One true fact about these classic machines………. you and I come and go, the motorhome will stay! It’s a natural event, one new excited owners aquire their new baby and another seasoned steward turns over his object of frustration on to another to fret about. Jay and his wife has had many good memories made in the GMC they purchased from another previous owners I knew who also doaded over the coach. Him, a NASA engineer! So it’s time, Jay’s life has moved on but 1 more father/son pic……the one you always will say “I had one of those” 
Good onya Jay and Good on ya to the new ocerseas owner. Yes, this coach will be a vacation getaway machine for some European owners who will fly in, travel the US and go home. More are doing this and just think even using the coach that little still this is their “best way” for them to vacation. Hey, all of us here don’t have to go through TSA to use our coach! We should go hug our coaches every day!
now there will be a new purpose for this coach to exist and a new family with great expectations….it’s a full circle of life…….. In knowing these coaches for 26 total years I have followed many like this one from one to the next owners and I appreciate all of you who take the opportunity because it really is a big commitment to keep one of these in road useable condition. We have found over a 20 year period, those who have maintained their coach through that time will average $2000 a year in maintenance! Some yours nothing…then the motoe goes….6 new tires every 5 years, oil, plugs, wires, batteries and there ya go.
If someone says to me “every time I get into my coach I find a problem” and say to them”you need to get in it more and fix some stuff while you’re there…..”. These take attention, fresh diapers now and again and if you feed it bad fluids…guess what comes out the other end soon?
Not “if” but after 40 years it will be more “when” something fails you need “countermeasures” or backups to be able to continue to move even with a failure of some sort. THIS is one of the important things a new owner must understand! Dod takes care of fools and that’s the way many people look at maintenance. If you do not know the age of your rear wheel bearings, get new Timken bearings and seals NOW! What are you stupid…quoting a recent popular political phrase……. There is such thing as metal fatigue and who’s to say what the 1/2 life of a bearing is under the extreme use we expect of them?
There is NO president expecting a 40 year old man made mechanism to perform the same and better as is was when it was new for the exact same purpose. Yes, aircraft but look at the maintenance and permitting schedule they go through to keep them able to fly……do you do that much for your motorhome? Be real, you don’t do a motor teardown at an hour number! That is how they keep old machines up in the air. What do we do to keep our old flying machines on the road? I will tell you not much………I have seen folks come in with piles of really bad things going on and we repair only the grievous ones! Don’t leave the ground in THAT aircraft is all I say!
A new owner will want me to make the coach totally reliable…….and I can…as reliable as it was designed to be originally….in the 70’s…..doing constant
checking, maintenance and fluids checking. Vehicles are not that way today…they are wayyyymore reliable out of the box that any of this old stuff was. Computer engine management systems, tighter tolerances, newer technologies in every way make cars and trucks much more user friendly than we dealt with in 1975! Had my 1977 Mercury Monarch..a peach of a slug….. alighned how many times and it still wore out the left front tire! The wipers would only work in my 65 Chevy when it wasn’t raining! Look, I liked my Pinto wagon……. all that’s funny today but it was a big deal back then! Today we are spoiled wether we admit it or not! My 1996 Suzuki is closing in on 500,000 miles……. a new 1973 GMC would have had it’s drive train rebuild several times….it’s just the truth and overseas parts quality and tolerances are not helping anything! I still can’t convince NAPA that a front lower ball joint is not the same as a Toronado!
My Dad, the greyhound bus driver, would never keep a car over 100,000 miles. He didn’t want anything to do with afterdealer repairing and maintenance……he was the professional drivers professional driver……wanted nothing to do with old road iron! My uncle, the past Michelin distributer for everything south of the mason Dixon line…east of the Mississippi….he told me long ago “I can’t believe you’re keeping those pile still on the road!”
And THIS is what we call our business…….. “Oh Jobe what evil have YOU done to be sitting here in your ashes?” Yes, it’s a nuts business more professionals in the automotive business chuckle under their breath at…hey and I agree but somebody has to drive the trash truck…someone has to be willing to do things that most mechanics wouldn’t even get involved in…..that’s the stuff we tackle. The GMC Motorhome is a good one and doing custom ideas for folks maybe crazier than us want! We have a basic skin on the Airstream wedding photo-booth kiosk 
Needing to be polished out, the surface has it’s protective “pealcoat’ and here is is, first look at the coach with it’s basic skin 
The entire trailer will be final polished out is the reason this special aluminum sheet was used. We have an Olympia Rivet system here tomorrow……
So much fun, you should be here for some of this! Anyway it’s late and I need to get out there. Tomorrow morning I’m doing a fire safety seminar for the Monnaco club tomorrow so it may be late before I get to plunk anything. Have no fear…we’re here. Thanks for stopping by, see ya tomorrow….maybe…..
Remember Jim not all overseas stuff is crap isn’t your overseas Suzuki pushing 500,000 miles