GMC Motorhome: You need to check your brakes (updated)

If you’ve been hanging out here over the last few weeks you’ve seen how every rear drum we’ve been pulling off leaking wheel cylinders plus other nasty stuff has greeted us.  And that labor also allows us to renew rear bearings and address the safety of installing a quad bag system.  This is a complete look at everything having to do with the really important 4 rear wheels.     Now remember, all 3 of these coaches came in with checked and descent braking on a test drive before going in!  Katlyn and now our newbee Camron have become a real rear suspension team!  Katlyn has been a good trainer showing Camron everything from the bottom up

    Arthur pitches in with a wire brush after the hi speed wire brush before the chemical wash   After the brakes and Ebrake are renewed next comes the new quad bag suspension   BTW, the wheel to the right in the last pic had 1 broken off wheel stud…it gets all 8 new!  Then with the quad bag system in, brakes renewed, a new 2 wheel Ebrake system, cleaned and refinished wheel liners….NOW it’s ready for new rims and tires   And even if you make other decisions on your air ride suspension the key is EVERYTHING is renewed……can’t rely on 40 year old parts in this position   You cannot go on the open road without KNOWING you have all this good to go. 

OK, Jared is in….lets talk later on Page 2

Alright, the guys are on task and the day is on.  The point I was making when I had to stop is you really need to look at anything you do differently than SOP used to be.  In the good ole day, a brake job consisted of new shoes and pads, flush the fluid and get outa here.  Used to be easy to find parts and people who knew what to do.  None of that anymore………. usually brakes will just get worse until you break down do something about it.  Today, if you do not know the condition of your brakes you could really get in trouble………rear suspension too.  The quad bag system we install is critical countermeasure when something goes wrong with any of your 4 rear wheels.  But whatever, when you jack up the back of your coach…make it worthwhile…check and probably renew everything…go take a look!    Cleaned and built up  then top it off with a quad bag system, a separate suspension for each wheel….now it’s ready for the road  

Ever wonder if there are differences in early and later model coaches in the fuel system?  The early models have rubber connecting hoses in the coach behind the driver side panel…later models have steel down through the floor   The problem found was a rusted pipe just below the rubber connection on the early (left in the pic) fuel downpipe.    So the project that’s been accepted is swapping the late fuel downpipe with the early 2 piecer…….wish us luck…..  You must understand there is NO president having any mechanism other than an aircraft being expected to do the same job if not better than when the mechanism was built!  Think about that a minute…if you have an old car, you don’t drive it around like you stole it!  No, you might “goose it” once in a while but nothing like we used to…at least that’s true for me!

parts are wearing out that no one had ever banked on.  Remember GM said in their video presentation that the GMC Motorhome was designed for a 15 year lifespan……. 40+ years was not on their radar!  You must understand and prepare for things like this.  SOP on brake jobs has always been inspect springs and hardware,, etc. and shove them back in  No no…today , after 40 years it all gets replaced  …. .no option today.

So the beat goes on….thanks for dropping by, we’ll see ya tomorrow…..

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