Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » [GMCnet] Running Again After 19 Years
| [GMCnet] Running Again After 19 Years [message #189840] |
Sat, 10 November 2012 19:16  |
Ken Henderson
Messages: 8726
Registered: March 2004
Location: Americus, GA
Karma:
|
Senior Member |
|
|
I've been sort of holding out on Y'All: About 3 weeks ago a Dixielander in
Montgomery, AL, Bill Hutchinson, called to ask me to spread the word that a
GMC was available cheaply in his area. A widow had called him to say that
their '76 Eleganza II had been parked at Gunter AFS since 1999. She was
ready to sell it for $2500. Having seen it from time to time over the
years, he thought it might be a good buy. After another friend visited to
view the coach and found it too much for him to tackle at 82, I started
spreding the word locally.
As a result, John Beaver, my local racing engine builder buddy, and I left
here at 0830 EDT (I'd been awake since 0230) on Friday, 2 Nov. for the 150
mile drive to check it out. When we arrived at 1030 CDT, our friend
already had the RV storage lot open and here's what we found:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qbdf9052ovibcbk/hCygZ8j8Z-
TZE166V100105, a '76 Eleganza with modified exterior paint in quite good
condition considering its time unattended. The interior, while it was
obviously once a VERY nice coach is trashed. The side window behind the
driver was slid to the rear about 2" -- obviously since the coach was
parked. The forward overhead vent's cap was missing and the screen full of
pine needles. Obviously everything nearly beneath that opening had been
repeatedly soaked. Two twin size foam mattresses lay to each side behind
the cockpit and on the floor was a 1' high pile of rolled carpets, from the
rear bed to the cockpit step. Yet despite all that, the attractive
hard-finished headliner panels, except around the open vent, looked good.
And the molded, plastic wood-grained cabinets looked great.
The outside base paint is apparently original Imron, but it was
over-sprayed with the shown highlight color. Despite a deep coat of
accumulated dirt & fungus, a moist finger rubbed anywhere quickly yielded a
shiny surface. The license plate's latest sticker was for 1993, which we
believe is the actual date when the coach was last driven.
The engine and drive train all looked pretty good with little accumulated
grease and oil. The frame showed little rust and no separation of the
doubled areas. Both air bags were flat and the left one looked worse than
any I'd ever seen. Surprisingly, all 6 Michelin all-steel tires still held
some air.
Content with the body condition, John wanted to hear the engine run before
making an offer for the coach, so we changed the oil and filter, filled the
radiator with water, water pump lubricant and a partial bottle of
stop-leak, and squirted ATF+acetone into the cylinders. A gentle pull of a
socket wrench on the crank pulley bolt showed the engine to turn freely.
With a battery installed, the starter spun the engine very nicely,
spraying our red penetrant all under the fenders where we'd removed the
liners.
We installed a set of old AC7 spark plugs I'd brought and connected little
Mr. Gasket electric fuel pump between a 5 g. can and the inlet to the
mechanical fuel pump. After just a couple of spins spins, the engine fired
right up, with the choke operating as advertised. Then it quit.
Fortunately. Because we soon discovered a puddle of gas beneath the
mechanical pump. Turned out, the lower body had a crack in it and was
spraying fuel all down that side of the engine.
Using an electric wiper kit PS elbow from my tool box, we connected the
electric pump directly to the carburetor and tried again. Now it wouldn't
run start. After checking the carb filter and fiddling around for a while,
we figured out that the electric pump had lost its prime (we'd had the same
problem earlier). With that fixed, the engine started and ran quite well,
with no tappet noise and only a single cylinder misfiring. The exhaust was
pretty smokey for a while but finally cleared up. The right iron exhaust
manifold, with 4 bolts already backed out 1/4", was noisy.
Liking what he'd learned so far, we got the widow on-scene and John made a
deal with her to purchase the coach (which she had a deadline for removal
from the base). That settled and bill of sale in hand, We all set to work
to see if it could be rolled and driven. Bill offered the use of his spare
air bag to replace the terrible one, and we'd brought the 6 wheels from my
coach, "just in case". But first we began to check the brakes. It didn't
take long to see the water in the front MC reservoir, but the rear one, for
the front brakes, was full of brake fluid, so our hopes were aroused. I'd
brought one of my spare rebuilt MC's, so I quickly installed that. In the
process, I discovered the unusual, to me, MC/Booster seal shown in the
Gunter MC sub folder.
After "bench bleeding" the MC in place on the coach, we discovered that the
calipers were frozen solid; no amount of foot pressure, with or without
vacuum boost, would budge them -- the discs still rotated. That pretty
well wound up our wildly optimistic hope to drive the coach back home.
After reloading the gasoline generator and electric air compressor we'd
brought in John's pickup, along with all the miscellaneous tools, parts,
fluids, rags, etc., etc., we went to dinner at Golden Corral. Then on to
Harbor Freight to swap out my recently failed 1/2" impact wrench. With no
receipt, they wouldn't honor the warranty. But they would honor a
retroactive 2 year service contract available for $9.95, so we added that
to my other $40 worth of junk before leaving.
We finally got back to Americus, exhausted, at about midnight, having laid
the plans for the next trip a week later -- yesterday, 9 Nov. More about
that later.
Ken H.
Americus, GA
'76 X-Birchaven w/Cad500/Howell EFI+ & EBL
www.gmcwipersetc.com
_______________________________________________
GMCnet mailing list
Unsubscribe or Change List Options:
http://temp.gmcnet.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gmclist
Ken Henderson
Americus, GA
www.gmcwipersetc.com
Large Wiring Diagrams
76 X-Birchaven
76 X-Palm Beach
|
|
|
|
Current Time: Fri Oct 11 20:24:51 CDT 2024
Total time taken to generate the page: 0.01316 seconds
|
GMCforum
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
