Strykersd's 1971 C20 Brave

[Rickf1985]

I am going to bet you do not make it to those first trips, be sure your towing coverage is up to date! Right now you are looking at a soft parts rebuild, push it and then you are looking at hard parts and the price doubles or more.

[strykersd]

That transmission is toast. The clutches will be steamed off of the backers. Trust me on this and pull that trans and rebuild it, It IS going to let you down. I have done enough of them from Jeeps to know that once you get the strawberry milkshake you are done. And if that water was from the coolant them you also have silicates (sand) in there also.

Yeah it's probably toast.  My goal is to just get it driveable to take the RV to a city campground that's three miles from my house for an overnight to get the hang of this RV'ing thing and test out all the systems and also to take it to a Chargers game to tailgate in before the end of the season.  I work at a college and have time off at the end of December and early January so I'll pull it then.  We're planning a big trip in the Brave in February so it'll definitely be rebuilt by then.  It's not worth the risk of ending up on the side of the road hundreds of miles from home.

[Rickf1985]

That transmission is toast. The clutches will be steamed off of the backers. Trust me on this and pull that trans and rebuild it, It IS going to let you down. I have done enough of them from Jeeps to know that once you get the strawberry milkshake you are done. And if that water was from the coolant them you also have silicates (sand) in there also.

[legomybago]

All that work and you still have the Harbor Freight orange straps!!! I have those same straps. It's one of the only things from Harbor Freight I think are good. That and maybe their moving blankets.

[M & J]

 

[strykersd]

Found a smoking deal on a new Grape Solar 200-watt kit that included the panels, charger controller, a 100AH 12v battery, all the wiring and a 450-watt inverter for $280!  I went to install the battery only to find out that with it's current divider I could only fit the one 100AH 12v battery and my larger starter battery.  So out came the grinder and welder and I replaced the divider with a piece of angle iron and was able to fit both and also my two automotive batteries for extra capacity.  Here's a pic of the final setup.






Next up I had to tackle my transmission issues.  Although I've drain and refilled the transmission twice there is still water in my transmission.  With the help of buddies we did our own  power flush.  We disconnected the transmission cooler lines and put them in a bucket, started the engine for a minute or two while another guy pour ATF in the dipstick tube and we did this until the fluid came out clean. 


Here's a shot of what the fluid looked like when we started



If anyone else ever has to do this, Pep Boys sells 3.75 quarts of ATF for $13.  Considering I was just pumping and dumping it, the savings was much appreciated!  I ended up having to buy eight of them



The last thing I had to tackle with my transmission woes was my transmission cooler.  The transmission cooler in my radiator was rotted out, I used the tiny auxiliary transmission cooler to limp the RV back to my house, so I needed something new.  I'm big on the idea of KISS, keep it simple stupid.  With this in mind I decided against getting another radiator with a built in oil cooler and went with a standalone cooler.  After researching it, I bought the largest transmission cooler I could find that still had 3/8" barb fittings, Tru-Cool's Max 40,000GVW that includes a cold weather bypass valve.  Here's a pic of my new bar and fin transmission cooler on top and my old tube and fin cooler on bottom. 



All installed onto the Brave









I have a few more parts in the garage for the Brave so definitely more to come!

[Rickf1985]

26 years as a fireman. I do have to say it is a strange looking hydrant though.

[M & J]

Good catch Rick. I was task focused.

[Rickf1985]

Yea, your not blocking the fire hydrant!!!!! Brandon is gonna be all over you!

[strykersd]

Sorta looks like a satellite dish antenna. Hard to tell without seeing inside.

It has two wires going into it at the base, then across the globe and it's filled with foam.  I have a feeling you're right.  Although I'd like a TV eventually, for now I'll just remove it to save myself any roof leaks. 

[M & J]

Sorta looks like a satellite dish antenna. Hard to tell without seeing inside.

[strykersd]

I finally got around to going up onto my roof and checking out what the top of the Brave needs.  Most of it is pretty simple, I need a bathroom vent window cover and a plumbing vent.  But then there's this weird dome thing.  Anyone know what this thing is?

[moezart]

Nice ride as well! Love the Braves! You are quite a bit ahead of me on the build. L.E.D. is a nice touch to these old rigs.

[strykersd]

Although I was suffering from a two-day hangover this weekend, I did manage to get little bit done on the Brave.

After getting the exterior lights working last week I cleaned the contacts on my exterior lights only to find out that the light gave off almost zero usable light.  Like usual I turned to amazon and found an LED porch light with good reviews, was waterproof, not too expensive at $28 and put out a decent amount of lumens (300).  Here's a picture of the old (possibly factory?) porch light and the new LED porch light. 

The install was pretty straight forward: unscrew the factory light, cut the wires, wire up the new light, drill mounting holes for new light, caulk around the housing and screw it in place. 


The next project I wanted to tackle was my lack of a grey-water tank.  From what I've read online, if I understood it correctly, I could just add a waste valve on the dump pipe, open my black tank and the grey water (in theory) will fill my black water tank.  The idea mostly came from the Gone with the Wynn's blog but I've read a few things on this forum that seem to back the idea up.  So I bought a twist on waste valve from amazon, added it to my drain pipe and am hoping it'll work.  Most places I'll be camping at won't have drain hookups and I'd rather not carry around one of those massive totes.  I currently have to drain my black water tank so I haven't been able to test it out myself yet.

The biggest downside to having a 1971 20ft Brave is that my model only has a 21 gallon tank, according to the brochure on Winnebago's website.  The 17ft model got a 25 gallon tank and the 20ft rear dinette model got a 30 gallon tank.  Oh well we'll just made due with what we have for now.


Looking through this website, I really love how people extend their rear bumper into platforms.  It would be nice to be able to do that so that I can put bikes or something on the platform and still tow my drag racing truck or another car, but  due to the steep angle from my street to my driveway, I can't add any length or else the RV will get high centered.  Plus the access door for my converter/water tanks really limits what I can have back there.  That got me thinking and I decided to add a receiver hitch to my front bumper so that I can put our bicycles or a luggage rack out front of the Brave if needed.  I just ordered a $16 receiver hitch, cutout a square from my front bumper and welded it around the edges and to the bottom of the C-channel bumper.  It's definitely not for built for towing but it'll work for taking our bikes on trips.  Here's a pic of the setup while testing out the bicycle mount. 

If anyone else wants to do this to your Brave, the only thing I would change is to attach the receiver to the top of the C-channel bumper instead of the bottom like I did.  It'll give you another few inches of valuable ground clearance.  My bumper is only held on with two bolts so I'm hoping I can just flip the whole thing over. 



The project is slowly but surely coming along, I can't wait to take it out for the first time!
 

[LJ-TJ]

I gotta tell yeah mate, those seat look gorgeous. I defiantly got to go on a hunt for a pair of those. SWEET.

[strykersd]

Got a little more work done on the old girl.  Considering that I currently only have two used car batteries as my coach batteries I decided I needed to do something about the incandescent lighting in the RV.  Our lights were missing covers and a few of the bulbs were dead so it was a no brainer to upgrade to LED lighting.  I ordered four of these LED Dome lights and for $55 I was able to do the whole RV!  The old incandescent lights consumed 215 watts and these new LED lights consume just 25 watts!  Here's a shot of them all installed

It's amazing how bright clean lighting can make an old RV look new!


When we first got the RV both valve cover gaskets were leaking like crazy.  I pulled them off to change the gasket and figured I'd clean the oil sludge off them, sand the rust off and repaint them.  While I was at it I did the same to the intake too!



And finally there's my custom water pressurizing pump.  Besides my factory pump being dead, my water pressure system works.  Plus I really liked the concept of not having to have a pump run while I'm hooking up at a campsite.  My water pressurizing pump system consists of a $10 harbor freight air compressor, a $6 check valve to make sure my air compressor never sees water, a $13 water pressure switch and miscellaneous fittings.  Total cost $33!  Here's a pic of the setup

Although it's worked so far, I don't have much real world testing with it.  When you first power it up it runs until the water system is at 40PSI, then remains off until the system drops to 10PSI.  My only fear is that if someone is taking a shower and it drops below 10PSI that the air compressor won't be large enough to keep the pressure high enough to run the shower.  If that is the case I'll just order a pressure switch that either kicks on at a higher PSI or a larger compressor, or possibly both.  So we'll see. 

[strykersd]

Pictures MAN. Where's the pictures. Didn't we tell yeah we like pictures. I'm envious. I want your seats. :)rotflmao :)rotflmao :)rotflmao

Looks like photobucket is down for maintenance.  Pics should be back soon

[LJ-TJ]

Pictures MAN. Where's the pictures. Didn't we tell yeah we like pictures. I'm envious. I want your seats. :)rotflmao :)rotflmao :)rotflmao

[strykersd]

I believe it's a GM chassis, the identification plate in the motor home is labeled GM. 

Got a little more work done today, I installed the captains chairs.  For anyone doing a seat swap, be sure to use grade 8 hardware.  You don't want your bolts shearing in a crash.


And snapped a picture of our batteries all strapped in.   

We'all eventually buy golf cart batteries but for now the two car batteries I had laying around should be able to run our lights and water pump.

[LJ-TJ]

The 75 21'er Tilts.

[Rickf1985]

I wish mine would tilt more or start out further back.

[legomybago]

Im pretty sure none of them had tilt....Could be wrong though. Honestly, I had no idea they even made a GM chassis eyebrow??? I figured you bought a rig someone did some transplant work? New to me i??  Tilt steering is a very good thing

[strykersd]

They even put the GM tilt column in it.

Is that a good thing?  Do the Dodge's not tilt?  From what I've read on here, 1971 Chevy based Braves are rare. 

[legomybago]

They even put the GM tilt column in it.

[Rickf1985]

Big plus on the Trans Go kit.