RE: Fridge recalled - but leaving
Does anyone have before and after photos? I'd be curious what was done and if my unit has the modification of not. I've replaced my cooling unit, because mine already blew up. It did not catch fire.
RE: Class A Cleaning
Black streak remover from Walmart works pretty good if its really dirty, but it will take the wax off. I started out just using it to get the black off from the neighbors Oak tree, but ended up using it on the whole coach.
RE: Best A Class you can buy for sale on E-Bay
I'm pretty sure this is the 3rd time this has been listed on Ebay. If you look close at the very last photo, you can see 3 of the axles turned.
Its like lets see if we can build the most impractical RV one could ever design. I like looking at interesting and old RVs, even some of the weird bus conversions that look more like houses, rather than motorhomes. But those typically have some practical aspect to their uniqueness. This one has no practical aspect what so ever. It also looks like it is starting to fall apart. It has some leaks and the roof is coming down. Notice the cabinets are sagging as well. Worst thing is all that weight pushed down the road with a TH700R4 - very weak tranny.
RE: Cold Air Intake systems
More power means more fuel.This is true for the cold air aspect, but not necessarily true for the long tube ram air effect. How the air flows through the engine will have a lot to do with efficiency. If you notice, most modern cars now have very elaborate intake manifolds with long runners. This greatly improves air flow quality, especially at low RPMs, thus improving efficiency.
RE: Using old gas?
Earlier this year I bought a car that had been sitting with a full tank of fuel for four years. It started up and I got 26 mpg on that tank. Now, 7,500 miles later, the car runs great and averages 28 mpg.Much of that can have to do with the type of gas tank and how well it is sealed. The fact that the tank was full helped as well.
RE: Driving on pismo beach sand
My experience hill climbing in sand has been that most people do not let enough air out of their tires. When I climb with the Jeep, I run 8 lbs on a 44 lbs tire (Bridgestone Revos - not a balloon tire). I've experimented with ten lbs, and 8 lbs is much, much better. Its the difference of just being able to get around as opposed to being able to go anywhere at any time, any hill.
AS others have said do not spin the wheels or you will bury it. I could not believe how many people when they start to loose traction floor it and totally bury what ever they are driving. A very slow churn will make a surprising amount of headway, but I'm not sure how you do that without low range. I've only driven the motorhome on soft sand once. It was a seasonal road, that went from blacktop to gravel to sand to soft sand and up hill. It started to spin on the hill, so I immediately stopped. I threatened to air down and keep going but the DW said no way, so we unhooked the toad and backed up.
RE: Cold Air Intake systems
Try this:
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/21305271/gotomsg/21308777.cfm#21308777
Actually, that won't work correctly on a '93 because of the TBI, but you could adapt the idea. TBI is finicky about how the air flows around the injectors, so you need to maintain that open area above the TBI. There are two issues at play when doing a cool are intake. The first is to provide cool air collected from in front of the radiator. The second is to provide high intake velocity to stuff the cylinders better at mid and lower RPM. There is no such thing as utilizing the "ram air" effect of the increased pressure on the front of the coach to ram more air into the engine. You are just not going fast enough to create any substantial air pressure. When you here people talking about ram air effect in the correct sense, it means maintaining air velocity into the engine. Some of what you are trying to overcome at low RPMs is the fact that as the valve closes, it causes a reverse wave back up through the intake. Long small diameter tubes tend to minimize this effect, as the high velocity air maintains its forward motion better when the valve closes. The longer and smaller the tube, the lower RPM that it is tuned to. What you see in my photos is two 2" diameter tubes feeding the intake. For that size tube, you don't want more than ~ 25" length from the head to the air cleaner, otherwise you start to loose some top end. However, if done right, according to a desktop dyno program I was running figured to ad around 35 FT-LBS of torque at 3Krpm. My total length is longer than it should be, but still seemed to ad a bunch of power in the low and midrange. Didn't seem to hurt the top end any that I could tell by the butt meter.
Incidentally, Edelbrock dyno'd this engine with their MPFI and stock exhaust came in at 517 ft-lbs at 3500 rpm. I did a calculation based on acceleration data log and weight. It showed my peak torque was at was 565 ft-lbs at 3600 RPM. That would suggest the headers and the long tube intake were doing something.
I have read where some have redone their cold air intake on the BBC and actually lost power compared to OEM. Likely, they made the intake tube too large and lost some of the intake velocity.
RE: Using old gas?
Poor some in a VERY SMALL tin can and throw a match in it. I've seen some gas that would not even burn that was only a year old. On the other hand, I have a friend who died because he couldn't smell the old liquid in a 50 gallon drum and thought it was water. He cut the top off with a torch and now is in Heaven.
RE: Fallout from dealership collapse
Guys, listen to Jallen4. He is in the business (closely related) and has much more FIRST HAND knowledge in these matters than any of us seat of the pants legal advisers.
RE: Highway Fatalities - drivers with illness
"Hundreds of thousands of tractor-trailer and bus drivers in the United States carry commercial driver's licenses despite also qualifying for full federal disability payments,..."
This is what is hard to understand. Are they collecting SSA Disability and still working?; driving a truck, no less?It said they qualify for disability, not that they were collecting it. Maybe these are just good people who know there are jobs they can do and are working, as opposed to the other way around. (not suggesting that every one on disability could work)
RE: Would you? - do you? - why?
I don't have a TV outside, and I'm not sure how practical it would be. If you are bothering to use a big screen, you need to be in the movie, which means full surround sound and turned up fairly loud - too loud to play it out doors without disturbing others.
However I do sort of understand. I often take the computer outdoors and sit and do email or surf the net. Its just more relaxing. Cool breeze, faint sounds and smells in the background. Even though I'm focused on what I'm looking at, I'm very aware of my surroundings.
There are some who need to differentiate between technology and nature. When one is reared in a technical world, technology is just one of many tools that together make up the total experience.
RE: Highway Fatalities - drivers with illness
Any tragedy can be dramatized into a story. Typical of AP. Make a mountain out of a mole hill, so they can sell the story. We as gullible Americans buy into the dramatization and pay them to entertain us with tragedy. (paid through ad sales) Meanwhile they also get away with a slam against the government.
It is a known fact that the AP lies to make a story. I have been personally involved in one of their dramatizations, and they refused to print the truth, because the truth would not be as dramatic. Don't believe what you read. Much of what they say simply is not true.
RE: Fuel Efficiency Rates (MPG)
You kind of have a problem because if your looking at MPG VS coach size, the heavier the coach is, the better mileage PER lbs you will get. I'm not sure the numbers will be meaningful. If you are just trying to get the best mileage, buy the lightest smallest coach you can stand. If you are going for efficiency, (best mpg per foot or lbs) buy the biggest heaviest coach you can find.
RE: Older RVs
You can try this forum.
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/MotorhomesP-30GM/?yguid=143473000
The guy who moderates its has a Flair, but desperately wishes his wife would let him have a Revcon.
BTW: PPCLI-Jim, there is a diagram of the P 30 park brake right on that link.
RE: Chevy 454 question
A stuck heat riser is the problem. It is on the right mainifold and when the engine is cold,it is closed, forcing the exhaust and heat thru the left exhaust manifold to bring the engine up to temp quicker. If it does not open after a few minutes, you WILL have overheating problems. Best fix is to remove the heat riser completely.
This is not a good idea. I have a big block Chevy in a car and inadvertently put some intake manifold gaskets in, once, that had the heat riser openings plugged off. Car wouldn't run decent for 30 minutes while the manifold slowly warmed up.
Keep the heat riser valve---just replace it or get it freed up.I'm not sure but what this may be confusing. Getting rid of the heat riser valve means the exhaust flows freely from both manifolds which is not a problem. It seems like the problem 427435 would have had with closing off the manifolds is that there was no circulation through the manifold. Just because the heat riser valve is not there, there is still some circulation through the manifold - especially if you have an EGR.
I would suggest this - removing the heat riser valve is not going to be a problem in a motorhome. There is so much load on the engine, that it will warm up plenty quick enough. Anyone who installs headers has no heat riser valve and I've never had any issues traveling in the winter. Of course even now, I actually have the intake crossover locked off, and it still is not a problem, but I am running MPFI, so that may help.
RE: Stuff In The Road -II
Yes, as stated above, leave enough space and watch for unusually reactions in the traffic ahead of you. Secondly, if you are driving one of todays coaches, don't swerve. Hitting what ever it is dead will likely not cause you to loose control. IF you do choose to swerve, turn the wheel and then lock the wheel position. Do not swerve back or react to the motorhome movement. Lock the steering wheel position until the coach stabilizes and then correct your position in the lane.
I had a recent experience where driver fatigue caused my to misjudge my surroundings. I had the cruise set and was comming up on a vehicle I needed to pass. I was waiting for this truck to get past me while I was closing quickly on the vehicle in front of me. When the truck went past, I moved behind the truck quickly and did not realize he was towing a flat empty trailer with no side markers. I yanked the wheel as hard as I could and swerved back into my lane. I actually felt the front end slide as it went turned back. But the important issue was that when I swerved back, I immediately locked my steering wheel position and waited to feel for the coach to stop moving, before adjusting my position in the lane. It actually didn't sway at all, but since I didn't know what it was going to do, I just waited momentarily before turning the wheel again.
I learned this technique from driving an old jeep with a lift kit, bad wheel bearings and no shocks. Any time it hit a bump, it was all over the road. If you tried to correct it, you would loose control. You just learned to wait till it settled down before trying to straighten it out. You turn the wheel and wait, turn the wheel and wait, never reacting to what the vehicle was doing, but just waiting momentarily between corrections.
RE: Chevy 454 question
Ultimately, if you have not been able to resolve your overheating issues, you may need to replace the radiator. If the radiator is original, it likely has lost its ability to transfer heat. The fins get so they no longer conduct to the internal tubing, and the radiator looses efficiency. You may also need to look at timing and fuel mixture. Running too lean will definently make it run hot. All of this has nothing to do with your specific question. And yes headers will make everything cooler as well.
RE: Towed car brake system installation
I use a Ready Brake on my GC. It was a bit of a trick routing the cable to the floor below the brake. The optimum location for the cable right below the peddle is dead center in the middle of the frame. The cable needed to be routed to the outside of the frame, then under the frame. From there it poked through a hole in the bottom of the frame and to the hole I drilled from the inside into the frame channel. A bit of a trick but doable. Functionally, I like the Ready Brake real well. It is fully proportional and is fairly inexpensive especially if you buy their towbar at the same time.
RE: MPG Attempt?
It has to be way under powered for something that heavy. If someone is trying for mileage, the rear is not shaped correctly and neither is the sides. Also, the skin should be aluminum, not plastic. Urethane is a good product, but is not going to be structural and therefore is a waste of weight.
