Maybe. I'm not going to send him to the auction block just yet but this will be picked up Thursday. It's time to spend more free time doing things rather than working on thing.
Hard to imagine, but this one runs, drives and is usable as it sits. 52k miles, new tires, new roof, A/C, power steering. It was priced less than half of NADA. To good a deal to pass up.
It is still 23 years old and I'm reasonably certain it will need some work, but not as much as SanFord.
I really love the huge CRT TV built into the middle of the dash. That will be a fun challenge to get rid of.
Probably not a good omen that I dropped this in the builds section...
One off the first things I did to mine was change the brake fluid. The difference in stopping the coach was profound.
Don't remove the CRT. Hook up an old Nintendo.
Keith Tanner said:
Don't remove the CRT. Hook up an old Nintendo.
Hook up a back up camera!!!
frenchyd said:
Keith Tanner said:
Don't remove the CRT. Hook up an old Nintendo.
Hook up a back up camera!!!
Surely you can get a splitter box and do both.
Duck Hunt > backup camera
Powar
UltraDork
4/10/19 7:53 a.m.
Toyman01 said:
It's time to spend more free time doing things rather than working on thing.
This has been an ongoing theme in my life lately too. Congrats on the purchase. These things are awesome when they're all squared away.
In reply to wae :
Ford F530 chassis with a 460. It's going to burn a fair amount of fuel but doing some reading says about the same amount as the 361 in SanFord.
Ian F
MegaDork
4/10/19 8:44 a.m.
I definitely understand the "doing" vs. "building/fixing" and when it comes to RVs unless you really need some specific set of features, it's very hard to build something for less money than buying used.
wae
SuperDork
4/10/19 8:52 a.m.
In reply to Toyman01 :
I realize that this is going to sound really stupid, but tire pressure is huge in these. Or at least is is in my Chevy P30 from the same basic era. I went from something like 7.5 to 9 mpg by adding a little bit of air to all 6. I've also found that running the generator while going down the road really doesn't have a huge mpg effect. Do yourself a favor and check the burner orafice in the fridge. It's a cheap part, easy to get to, and it rusts. Mine was rusted out so that instead of a grate for the gas to pass through at the end, it was just a hole. The fridge "worked" but it was pretty lazy. With that new orafice, I had to turn the thing down to 5 or 6 to keep from freezing my eggs! (like, chicken eggs. Not doing any weird on-the-road fertility things, although there might be money in that...) You might also consider buying and keeping in a drawer a new thermostat/cutoff setup for the water heater. Super cheap from Amazon, a little spendy from the RV dealer, but probably the most common thing to go over time with those.
I am impressed that with two other busses in the house, you came home to your wife with a third. My feeling after twenty years of marriage experience is that a couple of them need to go.
In reply to bearmtnmartin :
The wife fully supports. We've made it 32 years so she knows the deal.
I like it, and can agree with the less working on and more enjoying part.
As for SanFord, if you decide to sell it, sell it to another GRMer so it will still be in the family.
If you get rid of Sanford I might have to find a way to block you. LOL
In reply to Crackers :
In an ideal world, I'll tear SanFord down an finish it.
Not sure how ideal I am at the moment and looking prices around the US I think I can get $10k-$15k for him.
Just call SanFord a "Tiny Home", should double the value. 
So I picked it up this afternoon. Lucky me, I got to drive it from one side of Charleston to the other in rush hour traffic. All things considered, it doesn't drive bad. It's about 500% better than SanFord.
There is some bad news. It badly needs a tune up. I noticed it on the test drive but figure it would all be things that needed to be changed anyways. Should be as simple as plugs, wires, cap and rotor. As I was backing it in the yard, the brakes were pretty mushy. The master cylinder is buried under the floor somewhere. I'll have to dig into that and see what the problem is. The A/C only cools half assed. Not sure if it's a refrigerant problem or a mixing door issue.
The good news. Temperature, voltage, and oil pressure are rock solid. Even with it running poorly, it would accelerate with authority. It came with a full tank of gas (50 gal). I had some time to test some of the systems. The stove and refrigerator work perfectly. All the lighting works. The water system works. The power mirrors work. And probably most important, I found the packet with all the instruction manuals for all the systems.
It came with two generators. The mounted Onan apparently doesn't run so the PO was carrying a Champion 4000 watt on a hitch carrier. I will probably be fixing the Onan if possible.
Pictures.
It takes up a good chunk of the back yard.
Looking forward.
Looking rearward.
Bedroom.
No engine pictures yet. I'll shoot some when I have the cover off.
Soooooo tuneup or do you have 50 gallons of old gas?
In reply to Patrick :
Tune up. It's got a obvious ignition miss. At 57k miles I wouldn't be surprised for it to have the original plugs, wires, cap, and rotor. That stuff is 25 years old at this point.
The PO died last October at 53 from a massive heart attack. I bought it from the estate. The executor is his uncle who said the PO used it regularly. It's been sitting less than a year.
If you're trying to make it look as big as possible, parking it beside a Samurai is a good start.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I looked at that and thought “dang, the Sammy fits in the rear overhang!”
wae
SuperDork
4/12/19 7:28 a.m.
That's a nice, clean coach - great score!
I fell down a hole at one point into a pretty good Onan forum: https://www.smokstak.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=1 There are manuals and all that sort of stuff there that might be of use.
