My 1978 GMC motorhome

In other news...I made some modification to my home shop so I can get this big bastard back at my house to work on it. Currently, its being stored at my parents place. He has a GIANT barn built specifically to house his coach, my coach, and some of his other toys. I've been working on it over there. Its not a huge distance away, about 8 miles. BUT...its not a short walk out of my backyard, which means getting over there after work is a challenge for me.

Having it at home will move this project along at a much faster pace, since my tools are all nearby, the project is nearby, and I'll be motivated to get it done, since it will pretty much take over my whole shop (and I won't be able to do the Jeep projects I want to do!)

This wall is supporting my stairway to the 2nd level storage area of my shop. It interfered with getting the MH in by a couple feet. I took three feet out of the wall and placed a beam in to support the stairs, so I'll be able to get my 27 foot long motorhome into my 30' long building. I still have some rearranging to do, and some stuff to get rid of, but this is going to be a HUGE benefit going forward.

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You got off easy! In order to fit mine I had to extend the front of the garage 3 feet, raise the header 14" and install a 20X11 commercial roll up door. I would have had enough length but had to add 3" onto the front with a higher ceiling so the roll up door could fit up in there out of the way. In the picture you can see where the old front used to be (I stripped off the stucco and covered the studs with OSB). Then in the ceiling between the old front wall and the new one my rollup door is tucked up in there. Where you see the 3 - four foot lights is the bottom of the original header that I raised then there is a new header over the new opening. I have about 4-1/2 feet in front of the MH to work and just enough room on the driver's side to extend my 2 slides which are only 2' deep.

You can see the motor for the rollup in the upper right corner and you can just see the black rubber door bottom seal peeking out at the top of the opening. It all fits nicely up in that pocket.

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B1Toad said:
You got off easy! In order to fit mine I had to extend the front of the garage 3 feet, raise the header 14" and install a 20X11 commercial roll up door. I would have had enough length but had to add 3" onto the front with a higher ceiling so the roll up door could fit up in there out of the way. In the picture you can see where the old front used to be (I stripped off the stucco and covered the studs with OSB). Then in the ceiling between the old front wall and the new one my rollup door is tucked up in there. Where you see the 3 - four foot lights is the bottom of the original header that I raised then there is a new header over the new opening. I have about 4-1/2 feet in front of the MH to work and just enough room on the driver's side to extend my 2 slides which are only 2' deep.

You can see the motor for the rollup in the upper right corner and you can just see the black rubber door bottom seal peeking out at the top of the opening. It all fits nicely up in that pocket.

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It’s not in there yet! Everything should fit, but only because I haven’t put my rooftop units on. I think those will make me too tall and I’ll crash into my o/H door. 10 foot sidewalls and the MH is 9’ with A/C
 
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Mike_H said:
It’s not in there yet! Everything should fit, but only because I haven’t put my rooftop units on. I think those will make me too tall and I’ll crash into my o/H door. 10 foot sidewalls and the MH is 9’ with A/C
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That's one of my favorite things about those front wheel drive GMC's, their low profile. Even an Airstream trailer is 9'6" to 9'8" with AC! With my garage I spent a lot of time researching stuff that was under 10 feet and there's hardly anything which is why I ended up raising the door to 11'. My garage was initially built as a business expense to stash my work trucks and supplies in.
 
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The Micro Air is amazing, I can run my 13.5K unit on my Honda 2000 at 2,200 feet on ECO mode and the Honda doesn't miss a beat. Startup current is reduced to under 12 amps. It is also quieter now with no thump every time the compressor starts.

The air flow mod worked great too, I can now feel the AC blowing on me from the driver's seat which wasn't possible before. All it takes is some sheet metal, a way to bend up an inverted vee and some Nashua 324A foil tape, the very best foil tape made IMHO.
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B1Toad said:
That's one of my favorite things about those front wheel drive GMC's, their low profile. Even an Airstream trailer is 9'6" to 9'8" with AC! With my garage I spent a lot of time researching stuff that was under 10 feet and there's hardly anything which is why I ended up raising the door to 11'. My garage was initially built as a business expense to stash my work trucks and supplies in.
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I just realized you had a Winnie Via. My folks had one of those before they got their Dynamax DX3. Pretty nice little unit. I honestly think they liked that better than their Dynamax. Its short inside though, and my dad is 6'1" Every time they went camping, he would come home with a new wound on his head from the overhead cabinets.

B1Toad said:
The Micro Air is amazing, I can run my 13.5K unit on my Honda 2000 at 2,200 feet on ECO mode and the Honda doesn't miss a beat. Startup current is reduced to under 12 amps. It is also quieter now with no thump every time the compressor starts.

The air flow mod worked great too, I can now feel the AC blowing on me from the driver's seat which wasn't possible before. All it takes is some sheet metal, a way to bend up an inverted vee and some Nashua 324A foil tape, the very best foil tape made IMHO.
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I bought two brand new Furrion rooftop units (about a year ago!). They are 13,500 BTU and I bought the heat pump option. They only pull 13 amps at full boogie. Compared to the 45 year old dometics I pulled off, I should notice a HUGE increase in performance. I really hope they work...they've been sitting in a box since I bought them, never used, and the warranty has expired!
 
I'm 6'2.5" and on the drive home after buying it I hit my head hard enough to draw blood on one of the cabinet pulls over the cab. This made me realize what the 3 sections of pool noodle were for in one of those cabinets! What I did was remove those stupid "trendy" pulls that stuck out 2" and replaced them with curved strap type pulls, have not hit my head since. My wife knows never to leave a cabinet door open and I replaced all the shocks so they stay all the way up. The bed is a bit short but I can deal with that. I can also deal with the 14.7 MPG on the Via! (not towing)

I think Furrion is a decent brand? I also heard Houghton was good. The prices on them have doubled though just like most everything else.

Since you'll have your plenums open you might consider doing the air flow mods (If you have ducted air). I was amazed at the difference, totally was not expecting that much improvement.

You need to get out and enjoy that rig!
 
B1Toad said:
I'm 6'2.5" and on the drive home after buying it I hit my head hard enough to draw blood on one of the cabinet pulls over the cab. This made me realize what the 3 sections of pool noodle were for in one of those cabinets! What I did was remove those stupid "trendy" pulls that stuck out 2" and replaced them with curved strap type pulls, have not hit my head since. My wife knows never to leave a cabinet door open and I replaced all the shocks so they stay all the way up. The bed is a bit short but I can deal with that. I can also deal with the 14.7 MPG on the Via! (not towing)

I think Furrion is a decent brand? I also heard Houghton was good. The prices on them have doubled though just like most everything else.

Since you'll have your plenums open you might consider doing the air flow mods (If you have ducted air). I was amazed at the difference, totally was not expecting that much improvement.

You need to get out and enjoy that rig!
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No ducts. Furrion is Lippert and Lippert is basically everything in RV. I do need to get out an enjoy it...but I gotta finish it first. I should get my waste handling done today, with the exception of a couple more supports. Then I go to Relocating my propane system (really just running a new piece of tubing under the coach). That should finish up the stuff underneath I have to do. I'll be able to focus on the interior again and get my electrical done.
 
My Tanks (and plumbing) are installed! I'm happy with how it turned out. I used some Fernco flexible couplings to give the tubing some "flexible rigidity" and allow for fixing it down the road. Poo Chute is centered up in the rear of the rig. The Blade valve is mounted to a flange I welded to that skid plate/ cross member. It worked out really well.
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I was planning on extending the tubing to the back bumper, but then a thought hit me about dragging the ass of the rig when a drive is elevated over the road. In fact, I repaired the corners of the skid earlier, and I reinforced it with some 3/4" tubing I had left over from another project. So, I used a piece of angle as a straight edge to see where my "safe zone" is.
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You can see the blade valve is just inside that (the lower edge of the steel), so I'll just have the hook up be under there. Its only about 10" under the bumper, so not a bad reach. If its too terrible, I have room to put another 90 in and dump to the side which is how it was set up before.

And, the little jog that resulted from me assuming the tanks would be the same size as what I have, and giving Ronco the incorrect measurements.

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You can also see I used some cork gasket making material to provide separation between the steel and plastic. Trying to prevent rub through. All in all, the tanks fit well in the space provided and I'm pretty happy with how they mounted.

I do still need to fab up a reinforcement for the cross-member I cut away. I think a 16" long piece of 3/16" 2 x 2 angle will be sufficient.

One more step closer...
 
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I've also been working on the other things that need to be done to at least get this thing driveable again.

Got my new taillights mounted (soon to be for sale to other GMC nuts like me)

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And I've been working on the repairs necessary to the "door cards" in the cockpit. I don't have doors, but that is the location they go, so I'm sticking with that term. They will be retextured and painted before installing. They, like most of the other plastic in this thing, were very fragile and needed some repair.


The passenger side was very bad (mostly because I hip checked it off a table and it smashed on the floor). I brought out the heavy guns for this.

Aluminum window screen melted into the plastic to hold the crack together

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I had to make a filler patch to cover up a hole that was there from the previous owners

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And I fiberglassed the backside to hold everything together and stiffen things up. I hate fiberglass, but it does have its place. This is an example, but I did all the repair areas I made.

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Next step is to fill in and smooth out the cracks on the "A" surface and shoot a coat of adhesion promotor and some texture. Then it will be painted blossom white like the rest of my trim.
 
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