Coming up with a headline for each pose, sometimes the layout feels like PBS and them doing the short snips about everything that night…. then go right into it….. no 15 commercials about pills that seem to make us live forever… with blurry vision, constipation, a rash, flat feet and recurrent gas and bad breath…….. MAN there’s got to be a better way to market that stuff….. how bout doing it like the airline folks who make the opening monolog something to watch…… guess that’s just me…. anyway first I want to use this time to make a huge point about something you younger, new coach owners need to watch……… Finding a suitable 40 year old GMC, we all know there will be some mechanical issues, there always will be but after the basics are attended to it’s time for that “shakedown”. Something like this may not be necessary is you are used to selecting a later model used car or truck. The key is it’s 40 years old AND has been rewired… re rigged…. changed and maybe nothing but whatever has been the state of EVERY system on your vintage machine must be suspected and even after a looksee finds many things that need attention… there will be other systems at the end of their envelope of life that will fail soo after use of the coach is resumed.
Case in point….. delivery of the 23′ coach went very well yesterday 
A nice coach with a good history…. we had worked with the owners over 10 years ago and after a mechanical review and attending to the important “C” (broken) and some of the “B” older parts replaced with updates like a quad bag suspension, etc. the coach headed home for a 2 1/2 ride home. Trip went well from the text I got but a hub cap fell off (they are running in date 16.5″ tires) and the air suspension compressor burned up…..
Lets see… one of 2 things a 40 year old hub cap can do…. keep holding on for dear life or fall off because it can? That’s why I have kept all those hub caps over the years when folks went to 16″. Gotm’…..$5.
And that air compressor…. installing a quad bag system you would always cycle the air ride system to see if there are other issues…… I had put this hi dollar Gast brand 2 cylinder, direct drive mondo pump in 10 years ago…. the driver was a retired Navy pilot and wanted everything the best… and it was. Over time however , my guess from just sitting around the motor must have degraded but cycling the system still had enough umph to have everything work as needed……. The check valve probably hung up and that big Gast compressor ran for hours until it fried…….. This is my point… just because something works does not mean it’s fine. NEW parts are getting old enough to be a failure suspect. And why does this happen… because it can… and how do we address all this stuff?……. When you pick up a refurbish coach like this……..the Ship builders build the ship but the crew does the shakedown. This is the first few times out watching to see if all the upgrades are installed, adjusted and working well PLUS watching to see if any other things need attention. Lack of use can cause premature failure and simply failure due to old parts, dried out lubricants and unexpected results……. all this must be sorted out before the coach can be deemed road worthy. This is something we and the owners work through. With their budge spent for now… al they need to is shut off the middle 2 valves on their quad bag system and with hand held compressor with 70 pounds they can pump up their coach and keep enjoying it until they’ve saved up enough aluminum cans to replace the compressor….. and this time we don’t need the aircraft grade big bucks compressor… back to our standard direct drive single cylinder compressor……. So there it is…. a final step at shaking down any other issues in their coach before getting on the road….. this is how it’s supposed to work so you youngsters understand……. living with a GMC is a process of learning about it and doing what’s needed to keep it viable.
NOW on to the dash AC project called “Ruby’s Dash”. I’m doing a pile of reporting on this project so each time you see Ruby’s dash in the header know there will be a bit more on this ongoing saga……..
Red letter day, the AC systems (3 of them) have been custom built for our application and will be shipped out soon. In the meantime we’re not lined up watching for the UPS guy, we have patterns now so we’ll be catching up the other 2 coaches in house as we wait for our hardware.
The 3rd coach in this discovery is actually one you guys should watch even more that Ruby and it’s ground up restore. This coach owner previous was an avid GMC enthusiast who enjoyed his coach and lavished with everything he could to make his experience more injoyable…. translated this thing had every switch, gauge doodad, thingabpop and idea discussed over the past 20 years in the GMC community…Not making jokes, it was a full tilt buggy GMC enthusiast dream machine…. I mean every pilot would feel at home in this cockpit 
Wait… is that a cathode ray tube screen on the left panel? This is truly a KPD cockpit…… that’s Knobs Per Dollar for you non pilots…….
and holy crap, I bet this screen was installed long before there was anything like a flat screen…. this guy had it no matter what it took 
He built in a 12 volt old style B/W tv into the dash looking like a video monitor from the driver……….. man, that’s just “makn it happen”! Hey, he was before his time and go back and blow up that dash pic…… he already KNEW his dash AC sucked… he has 2 extra round vents blowing directly at HIS face….. a smart man!
So while UPS is racing Santa in the sky with our order, Jared is bending boxes and I’m going diver down into this swamp 
I’m seeing 2 battery isolators AND a Yandia combiner solenoid…. this is going to be fun….Oh, and check out the driver side of the front 
Yeah baby, THAT looks like more fun than getting your arm stuck in a vending machine! It’s all gotta go so stay tuned…..
OK, it’s 8am and the guys are here… gotta work……
