GMC Motorhome: Building a badass GMC Motorhome motor

There are so many machine shops and folks who love to build motors, there are just as many ways to do it too.  From a spray fufu rebuild to kryogenically freezing the metal realigning their molecules……we’ve taken building motors to new plateaus.

In the direction of producing a power plant to constantly pull 3 times the mass they were designed to pull, there are things you can do building up a GMC Motorhome to target your motor to what it will be doing.  And when we take a motor apart to the raw block……from there we start up the magic begining with a clean part.All the main components go in the boiling tanks.  The intake is in the cooker to the left. From there, cylinder bore is checked and its determined how much it takes to get 8 identical diameter jugs.  This block will be punched 20 over……next the rotating assembly (crank shaft and other parts are balanced.  Pretty cool automatic bore machine? 

Next its over to the balance machine.Some machinists feel that a balanced rotating assembly is only for hi rev motors, creating heavy torque at low RPM will beat the bearings out of the crank if everything isn’t all balanced together…..it needs to rotate smooth.  We also restrict oil flow to the top of the motor keeping more oil on the crank bearings for those hi friction low RPM torque requirements.

The heads are resurfaced, before a complete cleaning and magnaflux.  Correct thinwall exhaust valve seats are cut in and a 3 angle valve grind finish up the head machining
Mike is just back to work still in his PJ’s trying not to kill himself with the motor chair the doc said useThese 2 guys have argued over motors from hi school………and our next 455 is their object of frustration first out of the shop after his illness.  I feel honored……..This guy is one of my secret weapons……..!

Stay tuned, when Mike finishes playing, Drew Koba picks it all up and HIS assembly magic begins.  THEN we mate the motor with its fresh Monster transmission organ grinder and OUR testing will happen…….what fun and cool!

Something else cool happened this week, I made a visit to our “Mold Garden” for a very special investigationThese are 36 of the molds used to produce the outer body parts of our coachIt’s 240,000 pounds of, as you can see, rusting chrome!  Rather than just being the next holder of these historic parts, I want to save them and do something with them.  Yesterday the molds were inspected to see the scope of reinstituting them back to use.  New technologies give us options so even making scanned files of the molds can also be an avenue of restoration and reuseThe future of these molds is wide open but rest assured we’ll do our best to support the GMC Community and save these molds.  If you would like to help us secure this piece of our history…..give us a call at the shop.  407.857.5777, we’re printing a special pocket T-shirt “I like mold” “molding perfection”….gimme some 1 liners!   Show your support, get a shirt and our appreciation for a $50 donation.   I’m honored to be involved in this project……….stay tuned…….

It’s Friday, our recovery day, I’m in my cold music room listening to John Barley Corn must die on the Marantz and enjoying just sitting here…..sometimes you just need that.Proof, our new web sites focus:

WWW.MORETOLIFETHANMPG.COM

Go check out the site….were doing some exciting new things there soon.

In the upcoming months we will hopefully developed this site to be a fun place to go to ….watch our growth.Ok, it’s relax mode for a bit, thanks for the visit and your support…..see ya again soon…..

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