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New Ownership, New member, Long road ahead. [message #354789] Sun, 17 May 2020 13:01 Go to previous message
Gurr is currently offline  Gurr   United States
Messages: 14
Registered: May 2020
Location: Berkeley, CA
Karma:
Junior Member
Hey folks!

Came across this forum last night looking into things and I went ahead and signed up. I am a fan of joining and updating forum sites for vehicles I own.

My partner and I just got a 1973 beautiful orange motorhome that was literally on the streets ready to degrade to nothingness. Whether or not it was a bad idea, you can decide!

118k on the odo. Original 455 engine I believe, and a edelbrock carb with headers. I'll start off by saying it was rough to drive it 4 miles to where it's currently parked and that I want to go through some basic things before driving it again. I already read a pretty good introductory post by Matt Colie in this thread: http://gmc.mybirdfeeder.net/GMCforum/index.php?t=msg&goto=352152&rid=0&srch=carb#msg_352152

The bad:
- It backfired like crazy while driving after warming up
- I couldn't find the oil dipstick! Am I crazy? There seems to be an oil fill tube under the passenger-side front access panel. When I was looking in the online pdf, it sounds like it's under the brake master. I'm going to give another look.
- There's a puddle of oil at your feet in the cab which I found to be coming from the mechanical oil pressure gauge. This one also seems to be a bit of a miracle one because it's easy to fix but it also allowed me to realize that the oil is heavily saturated with fuel...I hope it hasn't been driven long like this...ya know...with solvent instead of lubricant.
- It's driven with a hose running to a 5 gal tank in the cab, even though the previous-previous owner said he dropped the tanks and had them done "a couple of years ago" it probably has to be done again.
- The interior is pretty shot.
- Some things have been butchered.
- generator sliding shorted a cable that runs underneath.
- I thought I would be able to store it a long term storage facility right across the street where I currently have it parked. Unfortunately, they're booked for a couple of months! Going to have to figure something out here.
- One of the windows is broken (next to the door).
- I'm sure there's more but I don't remember/haven't found it yet.
- some exterior things.

The good:
- Seemingly all original except for the carb and headers. It also has an air ride front seat? Need to look into this more to really understand it.
- We have all the contact info for previous owners going back decades.
- supposedly all "systems" work(e.g. fridge, stove...).
- some exterior things.
- Decent tire tread, although a little old they don't too dry-rotted.
- Air suspension seems good.

Trying to figure out the pictures thing. Will do another time.

1973 GMC Motorhome. Obtained from the brink of destruction 05/15/2020 in the middle of the night. Berkeley, CA

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