Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » [GMCnet] Maiden Voyage Trip Report: RIC > VAB
| [GMCnet] Maiden Voyage Trip Report: RIC > VAB [message #90372] |
Mon, 28 June 2010 22:24  |
Eddie Pettit
Messages: 71
Registered: May 2009
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The trip started out at around 11AM from Midlothian VA on Friday, the 25th.
I was in the RV, with Mercedes, and Carolyn and Zach were following in her
car. We went to Kroger, because I like milk gallons with screw on caps, to
pick up some supplies and gas for the trip. I only filled the RV up part the
way because it leaks when you fill it up all the way. I believe the rubber
hose near the filler has some rot.
To start the travel, we headed south on VA Rt 288, to I95 and headed towards
the beach on US 460. When I was getting off I95, I noticed that the pedal
seemed really soft. It was still stopping, just close to the floor. Shortly
thereafter, I noticed the brake light was on. As I was starting to become
concerned about this, Carolyn advised me that I just lost something. One of
the wheel covers left the RV and slammed into and over the guardrail. While
they stopped to pick it up, I stopped just before 460 and checked the fluid
level in the master cylinder. Sure enough it was real low, which explains
the pedal travel. Naturally, I was carrying lots of spare parts and pieces,
so I had fluid and topped off the fluid. When I first purchased the RV, the
master cylinder needed to be replaced because it sits at such a position
that rain drips right on it. The top had rusted through allowing water into
the system. I bled the system at the time and all was working well, or so I
thought. I'm guessing that I had a brake stuck open and when it freed
itself, it took fluid out of the master cylinder, making it low. Anyway,
Carolyn and Zach caught back up by this time and gave me the wheel cover.
Sadly, all of the retaining clips were gone making it impossible to
reinstall. We got back in our vehicles and continued the trip.
The RV has 2 tanks and the gas flows between them as you drive causing the
gauge to fluctuate dramatically depending upon road level, whether you're on
the gas or brake, etc... When we reached the halfway point, near Waverly VA,
I decided to get gas and the kids got Slurpees. In the past, I've had
trouble restarting the RV when it's hot, so I left it running while
refueling. I figured that it'd be better to be safe than sorry, we were on a
deadline for getting Zach down to the beach for tryout camp.
The trip from Waverly to VAB was uneventful, I did end up going through some
tunnel without stopping for inspection, but you didn't hear that from me...
We setup in the Holiday Trav-L Park in VAB and had an excellent stay. The AC
worked flawlessly and constantly during the entire stay, which was about 42
hours. We didn't have water or sewer because I haven't yet worked on those
systems or figured out how they work. The Refrigerator didn't work on gas or
electric, but we already knew that and had our giant cooler with us.
Sunday morning arrived and we packed up the RV and headed to the rink for
Zach's last day of tryout camp. The RV started right up even though we'd
been using battery power for lighting throughout our stay, as it should.
Since we had the dogs with us, we parked the RV in the shade and ran the
generator for about 4 hours to power the rooftop air to keep them cool.
After the tryouts, we went to Golden Corral for some lunch before heading
home. I chose a somewhat shady parking spot away from the restaurant, so I
could run the generator and roof top air to keep the dogs cool. The spot
wasn't level enough which caused all of the gas to drain out of the
secondary tank and into the main tank, or is that the main tank into the
secondary tank? Anyway, the generator wouldn't run. So I had to spin the RV
around so that it was leaning the other way. Once I did that, the generator
ran for about an hour while we ate.
Once we were satisfied, we headed back to 460 for the trip home. By this
time Carolyn's car was needing gas. On the way to VAB, I had noticed a
station in Windsor VA that had regular for $2.38/gal. We set off for the
station and arrived without issue. Since there wasn't a deadline, and I was
feeling confident, I actually turned off the RV even though the air temp was
100F. When I did that, I noticed that coolant was freely flowing under the
RV. It looked like it was being poured through a small funnel. My temp gauge
had been fine the entire trip, so I wasn't too concerned about it, but the
guys fueling their boat seemed a bit concerned. I looked back to where the
RV had sat, while I was waiting on a pump and didn't see any fluid there, so
I assumed it was just overflow. I only filled the RV halfway, because of the
rot, and then started it up, which it did without hesitation, and moved the
RV away from the pumps to figure out the leak. It wasn't leaking while it
was running, the temp gauge was fine, so I topped it off and headed home. I
figured that I'd keep an eye on the gauge for signs of things going bad,
which never happened.
I ran most of the trip at about 58mph, but after the Windsor stop, I
occasionally hit 65mph for short stretches on 460. I did notice the engine
does miss under heavy loads. I'm not certain, but I'm thinking fuel
starvation. It's possible that there may be trash in the tanks and it's
either clogging the socks on the pickups, assuming their still there, or
it's clogging the fuel filter in the carb. I say this because in April, I
replaced an extremely dirty (looked like it was rusty) carb fuel filter
because the engine wasn't getting gas. Last year, I rebuilt the carb, you'd
think a new fuel filter would be part of a rebuild kit, but I can't
remember. I do carry a spare and the tools to change it if it should happen
to clog again on the road.
So there you have it, our first trip in the GMC Motorhome. It was fun and
we're looking forward to attempting Hershey PA in 2 weeks.
Eddie Pettit
73 GMC
Midlothian VA
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