Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » One Year In and ........ (What a Strange Trip it Has Been)
| One Year In and ........ [message #287850] |
Fri, 25 September 2015 14:26  |
Gary Carlton
Messages: 59
Registered: February 2014
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Please be forewarned this will be a somewhat rambling and pointless message .....
We decided to purchase an RV a little over a year and a half ago and after looking at this and thinking about that, we decided on a GMC. In part because good friends of ours have one and we really liked the size and design. After a deep search and looking at a few dogs, I mean questionable coaches, locally, we came across one in Southern CA. The PO had done extensive work on the interior and it was beautifully done. Things checked out fine, we agreed on a price and sealed the deal.
My family and I flew down to LA to pickup the coach with a plan to drive back along the coast to deliver back to NW Washington State. A simple plan with many flaws. The biggest of which is fitting out a new RV with all the things you will need to do a week long trip is not trivial. We spent the better part of the first day just buying supplies and learning systems. Oh well, I guess we were naive.
We finally got out of town and drove to Morrow Bay for the first night ever in our coach. Went pretty well too. Had a great time there. That was the highlight of the trip as it turned out.
Leaving Morrow Bay we continued North going through Monterrey, Bodega Bay, Shelter Cove (not recommended), Coos Bay, Long Beach and finally home. During that time, we lost the ability to start the coach with the key and had to resort to manually pulling on the ignition module on the steering column. Turned out the rack or pinion in the ignition has blown off a few teeth and turning the ignition tumbler would not pull the rod far enough to activate the starter. We also lost all the water out of the engine, the gauge never registered any issue and we ended up warping the heads significantly. By the time we were home we had to stop every 30 miles and add a half gallon of water to keep things going.
Once home, we decided to pull the engine and give ourselves a fresh start. I built a pretty nice gantry system, gutted the cockpit and dining table and did the swap. I thought it was pretty cool that I pulled the engine from in the coach to on the engine stand alone in about 15 minutes. Going back in, it took me and a friend about 15 minutes to having it mounted. While I was in there, I bought a new aluminum radiator (and found the pinhole leak in the old radiator which caused us to loose the fluid in the first place. It was caused by the mounting of an aux tranny cooler to the radiator using plastic connectors. One of those connectors wore through a fin. You could not see the leak statically, but with movement or vibration, the leak became visible.), new ignition setup, Patterson carb, and too many other new parts to list. Being curious, I tore the old (75k mile) motor down and found the main and big end bearing were in frightening shape. I am not sure how nor how much longer it was going to last.
Looking at some other issues, I cleaned up a bunch of weird/odd/wrong/dead wiring, put in new shocks, H4 headlights, went to electric wipers, replaced the dead macerator, swapped out the running lights and all the lights inside for LED's, rebuilt and repainted the front grill, installed new body pads (talk to me about what happens when you get Gorilla Glue on your bare hands someday), installed a new backup camera, Ragusa step and transmission pan, Ramco mirrors, a gauge cluster, airbag isolation valves, re-carpeted the entire coach, new captains chairs (reclinable!), engine bay vents, new dash labels, got rid of the blender and water purifier, put in a new faucet. Along the way I found the right front caliper lower mounting bolt was gone and the caliper was machining itself through the hub. That was not the easiest of fixes but it got rid of the nasty pull to the right I had been fighting.
A few weeks ago, I had a trial by fire being caught in Puget Sound traffic for five hours idling on the freeway in 100 degree heat. The darn thing worked beautifully (except the engine AC of course). This past week, my wife and daughter took the coach to a horse show and had a great time and had no issues at all. I was very relieved to hear that.
Now I have to fix a leaking steering box, drop the fuel tanks and install new hoses and someday install the disc brake setup I have purchased from Manny. Maybe I'll go after the AC when I feel brave. I am very happy where the coach is now and would not have issue driving it across the country.
This is in large part due to the GMC community that has been extremely helpful in helping me with parts, pieces and advice. I offer my thanks and am indebted to the community for their assistance.
With all respect
gary
'78 Royale, "Road Grub"
Bellingham, WA
[Updated on: Fri, 25 September 2015 14:29] Report message to a moderator |
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