in my driveway, and it was just after 11pm!
>
>
> Had I have had more time, I would have made an effort to visit with Albert Branscombe and Norm Bowker, but Sunday was long enough as it was and I needed to get home so i could be at work on Monday.
>
>
> Total trip was roughly 1060 miles (~1700kms) & 19.5hrs on the road, and 6-7 hours of labour.
> Headed from Montreal down under Lake Ontario, then up around the west end of the lake to the bottom of Lake Huron(Owen Sound). From there, back down towards Toronto and east along the topside of Lake Ontario to Montreal.
>
> All I can say is you gotta love a GMC to do what many of us do to keep them alive!!
> I also have to give lots of credit to the many people who tenaciously hang onto the many useable & hard to find parts that ultimately help another GMCer keep their coach alive. Without these people, there would be very few GMCs still running.
>
> Marcus, If you read this, I hope you find the time and energy to save all your GMC spares. Someone will eventually make use of what you have.
>
> Ray, Thanks for saving what many would have declared as scrap metal, your foresight has made the task of rebuilding my GMC easier, as well as supplied me with some spare parts that might some day keep a GMC going.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Les Burt
> Montreal
> '75 Eleganza II 26ft
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Les Burt
Montreal
1975 Eleganza 26ft
A work in Progress
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| Re: [GMCnet] A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167285 is a reply to message #167277] |
Mon, 23 April 2012 13:26  |
mickeysss
Messages: 1476
Registered: January 2012
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how did the fire start please. m. :-)
On Apr 23, 2012, at 10:17 AM, Les Burt wrote:
> For some reason I'm having trouble emailing GMCnet. Let's see if the entire message gets through this time.
>
>
>>
>> Well I had a busy weekend. Drove around lake Ontario and touched the lower tip of Lake Huron, and was still able to sleep in my own bed Sunday night!
>>
>> Saturday:
>> I left in the morning to head down to Marcus McGee's shop in Rochester. 6 hours on the road to pick up several parts that I needed and to give Marcus several hours of help to move some of his shop equipment. Marcus has quite a collection of stuff and is an interesting fellow. I enjoyed meeting him and giving a helping hand. Hopefully he is able to find safe storage for his 3 coaches and the plethora of misc GMC stuff he has. If it wasn't such a distance away from home, I would have purchased one of his Transmodes and brought it back with me. Left Marcus' shop Saturday evening & spent another 3 hours driving up through Niagara falls and on to Mississauga Ontario where I stayed overnight in a hotel.
>>
>> Sunday:
>> Woke up early to find a damned flat on my trailer!%&#$!!. Fixed the flat, had breakfast, and then slowly headed up to Owen Sound , pulling into Ray McHugh's place 2.5 hrs later. Ray & I spent a few hours separating the front sub-frame from the main frame and then loading all the parts on my trailer.The frame came from his burnt 78 Eleganza which was apparently rebuilt in the 90s by Clarence Buskirk. Several years ago Ray's coach caught fire in his driveway and burnt down to the floorboards. The fire must have been hot because there were molten pieces of aluminum stuck to the frame in several places. Fortunately (for me) the fire's heat was reflected away from the frame by the floorpan, which oddly didn't burn. Ray later removed all of the flooring and rubble from the frame. Only a few rubber parts suffered heat damage, mostly on the right front suspension, the rest of the rubber components on the frame are still intact and useable. Even the black water tank was undamaged.
A
> n un-named Aussie purchased the engine and transmission from Ray last year and is presently cleaning them up for re-use.
>>
>> My trip to Ray's yeilded a complete front subframe with all brakes, steering & suspension, a Caspro front anti-roll bar, & CV Axles, A complete rear sub-frame, main frame rails, crossmembers and bogie frame, rear bogies, Black water tank, A front wheel well liner, as well as a slightly burnt ONAN that still has many good parts. Ray had installed all new brakes, Bilstein shocks, and Applied's 4 bagger with the swing-arm center bracket just prior to the fire. The air bags didn't survive, but most of the shocks appear to have survived. only the dust boots melted away, but the yellow paint is undamaged on 4 of the 6 shocks. The rear end of the frame rails got bent accidently by Ray with his tractor, but are repairable with a bit of work. With a thourough cleaning & inspection, and a bit of paint, most of these parts will make it under my coach in the near future.
>>
>> Once all of Ray's parts were loaded and secured, I left his farm and headed home. 9 hours later I was pulling in my driveway, and it was just after 11pm!
>>
>>
>> Had I have had more time, I would have made an effort to visit with Albert Branscombe and Norm Bowker, but Sunday was long enough as it was and I needed to get home so i could be at work on Monday.
>>
>>
>> Total trip was roughly 1060 miles (~1700kms) & 19.5hrs on the road, and 6-7 hours of labour.
>> Headed from Montreal down under Lake Ontario, then up around the west end of the lake to the bottom of Lake Huron(Owen Sound). From there, back down towards Toronto and east along the topside of Lake Ontario to Montreal.
>>
>> All I can say is you gotta love a GMC to do what many of us do to keep them alive!!
>> I also have to give lots of credit to the many people who tenaciously hang onto the many useable & hard to find parts that ultimately help another GMCer keep their coach alive. Without these people, there would be very few GMCs still running.
>>
>> Marcus, If you read this, I hope you find the time and energy to save all your GMC spares. Someone will eventually make use of what you have.
>>
>> Ray, Thanks for saving what many would have declared as scrap metal, your foresight has made the task of rebuilding my GMC easier, as well as supplied me with some spare parts that might some day keep a GMC going.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Les Burt
>> Montreal
>> '75 Eleganza II 26ft
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| Re: [GMCnet] A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167296 is a reply to message #167288] |
Mon, 23 April 2012 15:21 |
GMC_LES
Messages: 569
Registered: October 2009
Location: Montreal
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Ray isn't 100% sure what the cause was. All he knows is that the fire originated in the driver's area as that was where most of the flames where concentrated when he first saw the fire. He told me that he had left the driver's cockpit window open about halfway so it could even have been vandalism. The coach burnt in his driveway and he lives in a fairly rural area so i tend to doubt vandals unless they really had a serious bone to pick. Because the most serious fire damage was in the engine bay and cockpit on the driver's side, I would suspect an electrical issue that started it all. Ray didn't specify if he had driven the coach immediately before the incident and the fire occurred around 1am.
Perhaps others who have talked to Ray have heard more details.
Les Burt
Montreal
On 2012-04-23, at 2:58 PM, Ken Burton <n9cv@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> mickeysss wrote on Mon, 23 April 2012 13:26
>> how did the fire start please. m. :)
>
> That is unknown. There wasn't much left of the coach when I was up there last November.
> --
> Ken Burton - N9KB
> 76 Palm Beach
> Hebron, Indiana
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Les Burt
Montreal
1975 Eleganza 26ft
A work in Progress
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| Re: [GMCnet] A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167297 is a reply to message #167288] |
Mon, 23 April 2012 15:30 |
GMC_LES
Messages: 569
Registered: October 2009
Location: Montreal
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Ken
How much of an examination did you give the frame when you were up there? The fire was hot enough to cook the rubber bushings out of the drivers Suspension arms as well as cook the driver outer cv boot. The upper control arm is cooked enough that the paint is gone and I'm trying to decide if it would still be safe to use. The front frame also got cooked pretty good in the upper suspension arm area but I doubt it would have affected it's integrity to any great degree. If anything was affected, i'd suspect the water from fighting the fire would have quenched the steel.
Comments anyone?
Les Burt
Montreal
On 2012-04-23, at 2:58 PM, Ken Burton <n9cv@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> mickeysss wrote on Mon, 23 April 2012 13:26
>> how did the fire start please. m. :)
>
> That is unknown. There wasn't much left of the coach when I was up there last November.
> --
> Ken Burton - N9KB
> 76 Palm Beach
> Hebron, Indiana
> _______________________________________________
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Les Burt
Montreal
1975 Eleganza 26ft
A work in Progress
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| Re: [GMCnet] A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167308 is a reply to message #167296] |
Mon, 23 April 2012 17:00 |
 |
USAussie
Messages: 15912
Registered: July 2007
Location: Sydney, Australia
Karma: 6
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Les,
I guess I might as well fess up that I'm the USAussie that bought the
engine, trans, and final drive. Ken Burton picked it up for me up in Owen
Sound and then schlepped it to Shawnee too boot! Top bloke that Burton guy!
At any rate Ray told me the same thing vis-à-vis the cause of the fire.
You are correct the engine is now in Houston, disassembled. Unfortunately
water got into the crankcase and cylinders. The crank, cam, and oil pump are
fine, however, there is minor rust damage in a couple of cylinders.
Ray had squirted oil down in the spark plug holes but the cylinders had
rusted. I had a number of chats with Dick Paterson and after Helen and my
tour this summer I will reassemble it. I will take photos and post them to
the Photosite. Being the anally retentive bastard that I am the engine will
be dyno tested after it's all reassembled to tune and make sure all is well.
The transmission is fine internally just a bit cruddy externally. It was
built for Dick Paterson by a shop in Canada. It has all the "special" mods
to beef it up and has a heavy duty torque convertor. When I get it cleaned
up I'll offer it for sale as I have a Manny T switch pitch to go in behind
this engine.
The final drive is a run of the mill 3.07 to 1.
Regards,
Rob M.
USAussie - Downunder
-----Original Message-----
From: Les Burt
Ray isn't 100% sure what the cause was. All he knows is that the fire
originated in the driver's area as that was where most of the flames where
concentrated when he first saw the fire. He told me that he had left the
driver's cockpit window open about halfway so it could even have been
vandalism. The coach burnt in his driveway and he lives in a fairly rural
area so i tend to doubt vandals unless they really had a serious bone to
pick. Because the most serious fire damage was in the engine bay and cockpit
on the driver's side, I would suspect an electrical issue that started it
all. Ray didn't specify if he had driven the coach immediately before the
incident and the fire occurred around 1am.
Perhaps others who have talked to Ray have heard more details.
Les Burt
Montreal
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Regards,
Rob M. (USAussie)
The Pedantic Mechanic
Sydney, Australia
'75 Avion - AUS - The Blue Streak TZE365V100428
'75 Avion - USA - Double Trouble TZE365V100426
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| Re: [GMCnet] A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167322 is a reply to message #167312] |
Mon, 23 April 2012 18:19 |
GMC_LES
Messages: 569
Registered: October 2009
Location: Montreal
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I wondered about the warped frame as well but surprisingly appears straight when eyeballing everything. Of co
Les Burt
Montreal
On 2012-04-23, at 6:16 PM, "Rob Mueller" <robmueller@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> Les,
>
> As far as the upper control arms go I wouldn't hesitate using them. They
> don't carry any weight; they merely locate the upper ball joint in the
> correct spot for alignment and absorb torque when braking.
>
> The paint on the sides of the engine block next to the upper suspension
> mounts is still there and Oldsmobile blue.
>
> It might be possible that the heat and water could have warped the frame a
> bit but I doubt it.
>
> Regards,
> Rob M.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Les Burt
>
> Ken
> How much of an examination did you give the frame when you were up there?
> The fire was hot enough to cook the rubber bushings out of the drivers
> Suspension arms as well as cook the driver outer cv boot. The upper control
> arm is cooked enough that the paint is gone and I'm trying to decide if it
> would still be safe to use. The front frame also got cooked pretty good in
> the upper suspension arm area but I doubt it would have affected it's
> integrity to any great degree. If anything was affected, i'd suspect the
> water from fighting the fire would have quenched the steel.
>
> Comments anyone?
>
> Les
>
> _______________________________________________
> GMCnet mailing list
> Unsubscribe or Change List Options:
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Les Burt
Montreal
1975 Eleganza 26ft
A work in Progress
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| [GMCnet] Fwd: A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167325 is a reply to message #167322] |
Mon, 23 April 2012 18:28 |
GMC_LES
Messages: 569
Registered: October 2009
Location: Montreal
Karma: 0
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Fat thumbs on a smart phone make for lots of mistakes. Now let's finish the message I started.
> I wondered about the warped frame as well but surprisingly everything appears straight when eyeballing the frame. You would be amazed at how flexible the frame is when separated from the front clip. Suspended in the air by a chain mid way on the frame, I was able to twist and flex it several inches in a torsional fashion end to end. The frame from my coach reacted the same way when I removed it.
The front clip might have suffered some very minor warpage, but nothing that I'd be worried about.
Les Burt
Montreal
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Les Burt <gmc.les@gmail.com>
> Date: 23 April, 2012 7:19:15 PM EDT
> To: "gmclist@temp.gmcnet.org" <gmclist@temp.gmcnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [GMCnet] A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip)
>
> I wondered about the warped frame as well but surprisingly appears straight when eyeballing everything. Of co
>
> Les Burt
> Montreal
>
>
>
> On 2012-04-23, at 6:16 PM, "Rob Mueller" <robmueller@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
>> Les,
>>
>> As far as the upper control arms go I wouldn't hesitate using them. They
>> don't carry any weight; they merely locate the upper ball joint in the
>> correct spot for alignment and absorb torque when braking.
>>
>> The paint on the sides of the engine block next to the upper suspension
>> mounts is still there and Oldsmobile blue.
>>
>> It might be possible that the heat and water could have warped the frame a
>> bit but I doubt it.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rob M.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Les Burt
>>
>> Ken
>> How much of an examination did you give the frame when you were up there?
>> The fire was hot enough to cook the rubber bushings out of the drivers
>> Suspension arms as well as cook the driver outer cv boot. The upper control
>> arm is cooked enough that the paint is gone and I'm trying to decide if it
>> would still be safe to use. The front frame also got cooked pretty good in
>> the upper suspension arm area but I doubt it would have affected it's
>> integrity to any great degree. If anything was affected, i'd suspect the
>> water from fighting the fire would have quenched the steel.
>>
>> Comments anyone?
>>
>> Les
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> GMCnet mailing list
>> Unsubscribe or Change List Options:
>> http://temp.gmcnet.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gmclist
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Les Burt
Montreal
1975 Eleganza 26ft
A work in Progress
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| Re: [GMCnet] Fwd: A weekend drive around Lake Ontario (GMC Parts Trip) [message #167384 is a reply to message #167325] |
Tue, 24 April 2012 06:10 |
Ken Burton
Messages: 10030
Registered: January 2004
Location: Hebron, Indiana
Karma: 10
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| Les Burt wrote on Mon, 23 April 2012 18:28 |
Fat thumbs on a smart phone make for lots of mistakes. Now let's finish the message I started.
> I wondered about the warped frame as well but surprisingly everything appears straight when eyeballing the frame. You would be amazed at how flexible the frame is when separated from the front clip. Suspended in the air by a chain mid way on the frame, I was able to twist and flex it several inches in a torsional fashion end to end. The frame from my coach reacted the same way when I removed it.
The front clip might have suffered some very minor warpage, but nothing that I'd be worried about.
Les Burt
Montreal
|
My observations and opinions pretty much match yours and Rob's. I looked at the frame, but not seriously. What I looked at appeared OK. I was there primarily to pick up the engine, trans, and final drive. So I was more concerned on how we were going to tie that thing down, support it in the back of my pickup, and cover it from the predicted rain. (It was still assembled as one unit.) My secondary concern was getting all of the paperwork I needed to get that thing across the border at Sarnia / Port Huron.
I'm guessing that thing weighed 1100 to 1200 pounds and my Colorado handled it, but another 300 hundred pounds probably would have been too much for my Colorado. It never bottomed out on the rear spring stops all the way home (about 500 miles).
Ken Burton - N9KB
76 Palm Beach
Hebron, Indiana
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