The drive up to St.Augustine in the diesel was awesome!. Let’s call this the 《Drive report》
the test is 2 fold, first of course to Fire that mother up” but also to address any issues to include noise, heat , smell and any other diesel related situations .
Start-up was expectedly fast, when glow plugs get hot and Kerosene is compressed you have fire! Some noise at idle. Let her warm up only 30 seconds…. let’s go daddy….
it actually felt a little sluggish until I figured out with the wet pavement from the drizzling rain… the right wheel had lost traction and was spinning. Not until I felt the torque in the steering wheel… backing off it grabbed and we started moving faster… Holy crap, welcome to the wonderful world of Torque!
Oops… we have a board meeting and then a tech session…. I’ll continue the debriefing later… Talk to ya then….
S o, back to the report… stopped to fill with fuel such an odd thing grabbing the green nozzle. a different smell, we’re definitely in diesel world! Spinning the right wheel on the wet pavement I figured out to not do that…. was funny, a guy in a little car next me at a light was starring at the tire spinning…. yep, it’s spinning!
Hitting the ramp and drier ground man I went up that ramp and into traffic right now! I just can’t say too much about my new fun word torque … this is a road rocket! it’s early morning at the rally, I never get to eat donuts. it’s donut time so let me do that, I’ll finish this tonight…. plunking on this cell phone ! See ya later
OK, I’m back in the saddle at the shop… it’s really hard to plunk on that cell phone and getting thoughts together out there well, just doesn’t work at this point. So where were we on the Diesel report?
So lets talk about the “elephant in the room”….yes it’s a diesel… yes it is noisier than a gas motor…. get used to it! If that’s the main challenge understand it will NEVER be as quiet as a gas motor so just stop trying to use that as a quality gauge and save everyone a great deal of verbage… and if you are a gas guy, you will always pupu the noise so I have to tell ya get over it! At the rally it was funny…. always the first comment is… “Man, that’s noisey”. Yep and I’m getting 2 times the mileage and can top a hill in 3rd gear… and it will do that all day long! THAT is the goal….. Is the noise objectionable depends on where your expectations are. If you are unrealistic then there you are. If you want NEW metal, a proven motor built to operate after a Neutron bomb then this puppy is your boy!
Towed the side car bike and tooled around St. Augustine, here we’re on the Volusia Loop, a bike tour through the lowlands around Daytona… if you’ve been to Bike Week you will know about this run 
. What an awesome weekend.
This diesel project is not a cheap one and for some it just doesn’t make sense. Hey, I love my 455 roller motor and I have high hopes for the 350 roller motor project…… haven’t heard about that one? You will… but having a reliable, serviceable diesel in a GMC Motorhome has been a dream of many for many, many years. Well guys, you don’t have to dream, you just need to close your eyes and write a check! How many times even from the sidelines can you witness a dream actually come true? Well you just did right here.
Seriously for a minute on the noise…. Stand next to diesel motorhome and that’s the sound you will hear, a commercial truck or whatever. A diesel will always sound like the valve train is about to jump out. The joke this weekend when someone would crinkle their nose as the coach drove by… “sure needs a valve job” as a dug a quick small rut with the right tire! I always thought this was a wives t6ale but a diesel motor DOES get quieteras it warms up…. it’s true and the noise is basically when you put your foot in it to climb a hill…. on the flat cruising it’s idling and hot you can hardly hear it sitting at a traffic light. All that is true because I was there doing it!
I was chicken last night coming in from Ormond in the dark to Orlando, I put $20 in diesel in it… just don’t know that fuel gauges language…. but filling up in Orlando, with a speedo that needs to be calibrated because of the 273 gear….. look at the tach and speedo while driving 
A terrible pic, hey I was driving but 60mph and @ 2100rpm. It’s said the sweet spot (all diesels have one) is @ 2200, which puts me almost 70 on this gauge. May have been faster in that I was keeping up with traffic. I passed many cars and the torque curve was cool to ride…. You pull into the left lane… goose it and the noise increases… count to 3 and the sweet mother of speed wakes up and pass that car you did! A good move that was… Jedi!
I was still on the chicken side being the actual lab rat taking the ship out in open water but crap that thing will go! Even adding $20 of fuel in Ormond, the needle this morning is on 3/4 which means I drove that baby all weekend…. St. Augustine down A1A to Ormond by the Sea on to Daytona and back to Orlando…. I think 1/4 tank of fuel…. outstanding! The 800 pound side car bike on a Northern Tool trailer really doesn’t enter into it but pulling the Intercostal Waterway bridges hey I passed a car! Yeah baby… I like torque!
This coach will soon go home to Delaware probably not to be seen here much… I had the supreme honor of driving a Manny Made dream come true. And as the line on Star Wars goes…. “and there is another Jedi”…… Cedric’s “Ruby” is coming together net with this drive train. It too will be an epic coach. For those of you who pupu it because it’s not “original”…. maybe not for you but get over others ideas… isn’t it great to live in America.
Speaking of that, I want to thank all of you who have watched some of our Patreon videos… I hope they were informative. I will tell you this… Henry Ford once said, “A bump is as good as a knock, at least they’re talking about you”. We have some contrasting opinions on the video I did about battery selection. It was cute how folks said to the effect, “I’ve done it different and had no problems so that must be a wrong statement. Guys step back a moment…. there are many ways to do thing… folks don’t make blinds and valences the way I do but that does not mean I am wrong and there’s only way to hang blinds. Likewise if you run 2 golf cart 6 volt batteries and it works for you…. that’s wonderful. That means with the way you use your coach that accumulation of components seems to service you. Heck, isn’t that what it’s all about? If it works the way you use it great. What I propose is from years of installing, maintaining and repairing specifically GMC Motorhomes for folks and for myself. Our 100 amp alternator are not adequate to charge 2 deep cycle golf cart batteries if they run down. If your never gets run down you’ll never have a problem but you are carrying more capacity than you certainly are using and if one does go down you may cause damage if you try and charge it on board. A 40 amp converter won’t do it… maybe an 80 will in enough time to use it again. And if that’s the set up you have great. I build up coaches for folks who don’t want to fiddle with it, I can’t put them in harms way so everything needs to be balanced to that need.
Another example is air compressors. The American way of “Mooo Powa” is still alive and well. But the more pressure your mondo compressor puts out the more current it robs from your electrical system to do the job. There was a smart guy in the club in past years that linked a Ford starter motor to a Tork upright dash AC compressor. Holy Moly you are up in like 30 seconds but you had better have all the batteries connected, the motor on and your generator running because that hummer pulled over 80 amps! And the motor being a starter motor was not a continuous duty design… Good
Hey but still many love those puppies and if you never try to run it on a battery you will be good to go… watch for melted wires maybe!
So I’m saying thanks for the input, thanks for the discussion on the thread but please understand we need for folks to see all sides on a situation to get the full picture. So gimme a call if it’s clear as mud and keep watching “Motorhome Rehab Ranch” and see what other nonsense I come up with……
Hey Nic, you motor came in today…. have an intake issue but powers to be are working 
Stay tuned for that…. 
Here’s the front main on the Pickles Jasper block. Having partial wear like that means the cank wasn’t straight…. (Line Bored). Mike will fix that.!!
We have piles of stuff going on, Ruby is getting color…. and the beat goes on…
Thanks for the visit and your support…..
