GMC motorhome, refinishing a roof and motor rebuilds

Lets talk about the latter first… hey, good morning and yeah I got up just a bit earlier trying to catch up on some things…….

Rebuilding a 40+ year old motor has it’s challenges so looking at replacing your motor is not one of those things that will have one somewhere on the shelf waiting for you to call and if there were one somewhere you would not want it.  Hey, transmissions, motors and fruit go bad sitting on the shelf.  The only way to know you are thumping a fresh one is to have it built in front of you, run up on a test stand.  Then and only then can you have confidence that everything was done to spec purpose.  This is how we do it, I have what I feel is the best machinist for our purpose… a man who is a racer, motor builder as well as machinist.  Then a have a builder known throughout the performance Oldsmobile community as a Oldsmobile custom builder in Drew Koba.  Drew and I have been friends for… well since I started this company.  Drew through other performance friends of his helped us design the motor specs and cam profile (Kryptonite Cam).  Drew assembles our motors by hand… one part at a time, each part measured and inspected as parts worthy of our motors then Drew will oversee the run in of the motor as we have been doing for a while   Ahhhhhhh, the red neck lullaby…..  a big block on a stand running with open headers……. hard for a front wheel drive car to duplicate that full package!

Anyway a pile goes into a motor like this, we had a running core motor taken to the machinist, after a complete clean up and magnaflux check we found the intake manifold not only had the usual crack at the secondary port thinwall   … that we can deal with using SS blockoff plates but it also had a crack on the bottom into the crankcase.  We had to round up another intake… have it cleaned and magnafluxed to see if it could be used   Cost 2 times cleaning and testing but hey, what can ya do….. it’s not like we’re working on spring chickens…  So the intake passed and was coated with a high heat rust killer.  It will then be painted our industrial grey “Co-op motor color”…. that’s so you can see any issues AND I like to think of our motors as big ole industrial pump motors.  Ya stickm is a hole, feed it oil and gas and it sweats out lumps of torque…. over and over.  Yea buddy, that’s the motors we need to pull 12,0000 pounds!     Hey, even WITH mufflers welded on it still sounds great!

So here is the point I’d like to make on our motors or any custom purpose built motor….. a performance machinist and builder must do this work… a production builder is not seeking the same goal.  No corners cut, a performance motor is not built to meet a timetable, it’s designed with quality and accuracy in mind.

This is a tough one but there are 3 things you should seek when having any mechanism made by man rebuilt…

QUALITY

        SPEED

                PRICE

Pick 2…… which 2 would you want your workers to focus on?  Lemme give you a hint…. the best you can get for the price you pay is what it’s all about!!!!   It stinks but it’s just a fact of life that I’ve also found over the years there is no getting around.  No short cuts, everything done in order to order and nothing left for chance.  Imagine how much it would cost to have someone watch every aspect of building say your house… being there and actually helping hammer each nail, measure each board and tamp down every footer…..  that’s what a performance engine builder does and those are the things a performance machinist looks at too.  Everything is focused on the best that power plant can be.  It takes time…. much more than it should but it does.  One thing goes wrong (cracked intake) and a week goes by.  A backordered parts and there goes another one.  It would be difficult to sit at the drive up window at McDonalds waiting like that but hey…. we’re not waiting on a cheap cheeseburger…..  Even a 1/4 pounder w/ cheese would get squashed by our roller cam pump motor!  Hey and that’s it, I always apologize up front for the time a motor take but remember, this is not an off shelf motor… made with no name for anyone, who knows what it will be used for, is that the motor you want for your baby? 

We have a motor hitting our shop this Saturday, Drew and his tuning buddy are running it up asap… stay tuned and lets see how it goes…. 

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OK, lets move on to a refinishing of a coach roof….  it’s crazy but we have stuff going on from motors to roofs around here.  This coach you may have lusted at before… it’s featured on our gallery page…

“Mighty fine from behind”

  why the name, well check it out….

      These are Dodge van tail lights.  Over 15 years ago we refinished the exterior of this 78 Royale

    The design was set  and the coach was built

.   but 15 years later, because of the sun in Baton Rouge the roof had cooked so Scott brought back his baby for a new hairdo    The roof was stripped down to the Carrier roof AC units    And roof repair began.  The reails were remover to paint the roof…   reseal the rails then paint the rails separate and install them.  Etch prime on the bare aluminum… a sealing primer than 3 coats of base and 4 coats of clear and there we are.. a slick roof again   This morning coming in well before dawn  I found myself making a snapshot on where we are on Scotts roof.  It’s quiet now in the shop and the coaches seem to be talking together   You know the usual, howz it going…. nice looking dome, hope mine comes out nice…. OK, I’ll stop….. but it is awesome to walk up on progress in action.  The guys were all over the coach yesterday afternoon getting the driver side rail sealed and down   Having an aluminum catwalk like that is everything….   Now the scaffold is on the passenger side.  Here is what’s under that top rail   The curved top panel is riveted to the hollow aluminum extrusion, screws recessed in the alighnment valley and side wall glued into the groove of the extrusion.  The leaks occur at the overlap of the aluminum roof panel and the screws in the bottom valley… the lowest point on the assembly!  Yep, there’s the #1 issue, any screw leak and it goes into the hollow aluminum extrusion and drops water from any hole coming inside or at the end in the back just in front of the corner speaker and at the front just behind the driver/ pass. head.  Hey, you got something like that….. be honest…. so now you know what’s going on and what you need to do….. don’t gob the rail cap, that’s like putting a patch on a tire from the outside……  It’s gotta come off…. sealed inside and refinishing the roof is when you do this.  As you saw, we painted the roof with the rails off.  Then  guys will put out this kick butt, German made flexible adhesive sealant… dripp and tap some 25 screws in each rail… must use new stainless steel machine screws….. OK, let me defend that…. yes, dissimilar metals … aluminum and stainless… but so it aluminum and steel but in this case we proved right here….. we installed stainless steel machine screws in Scotts rails some 15 years ago and brother they all came out and all the holes tapped out clean.  Thus the test is now over….. I’ll take 15 years and still comes out and a success!

So yeah, walking around this morning among the monsters was pretty special   See ya tomorrow……

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