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Off topic: Got something bigger than Bigwood

3K views 28 replies 10 participants last post by  Cadillacboy 
#1 ·
I haven't abandoned my Fleetwood stretch, but the one thing it was lacking was a bathroom.

I give you Eagle 5:



I bought it for $150 plus a $150 tow to my house. Needs a 454, which I'm picking up on Sunday.

Everything works - generator, both A/C units, both furnaces, plumbing, etc. And it has a toilet.

I had toyed with the idea of putting my spare LT1 in it but the 454 is such a brute I want to build one.
 
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#3 ·
Thanks! I don't know breaking bad, but a friend of mine saw the post on Facebook and congratulated me on acquiring the rolling meth lab. I had to look up the reference :)







I decided not to reuse the sheets. Or the toothbrushes I found in the bathroom.
 
#7 · (Edited)
According to the VIN plate, it's a 31-footer. Wheel base appears to be pretty close to that of my Fleetwood :).

The previous owner took really good care of it. #3 piston came apart while en route to an event. It sat for the past 6 years at the towing company's yard after the son-in-law of the owner of the towing company bought it. I have a feeling its presence was a strain on the marriage and the relationship between the son-in-law and the dad. He couldn't tow it to my house soon enough.





Cleaned up decent. There was mold, moss and mildew all over it - inside and out.
 
#9 ·
Good deal , when I saw the title for this topic I expected something like Daimler DS420 limo, Rolls Royce Phantom LWB lol
This one is a home on wheels :D
 
#10 ·
Nah, I'm a low-budget guy. My brother got a 19' travel trailer last year and it reignited the camping bug in me (we used to camp when I was little). When I saw this thing on Craigslist for $600 it piqued my interest. I knew the guy would never get rid of it, and he was getting a lot of heat from his wife, so I offered him $150 only because he had it and I didn't.

The biggest issue currently is that I have 80 gallons of 6-year-old, bad gasoline that I need to dispose of somehow. The county haz mat place will take it for free, but I have to bring it over 5 gallons at a time.
 
#13 ·
If the engine ran it would suck that down in a couple of miles. I was hoping to burn it off with the generator but it's so bad the generator won't even think about firing with it. I've been running the generator off of a 5 gallon gas can.

I have about 10 5-gallon cans left over from when we were stockpiling fuel during Super Storm Sandy. There's a drain at the bottom of the tank but I can't get to it right now because I have the back sitting on the ground to level it in my steep driveway. Since the air ride compressor is powered from the chassis battery I can't run it (I have all of the wiring unhooked to get the engine out). I figure I'll drop the new engine in it and see if it will fire on the old fuel. If not, I can pump the rear back up and start the process of draining it.

The best part is that the engine won't come out the front or bottom. It has to come out into the cab and out the driver's door. But it won't fit with the heads on it. So I've stripped the old engine down to a short block and plan on yanking it out tomorrow. The new engine has to be stripped down, installed and reassembled too. Lots of fun but I look forward to the challenge.

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The RV reminds me a lot if one that was for sale where I bought my '89 Custom Cruiser. It was a bit fancier, from the same era, but not in as good of shape.

How big is it? Could the limo fit inside of it? :sneaky:
It's an '84. Refreshingly simple mechanically. No cats, the only smog crap on it is an EGR. From an RV perspective, that stuff never changes. Hot water heater, terlet, furnaces, a/c, fridge are all the same as they are today.

The limo might fit inside it - the inside is longer and wider than the limo. It says it's a 31-footer - not sure if that's end to end or inside or what. It is like a house inside. It will be the largest vehicle I've ever attempted to pilot.
 
#14 ·
^^ No prob. Try a Freightliner and a 53 footer full of produce from Nogales to Vancouver every week. My trucking buddy and I did 6300 kilometers a week every week for 4 years until we retired in '09. Piece of cake. We thought of going halfers on a giant motor home last year but decided that we were too old now. Given the state of the economy, you'd best have some shares in Chevron to keep your 454 happy. I'm sure your family will have a blast with your new motor home. All the best and..........
Cheers.............R.
 
#15 ·
When I was 17 my dad let me drive our 26' Winnebago just before we sold it. I only drove it once but I don't recall it being particularly difficult.

I've read it gets between 6 and 7 miles to the gallon. I don't plan on going on long trips in it. I got it for local trips, tailgating, etc. There are plenty of things to do and places to camp in a 50 mile radius of me.
 
#16 ·
Also....the wheelbase on the Fleetwood is 5" LONGER than the motorhome. Hard to believe, but true. The motorhome is about 5 feet longer but it has a big overhang. I've learned a LOT about the P30 truck chassis over the past couple of days :)
 
#18 ·
I had wondered about that. Add a few gallons at a time to the Caddy or my Avalanche. We have enough later model gas guzzlers in my family, actually, that I could dispose of it pretty quick.

I tried siphoning it out from the generator feed but it wasn't working. The fuel filler takes too many twists and turns to get a siphon in there. There is a drain on the tank, but I'm wary of that. It's 30 years old and if I open it and can't close it I'll have a haz mat situation on my hands.

The previous owner says the tank is full, and the gauge says it's full but they also read full when they lose their ground which is pretty common. He also said the propane tank was full, and that was true so I dunno. I've used most of the propane heating the thing for my kids to use as a playhouse :p
 
#20 ·
I have a story for you.
Several years ago my friend Donnie called me because someone had dropped off a motor home at his recycling yard.
He usually does not seek out, or scrap many vehicles, mostly recycling scrap steel from industrial and mining sites.
Anyway he knows I am a car nut and he says I'd better come down before this motor home is gone, so I go there and look under the hood and there is a 454/t-400 that I know I want!
So I tell him I will need to go home and get my cherry picker and tools etc. He says "hell with that", and he goes and starts up his bobcat with a shear attachment, and proceeds to perform major surgery on this beast.
He was cutting the front apart faster than I could drag the pieces away, pretty soon the engine and trans were fully exposed, I climb underneath with a few wrenches and undo the motor and trans mounts. It was then that I discovered that there was nothing else hooked up on the engine, no fuel lines, no hoses, no electrical, and the engine was nicely painted, and had fresh freeze plugs in it.
Turns out someone had installed a rebuilt engine and only got this far and quit. It had sat for quite some time and it looked like they were remodeling the interior as well.
I'll bet from the time we started till we were setting the engine/trans in my pickup was 1 hr max.
I took the combination to a swap meet and sold the engine for $800 and the trans for $200.
By the way your motor home looks great compared to the one I was dealing with.
Good luck, Fleetwood Greg
 
#21 ·
I have a story for you.
I go there and look under the hood and there is a 454/t-400 that I know I want!
So I tell him I will need to go home and get my cherry picker and tools etc. He says "hell with that", and he goes and starts up his bobcat with a shear attachment, and proceeds to perform major surgery on this beast.
...
Good luck, Fleetwood Greg
Thanks!

This is a 454/TH400. It was too rainy for me to crawl under it today. I just need to take the TC bolts out and it will lift out of there. So close yet so far away.

I've done the research and the manufacturer removes them through the cab after stripping it down to a short block. Seems to me if they do it that way, I should too. The fastest way would be to hack through the fiberglass nose, but I'd like to reuse it :)

I'm picking up the "new" engine tomorrow. It's an '84 454, too, out of the same RV. They say it runs and is complete. I didn't ask how they got it out - that will be part of the conversation tomorrow.
 
#25 ·
It got weird.

I've been picking at it. Engine is ready to come out. Need to find the right combination of weather and my brother's work schedule to finish it up.

The new engine thing got weird. I was negotiating with the wife of the guy that had the engine for weeks. Finally the day came to go get it. It was 7 hours round trip. I checked Craigslist one last time before I left and wouldn't you know there was an engine with half the miles only 5 miles from me. I called the other lady and said that I needed to look into this other one. That's when things got weird. Apparently this lady is "lonely". Started with the emails and texts...

So, no engine yet. Local guy wants too much money but I think he will come around. The other one, if it exists, is not an option for any kind of money.
 
#28 ·
So I bought the engine from the local guy. He wouldn't come down on price, but it was still a good deal. I was just hoping to get a better deal. Weather is finally cooperating so I got underneath and hooked the hand pump up to the fuel line. I pumped about 2.5 gallons out of it and it smelled good - like gas, not varnish. It's been sitting for 6 years, but the guy said he put Stabil in it.

Rewind a few months: I had rigged up the generator to run off of a gas can rather than the tank. The generator would not run off of the stock fuel supply, so I assumed it was because the gas was bad.

Back to today. I dipped the generator fuel line into the 2.5 gallon can of "bad" gas. It runs fine! So I have 80 gallons of usable fuel in the rig. At $3.30 a gallon, that means the RV was basically free :)

So I'll have to figure out why the fuel line from the tank to the generator won't feed the generator. Maybe there's a shut off somewhere? Dunno.

I'm finally going to get under there and take out the motor mount bolts and TC bolts. May try to lift the engine out tomorrow if enough ice melts from around the front of it today.
 
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