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Elite Veteran
  
Location: Oceanside, CA | Henry, I moved that post over to the "Traders Market" where it was supposed to go.
They are for the Alcoa wheels. |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | Dome light, clearance lights, microwave and other electrical installs:
http://www.fmcowners.com/mbbs22/photos/show-album.asp?albumid=127&p... |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | Had to pull the prop shaft yesterday as my once "weeping" pinion seal leak developed into a "puddle maker"...can't tell you how happy I was to tackle that 500ftlbs pinion nut again....but with the new original "Meritor" seal installed this time it's nice and dry back there now...maiden camping trip to San Clemente (on base campground 20 miles from home) happening tomorrow; just a local two nighter to christen her! |
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Expert
Location: Cottage Grove, OR | Have good camping trip. Test runs should always be local if possible. Give us a report when you get back. |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Medford, OR | Happy trails to you |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | Successful first trip wrapped up today. Everything worked great and we had two beautiful 70dg sunny days on the beach at San Onofre. I've got plenty still to do but it's nice to know this is an "operational" FMC again. Probably been every bit of 10yrs since this thing logged it's last "camping" event.. |
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Expert
Location: Cottage Grove, OR | Congratulations! You now are almost to the pure joy part. I look forward to camping with you at the February rally in Castaic. |
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Veteran
Location: Olympia, Washington | Stephen and Len:
How about a gross weight fully loaded and ready to go. Driver and passenger weights in place, full fresh water and fuel, empty gray water and black water tanks. Gross weight and all 4 corner weights maybe even a gross combination weight also. I am curious on Len's rear side to side balance, how much effect did relocating the APU have? Did battery placement balance it back out? How much weight difference side to side is acceptable? How close can you get to 15,000 pounds without going over? How about we all properly weigh our coach and compare notes.
George 506
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Elite Veteran
Location: Victoria, BC. Canada | Good to hear you finally got out in her, Len. You did a whack of seriously impressive work on it with well thought out choices. Hope you feel good about it. Will be good also to get some mpg stats after you've fine tuned it all. You given any thought to having it dynoed?
The weight thing I think is important, too. What sort of leeway we have to alter the balance of these coaches remains a mystery to me as well. Certainly anything we can get out of the 'butt' should benefit things overall.
If/when I do my engine swap I plan to keep as accurate a record as I can of how much it weighed before and after. So far my Yammy genny swap has shed 200/lbs alone.
Happy New Year to all of you!
Terry
#846 |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | Weighing my rig is on my list of things to do. I'll probably do 3/4 tank of fuel, 1/3 tank of FW as that is closer to what I'd travel with.
I will tell you that a big part of my decision to install air suspension at all 4 corners was to counteract any unintended balance issues (and then of course the ability to tune ride height while towing). I haven't seen any of that yet and have just been running the rear bags at 60psi, fronts at 30psi and the coach rides true/level, I have individual controls for each bag so if I need to I can tune a particular spot.
If I can find a place that will do 4 corner weighing for a rig this size I could get that kind of info, but, so far as I know there are only standard truck weighing scales here locally. I think Redlands Truck has those scales, maybe in conjunction with going to the winter rallye I'll try and swing in for that.
My Onan Gen is 265lbs, going in the location where the two original air conditioners were(I'd imagine the two of them exceeded 270lbs), so the major impact of that move would be the reduction of weight in the drivers rear corner, my thoughts are that change would only bring positive results.
I have two roof A/Cs now that are near centerline, the forward one is smaller and weighs less than 70lbs, the rear (which is really close to true center both front/rear and side/side) is 75lbs.
While I'm running two 50lbs chassis batteries, I moved them 5ft forward and put them (nearly) on the centerline (slightly biased to the drivers side). Probably not much affect there at all.
The intercoolers/fans/transcoolers and equipment storage that is now in the old APU spot might be 75lbs total.
I moved the shore power cable and transfer switch 3ft forward.
Shifting the 100lbs of spare tire/carrier from the rear bumper to the front, trading the 120lbs of factory house batteries for 400lbs of AGM batteries, and swapping the 45lbs AC/DC converter for a 78lbs Inverter/Charger all had the desired impact, which was to provide increased front tire weight and improve steering control. I can cruise at 70mph with two fingers on the wheel and it's stable and smooth. The addition of the "Safe-T-Plus" stabilizer no doubt helped significantly.
Removing all the factory engine driven air conditioning hardware must have been a 250lbs reduction
Removing both hydrovacs and replacing it with a single hydroboost was probably a 70lbs reduction.
Adding the anti-sag structure in the rear had to have been a 175lbs increase, and the air bag structures another 100lbs increase.
The bedroom rework probably added 100lbs.
I made so many changes that its hard to look at a single item as "the difference".
The scales will tell the truth..My guess is 14,800lbs.
I've searched for post with coach weights and haven't found a single one with actual weights. Do you know of anyone who has done what you've proposed?
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | Terry,
I don't have any plans to dyno it. There is so much dyno data out there on LBZ duramax engines that I know with the tune changes I made(duplicates of dyno proven tunes) and the complete EGR delete that I'm within 5% of 400hp/750lbs torque at the crank, with the allison and pusher config, drivetrain loss won't be more than 20% so I'd bet I'm putting 320hp/600lbs to the tires.
Stephen's reports on performance are the same as what I've experienced...the only thing that restricts your use of the skinny pedal is common sense and fear..
Cooling was my biggest concern of the entire project, I still have a lot of testing to do but my rig runs really cool, like 175dg most of the time, but, I haven't towed with it yet so we'll see what that brings..
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Elite Veteran
Location: Victoria, BC. Canada | Thanks Lenny! Sounds plausible to me.
Bonneville Salt Flats! New 'Motorhome Speed Record'?
In a Class-A category, I think you'd need to best this: http://autoweek.com/article/other-motorsports/front-drive-gmc-motor...
A set of very tall 22.5" wheels should help the cause, too.
I think one of the requirements for qualification - should be that you have to have at least 4 other guys on board eating nachos and doing Tequila-shooters during the run!
Terry
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Expert
Location: Cottage Grove, OR | LCAC_Man - 2016-12-31 6:17 AM ...the only thing that restricts your use of the skinny pedal is common sense and fear..
Various people over time have told me of various ways of increasing the HP and Torque of my Duramax. But, I have not done so as Len's statement is exactly true. Running with the stock tune (and I have a Banks tuner installed!), I have no need for more power or torque as I have already reached (or passed!) the bounds of common sense and approached fear with the stock and economy tunes I have been running over the 18,000 miles I have put on my unit since the install. Note that with the Banks tuner I can add 60hp with a touch of a button, but I have not felt the need to do so! Given that the driveline to ground system anticipated the approximately 350 ft.lbs. of torque of the 440, the stock 650 ft.lbs. of the Duramax is all that I want to put through those components.
As to the weight question, I weighed my coach prior to the Dmax install. My coach was not stock at that time so these are not stock coach weights. I have not weighed it since the install, but here is the information about my coach to this point in time. I do intend to weigh it again, but I have been having too much fun in the meantime. My last trip home from CA a month ago was run at 72-73 mph most of the way on the flats as I was trying to beat the forecast snow in the mountains (I did!). The coach handled fine. I do notice the added rear end weight on fast corners.
Here is the weight information that I have for my coach:
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FMC 1046 weights as of 4-8-2011 prior to Duramax conversion.
Current set up is a Chrysler 440 with an Allison 540 transmission and Edelbrock MPI fuel injection. The transmission caused the engine to be moved 1.5" rearward from the stock position. Stock radiator converted to 6 rows. A 120 pound internet antenna is centered on the roof near the front. The generator is an Onan Marquis 7000 (290lbs.)
At the time of weighing, the fresh water tanks were full (they are to the right of the centerline near front axel) and the waste tanks empty (they are to the left of the centerline in front of the rear wheel).
Also, to weigh the left side the coach was driven half on and half off the scales. There was a small difference in height so the coach was slightly tipped to the right which would cause a slight weight bias to the right that would not be there if everything was truly level. The right side weight was derived by subtracting the left side weights from the axel weights. It was a segmented scale so the axel, left side and total weights are all actual scale weight and not calculated.
Cat scale, Dixon, CA
Left right
Front: 5,200 2,480 2,720
Rear: 9,500 4,480 5,020
Total: 14,700 6,960 7,740
Frame rail height from ground before and after engine (440 w/Allison) removal:
Left Right
Before: 21” 20 ¼”
After: 21 3/8” 20 ¾”
Rise: 3/8” ½”
Frame rail height from ground before and after Duramax (w/Allison) installation.
Before 27 15/16" 27 3/16"
After 27 ¾" 27 1/8"
Drop: 3/16" 1/16" Note: Generator not yet reinstalled.
2 months: 27 ¼" 26 5/8" Ready to close engine compartment two months later.
Drop 11/16" 5/8"
Note: It is possible that some sinking of the coach jack stands occurred in the two months as they were readjusted at the time of the installation measurements and the surface is compacted dirt/gravel and not concrete.
***************
My request would be for someone (George?) to go weigh their stock coach and start an FMC Weight thread. Then others with various modifications can weigh their coaches and add to the thread. I will weigh mine on my next trip and put those numbers in the weight thread.
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Expert
Location: Cottage Grove, OR | Note that the column formatting in the above post got mangled by the system, but you should be able to figure it out! |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Medford, OR | How many people on the maiden voyage said "What is that thing??" |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | I'd imagine most do...LOL! I think I actually have everything figured out now, the "mystery switch" I have in between my two closet doors is in fact the floor lights on the step ups(they are both disabled now until I do the flooring project), and the missing dome/door light was behind the screen door frame so you couldn't see it, it was also disabled.
I've got a punch list of stuff to take care of before February, getting the fresh water level sensing working, deciding if I want to install the power step or stay with a small stool, getting the leveling system reinstalled and working, and getting my scooter lift carrier installed, fit checked and road tested are among those. |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Victoria, BC. Canada | Solved my water level sensor issue by removing the plywood side cover off the lower tank inside my forward storage compartment. Jig sawed an elongated hole about an inch wide nearly the full height of the tank so I can see the water level through the slot at a glance. Trusty felt pen to mark 5 gal increments and Bob's yer uncle.
The toggle switch on the dash has been re-purposed to activate the passenger ejection seat. The system works perfectly but I still have to cut a hole in the roof though as the 'ejectee' will need clear passage to yonder places...
I digress.
Going to add another water tank to my coach one day as these things don't carry enough water.
Happy New Year all!
Terry
#846 |
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Veteran
Location: Olympia, Washington | How are the fresh water tanks configured in the later models? 506 has one tank under the passenger seat (like Len's) and the other is under the front end where the later models have the AC condenser. |
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Extreme Veteran
Location: Scottsdale, Aridzona | Duh . . . http://www.fmcmotorcoach.com/files/Parts_manual/34_Water_System.pdf |
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Contributor
| amazing work. would you like to do coach #1033? |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | Both of us would go broke, seriously, unless you have the space, tooling, skills,time and funding up front, this isn't the kind of swap you want to tackle. |
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | A follow up post now that I'm completing a 1700mile trip where I'm towing 6700lbs through the mountain grades of California/Nevada/Arizona/Utah. The use of a clutch on the cooling fan is an unworkable situation, to have a fan large/aggressive enough to move the needed volume of air you completely defeat the holding power of the clutch in the "locked up" condition. At the halfway point I pulled the fan, drilled and pinned the clutch so that it's direct drive...problem solved...I went from seeing mid-240's on long 7dg climbs (I'm at about 23klbs total) to a highest of 192dg on the same grades and a static operating temp of 172dg for normal flat driving(was mid-180s with the clutch). I also need to invest in better clamps for my turbo charger flex couplings...I popped a boot (2 times on the same one) during sustained 20lbs boost grade climbs(which will scare the snot out of you).. |
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Expert
Location: Cottage Grove, OR | I am also in the process of converting to a fixed fan. I also will also be increasing the size of my fan. These Duramax's have the power but to make power you also make heat! I can also relate to blowing the turbo tube. Going up the Cuesta grade north of San Luis Obispo I blew mine off on the way home from the Feb rally. LOUD pop and the power disappeared! Only did it once in 20,000 miles.
But fun to drive!
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Elite Veteran
Location: Oceanside, CA | Stephen,
You won't believe the differences in temps...I had worried about extra noise but it proved not to be the case...it's still really quiet(though it probably will cost some MPG). I should have paid attention to some of the reviews on those tubing/boot kits that said the clamps weren't the same quality as the rest of the parts... Thankfully it was an easy one to get to and I had brought some extra clamps so it was a 15min roadside fix both times...The extra 2500lbs of my rock crawler over our ford escape really brought out the loading difference...I never saw more than 215dg with the escape in tow.
Edited by LCAC_Man 2017-04-24 7:33 AM
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Elite Veteran
Location: Victoria, BC. Canada | Glad you got her rolling Lenny. Now for some fun!
Terry
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#1027 Duramax Conversion Project
