Classic Winnebagos & Vintage RVs

Back in February I became the proud owner of a 1972 Winnebago Brave D20, on a Dodge M300 chassis.

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I was on a cross country flight for work when my girlfriend sent me a Facebook Marketplace link for a "1978 Winnebago Unknown - Doesn't Run". We were no more in the market for an RV than we were for Arizona's famed ocean front property, but something about the iconic styling kept popping back up in my mind. I mentioned it the next day and she surprised me by making an appointment to go see it. Since I was still out of town I wrote up a two page list of things to check, with the most important two being: I'm not buying an RV that needs the engine replaced and it needs to be clean enough that you're comfortable in it after a Saturday's worth of cleaning.

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After a lengthy phone call with the current owner from halfway around the world, we agreed on a $100 deposit. Purchase price would be $3,500 when I got back if the engine passed a compression test and I didn't see any other major red flags.

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Once I got back stateside, with a bed full of tools, I headed out to see it!

When I got there it was both better and worse than I expected. The previous owner had screwed thin sheets of wood over the (minimal) water damaged areas and then painted then entire interior with exterior home paint. This made it look nice from a distance but completely covered up the wood paneling look that I love and the new paint is rough and scratches easily.

The "better than expected" part was in the completeness of the rig. Few things had been moved/tinkered with, there wasn't evidence of any real rodent damage to the wiring or other parts, and the roof, floor, and walls all seemed really solid.

First on the checklist was an engine compression test. If it passed that, then I would complete the sale. The rig had been towed to the current owner's house after he bought it from an estate sale. As best I can tell, it was last on the road in the 90s. First thing he did was throw a battery in it and turn the key, not ideal treatment for an engine that has sat for 2+ decades. He'd been trying to start it off and on for the last 8 months before throwing in the towel and putting it up for sale. Since that bandaid had already been ripped off, I pulled the plugs and (once I reassembled the starting circuitry from it having been dismantled) I checked the compression in each cylinder. While it's possible to do this without removing the driver's side wheel, I can't say I recommend it.

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 The ones that were good were fantastic, at 150+ psi cold! However, three of the cylinders had no compression.

After pulling the valve covers, the reason why became immediately clear. For those who aren't familiar with engine resurrection, one of the first steps on reviving an engine that has sat for a long time is to spin it over twice by hand first to feel for any binding or excessive resistance. This is best done with a socket wrench on the crankshaft bolt. In this case, one intake and two exhaust valves had stuck closed and bent three pushrods.

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I was able to get the valves free with penetrating oil and light tapping with a brass hammer. The engine in this rig is the industrialized version of the 413 and so a lot of parts are unique and not interchangeable with the passenger car 413 from the early/mid 60s. Luckily, I'd found this site! Using the Dodge Parts Manual available from the store, I got the Chrysler part number for the pushrods (2899597). I then found one of Dave's old posts showing that it crossed to a Sealed Power RP3192. Which was out of stock everywhere and NAPA's site didn't even let you order it. After doing a little more digging with more interchange numbers, I gave up and called NAPA in the morning. Through sheer luck, a store the next town over had exactly three in stock. While I was there I picked up eight new sparkplugs because the PO had installed regular 413 spark plugs and not the long reach plugs that the 413 requires. I went with Champion 405 but there are several options that interchange with that number. After swapping out the pushrods and spinning the engine over by hand a couple times to make sure the valves were valving, I checked compression on those cylinders again and everything was good! I reassembled the valve covers with new gaskets (Fel-pro VS50145R), cleaned out the carburetor, connected the fuel pump feed to a boat tank that the previous owner helpfully provided and installed the new spark plugs and a new set of plugs wires for a Ford 360 because that's all I had on hand.

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I put a gallon of 2 cycle gas in the boat tank because it helps lubricate an engine that has been sitting on startup and dribbled a little down the intake. After turning the key, the engine fired up and ran great! I filled the gas tank the rest of the way with unmixed gas once I got the idle dialed in and after revving it a few times and not hearing any knocking I convinced myself that the engine was healthy.

So, I paid the man and this RV was now officially mine!

Congrats on your find and getting it up and running OK.  In case someone else needs the info what was the NAPA P/N you purchased?

Hi Dave, and thanks! This has been the most research intensive project I've taken on to date, which is saying something as I've got a collection of seven classic cars and trucks before this one came along. With a 50 year old chassis made by one manufacturer, finished by another, with an uncommon engine, all compounded by the myriad of single-year parts for the 1972 model, getting this project back on the road would have been impossible without this site and Dave's Place and I'm glad to contribute what I can!

The NAPA number for the Sealed Power pushrods I used is SEP RP-3192. The site doesn't show it as orderable or in stock anywhere, but if you call the stores you get access to a more complete inventory system apparently.

Edit: I have found a 2nd source for 413 pushrods as the Sealed Power ones are out of stock everywhere. The Melling MPR-322 crosses to the RP-3192. I ordered ten on ebay for about $30 and they matched up perfectly.

Before I get into the rest of it, I forgot to explain the title of this project posting. My cousin is getting married in the remote outskirts of Seattle at the end of September and lodging is both scarce and expensive. It occurred to me after getting the engine running that I now had a house on wheels. After a few quick calculations I determined that if I could get this rig running at 8 mpg, I could drive it from where I live in Atlanta, GA out to Washington, stay at an RV site down the street from the venue, and drive it back all for just about what it would cost to fly, rent a car, and stay for a week the conventional way. So, I booked the RV spot and I now have a goal! At the time, early February, I had just about seven months to get this rig roadworthy and tested for the upcoming cross country journey.

Now, back to getting it home. While I was running the engine initially I noticed a significant coolant leak out the rear driver's side. Apparently the rear of each cylinder head has an outlet port about the size and shape of a water neck opening, maybe for a coolant crossover tube in some applications? Anyway, while the PO was tinkering around with the engine, he broke one of the bolt heads off that kept the outlet cover on and now that it was only held on with one bolt, coolant was blowing past that cover. With an appropriately sized transfer punch, right angle drill, and helicoil set, got the old bolt drilled out on center, tapped the head for a helicoil and threaded in the insert. My girlfriend cut a new gasket from some Fel-pro blue sheet stock and I put the cover plat back on. Fired it up and no more leaks!

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Once the engine ran, and the bill of sale was in hand, I next wanted to check stopping ability. During the compression test phase I'd determined that the (apparently) infamous shift cable was seized in Drive, so I'd disconnected that down at the transmission and rotated the shift lever to park. I tried out the parking brake and I could pull the handle forward and back from stop to stop and it didn't seem to engage anything. Later I'd find out that the shoes mounted on the transmission tailshaft were worn down to the metal and soaked in ATF. For now though, that left the service brakes as the only way to stop the rig.

I filled the master cylinder with fluid, which was a blast because as others have noted it's a real pain to get to up by the drivers wheel and sparkplugs and had my girlfriend press the pedal while I was under the coach looking for leaks. When she did, both front and rear brake lines blew out and fluid drained everywhere, including from the master cylinder piston seal.

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Having dealt with rotten brake plumbing before, I knew that ended my plans to quickly get the motorhome stopping and maybe drive it home. I called up Triple A and had them tow it the 10 miles to my house.

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Home!

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Looking good so far.  Most have had to go through the growing pains your living.  Just takes time, patience and care, oh, and BTW $  :grin:  Be sure to build in some ring out time also.  A few trips locally to work out the bugs and get used to RV living.  You do not want to suffer breakdowns on the road.  Typically the cooling system is one of the biggest issues (overheating) due to age.

You already said brakes were an issue. Depending on chassis year (Winnebago typically built current year chassis on previous year Dodge chassis[eg. 72 Winnebago on 71 Dodge Chassis]), you either have a Dual Midland Ross Booster (http://dave78chieftain.com/M300_69-Early.html) or Bendix Master-Vac Booster (http://dave78chieftain.com/M300_71-Late.html) based system.

Assuming you have the rectangle dash gauge setup, main power is routed through AMP gauge of that configuration and was a weak spot on all Dodge vehicles of that era.  Dodge changed that in 74 with the new instrument panel design to a shunt based ammeter.  Eliminating that (http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml) and using a shunt based aftermarket AMP gauge and separate aftermarket voltmeter will be a much better setup.

Thanks! That's the plan, take it out at least once a month and go further from home as I build confidence. I've taken it out twice so far and I'll chronicle those experiences soon. And noted about the cooling system. My upper radiator tank has a couple of pinholes in it. I'm lucky to have a very good radiator shop close by, I'm going to take it to them and see what they say.

My chassis was built in February 1972 and I have the Bendix Master-Vac Booster setup.

Shockingly, all the gauges are currently working! Good to know about the ammeter not being a shunt type. Has anyone retrofitted a later shunt type ammeter into the rectangular dash slot? I'd like to keep the dash looking as original as possible since it's in such great shape. If not, maybe I'll keep my eye out for a spare ammeter and/or keep a little jumper with ring terminals in the toolbox in case this one goes out on me.

Now that the motorhome was home, I could start a complete replacement of the braking system. By this point we had begun referring to it, creatively, as Winnie but we're open to suggestions on for something more original if anyone wants to chime in!

I realized pretty quickly that finding a replacement power brake booster quickly was a no-go, so since it held vacuum I decided to leave it be for now. I'd like to get it rebuilt at some point but haven't had luck finding a place to do it. That left the master cylinder, wheel cylinders, hoses, shoes, and hardware. I tried to reach out to Geof at Alretta but he was on vacation and I was in a hurry, so I dived back in to the parts book to see what I could come up with. These are the parts I used (and I wouldn't recommend all of them as I mention below):

Part	Vendor	Part Number
Master Cylinder	Wearever	MCA71259
Front Brake Hose	O'Reilly	BH4900
Fr Dr Wheel Cylinder	NAPA	UP24954
Fr Ps Wheel Cylinder	Dorman	W24955
Rr Dr Wheel Cylinder	NAPA	UP37083
Rr Ps Wheel Cylinder	NAPA	UP37084
Rear Brake Shoes	NAPA	UP UP358R

Edit: I originally went with the O'Reilly NMC21936 master cylinder, but changed it out a few months later for the one listed above. Shortly after I bought mine, O'Reilly stopped making/selling it. I never could get a good pedal feel with it, and when I removed it, I found that it was missing the 10 psi residual valves needed to keep the right amount of pressure in the lines for a firm pedal. The Wearever part did have those, and the base part number matches many of the numbers listed in Dave's excellent brake part number page here:
http://dave78chieftain.com/MasterCylinder.htm


I couldn't find a ready-made rear hose so I took my old one to my local hydraulic shop and they made me a new one. The stock ones I bought for the front are the same length as the old ones but once I had the front up on jack stands and let the suspension hang, I saw that they were very tight. If I could do it again, I'd take the old front hoses in and have them make me up a new pair that were an inch or two longer.

On the wheel cylinders, I went with NAPA parts where they were in stock because the online picture showed slightly different Made in USA castings than what other vendors did. When my order arrived however, I realized that they were the exact same Made in China parts that Dorman and others offered, so I wish I'd gone with them for the lot and saved a bit of money. By the way, I tried to leave a review on the NAPA site for those parts indicating that they were the same generic assembly as everyone had and not made in USA, but NAPA took the reviews down. Go figure.

The front and rear shoes are the same part number, but I didn't replace the fronts because they looked brand new. They weren't even fully worn into the drums yet, and the drums had just been machined front and rear. It looks like someone did a complete brake job before parking the rig because the self adjusting hardware looked pretty new too. I had to replace the rear shoes because leaking rear wheel seals had coated them in oil.

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I'm not sure about the master cylinder either. After all was done and I'd adjusted and power-bled the brakes, I found that I had to push the pedal over halfway to the floor before the brakes engaged. I had a firm pedal and could lock the front wheels up if I really wanted too, but having to push the pedal  that far to do it doesn't feel or seem right. I'm wondering if that master cylinder is missing the 10 lb residuals that the stock one has. If anyone has any thoughts on this, feel free to pass them along because it's an issue I still haven't resolved.

I bent and flared replacements for every piece of brake line using NiCopp 3/16" and 1/4" tubing, new tube nuts, and coiled spring guard where originally used.

Here's the brakes done:

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And the drum back on. I did the front and  rear wheel bearings and seals while I was at it. That will be my next post as the part numbers were tricky to find & cross reference ahead of time.

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Looking good!
Check to see if the brake pedal to booster connecting rod is adjustable.  Parts book hints that it may be.

 :)ThmbUp  ;)  :grin: <3 <3 <3 Looking good! The Winnebago too!

Nice work going on there congratulations. I've had quite a time allocating parts for a 82 GM doing a 70's Dodge must take quite a bit of patience along with tenacity.

Best of luck to you, I am almost at the end with mine...I can tell you there will come a time when you look at your RV and just smile thinking Damm I got there...unbelievable!

When do we get another update, Big Al!?

    Since I already had the hubs off to do the brakes, it made sense to re-pack or replace the wheel bearings as well. Getting the rear axle shafts removed was a huge pain because at some point in the past, someone had used RTV in all the axle flange holes in lieu of replacing the axle flange gasket. This held in all the little collars that are supposed to pop forward off of the axle studs when you rap on the axle shaft with a hammer. I had to dig the RTV out of all sixteen studs with an assortment of tiny picks, but both axle shafts finally popped free. Then I could remove the rear drums and get at the brakes and bearings.

    The rear bearings all seemed original and looked a little rough. Nothing terrible, but definitely on their way out. The front passenger side bearings were worn as well and had very little grease, but the front driver's bearings were pristine. As they were Timken bearings made in the USA, and likely of better quality than the made in China SKF bearings, I decided to re-pack those and just replace the bearing sets on the other three corners. I used a Lisle 34550 bearing packer for all but the rear inner bearings (they were too big to fit in the chamber) and it made the job so much easier and faster than it is doing it by hand. As far as replacing the races goes, I'd make sure that you have a brass punch before trying it or the ability to turn a custom aluminum driver disk as the rear inner bearings are massive, something like 3 ½" – 4" in diameter. I used my old race as a buffer between the hammer and new race until it got below the lip of the bore, and then a brass punch on the edge of the race to go the rest of the way. I considered using the old bearing as a race driver, with a greased rag between it and the race as cushion, but I was worried that the angle would put too much outward pressure on the race and cause it to not want to drive in. 

    The shop manual publishes a good procedure for adjusting the front bearings (torque to 50 ft-lbs then back off 1/6 – ¼ turn) but I don't like the vagueness off the procedure for the rear bearings on my Dana 70. It has you tighten the nut until you feel binding, and then back it off 1/6 of a turn. It then cautions you to be careful of altering the bearing preload by pushing the adjusting nut forward on the threads when tightening the jam nut. That's not a particularly helpful warning as I feel like the average person isn't going to be able to eyeball where the nut is positioned in the thread tolerances. To make sure I wasn't over doing it, I used a dial indicator on a magnetic base to check end play and make sure there was at least some measurable amount. If anyone has any insights on setting those rear bearings, I'd love to hear it! I've since checked the temperature of all four hubs after driving for a couple hundred miles on the interstate using an IR thermometer and the rear passenger one runs 5-10 degrees hotter than the drivers side one. Not sure if that's uneven brake adjustment or if I need to readjust the passenger bearings...

    I put a new axle flange gasket on and tightened the axle flange nuts to 55 ft-lbs as the manual calls for 40-70 ft-lbs for 7/16-20 axle flange nuts. The flanged wheel nuts get torqued to 325 ft-lbs front and rear. 

    Lastly, I pulled the rear diff cover, scooped out the old oil, reassembled it with a new gasket, and filled it with new gear oil. The old looked very brown but not shiny and the ring gear looked great, so I'm feeling good about the longevity of this axle. Cover bolts get torqued to 30-40 ft-lbs. 

    This is definitely the most ungainly vehicle I've ever picked up and I learned a valuable lesson about doing so on a sloping asphalt driveway. Make sure that the wheels on the opposite axle are chocked front AND rear. I'd only chocked mine on the downhill side, and had a heart stopping experience when it all of a sudden went south. I'd jacked the front up enough to level it out, and the rear passenger wheel started to roll backwards, causing the front of the RV to try to swing towards the passenger side!

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    I used a heavy duty ratchet strap to the nearest tree to keep it from going any further and then used two more jacks to gently pick it up, level, by the front axle.

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    Now I always make sure that the wheels are chocked front and back and I keep an eye on the bubble levels to make sure it's going up evenly. I got off so easy that I'm committed to keeping the win and never learning the hard way.

These are the SKF bearing part numbers I used. I think the Timken numbers are the same.               
               

Bearing	Cup	Cone	Combo
Front Inner	LM603011 or LM603012	LM603049	BR37
Front Outer	15245	15101	N/A
Rear Inner	45220	45291	SET416
Rear Outer	LM104911	LM104949	BR38

These are the wheel seals:       
           

Seals	National	SKF
Front Seal	493291	22835
Rear Seal	455086	30033

The rear axle flange gasket was Fel-pro 12579

The lug nuts take a 1 1/8" socket and the front bearing nut is 1 7/16". I had to get a special bearing nut kit to do the rear nuts. They were 2 1/2" or 2 3/8". I used the Sunex 2847 socket set that I bought online for $84.

I did the bearings & brakes one axle at a time and had new tires put on while I was at it. When I took the wheels in to the local truck tire shop, they said the date code on the old ones corresponded to 1989! And truthfully they looked that old, even though the tread was near new. Mine are the multi-piece rims, but not the illegal widow maker style. Trying to explain that to tire shops was tough and I'm glad I found a place that would do it. I'd like to replace them some day with single piece wheels so any shop will work on them and I don't have to deal with tubed tires. I spent a while trying to figure out which wheels would work on this rig, but I was on a deadline for our first trip and got lost in the multitude of options. If anyone knows what 8 lug wheels will work, let me know! The tires that were on it were LT235/85R16 so fortunately I didn't have to worry about translating an older tire size. The tires I got were Firestone Transforce HT2, load range E and all seven tires cost $1,650 out the door at Atlanta Commercial Tire in Marietta, GA. I've put 1,000 miles on them so far and have no complaints about the tires and definitely recommend the shop!

While I was getting the tires done, I pulled the drive shaft and took it in to American Driveshaft Service, also in Marietta, to get new U-joints and get balanced. The U-joints are an unusual size that is specific to old motor homes, according to the very experienced guy at this shop and he had to order them. All told it ran me $295 for the balance and the joints. 

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I had three other main issue to deal with before our first trip out and those were the seized shift cable, the rusty fuel tank, and the lack of front seats. I'll save the seats for the next post.

There was a great post on here a while back about how to get a B&W shift cable and kit for this rig and connect that to the existing shifter and transmission. I followed the recommendations there and used the B&W 80834 cable and B&W 10497 lever kit. Per the instructions, the lever kit was supposed to come with longer bolts for where the bracket mounts to the transmission pan but it didn't. Fortunately I had a pair on the shelf that were the right size (I wish I could remember what that ended up being...). To mount the cable to the shift mechanism under the dash, I bent a piece of steel into an L-shape and mounted the long side to the top of the shift mechanism by drilling and tapping two ¼-20 holes in the shift bracket. A 5/16 through hole in the short side of the L bracket allowed me to mount the teardrop tab of the shift cable. Initially I couldn't get the shift cable adjusted to go all the way into either park or 1st. It turns out that the cable was hitting some internal stops in the sheath and I had to move the cable's teardrop mounting tab to the other side of the L bracket and add some shim washers. There was also more slop between the shift cable eye and the shifter mechanism shaft than there was with the original cable, so I turned a thin aluminum sleeve on the lathe to regain that tolerance. The end result works perfectly! I can go from Park down to 1st and the detents in the dash shifter match the detents in the transmission. 

The fuel tank was a much bigger project. My Winnebago has twin fuel tanks, but the front tank seemed to be the main one, so I started with it. Removing it wasn't terrible, but the order of operations was important. First, I removed the nuts holding the fuel tank straps down, and slid the tank outward until it touched the passenger side skirt. Then I could get to the bolt heads on the eight bolts that hold the mounting L-brackets to the frame rail. Support the tank from below when you're down to the last two bolts and then lower it down. Along the way, I disconnected the fuel gauge wires and the engine fuel line. The generator fuel line had no visible way to disconnect it that I could see, so I cut it with some tubing cutters. I knew I was going to replace all the line anyway, so this didn't bother me. Once the tank was lowered and disconnected, I could just barely slide it out from under the vehicle.

Measuring it with a tape, I found that it could hold 40 gallons - making it easily the biggest gas tank I've ever worked with. It still had some 30 year old rusty gas that smelled more like varnish sloshing around in the bottom, so I drained that into a 5 gallon fuel jug. I double filtered it and had to clean the funnel filter screens every quart or so, so getting all 5 gallons out took a while. Then I took the tank to Marietta Radiator and had them clean it out and then seal it. There were flakes of rust the size of pizza slices in it and internal baffles, but they cut a couple of access holes to clean it out and then welded it back up. The whole job cost me $350, which was definitely worth it.

When I got the tank back, I installed a new fuel sending unit. I used the generic Mopar/Ford fuel sending unit from Tanks Inc p/n: TAN-ORG to match the original gauge's resistance range and adjusted the sender so the float swung across the full range of the tank's height. I have used their senders on several other projects and highly recommend them if you don't need a sender with a built in pickup and the original style is no longer available. They also supplied the new fuel filler hose and roll over vent.

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I aadded a vent port with a roll-over valve because I plan to add a charcoal canister one day and didn't want to have to drop the tank to do so. Because I didn't think to have Marietta Radiator weld in a 1/4" NPT connector for the vent while they were working on it, I used a brass 1/4" NPT bulkhead I picked up on Amazon. I bent and flared new NiCopp fuel lines and ran the lines out the front and rear for the engine & generator. I ended the lines a few inches past the edge of the tank so I'll be able to connect to easily connect/disconnect them with unions.

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After my girlfriend painted the fuel tank mounting brackets to match the newly painted tank, I installed it!

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I got lucky in that the pickup tubes worked well with the sealer and didn't clog or have any rust holes that suck air. The fuel sender worked great, but I found that my gauge was reading a little low. It gets to the empty line after using 25 gallons, so I plan to install a MeterMatch to adjust for the gauge drift, rather than gambling on a new gauge.

Quote from: DaveVA78Chieftain on April 16, 2023, 11:48 AMLooking good!
Check to see if the brake pedal to booster connecting rod is adjustable.  Parts book hints that it may be.

It does! I used a power booster depth tool to set the rod so I feel pretty good about the adjustment, but it might need a 2nd look.

Quote from: Eyez Open on May 01, 2023, 09:53 AMNice work going on there congratulations. I've had quite a time allocating parts for a 82 GM doing a 70's Dodge must take quite a bit of patience along with tenacity.

Best of luck to you, I am almost at the end with mine...I can tell you there will come a time when you look at your RV and just smile thinking Damm I got there...unbelievable!

Thanks Eyez Open! I looked at it and thought that after the very first trip haha. I still can't believe I was able to take it out camping three weeks after getting it. I'll post that update soon! I can't wait to have most of the major projects done though, then I'll really feel like I got there!

Quote from: WinneBaby on April 29, 2023, 07:52 PM:)ThmbUp  ;)  :grin: <3 <3 <3 Looking good! The Winnebago too!

Haha thanks! You were looking good yourself painting those fuel tank brackets  ;)

Awesome job man.

Yes, it is important to make multiple safety measures, but we've all been there.

But do i also see jackstands without the safetypin installed? That can cause definite heart stopping moments when your struggling to get under or underneath the rv and kick the handle.  ;)

Quote from: Mlw on May 08, 2023, 05:18 PMAwesome job man.

Yes, it is important to make multiple safety measures, but we've all been there.

But do i also see jackstands without the safetypin installed? That can cause definite heart stopping moments when your struggling to get under or underneath the rv and kick the handle.  ;)

Good eye! The upright jack stand without the pin was added after everything started to go south. I basically threw it under there to have something while I tied it to the tree with the ratchet strap and didn't want to reach under the motor home far enough to install the pin until it was better supported haha. But I bought those locking stands specifically because I kicked one onetime and got lucky that it didn't release.

When I bought Winnie, there were no front seats at all. The previous owner had removed them and thrown them away because the upholstery was bad. No seats is worse than intact seats with bad upholstery, but they were long gone. I sourced a set out of a '78 Winnebago for $150 that were in pretty rough shape.

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We tore all of the old upholstery off and spent a long time cleaning and sanitizing the foam backing and metal base. It came off more cleanly than expected and by the time we were through they looked clean and smelled great.

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For $28 per seat I picked up some neat Southwest style seat covers and semi-matching arm rest covers. They fit very well and I'm pleased with the finished product!

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The newer seat bases had a different hole pattern than the originals, but I lined up the rear holes such that they drilled through some angle iron under the floor for increased structural rigidity. Fortunately, the PO saved the large, thick washers that originally went under the floor to mount the seats and, combined with new grade 8 bolts and nuts, I feel that the seats are at least as well secured as they were from the factory. They fit in there nicely too! I wish the driver's seat back was a little straighter so I could get a little bit more leg room, but I've since logged about 2,000 miles with this setup and it's very driveable!

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Lastly, I did a few general maintenance items. Changed the engine oil and used Shell Rotella T4 15W-40 diesel oil to protect the flat tappet cam and a Wix 51515XP filter as Wix seems to come out on top of any oil filter tests I've seen. Installed a new air filter element (Wix 42044) I shot several pumps of grease into the water pump after replacing the zerk fitting and adding a cap to keep debris out. Looked at all the steering linkage while my girlfriend turned the wheel side to side to check for excessive play or anything else that seemed unsafe. All the linkage looked intact, if a bit worn, so I figured we were good for now! Finally, I got some new transmission cooler hoses made. They are 1/8" NPT on one end and 5/16" female inverted flare on the other. They're a bit of a pain to install without crows-feet socket wrenches, and only slightly less of a pain with them, but they went in and sealed fine with a couple of wraps of yellow gas rated PTFE tape on the pipe threads.

We took Winnie for her first test drive on the road in probably 30 years, and it was a great success! The engine was running good and I was confident that the coach could stop, steer, and roll, so we were mechanically ready for out first trip. The only two surprises were when the engine cover blew off when I accelerated and when the front grill door swung open when I came to a stop  :laugh:

An extendible truck bed cargo bar braced between the rear of the engine cover and the dinette half wall held the engine cover down so long as we piled our luggage on top. I've seen a number of people fix the grill door issue by adding an external sliding latch or other mechanism, but I felt that the original latch assembly could probably be salvaged. It was coming unlatched when the door would sag while going over bumps and the latch would slip off of the bottom of the catch. I screwed a sheet metal screw right under the catch to block the latch from falling down and it worked! The door hasn't swung open on it's own since!

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I bought a new 48" x 75" RV mattress for the back along with a new set of sheets and a mattress cover to go with. I'm very pleased with how comfy the combo is! The mattress is an 8" thick memory foam model from American Mattress Company. They made it in this country and packaged it as soon as they got the order and had it to my door in less than four days. It's very comfortable and sleeps cool. We're also happy with the Shreem Linen microfiber RV sheets and I plan to purchase a second set to keep as a spare.

We loaded the coolers, dogs, and camp chairs, and hit the road! Almost immediately it started lightly raining, even though the forecast called for clear skies all weekend. I tried the windshield wipers for the first time and found out that the rubber inserts were down to the roughed up nubs. A quick stop at my Friendly Local Auto Parts Store for some Rain-X and we were back on the road! We made it the 65 miles to our campsite in Chattahoochee Bend State Park a little after dark, so my girlfriend set up some glow stick rings for interior lighting. I hadn't touched the coach's electrical system and wasn't about to try it for the first time so far from home. I think it looked awesome!

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We spent the next day hiking around the park with the pups and relaxing by the campfire ring. Everyone who passed by complemented the rig and either had fond memories in one or wanted to have one of their own one day.

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The drive back was equally uneventful! It was a perfect clear evening and I found that I love driving this rig down the highways and back roads. The big glass windows, huge steering wheel, and bus-like ride all make for a relaxing experience at 55-60 mph.

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The trip was a success! Gripe sheet items included:
- Figure out why blinkers and hazard lights all blink way too fast, even though they're on different flashers.
- Investigate steering, as it's a bit sloppy and the steering box clicks when crossing center after a turn
- Check coolant, as the engine temp got a little above half way on the interstate ride back and took a long time to cool back down.
-  Figure out what is causing the driver's side valve train ticking when the engine is good and warmed up.

All in all a good trip! We made it back and had a blast the whole time. I'm going to include cost details for this project so anyone getting into something like this can go in eyes open, expense-wise. At this point, between initial purchase price and many, many parts, I had $8,900 into this project. We joked that it was our nine-thousand dollar camping weekend, but I'm hoping that the per trip cost will come down eventually haha!

The plan, to build up confidence for a cross country trip to Seattle in September, is to take Winnie out once a month, on further and further trips. Between the first trip and this second one, there was very little time to work on the coach, as I was going to be traveling for work during the last three weeks in March. I decided to tackle lighting, both external and internal.

Looking into the fast turn signal flasher issue, I checked all brake, turn, and running lights and replaced any bad bulbs. This made no difference. I tried swapping the hazard flasher with the turn signal flasher as they were the same part number, a standard 2-pin #552 flasher. No change. I spent a while measuring resistances, checking wiring, etc before concluding that I couldn't find anything wrong. I went up to my FLAPS and picked up two brand new 552 flashers, installed them, and the problem was immediately fixed! I couldn't believe that both flashers, which were even different brands, failed in exactly the same way. But, now my turn signals stayed on long enough for the incandescent bulbs to heat up enough to glow, Safety achieved!

Next, I installed a deep cycle battery in the battery tray to run the house 12V circuit. I ran new cables from the negative terminal to the ground post and from the positive terminal to the house side of the dual battery relay. Connecting the positive terminal did not produce any sparks, so I counted that as a win! The original water tank air compressor was long gone, and I wasn't going to try the furnace, so that pretty much left the two lighting circuits. One had a blown fuse and for the low, low cost of a second fuse, I confirmed that it was blown due to a continuous dead short. I left that alone for now. The 2nd lighting circuit though was intact! I replaced the bulbs in the rear light and the dinette light and they both lit up!

We got on the road the next day for our 2nd trip in Winnie! This time we traveled south down I-75 to High Falls State Park. We got there right at dark this time, but we were able to light up the campsite with our interior lighting alone!

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The next day we hiked around the falls and old power plant there, canoed around the lake, and had a great time. I have driven past the exit for this park for years and finally got a chance to go and I'm glad I did! Anywhere we went, Winnie caught someone's eye and she even got her picture taken in the Chick-fil-a parking lot on the way back!

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With two successful trips under our belt, I felt that it was time to take Winnie out a little further from home. Back in February, I bought tickets to see the Wailin' Jenny's, a string-heavy folk group that is great to see live, perform two nights in two different towns in North Carolina. But, before going that far, I wanted to rebuild Winnie's steering system.

I started by removing the steering gear box and sending it out to Redhead Steering on the West Coast. I wanted to get my box rebuilt rather than take a gamble on a replacement rebuilt box because I knew that mine was in decent shape. Between shipping and the cost of the rebuild, going this route set me back $525. Definitely not the cheapest, but the rebuilt box worked perfectly, didn't leak a drop, and had no noticeable play. It comes back nicely painted and with an American flag sticker on it to boot! They hand fit the recirculating balls to take up any wear in that part of the mechanism and I felt better knowing that it had been professionally gone through. Removing & reinstalling the gear box was straight forward and relatively easy with two people. The only real complication was that I had to shave down my pitman arm puller on the grinder to get it to fit in the tight space between the pitman arm and the frame.

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While the steering box was being rebuilt, I pulled the steering shaft in order to rebuild the pot joint. I'd read a story on here about how one person's pot joint broke and another person had so much bearing wear in theirs as to render it unsafe, so I didn't want to skip putting eyes on mine and refreshing it. Most of the procedures I've seen will have you remove the steering column as an assembly, and then remove the shaft from that. That seemed like a lot of extra work and I was able to remove mine out the bottom with the steering column still mounted to the Winnebago since the steering gearbox was already removed.. The replaceable components appeared to be the top seal, two bearing shoes, and the flat metal spring that holds the bearings tight to the housing. I couldn't find a source or part number for the spring, but I did find a NOS seal on Ebay (Chrysler p/n: 1939485) and a new pair of bearings as well (p/n: 2072111). The pot joint was easy enough to pull apart once the retaining ring was removed.

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Fortunately, mine was still full of grease and the bearings had almost no wear on them. As they are symmetrical, I was able to rotate them 90 degrees and take advantage of the unused wearing surface. I filled the joint half full of grease and installed the new seal, as mine turned out to be cracked and rotted. The seal didn't fit tight to the steering shaft at all, so I added several wraps of electrical tape to the shaft to take up the slack. This seemed to work well, as the seal was now snug but not overly tight. If anyone wants the unused pair of new bearings, PM me and they can be on their way to you for just the cost of shipping!

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Reinstalling the steering shaft would be difficult with one person as it needs to be pressed in from the bottom while the retaining ring is installed in the cab, but working with a buddy we got it in no problem. I made sure that the steering box input shaft was exactly centered, lock to lock, and installed the steering wheel facing straight ahead. The steering response is tightest across center, so I wanted to make sure I knew where that was. I got my local hydraulic shop to make me new power steering hoses and added a Magnefine 3/8" filter to the return side.

I then turned my attention to the drag link. I had read of DRMousseau's harrowing experience when the drag link in his Winnebago failed and became determined to replace mine. Having the steering wheel no longer be connected to the wheels is a scarier situation to me than experiencing brake failure...

As a few before me had determined, there is no suitable drop-in replacement drag link. I couldn't find any drag links that measured in the ball park of 23 3/4" long, much less ones with 7 degree tapered 9/16" studs. So, I resolved to build my own. It occurred to me that the tie rod ends would likely be the same taper & size as the drag link ends and, as I planned to replace those anyway, I ordered a pair to see. RockAuto sells them, Delphi TA5395 & TA5398. Once they arrived, I determined that they were a perfect match for the non-replaceable drag link ends! Next, I got a pair of right-hand and left-hand threaded 11/16-18 welded inserts (Midwest Control Products p/n: M-WTFH-11L-0.995x1 & M-WTFH-11R-0.995x1) to match the LH & RH threads on the new drag link ends. They were $12 each at the time on Ebay. I also got LH & RH jam nuts to go with. Lastly, I bought an 18" length of 1.5" OD, 1/4" wall DOM Tubing. This drawn-over-mandrel tubing has tight tolerances and is used in applications that require strength. My local welding shop welded in the threaded inserts, and I had myself a new, adjustable drag link! The ends are even replaceable, if by some miracle I ever put enough miles on these to wear them out.

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Once it was all said and done, the new drag link cost about $200. More than I've ever spent on a drag link, for sure, but worth it to not lose steering control on a rig that I've got nearly $10k in at this point. One more thing I'd like to do is safety wire the drag link ends to the drag link tube to ensure that they can't un-thread even if both jam nuts come loose. The new drag link fit perfectly and I was able to adjust it so that the rig tracked straight down the road when the steering wheel was straight ahead and the steering box was right on center. A road test showed a lot of improvement in steering play and any ticking from the steering gearbox was gone. Success!

With steering safety addressed, I turned my attention to the 120 VAC wiring. While my rig has an onboard generator, I'm saving that project for a later day. That left the 30A plug as the only source of input power. When that was connected and the shore power breakers engaged, I couldn't get any voltage on any of the outlets. Some investigating lead me to determine that the shore power input breaker had failed due to the dirt daubber nest that had been built inside of it...

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My rig uses half-sized GE breakers and fortunately Lowe's had the two 30A 2-pole breakers and three 20A single pole breakers I needed in stock, for $60 out the door. At that price, I decided to replace them all, as I'd feel pretty dumb if my rig burned down because I saved $45 on breakers. With the new breakers installed, the 120VAC now worked! As a surprise bonus, I tried the rooftop A/C and got a blast of cold air!

Next, I mounted the standard, compressor refridgerator that came loose in the rig, on rubber in the original fridge spot. Adding some child-proof drawer/cabinet latches to the doors made it road-ready!

Given that we might encounter rain on this trip, I decided to do something about the wiper nubs. I knew that the wiper style was an uncommon one, from my unsuccessful attempt to buy some at the auto parts store after setting out on my first trip. Eventually I found out that this style was used on certain semi-trucks back in the 80s. Trico 61-150 15" blades seemed to be the correct replacement, but I didn't like that they were black rather than the bright metal of the originals. I had a pair of left over 16" wiper blades for a '73 F100 that didn't fit that truck particularly well, so I pulled the end caps off and found that the insert width was 5/16" - 3/8", a perfect match for the Winnebago blades! I pulled the old and new inserts out of their beams, and installed the new inserts in the old beams. It took some dish soap as lube and a bit of coaxing, but they eventually fit perfectly and I saved $22 on new wiper blades! I just need to do that ten more times and I'll have the drag link paid for  :laugh:

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Lastly, I tried out my new setup for torquing the lug nuts. Previously, I'd been using a 2 foot breaker bar and standing near the end of it with the bar parallel to the ground, to approximate the 350 ft-lbs that these lug nuts call for. Wanting a little bit more precision than that, I picked up a Neiko 20743A 3/4" digital torque adapter good to 750 ft-lbs and a Neiko 03069A 3/4" ratchet that can extend out to 40". This set up was great! I was able to torque the lug nuts with confidence and it collapses down so I can store it in the back if I have to change a tire on the road.

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With that done, we were ready for the road again! We set out on the six hour drive with a nice 3 hour cushion to make it to the concert in Greensboro, NC. Plenty of time to stop, eat good food, etc. Well, about 2 hours into the trip, the outside temperatures started getting up towards 80 degrees F, a first for us in a Winnie trip. With that increase in outside temperature came an increase in engine temperature - and I knew we were in trouble. As the temperature needle climbed up to 3/4, I reduced speed from 60 mph to 55, then to 50 as the temperature kept creeping up over the course of the next hour. We stopped for fuel and I temped the water pump with my IR thermometer. 225 degrees F! My hopes of an inaccurate temperature gauge went up in steam, so to speak. We let the engine cool a bit while I checked the tension of the water pump belts. They were both loose and riding pretty deep in the fan pulley, so I tightened them up, hopeful that I'd improved the situation.

No such luck. Once we got back on the road, we were only able to maintain 50 mph for a half hour or so before having to slow to 45 mph and eventually just above 40, the legal speed to stay on the interstate. Going that slow was a safety concern too. Between pulling off to let the engine cool and the occasional stand-still traffic that did nothing to help with the overheating, our 3 hour time cushion was rapidly depleting. In desperation, I finally removed the engine cover and opened all the windows. The heater control valve was seized, but some coolant was circulating through the core anyway, so I opened those vents up and turned the fan on to get every bit of cooling capacity out of it that I could. By that point I'd temped the water pump at up to 236 F at one stop and didn't want to risk blowing a head gasket.

Removing the engine cover did the trick. We were able to maintain 45-50 mph for the rest of the trip and we made it to the concert venue just as they were starting their opening song, over three hours later than planned. But we made it! The campsite that we stayed at that night was nice and we had a spot right by the pond.

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The rest of the April trip went great! Outside temperatures dropped by about 10 degrees and Winnie stayed cool all through the Smoky Mountains. We spent the rest of the long weekend in Cherokee, NC and had a blast. No trouble on the way back to Atlanta either, aside from the radiator growing leakier by the mile.

The night we got back I tore into the front end, determined to figure out what was causing the overheating. Thermostat, radiator, water pump impeller??

The radiator is surprisingly easy to pull out. Just a few screws hold the lower grill and divisor bar in and then you have full access to the front engine area.

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When I got it pulled, I looked in the lower radiator hose opening and figured I'd found my answer. Many of the tubes I could see looked plugged with scale and corrosion.

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Once the radiator was out, I pulled the fan, fan clutch, and water pump. Fortunately, the water pump impeller looked perfect! No evidence of any leaks from the weep hole and the bearings felt smooth, tight, and quiet. I was worried about that as rebuilt units are not available except from a specialty rebuilder on Ebay who wants $400 for a rebuilt pump plus a $125 core charge.

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Then I pulled the water neck and got my first look at the thermostat. Sure enough, it had been replaced at some point with a non-skirted version and boy, did it look rough.

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The water neck was in rough shape too, so I cleaned it up with a wire wheel. This was the result:

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No idea how the thing lasted this long when so much of it was solid rust. No replacement appears to be made either. So, I looked closer at the one I had to see how Dodge made it five decades ago, because it obviously wasn't a single cast piece. It seems to just be a piece of exhaust pipe brazed onto the flat mating flange. I went to my FLAPS and picked up a 2" ID to 2" OD exhaust adapter that appeared to match the original perfectly, except for the rolled lip on the end. I used an exhaust pipe expander and pliers to flare and then roll the lip. I cut off the old pipe and ground the last 1/8" out from inside the flange. A coworker with some brazing experience helped me braze pipe to the flange using bronze brazing rod. Some time on the disc sander cleaned up the mating surface at Dupli-color engine primer and DE1619 Chysler Green paint had it looking good as new! (if you squint, and ignore the globby brazing on top of the flange.)

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I took the radiator down to Marietta Radiator and had them look it over. As I expected, the core was shot and it needed to be re-cored. I knew it would be expensive but wasn't quite prepared for the $975 quoted price. This included going from a 2 1/4" 3-row to a 2 5/8" 4-row core, but even going with the original size didn't cut the price appreciably. After sitting down with a stiff drink and spending 2 hrs online trying to find any alternative that I could make work, I gave up and told Walter to go ahead with the repair including the core upgrade. Go big or go home. Or maybe it's go big and get home...

To complete my cooling system rebuild I wanted to replace the thermostat, thermostat gasket, water pump gasket, upper & lower radiator hoses, fan clutch, water pump belts, radiator caps, heater hose, and heater control valve. I also read about the horrors of having your radiator's internal transmission cooler start leaking and the bad news that happens when coolant begins to flow into your transmission. Because of that, I wanted to bypass the internal cooler and come up with an external cooler solution. Also, while I had the whole front pulled off, I decided it would be as good a time as any to replace the motor mounts - pancaked flat due to five decades of carrying this big block over countless potholes.

I only found one place online that makes the wide 2 1/2" flange skirted thermostat that our rigs require (here (https://www.stewartcomponents.com/product/high-performance-195-degree-306-thermostat/)). Considering the solid gold plated radiator I'd just approved, I looked for NOS thermostats on eBay to save a little money. For less than the price of one new one, I ordered three NOS thermostats: Robert Shaw 370-195, Stant S-370-XH, and Mopar 3514181. I tested all three simultaneously by suspending them in a pot of water and bringing it to boil. They all opened between 195 F - 198 F, though the Robert Shaw one opened exactly at 195F and seemed to open further than the others. I decided to go with that one and save the Mopar unit as a spare. If anyone needs a thermostat, let me know and the Stant model is yours for the cost of shipping.

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I couldn't find any hits on the Mopar # 1679148 five bolt water pump gasket. Eventually, I found the gasket on eBay for $25 from the same people who sell the $400 remanufactured pump. They list it as Mopar # 2846037. At that price, I decided to save the original they sent and cut a new one from Fel-Pro # water gasket material using the eBay gasket as a template. My girlfriend (user Winnebaby if it wasn't obvious  :laugh: ) kindly stepped in to cut the new gasket as she is much, much better at it than I am. The new, blue gasket came out perfectly!

The lower radiator hose proved to be the most difficult to locate, as a replacement is not manufactured. I found many posts on this site looking for a replacement but one was never identified. I poked around on the Gates website and looked for hoses with the right 2.5" ID and a sharp right angle. I came up with several possibilities and ordered the two most likely candidates from O'Reilly's. To my surprise, one of them fit perfectly with a little trimming! Gates 20987. Now we finally have a currently made replacement part for the '72 413 lower rad hose! To be fair, the original radiator hose seemed in surprisingly good shape and has the thickest wall of any radiator hose I've ever seen. I set it aside to put in the spare parts box.

The upper hose was easy, as someone had already replaced mine in the past with a NAPA 7658 hose that they'd trimmed to fit. I re-ordered that hose and it worked.

Fan clutches apparently come in several different types: Standard Duty, Heavy Duty, and Sever Duty. After spending way to much time figuring out the differences, I used the Hayden Heavy Duty model as that appeared to have a stronger engagement and a more complete disengagement due to an external thermostatic spring, while not being too gigantic or aggressive. While the Heavy Duty model was longer than the existing fan clutch, it was still comfortably far from the radiator fins once installed. I'm hopeful that it will aid in stop and go traffic and save gas on the highway.

Gates listed a couple of different length possibilities for the fan belts: 56.25", 57.25" and 58.25". The one that was on there was 56" long and the alternator was almost out of tension adjustment, so I went with a 55 1/4" version of the same belt. It turned out to be the right size - once installed and properly tightened, the alternator adjusting bolt was right in the middle of the slot. However, the pulley on my alternator is clearly made for a narrower belt, with a narrower spacing between pulley grooves so the belts rode high and are not in perfect alignment with the crank and water pump pulleys.

It took quite a while, but I finally found all the parts that I needed. Below are the part numbers that I went with:

Part	Mopar #	Replacement #
Upper Radiator Hose	2959567	NAPA 7658	Gates 20933
Lower Radiator Hose	2959568	Gates 20987
Thermostat (195F)	3514181	Robert-Shaw 370-195	Stant S-370-XH
Thermostat Gasket	3830016	Fel-pro 35063
Water Pump	3420225 (repair kit 3420226)	N/A
Water Pump Gasket	1679148	Mopar # 2846037
Radiator Cap (7 psi)	2516443	Stant 10328	Murray 7007
Heater Control Valve	N/A	Murray 277814
Fan Clutch	3462182	Hayden 2747
Fan Belts	3633494	Gates 9550HD (55 1/4")	Gates 9560HD (56 1/4")
Power Steering Belt	2532786	Gates 9480HD
Motor Mount	2264675	Napa BK 6021115

While I was in there, I painted the front of the engine and all of the easily accessible frame and support metal. I used Dupli-color engine primer, DE1619 Chrysler Green, and DE1635 black engine paint. I think it came out looking good!
Before:

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After:

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While I had the radiator out and easy access, I replaced the chewed and rotten piece of screen that served as a cabin air filter with a combination of fine and course filter material meant for window A/C units that I picked up at Home Depot.

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After all the paint had dried and parts had finished trickling in, I reassembled my cooling system and filled it with coolant. The petcock on top of the water pump made bleeding the system easy - I wish more vehicles had that.

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As I posted on LJ-TJ's topic on transmission coolers, after getting my radiator re-cored, I decided to not use the internal cooler. Since the rest of it was so bad, I didn't trust it to not leak coolant into the transmission and ruin it. I plugged the two 1/8" NPT ports in my radiator and ran a completely external cooler.

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I went with a TRU-COOL MAX LPD4739-1 cooler as it was large, wide, and short. I wanted a good sized cooler, about the same width as the radiator, that wouldn't take up the whole height and rob too much cooling capacity from the engine. I paired it with a Derale 25011 oil thermostat to speed up transmission warmup times and keep it from running too cool in colder weather. This oil thermostat runs in bypass until the ATF gets to 180 degrees and then it flows through the cooler. The transmission cooler has 3/8" inverted flare fittings and the oil thermostat has 3/8" NPT fittings, so some adapters were required to interface with the original 1/8" NPT cooler hoses.

At this point it was Friday, the day we were supposed to leave for Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge! I fired it up and had Winnebaby checking for leaks. Several tightened or replaced hose clamps later all the leaks were gone and it was purring like a kitten! We loaded up and got on the road to Gatlinburg. We had a restaurant reservation for the Oyster Bar in Gatlinburg at the latest possible time of 10:45 PM and expected ETA was 10:35 PM. With one stop early on to temp the transmission (bang on 180F!) and other parts with an IR thermometer we hit US 441 through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park with an expected ETA of 10:50. Figuring this would be the perfect, responsible way to do a shakedown test of the new cooling system, I kept the pedal to the floor for most of the the climb to the top of the pass, before coasting down into Gaitlinburg on the other side. The needle stayed rock steady at the half way mark for the whole trip! After squeezing through an all-to-narrow paid parking gate, we made it to our reservation on time! No oysters ever tasted as good.

The next morning, a trip to Dollywood followed by a trip to the Pirate's Voyage Dinner Show rounded out our Pigeon Forge experience and we headed to Maggie Valley to meet friends. Winnie ran great the rest of the weekend and we had a blast! The only wrinkle was the exhaust leak at the driver's side manifold that started to develop on the last day. By the time we got back to Atlanta it was LOUD. The great thing about this RV is I'm never unsure about what I need to work on next - Winnie always lets me know  :laugh:

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Reading up on Dodge big block exhaust leaks I found two things - 1) the exhaust manifold is always warped and 2) the copper gaskets are the gold standard for sealing and not blowing out 500 - 2k miles down the road. Original Mopar aluminum fiber gasket p/n is 1859761. Fel-pro replacement p/n: MS9705B. The copper gaskets for these industrial 413 V8s are SCE 4264. Summit had three pairs of them in stock so, never optimistic that I"m only going to have to do this once, I bought two pairs. I also ordered a few of the 4 bolt exhaust pipe flange gaskets, Mahle brand from RockAuto. Mopar p/n: 1924887. Fel-pro p/n: 9269. Mahle p/n: F7153.

While I waited on parts to come in for the exhaust manifold, I decided to try and get the windshields replaced. The driver's side was foggy around the edges and the passenger side one was spiderwebbed with cracks. I only found one shop that would cut the flat glass and install it for a reasonable price. Brian Diamond Glass in Austell (678-309-3377) charged $450 to cut both 18" x 42" panes of AS-1 glass and install them, re-using the original rubber gasket that was in good shape. They came out looking great!

Here's how bad the original looked:

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The new one looks just like that, except the glass isn't cracked or faded and is perfectly clear  :laugh:

Surprisingly, all seven manifold bolts came out without a bit of complaint. It was clear from the anti-seize on the threads that someone had been in there before and bless them for it! An hour's work with a fairly straight aluminum level and a large flat file left me feeling good about the flatness of the manifold. The manual specs 0.008" warp per foot of manifold and I was less than 0.007" in the middle compared to the ends.

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I bought new black-oxide grade 8 bolts with a satisfying flange and tall hex head and installed the manifold with the copper gasket. As I was tightening it down, it became apparent that the two strips of metal that connect the middle ports to the outer ones were hitting the spark plugs and would cause the gasket to stretch or crack the insulators if I continued tightening the bolts. Since those strips serve no purpose other than keeping the gasket together so it can be assembled in one piece, I snaked a pair of tin snips in there and cut through them. Doing this again, I would cut through them before installing the gasket as snaking the snips in there was a really tough job.

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The manual called for 40 ft-lbs of torque for the bolts but the gasket instructions called for 24 - 31 ft-lbs. I went with 24 ft-lbs to start with and it tightened up nicely. The manifold outlet nuts got the factory spec 40 ft-lbs.

Again, it was down to the wire. We had a camping reservation at Florence Marina that night so we could do the Tails on Trails hike with Winnebaby's corgi Zelda in Providence Canyon State Park the next morning. I fired it up and it sounded so much better, but sadly not perfect. Feeling around the ports I could feel exhaust coming from the rear of the #1 cylinder port. This was different from where it was leaking before, #3 & #5, so I figure that the copper gaskets are a little more sensitive and the front manifold port was likely warped. We got on the road and it was hardly noticeable!

The next day, before the Tails on Trails event, I torqued the manifold bolts to 28 ft-lbs figuring that it had been through a heat cycle and I was still shy of the grade 8 bolt's rated torque value of 35 ft-lbs. This seemed to help a little but the leak was still noticeable on the drive to Providence Canyon State Park. The park is beautiful by the way, and I recommend anyone passing through that area check it out!

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That night we had ribeye steaks grilled over a camp grill wood fire. Winnebaby is impressively good at cooking over an unregulated open flame and the steaks & veggies came out great!

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The next day I went all the way to 31 ft-lbs but noticed no change on the drive back to Atlanta. When we got back, I pulled the exhaust manifold again and found that I could slip a 0.007" feelter gauge on one side of the #1 port but not the other, so it was significantly warped. I took it to Cobra Engine in Austell and they resurfaced it using their belt sander for $40. I rechecked flatness when I got it back and could not get a 0.002" feeler gauge anywhere under the straight edge. I checked the installed depth of all the bolts in their holes without the manifold to make sure they were not bottoming out and all looked good. I added Grade 8 lock washers under each bolt head as well. I cut the middle strips out of the copper gaskets before installing them this time and that worked well.

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After reinstalling everything and re-torquing a couple of times after a couple of heat cycles, the slight leak was still there. While the manifold is now flat, the head has significant corrosion/erosion damage around the leaking areas. If I was doing a rebuild, I'd get that area resurfaced, but I don't want to pull the head just to fix this. My next plan is to try doubling up two of the Fel-pro fiber-aluminum gaskets, on the assumption that they're more malleable and will fill the pitted surface on the head better. I'll report back how that goes.

On the first trip we took, I found out that the horn button does nothing, when someone pulled out right in front of us and we locked the tires up to keep from hitting them. On each subsequent trip, it seemed like something like that happened in the first 20 miles without fail, so I decided the horn had to be fixed. One of the horns was missing and the other was dead, so I decided to locate some replacements. I"m a firm believer that a horn sound should suit the vehicle, so I wanted the throatiest option available. There were a number of fancy, expensive options online but I've seen so many horns in junkyards that I figured I could save a little money by going that route.

After a bit of research, I found out that many Cadillacs and Buicks from the '70s - '90s came with a four note horn system, with four different horns that supply A, C, D, and F notes. After watching this video showing how they sound (https://youtu.be/B3e5BCE9zFI), I knew I'd hit on the right combo.  I went down to the local U-Pull It yard and pulled two full sets - one from a '93 Cadillac Fleetwood and one from a '92 Buick Roadmaster. I tested them back at the house and only one out of the 8 was dead, so at $5 each, I consider that a bargain! I had purchased a new horn relay back when I first realized that the horn didn't work, so I used that as a 2nd horn relay to run the other pair of horns. I mounted a pair of horns facing down on each side of the radiator. I like how the install came out and am really pleased with the sound! Gives off satisfying train vibes.

When I bought Winnie way back in February, the owner let me know that it needed a new bathroom roof vent because the cover for the old one was smashed. Clambering up on the roof, I found that the plastic frame was also cracked so I decided to replace the whole thing rather than try to find a cover that I could make work. I bought the MAXXAIR 0004500K fan back in March, but hadn't made enough progress with the automotive side of Winnie to justify spending time putting it in until now. After removing the 24 or so screws that held it in, it was time to try to remove all the old sealing material.

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Sara and I set to work with paint scrapers and every caulk remover compound we could find. The caulk removers didn't seem to make a bit of difference, so I looked into other options. Ultimately, a combination of scraping, a rubber eraser wheel chucked up in a drill, and regular Goo-Gone (not their caulk remover flavor) on a rag got the remaining sealant off pretty easily.

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The next step was to apply "a continuous bead" of butyl tape to the underside of the new vent flange. I was not prepared for how awful this stuff was to work with. It sticks to absolutely everything and stretches entirely too easily. Inconsistent thickness is one of the last things you want in a mechanical seal, but that's what I ended up with.

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The astute observer will note that the rounded corners of the hole in the roof don't match the square corners of the new roof vent. I had to square up the corners of the roof hole using a sawzall to get the fan to fit.

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It's advertised as working with a 2" minimum roof thickness but I didn't realize that my Winnebago roof is only 1" thick until I got the old fan pulled out. Setting the fan down in the opening, it seemed like it would work, so I figured that was Future Alan's problem. The twelve #8 stainless Phillips screws that came with the fan seemed like a poor solution. No inherent sealing and dabbing the heads with sealant would make removing the Phillips screws in the future an exercise in patience as all the sealant would need to be dug out of the head to fit a screwdriver. I picked up some #9 non-self drilling hex head screws with a sealing washer, for use installing tin roofs. I like the built in compression sealing feature of tin roof screws. I smeared a little bit of Dicor self-leveling roof sealant between the sealing washer and the head of the screw for extra protection, pre-drilled the holes through the aluminum roof, and drove them in. The fan's flange had many more bolt recesses than supplied screws and since my roof is a little weak, I figured I'd use as many as I could. I ended up attaching it with something like 26 screws. Finally, I ran a bead of Dicor sealant along the joint between the fan's flange and the roof. I'm pleased with how it came out!

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Replacing the fan also fixed the short that was blowing fuses on that lighting circuit. Now, I have a new fan and more available lighting! The only downside is that on the way down, the lower ladder feet started to pull out of the wall. There's always a new project!

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It is hard to make new parts fit into old machines!! We all have to admit that these Winnebago were not built for duration of any sort..That new fan looks like it will vent the whole motorhome and not just the bathroom..

You are going find that there is either rotted wood or nothing but foam that ladder was screwed to..

Mine had a rollout awning on the side and the only thing holding it was the screws and the paper thin aluminum siding..No wood structure for it to screw into..

I'm definitely worried about finding that, and worse. I need to dive into the front passenger wall next. It flaps as I'm going down the road  :shocked:

Quote from: BigAlsVehicleEmporium on July 14, 2023, 03:30 AMI'm definitely worried about finding that, and worse. I need to dive into the front passenger wall next. It flaps as I'm going down the road  :shocked:

Yea..That is the reason the whole side of my project is open..Right at the belt line, where the wall screws to the floor is a 2x4..Mine was rotted dust..At the very bottom edge is a 2x2 that the aluminum trim pieces are stapled to..Dust..I am missing the aluminum piece on the starboard side that is the bottom edge from the door to the rear wheel well..It fell off long ago as the 2x2 was rotted dust..

I will be rebuilding my walls with 1.5 square steel tubing..with wood placed where it is needed

QuoteWe all have to admit that these Winnebago were not built for duration of any sort..

Ain't that the truth...  And not only Winnebago's.

Quote from: RockwoodMike on July 14, 2023, 01:52 PMYea..That is the reason the whole side of my project is open..Right at the belt line, where the wall screws to the floor is a 2x4..Mine was rotted dust..At the very bottom edge is a 2x2 that the aluminum trim pieces are stapled to..Dust..I am missing the aluminum piece on the starboard side that is the bottom edge from the door to the rear wheel well..It fell off long ago as the 2x2 was rotted dust..

All the bottom 2x2s on mine have disappeared too! Everywhere else seems pretty solid, except for that front passenger wall. My 2x4 there is probably gone too. Not looking forward to having to tear into that...

I am in the process of reloading the lost photos and these 2 are part of the list..

The first is the same front right location you are saying..Rotted dust..

The main reason for all the rot around the lower area is the second picture..The way it was made in the factory was the lower panel over lapped that upper panel at the floor belt line.

Unless the aluminum trim piece was perfectly sealed to the wall, water running down the wall was actually flowing into the interior of the wall because of the lapping of the siding..In my picture if the brown siding was applied first then the white siding, the water would not has entered the walls as it did..

Just those type of construction methods ruined so many of these motorhomes

Wow, that's unbelievable! I went and checked my front passenger side where most of the damage is, and fortunately they have the overlapping correct so that it sheds water rather than funneling it into the walls. I hope it's that way all the way around...

I pulled the 2nd set of copper exhaust manifold gaskets, and here's what I found on the head-side of the gaskets.


You can see a couple of small areas where they'd started to leak in the center dual gasket section, but the bad area was on the rear of the front driver's side port.


You can see where the leak was significant by the trail of exhaust soot. Short of removing the heads and getting the exhaust side resurfaced, I wasn't going to be able to fix this with the copper gaskets. It didn't sound too loud, but I could definitely hear the leak and didn't want to put 5k more miles to/from Seattle with that leak eating away at the already compromised mating surface. So, I took a gamble and followed what someone else on here had done. I bought a set of the Fel-pro MS9705B aluminum/fiber gaskets and doubled up, using both gaskets on the driver's side. I torqued the bolts down incrementally to the factory-spec 40 ft-lbs.

From what I've read on here, these gaskets can work well if they're kept tight. So, I fired it up and ran the engine for 15 minutes or so, until it came up to normal operating temperature. Then I shut it down, let it cool, and re-torqued the bolts. I'm glad I did too because they had to be turned a decent amount to get to 40 ft-lbs again. I repeated this process a 2nd time and that time the bolts hardly had to be turned at all, which was confidence-inspiring.

I've put a few hundred miles on it since then, and these gaskets sealed up to the corroded head surface nicely! I can't hear or feel any leaks.

The only part of the braking system that I hadn't addressed was the vacuum booster. It worked enough but definitely leaked a good bit of air. From another thread on this forum, I found out about BB&K Auto in south Atlanta. I took my Mopar # 3633549 brake booster down to them on a Friday and they had it ready by 11 AM on Saturday. Incredible service and at $216 out the door it seems like a fair price. In case anyone needs it, their phone number is: 404-761-3102. Address:
511 85th Circle
Atlanta, GA 30349

I ordered a Wearever MCA71259 master cylinder because I am suspicious of the O'Reilly Brake Best NMC21936 that I installed back in February. The brake pedal goes way too far before the brakes engage. When they do engage, the pedal is firm so I don't suspect air in the lines. It acts like it would behave if the outlets were missing the 10 psi residual valves. When I installed it, I remember not seeing anything in the port openings. Also, this part is no longer available from O'Reilly and I wonder if that was because they found that a bunch of them were bad.

The new Wearever master cylinder arrived! Before filling the Wearever part with fluid, I checked it for residuals and they were present. I tried a crude test of putting an air hose up to each port and slowly increasing the regulator from 0 until I could hear air comig out of the resevoir. They both started to flow air near enough to 10 psi that I was happy! So I bench bled it and then swapped it for the O'Reilly brand MC. Sure enough, there were no residuals in the O'Reilly master cylinder. I haven't power bled the brakes yet, but I can already feel an improvement. The pedal doesn't go as far before the brakes engage, and if I pump it up a little, I can get a pedal with very little travel before engagement. I think once I re-bleed the brakes I'll have a pedal that feels like it ought to. But, even if it doesn't get any better, it's much more driveable than with the O'Reilly part.

So, I looked over the generator for the first time. It is an Onan 4.0 CCk model putting out 4kW of power.


After unbolting the tray, I slid it most of the way out and supported end with a pair of jackstands. At 340 lbs, this generator is not light and this job definitely has to be done with a good rolling floor jack or two strong people. After cleaning up grounds and spinning it over by hand a bunch, the starting circuit came around and it would spin itself over! It sounded pretty uneven, but I was hoping that valves were stuck from sitting. Filed the points and managed to get a weak spark out of it. Poured some 2 cycle gas down the carburetor and got a few random pops out of the exhaust and a couple of backfires out the carburetor. That told me it was definitely valves, so I pulled the spark plugs to do a compression test. The outboard plug looked like it had been firing, but it was pretty well caked in oil, not a great sign. The inboard plug however definitely had not been firing for many hours. Outboard compression was 100 psi, not terrible for a cold engine that has been sitting for a few decades. Inboard was 0 psi. At this point, I knew that it burned oil and had stuck valves or a rounded camshaft lobe, or some similar issue. Parts for these seem expensive and if I did put the time and money into fixing it, I'd just end up with a very loud, inefficient generator that burned oil. So, I decided to pull it and I'm keeping my eye out for a deal on a Predator 3500 generator. They do 3 kW continuous, are very quiet, and burn very little fuel. On top of all that, they only weigh 98 lbs! A bunch of people have retro-fitted their RVs with them and seem happy. There's even a door lock actuator based electric choke conversion kit out there that would let me start it from inside the RV. I'm eager to get this done, because I really want to have A/C while going down the road and when I don't have access to shore power haha.

I plan to get the new generator in during the next week or two. Once that's done and I'm certain that I won't be reusing the Onan, if anyone needs parts, let me know!

The fuel tank of the Predator is located on the top..Will you need to create a pull out shelf to be able to fill the tank?..

Wondering if there is a kit to use the vehicle's fuel tank with a pump.

So if you have a pull out shelf, it needs to be bolted to the shelf to keep it in place as you are going down the road and to be keeping safe from being stolen..

A note here..don't be so hard on that old genset.
Is it a opposed set up like a Subaru..
Does it run at all.



I took one from death to a well functional genset. They are remarkably well built.

Does it use a dual points system..It should. If it runs your 70% home.

I assume the generator also starts the engine...no separate starter right?

I was ready to toss it until I decided to see what makes it tick...it's very very basic 60s tech. Very easy to get it running again.

Aside from all that...a running functional old onan is well worth $8/1500

Rockwood Mike,

My plan is to bypass the tank entirely and use a very low pressure electric fuel pump straight to the carburetor that pulls from the chassis fuel tanks. I got a dual tank switch valve that is set up for a 5/16" return line. Instead of using it as a return, I plan to use it to feed the generator. That way, which ever tank I'm running the engine off of, the generator will run off of it too. The generator pickups in each tank don't go all the way to the bottom, so the generator can't run me dry and leave me stranded. LJ-TJ started a good post about doing the Onan to inverter generator swap here:
https://www.classicwinnebagos.com/forum/index.php?topic=16782.0

Eyez Open,

It is indeed the opposed twin, but with single points and a dual coil. It doesn't run at all, even with starting fluid. It'll pop off but never twice in a row, nothing that could be called running, and half of those are coming out of the carburetor rather than the exhaust.

Yep, it's got an appealingly simple starter setup that uses the generator. Fewer parts, but no gearing advantage so starting it pulls a whopping amount of current.

If I thought I could get $800 for it, I'd probably go to the effort of rebuilding the motor and new rings, etc. But in this part of Georgia, they go all day for $200-$400 running. At that price it's not worth the trouble and I'd rather give it away, or ship some parts to people on CWVRV that need them.

Plus, the Predator 3500 uses half the gas, or less, that the Onan does. That'll save me a few hundred dollars on this Seattle trip alone and go a long way towards paying for the generator.

Quote from: BigAlsVehicleEmporium on July 31, 2023, 11:07 PMuse a very low pressure electric fuel pump straight to the carburetor that pulls from the chassis fuel tanks

I think you will be needing a regular electric fuel pump because it needs the power to draw up to the top of the tank and then all the way to the generator ..So a pressure regulator that can reduce the pressure to next to nothing will be needed..Never seen one before..Usually a regulator is made for 3-5 pounds..Which is a lot more than your gravity feed that the Predator works on ..

Every set up of a invertor generator is usually run once you are at the camp ground..Open the door..set it on an open platform..

To run it while you are going down the road will need to be thoroughly tested..Bumps in the road pot holes, causing the fuel to flood the engine..This engine that is designed to run on the ground without major movement like it would have going down the road..

I'll find my old rebuild thread, those Onans are a ancient design but built to last forever. Hmm that thread maybe on this forum...LMAO I've forgotten.

I would set up a sliding shelf that others have done and just use the stock tank..With the air conditioner running, I think you could get 5 hours run time..Look at the run time for 25% load..11 hours!!..After 5 hours, you pull into a rest stop, pull out the 5 gallon jug you have and refill it..Off you go again..

When I bought my Indian, the PO started the generator to show it runs.So I plan on going through mine..
But I have the time to do that..I have the 4.0 CCK unit also

That September wedding is fast approaching!!

I've found one of first attempts of online posting. Smokestack below was my journey, I had no ideal where to start, but once done it is extremely simple to get them back up and running. A functional onan is easily worth 1200 on the open market. There is actually a cult following out there. Onans can run 24/7@ full power.

A very odd experience occurred there, one of the posters lived about 5 city blocks from me..only after completing the task we figured that out.

https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/onan-6-5nh-attempting-to-bring-it-back.187088/

Rockwood Mike,

I'm too lazy and get too annoyed at tasks that I have to repeat to stick with the stock tank. I'll spend 4 hrs of work to save a 5 minute task I might have to do 10 times  :laugh:

I definitely want to do a slide out shelf like LJ-TJ did. That's a great idea.

I plan to start on this generator swap next week, so we'll see how it goes!

Eyez Open,

That's a cool thread on SmokStack! I have always liked that forum. And glad to hear that yours fired up without having to tear into the engine too much. I like the Onan engine style and hefty build quality. They're cool old machines!

For my purpose though, I want something that's quiet, efficient, and won't be an oil burner. The noise difference between a CCK and a Predator 3500 is night and day. The Predator burns about half of the gas that the Onan will and Predator parts are easy and cheap to obtain. The Predator has been around for nearly 20 years now long term reviews have been very positive on oil consumption. From what I've read on SmokStack, the Onan's will always use a bit of oil and I know that my particular one burns quite a bit, judging by the fouled plugs. It is also 240 lbs lighter than the Onan.

When I get back from Seattle, I'd like to see what it would take to get the Onan running again and find someone who wants it. If I can get $1k for it in good, running condition, all the better!

Ohh I get it, I too would have a predator but I am going the battery direction. Those old Onans are quite something, pull off the fuel pump clean it little WD40 on the inner workings..prime it and poof mine worked, I've never seen that happen to a fuel pump. Pulling the exhaust manifold will reveal just how much carbon build can occur in those old engines it can be eye opening. After 5 cans of CRC contact cleaner the amarture and bushings were like new.

The whole genset reminded me of the old style GM starters with a big motor attached. Odd your going to Seattle those old sets are highly prized in the wooded areas. I got 2500 for my 6.5, once the guy saw it start run and power the RV..I'll take it cash came out no drama.

Between the aluminum/fiber gaskets, BB&K auto, and a few other things you mentioned, it seems like this forum has been really useful with the helpful tidbits  :)clap  I was wondering what you did to fix the exhaust leak, for a second I thought you cut one of the copper gaskets we were using! And Damn  the generator is huge! time is running out, when are we getting that predator?
YOU NEED TO POST MORE UPDATES!!!
SEATTLE or BUST baby!!! :)  :)ThmbUp  :grin:  $@!#@!

Haha the Predator is on the schedule! Maybe this weekend...

And more updates coming soon! I've got to write up the electronic ignition upgrade and the inverter installation! Not to mention the auxiliary fuel tank that's going in today!  ;)

Hey all! Winnebaby here, giving a brief and impromptu update on behalf of Big Al. At around 11AM this morning, Sept. 18, Big Al and his dad Otis rolled out in the Brave and are on their way to Alberta, British Columbia, and finally Seattle. So much has happened since the last update that there just hasn't been time to write it all down for a post. Long story short is, who knew replacing the transmission last minute would take up all available time remaining before departure.  $@!#@!
Big Al may have time to update but there's been so many ups and downs, I'll be impressed if he can get it into just one post.  :)clap  :)clap  :)clap :)clap  :)clap

SEATTLE OR BUST, BABY!!!

BC300E2A-6BA3-42F4-B83B-D5A612BCC685.jpg

We made it 690 miles from Atlanta to Quincy, IL! It took almost 14 hours so our average speed, including stops, is about 50 mph. That's about what I figured when I planned this trip. Tomorrow I'm going to drive a little slower but we hopefully won't have to stop for an hour and a half at a hardware store, so hoping it'll even out!

Okay, here's the status of the RV. Since my last post I:
-Installed an inverter to power the 120 VAC fridge while going down the road or parked.
- Converted the ignition from points to Pertronix Ignitor III ignition, Flamethrower III coil, and 8.5mm plug wires. Spark plugs are happily gapped at 0.045".
- TIG welded a new bottom on the rear 50 gallon tank, had it sealed, and installed it. It now has  fuel sensor and pickups for the engine & generator. I plumbed both tanks into a dual circuit fuel valve so the engine and generator both pull from the selected tank. This valve also switches the fuel sending unit so the single gas gauge can be used to see the level in whichever tank is selected.
- Added slides rated at 450 lbs to the generator shelf and plopped a Predator 3500 down on it. I put a 30A twist lock plug on the end of the wires going to the old generator and it powers the A/C nicely! But that's it. I haven't wired in any remote start capabilities to the dash switch, it doesn't pull fuel from the fancy fuel valve mentioned above, and I don't have any forced air ventilating that cabinet, so I don't feel comfortable running it with the door closed. Fortunately the weather cooled off the day before the trip and we likely won't need A/C at all.
- Cleaned, flushed, painted and reinstalled the dash heater along with new hoses and a new heater valve. Unfortunately, the heater valve doesn't seem to do much to prevent the flow of coolant no matter the position. Good thing it's been cool and getting colder!
- And lastly, the big one. I swapped the 727 for a 518/46RH. The overdrive version of the 727. This was a huge undertaking, much more than I'd anticipated, even with Sasquatch's great thread on the swap to serveaas a warning. I wouldn't have done it if I'd have known what it would take to get it finished. Even with taking the week before the trip off work to get it done I still had to delay departure by 3 days. That being said, overdrive is AMAZING. It's everything I hoped it would be and more honestly. I used to get 6.5 mpg at 58 mph. On this first leg of the trip I kept the pedal down and averaged 67 mph while getting 6.8 mpg. And it was so much quieter!

Major things that didn't get done:
- Plumbing (at all)
- 12V converter - the only way to charge the house batteries is with the alternator.
- Generator integration - as is it's difficult to use and I probably wouldn't run it while going down the road.
- Door/front passenger side wall repair - The wall forward of the door flaps in the wind. If the passenger drops their cell phone just right it could end up on the highway. The door is attached to the frame with 1.5 hinges.
- Propane appliances - Furnace doesn't work and the oven doesn't work. The water heater doesn't either but that's not important given that there's no water. The stove top does work if lit with a lighter.
- Emergency back up vehicle - I was planning on rebuilding the engine in my 1975 Honda CT90 and bringing it on a carrier on the back. That way if I broke down I'd have a way to go get parts! Alas there wasn't time to get it running.

In the morning I'll post an update on how the trip went, but for now, good night!

Quote from: BigAlsVehicleEmporium on September 19, 2023, 02:32 AMI swapped the 727 for a 518/46RH.

I know you are plowing down the highway right now, but what troubles did you have?? The biggest concern for me is the drive shaft..Did you have to change out the front yoke..or shorten it because of the length of the overdrive being longer?

Both! If you don't have the transmission parking brake you can get away with just shortening it. I want to do a full writeup soon while all the details are still fresh.

Okay! I've got my first real break this trip while my dad is driving. The day was great. Loaded up all the food and supplies and set off around 11 AM eastern time. Overdrive was fantastic. In my testing around Atlanta I knew it would be great, but it really makes a huge difference in comfort alone on the really long drives. And now, if we need to, we can keep up with traffic around cities and other congested areas for safety. The maximum speed seems to be 82 mph  :)clap

I only did that once, but I'm certain that's the fastest this rig has ever gone.

The first part of the trip was largely uneventful. I filled up both tanks before we left and found that I couldn't fill the rear tank up easily over halfway. The vent in the top that connects to the fill spout is too restrictive and today's faster gas pumps can't run slow enough (even lightly squeezing the handle by hand) to let it fill smoothly.

About 6 hours in, the speedometer started screeching periodically and pegging at 110 MPH. I figured the lube in the bushing between the speedometer drive drum and the needle likely had dried out. The friction heat must have melted some of it though because it cleared up pretty quickly.

At our first stop we couldn't get the door open. Thankfully it happened while we were inside because I was able to kick it open. If I'd had to pull that hard on the handle, something would have broken. What appears to have happened is that the screws holding the latch in worked themselves out a bit and got caught in the latch opening. Kicking it open removed enough material so that shouldn't happen again. When we're going to be someplace for more than a day I'd like to fill all the screw holes in the door with wood glue and toothpicks and re-drill them.

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I've known that the front passenger lower wall was weak ever since our first trip, but it rapidly deteriorated during the drive. If you dropped your cellphone just right, it could fall between the wall and the floor and out onto the interstate. When you go down the road it flops around and has expanded to include the door frame, likely contributing to the sticking earlier. Since it seemed to be getting worse, we stopped at a Menards and picked up some 4"  wood screws and countersunk machine screws. I used the 4" screws on the door frame to securely attach it into the wood of the step cutout. Now the door frame is rock solid. This alone really stabilized the wall, but I used the two machine bolts to replaced the two bolts at either end of the beltline. They'd pulled through the aluminum so I used 1/4" washers on the new bolts. Now the wall is anchored at either end into the metal angle iron of the body frame! What it really needs is for me to remove the middle piece of skin on that side and replace the wood in the wall where it joins the floor. But de-skinning a wall is a little beyond a roadside repair so I won't get that far into it unless it becomes necessary.

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We made it to Quincy, IL the first night and decided to stay at a Fairfield Inn. I'm drowning in Marriott points because I travel for work, so I figured we'd stay the first night in luxury.

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Looking forward to the write up..I was wondering about the control of the transmission..Does it need a computer to control the shifting??

My pickup has a Ford 460 with the C6 trans and it is possible (Lot of work) to install the 4 speed overdrive that replaced the C6..E4OD..but it is computer controlled..So maybe not..but that overdrive is .74-1 in comparison to 1-1 for 3rd gear on the C6

I'm not sure if it's a factory tank or something that someone added later on, but the rear tank in Winnie was rough. The bottom was rusted out, it was connected to a valve under the drivers floor with about 20' of fuel hose, and there was no provision for a fuel sending unit. I'm guessing you just drove until it started sputtering and then reached down and turned the knob on the floor.

Bringing this tank back to life, along with a few upgrades meant welding on a new bottom, and welding in mounts for a fuel sending unit and pickup tubes.

First I had the tank professionally cleaned to make it safe to cut and weld on. Then we cut the bottom off and ground out all the loose rust inside.

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I got all the supplies from Tanks Inc and a coworker helped me weld in the mounts and the new bottom plate. It was my first time TIG welding, but when I took it to the shop to be sealed, they said there were no pinhole leaks!

I used a roll over vent from a '70s Ford and drilled a hole for it in the top. I used a 3/8" pickup for the engine and a shorter 5/16" pickup for the generator. Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures of this install, but it is similar to how the front tank is laid out.

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Then Sara and I mounted it back into place with a floor jack and lots of verbal coaxing. I found that there was nothing in the rear that the tank pressed against, so it could just flop up and down in place. I built some wood/rubber shim blocks and put them between the tank and floor. Now I was able to tighten up all the mounting bolts and the tank felt snug!

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To switch between the dual tanks, I wanted a better setup than a manual valve on the floor and no gauge for the rear. I bought a Standard Motor Products FV5 valve, which let's me electrically switch the tanks. It has dual ports so I could use the 3/8" ones for the engine and the 5/16" ones for the generator. I put a Wix fuel filter before each inlet, making for a bundle of filters all in one place. Wix 33002 for the 5/16" and 33003 for the 3/8".

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I bought a used Winnebago Aux/Main fuel tank switch and wired it to the FV5 using a pair of relays. The Winnebago switch is just an on/off switch but the FV5 needs to have switched polarity on its two feed wires. The relays let me do that. When I get a chance, I'll post a wiring diagram.

The two fuel tank sending unit wires connect to the FV5 and then a single wire goes back to the gauge. That way, the dash gauge shows the level in whichever tank I'm currently switched to.

I added some fuel to the rear tank and switching between them worked great!

Day #2 of the trip was eventful! We left Quincy, IL and planned to stop and meet a friend in Minneapolis that evening. Halfway through the trip, the speedometer started screeching again, but this time it didn't let up. My father was driving so I reached under the dash and disconnected the speedometer cable. The screeching stopped immediately, so it looks like I'll need to clean & relube the speedo head - hopefully that's all it needs. We were passing right by a JoAnn Fabrics so I stopped in for some sewing machine oil, the preferred speedo head lube according to a guy on The HAMB that rebuilds them.

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We pulled into a parking lot in Minneapolis and met with a friend of mine for a while. When we went to get back in he asked "Is it supposed to have that puddle under it?"  :shocked:

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I crawled under it and the rapidly growing green puddle was due to the coolant streaming out of the water pump weep hole.  $@!#@!

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These 413 five-hole water pumps have been unavailable for the past couple of years. When I first got Winnie, this part was top of my list of concern and I spent months trying to find an affordable spare. The only one I could find was a rebuilt unit on eBay for $500  :shocked: . That is until someone posted on the Facebook CWVRV group back around June that 440source had gotten a batch made (https://store.440source.com/Water-Pump-Motorhome-HD-413-New/productinfo/105-1012/)! At $220 shipped, I considered that cheap insurance and bought one to keep on board as a spare. I'm so glad I did to. I just wish I'd taken the time to paint it  :grin:

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If you buy one, make sure to get the gasket they sell, it's only $10. I didn't, so I had to cut one by hand. Fortunately we were in a Home Depot parking lot so my father picked up a compass to accurately scribe the large center hole.

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After draining the coolant into a Home Depot bucket, loosening the alternator belts, unbolting the fan and water pump, scraping the gasket surfaces, installing the new pump & gasket with Permatex #2 on the pump bolts, filling it back up and tightening the belts, we were ready to roll! Including a break for dinner, we were only stopped for 2 1/2 hours.

My father and I were both exhausted by this point so we reserved a room in St. Cloud, MN and hit the sack. When we came back out in the morning, Winnie looked ready to go. And no leaks!

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Before I set off on this journey, I tried to think of things that might give me issues on the trip that I hadn't already addressed. Considering this rig had points ignition and I hadn't touched that side of it aside from spark plugs, I decided that an ignition tune up was in order. This was around the 4th of July and I saw that I could get a Pertronix Ignitor III electronic ignition conversion kit and accompanying Flamethrower III coil for 20% off through Autozone. I had never found an excuse to do an electronic ignition conversion before, as they're fairly pricey, but I could finally almost justify it!

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Specifically, I bought the Pertronix p/n: 71381A Ignitor III and p/n 44011 Flamethrower III and the total came out to right at $193. I also ordered a new BlueStreak distributor cap with brass contacts (p/n: STD CH409) and decided to reuse my rotor as it looked practically new. Plus, the rotor I had had brass contacts and I couldn't find a replacement that did. Lastly, I ordered a universal set of Summit Racing 8.5mm plug wires (p/n: SUM-881022).

Installation of the Ignitor III was mostly straightforward. The points plate comes out easily enough and the Ignitor holes lined up like they were supposed to. The only wrinkle is that the ground strap that is supposed to go between the movable plate and the fixed plate couldn't go as illustrated. The screws at each end of the ground strap were supposed to go in from the top, but once assembled and clocked to the vacuum advance can, the screw holes on the bottom, fixed plate were covered up.

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I solved this by removing the Ignitor unit and installing the fixed plate ground strap screw from underneath. This got the job done and still allowed for plenty of rotational movement of the upper plate.

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I put the distributor back in, clocked how I'd removed it, and connected up the wires for the Ignitor and new coil. I then set about cutting & crimping the ends on the new wire set. I've done a set like this before and it was a paint to use the crimp die they send with it as it requires a vice. A while back I'd bought a hand held crimp die for my standard frame crimper that also did spark plug wires. This made a world of difference and the job went much faster! Strongly recommend.

Once I was done with that, I turned the key and it fired right up! Satisfied that the new system would work, I shut it down and Sara (Winnebaby) and I re-gapped the plugs to 0.045", ten thousandths over stock. So far I've put 3k miles on it that way and it hasn't missed once, as far as I can tell.

Lastly I set about dialing in the timing. Earlier, I had verified that with the timing mark lined up to TDC on the timing cover plate, the #1 piston was indeed at TDC, so the balance hadn't shifted. Seeing those marks while the engine is running is asking to get scalped however. So, I used a boroscope camera to see the timing marks for me and watched the video on my phone. Before I started all this I checked the timing and it was 2 degrees AFTER TDC  :shocked: . Now I set it to 7.5 degrees BTDC, the max per the manual. I also verified that the mechanical advance and vacuum advance were working as expected. They weren't curved exactly how the book says they're supposed to be, but it was close enough that I didn't sweat it.

NOTE: The advance numbers for the vacuum advance and mechanical advance that the service manual gives are in DISTRIBUTOR degrees. This has been touched on before, and I'd even read the thread by Dave where he talks about it, but I still missed it and was worried that my advances were only working to half what they should. Double the degrees in the manual and that'll give you what you should see at the crankshaft.

Once it was all buttoned back up, I took Winnie out on the road for a spin. I could definitely tell a difference in off the line power! I was really hoping that advancing the timing by 9.5 degrees (not to mention all the other ignition upgrades) would net some serious fuel economy gains. Instead, mileage went from 6.4 mpg to 6.8 mpg. A definite improvement, but I was really hoping for consistent numbers in the 7+ mpg range at 55 - 60 mph.

I packaged up all the points gear and stowed it in the back to serve as a spare if the Pertronix unit ever gives out. The Flamethrower III coil has too low a resistance to work reliably with points, so I packed the original coil as well.

Dave's thread on ignition advance is very well articulated and has solid foundation.Dont sweat the curve rate at this point, your timing settings/curve is very conservative.

Once the engine is fully warmed up can you close down the idle mixture screws and starve the engine off? Getting a carb to run right on the idle circuit can be extremely easy...or be a hair pulling time. Running on a idle circuit alone greatly improves response and big economy.

That carb is a thermoquad correct?

It's an Edelbrock 1405 that I added an electric choke kit to, making it a 1406. It's a 650 cfm four barrel. And yeah, if I dial the idle mixture screws all the way down it'll die. I tuned it with a vacuum gauge before I left and I think it's dialed in decently enough. But I'd really like to put an air fuel ratio gauge on there to see what's really happening.

Plus, I've definitely got to replace the intake valve seals. Get the characteristic blue puff on startup and it seems to smoke a bit at idle...

I remember back in high school auto shop class, the teacher had this white Ford Thunderbird and he tinkered with it constantly trying to get as best mileage..He claimed he was getting 18-19 with a Ford 460!!

What he did with the distributor was add a cable similar to a manual choke cable..But it was attached to the base of the distributor..And from the cab of the car, he could pull or push the cable causing the dist. to rotate as he was going down the road..When he was just cruising, he would rotate the dist till the engine just started to ping..Then back off slightly..A hill would use an adjustment..so on..

I thought that was a pretty good idea!!

Can you adjust the timing on this dizzy of yours? Such as 36 degrees at 3000 rpm or 15 initial? I assume there is no vacuum advance its all electronically controlled advance curves.

What he did with the distributor was add a cable similar to a manual choke cable..But it was attached to the base of the distributor..And from the cab of the car, he could pull or push the cable causing the dist. to rotate as he was going down the road..When he was just cruising, he would rotate the dist till the engine just started to ping..Then back off slightly..A hill would use an adjustment..so on..

I thought that was a pretty good idea!!

NOW that's living in the moment. Back in the 70's engineering really came up with really odd strategies to address pollution issues.

Forward that to today's understanding and much has changed. Fuel in itself has been reformulated to burn much cleaner, but it "Burns Much Slower". Once upon a time splashing a cup of gas on pavement and lighing it could have been a life altering event, today's fuel while still dangerous is a ho hum event. It takes more time to burn off modern fuel.

Big blocks thrive on advanced timing, 15 initial along with 35/37 at 3000 is quite common. As much as 50 at cruise, it appears your shop teacher found that out long ago. He was advancing the timing at cruise.If one has a points style dizzy or a hei dizzy those can be setup to do so without that choke cable..lol innovative to be sure but filled with hazards.The choke cable that is.

Man double posting is out of control.

Another thing my Auto shop teacher did to his T-bird was a couple of electrical switches on the dash...

The regular key ignition switch had to be turned on in the run position after starting the car..

The first installed switch was a toggle switch that shut off and on the power to the ignition coil..Flip the switch and it would kill the engine..But leaving the Key ignition switch in the run position would keep his brake light working, turn signals, etc..

So as he rolled up to a traffic signal to wait out a red light, he would kill the ignition..sitting there without the engine running..Traffic Light turns green..

He would then flip the power back on...And with the second push button switch, that energized the starter solenoid and started the engine and off he went in traffic..

I asked him what all this was and to this day I remember him saying "you get zero miles to the gallon when you are stopped and idling.."

Maybe 1-2 ounces of fuel to keep the engine spinning while you are stopped would add up after a few stops!!   

Quote from: Eyez Open on September 27, 2023, 01:46 AMCan you adjust the timing on this dizzy of yours? Such as 36 degrees at 3000 rpm or 15 initial? I assume there is no vacuum advance its all electronically controlled advance curves.

Sure can! All the Pertronix module does is replace the points with a more powerful and maintenance free electronic ignition. You set the initial timing the usual way by rotating the distributor body and then tightening down the clamp. The stock vacuum advance can hooks to the movable plate as usual and the mechanical weights still advance the distributor cam. The Pertronix can sense the rotating cam loves and that's how it knows when to fire the spark, no electronic controls beyond that. At low rpms it also functions as a multiple spare discharge unit, similar to the popular MSD boxes. I can still adjust my vacuum advance curve by turning the allen head in the advance can nipple and adjust my mechanical advance curve by changing the springs.

Quote from: RockwoodMike on September 27, 2023, 05:37 PMMaybe 1-2 ounces of fuel to keep the engine spinning while you are stopped would add up after a few stops!!   

That's impressive! It's more work than I would go through for my daily driver, but I really admire people who do that - have a passion and chase it!

Big Al..Are you still out there..?? Coming up on 2 months since your last post!!

Hope everything is Okay?!?..Did you make the full trip?

I love your story it reminds me of mine. I have a 73 Dodge M300 Mcnamme Harvest with the 413 Wedge the 727 trans and the Dana 70 rearend.
This thing was a beast it hadn't run since 2005. I bought it out of town in Payson AZ. As I said it hadn't run since 2005 and I needed to get it home with an estimated tow price of $900. plus It would drive home or it would stay. Well after 4 trips, 164 miles round trip. My theory was just 83 miles to home and off I went. couldn't exceed 56 MPH on the flat but to my surprise, it would do 50 MPH up the hills. Got it home and started tearing it apart. Just like you I spun it by hand and something didn't feel right. Guess what it was 2 bent pushrods. Now those things are 10.18" in length, and they were hard to find. I got them through Summit. Racing I thought you would like that. Thanks for taking the time. Updates when you can.p