Now I had me a motorhome. Old, but habitable and roadworthy. Or so it seemed. I kept noticing a strong smell of gasoline. It was pooling on the manifold below the carburetor. Not good – wastes fuel and is a fire hazard. Maybe a loose hose or fitting? Tightening everything up didn’t help. Ahhh… there’s where it’s coming from – accelerator pump. The rubber diaphragm was dried and cracked and allowing fuel to escape. Replacement part was about five dollars, plus a half hour of my time to install.
Motor was now good again – what about the “home” part? Hmmm… some tiny leaks in the fresh water system. Like the fuel leak, turned out to be pretty easy and inexpensive – a few connections needed tightened, and an o-ring in one, and that was that. While I was at it, I made the rounds checking and tightening screws and whatever all over – cupboard hinges, appliance mountings, and what-have-you. Removed the slightly tattered folding door to the bathroom. Hung a shower curtain. Starting to look pretty good.
Now it’s time to customize a bit. I started by taking the 8-track stereo (no kidding!) out of the dash and replacing it with something made in this century. Now I can listen to AM, FM, and XM radio as well as play CDs. Can’t play 8-tracks anymore, though. Replaced the existing speakers with something a little better. Decided not to go overboard with amps and subwoofers and such – just kept it simple, but good enough for casual listening. I figure I can use headphones when I really want an audiophile experience, and the rest of the time, pretty good is good enough. Back in the living area, I installed a television, and I sacrificed one of the overhead cupboards in the kitchen to install a microwave oven. It’s getting pretty darn habitable in here now, huh? Oh, the exhaust fan in the bathroom vent was pretty noisy and the screen a bit raggedy, so I replaced it with a ShurFlo Comfort Air vent fan (similar to a Fantastic Fan) – very quiet on low, and can move a lot of air if needed – makes a great whole-house ventilator.
Had to fix the ladder on the back, and I put a couple coats of Kool-Seal on the roof to seal and insulate it. Put some new fog lights in the front to replace what was left of the pair that used to be there. Of course all this work took place over the course of several months worth of weekends. So the forum people were right about finding something that had “nothing wrong with it” – despite the lack of obvious defects, there was plenty to do to keep me busy between chasing down the more subtle issues and customizing it to meet my needs. Still – it was cheap to buy and so far I haven’t had to sink too much money into it. All the expensive stuff (engine, transmission, fridge, and a/c, for example) continues to be OK. Even the customizing has been pretty inexpensive, using mostly stuff I had around anyway or picked up on the cheap.
Homeless On Wheels 