1976 GMC Motorhome

This is my favorite project on DTT. I always liked to look of those things and while I have no good reason to ever own one, I do covet your.. :)
 
there is a guy just up the road from me that always has 12-15 of those that he is restoring or working on for people

i even saw one up there last year that had a 6.5 diesel in it
 
Thanks teazer, it's funny because I have no need of one either!

Cx, do you happen to know his name?

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I'm in on this one Justin! You didn't tell me you had become an old man since last time I saw you. I hear ya buddy, bring the Jitterbug back into style!


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Kanticoy said:
I'm in on this one Justin! You didn't tell me you had become an old man since last time I saw you. I hear ya buddy, bring the Jitterbug back into style!


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I get tons of old man jokes from my buddies, but I'll be the one laughing when she's done!
 
Where was I?
From there I started with the tear down again.
The floors were a little worse for wear (probably fine, but there was a hump that was going to fuck up my nice floors)
So of course they had to go.

Luckily pulling the entire floor made running all new fuel lines and air lines quite easy.


I also found that 9 of the factory 15 body mounts were either crushed or gone, so I made some new ones to fix that issue.
Jacks are for people with time to pump them up, so I grabbed the forklift to do the body mounts:





After that was done we put in all new floors. with much better insulation underneath to minimize road noise and help keep cool/warm

 
From there I spent a ton of time with a sawzall removing all the 40 yr old insulation. This was a HUGE bitch, and will never be repeated. If I do this again, I will simply spray over the old foam with new to fill in the shitty factory job. Way more work than it's worth.




The GMC came stock with a 6500 watt Onan Generator. Not running when I got it.
I changed the starter bracket, new points and condenser (see this is starting to sound more familiar right?) pulled and cleaned the heads and valves and Whalla! a 40 YR old genset purring and making power. A little loud, and a gas guzzler but who cares.
This was a while back when everything was still together actually.
One day we had it running the AC's and all of the sudden the pitch changed the lights went out and I smelled smoke.
The governor had gone out, putting 200+ Volts into the 120 system and frying the brand new converter. FUCK.

At this point I said fuck that and started looking for a honda.
I found a EV6010 6000W liquid cooled genset from another GMC guy and that gets us back to present.

Yanked the Onan (made it into a backup generator for the house).
Made a new mounting tray for the Honda using the CNC:


 
The old man joke is pure jealousy. I love those things even before you bought one and started making it awesome. Keep it up buddy!


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SONIC. said:
From there I spent a ton of time with a sawzall removing all the 40 yr old insulation. This was a HUGE bitch, and will never be repeated. If I do this again, I will simply spray over the old foam with new to fill in the shitty factory job. Way more work than it's worth.

You just have to remove it asbestos you can...
 
The old AC units began to bug me. They are a bit loud the amp draw is a bit higher than I wanted (20) and I hated the way they looked up there.
So I got 2 Coleman Mach8 low profile ones to replace them. Got a hell of a deal on them.
They are longer and thinner than the stock ones so I had to mount the rear one backwards, but it shouldn't matter as it won't be run when we are moving anyway.



The moral of this post it I have 2 perfectly function AC units sitting in my shop. If anyone wants them they are yours.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ERd5p4RAzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=765b-T5P450

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1QMTzX5geQ
 
During my time in the Air Force I was stationed in Germany for five years. During that time I was able to come back to the States a couple of times on AF space available flights, usually on a big C-5A. On those planes the passenger compartment is way up at the top behind the wing root and the cargo area is just a big, ol' cave. On one trip back the only thing in the cargo area was one of these GMC motorhomes that the Loadmaster told me had been used as a field office during exercises by some Army general. Wonder if it really was an Urban Assault Vehicle? ;D 8)
 
Ha Tim,
Yes Stripes is where everyone knows these things from for sure.

Solo,
that's pretty damn cool, they were used all over for everything from mobile offices to ambulances to postal delivery vehicles.
 
So after the AC's were sorted it was time to work on the inside a bit.

Got the generator casing installed and covered in dynamat like material to help kill the noise of the generator and reflect the heat.

For the propane compartment I decided early to ditch the built in tank in favor of 2 20lb grill cylinders. I lose a little capacity, but I can fill them anywhere or just trade them out at any gas station. A LOT more convenient than trying to find a LP dealer or RV dealer in an unfamiliar place. This presented some problems because the propane compartment wasnt quite big enough to hold both tanks AND the batteries. So i tossed the old one and built a new one. It required beinding some plywood to get the back to sit against the body, but no big deal otherwise. Now I have ample space for 2 LP tanks, 4 batteries, and some other goodies.


The stock compartment basically stopped at the back of the door, so the new one gives me an additional foot and a half or so to put the second tank in the left side of the compartment.
 
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