I've been biting my tongue here, but now would be a good time to put in a 204/214 cam and Performer manifold. Replacing the manifold and cam is not much more work than what is already in store. With the Thorleys, that would be oh so sweet. Get a X muffler and you would be in high cotton.

Bill:

Yes I got a high Volume water pump. 33 percent more and all that.

Gentlemen:

Thanks for the suggestions. Any other thoughts are very welcome. The coach does not have to be on the road for some weeks or even longer so the time to do things is now. Last year I did the "have to" stuff this years work is the first step toward the what I want the Barth to be. Have I told you about the front hood re-design, see you in welding class. And the interior changes... oh boy. If Lana sees this I'm dead.....The plan is to lead her into my vision slowly.

The reason I asked for your educated suggestions is that I STRONGLY prefer to do the work before a trip. I am no P30 expert so please do share your experiences.

I am not abusive to the things I own but I am far happier when I have things sorted out and can run them effectivley with a high degree of confidance. "Chaning Fuel pumps in the Walmart parking lot again" may be a good lament song title but it is not my idea of a fun weekend.


Knowing that fuel pumps fail at 50K and that the distrubutor needs attention are priceless gifts. No, I had no idea. Now I do and now it gets replaced. A few hundred dollars thoughtfully spent up front sure beats being in a parking lot on a 105 day or waiting for a three hundred dollar tow. As my wife and I do go to Mexico once in a while or out to the bad lands of Nevada having the Barth ready to go and not ready to fix is a good thing.

I picked the 1973 because I know my nature is to fiddle until the whole thing is just a bit better than new. So I looked for a coach with a low entry cost, this way when I am done we stay below .... (insert big number of choice here).

If I stay at it and keep my job it will take about four years to have things set right. The outside still looks worn and will continue to look worn until the running gear and inside are where I want it to be. The inside is OK but while I'm thinking about it, does anyone have a set of black leather Recaros they want to send my way? I saw a set of seats in a H1 Hummer the other day I liked; also leather, done in dark brown with black insets, power everything. I'm flexable.

Thanks Again:


Tim

I run the 502 in my Barth and my ski boat with out a mechanical pump. Lectric works fine and prevents vapor lock in MH. Easier to change at crap out time, too.

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
I wonder if that "extra feature" is a fuel return line fitting for TBI....

My TBI 454 ain't got no mechanical fuel pump. I would suspect that is a vapor vent for smog compliance or something.

Oil Pan.


Can I replace it with the cross member in place?

Or does the engine go up or does the cross member come out? Look I'm in this far, we are talking tabout adding two more weekends at the most.

The only reason the intake is on the later list is the engine is running well and if I Sc---ed things up while pulling the distributor I wanted to do it in steps. However the oil pan and fron timing cover relationship is news to me so while things are apart maybe the time is now. The cam is also news. I have Hydraulic lifters, what is the deal with adjusting the valves after a new cam goes in? The car I have worked on had solid lifters so it was feeler gage time after the cam went in, run it a bit and do it again. If this is the case on a 454 I guess we can wait a while before the air conditioner goes back on.


This will take a little thinking, I need more paper plates to put like grouped parts onto and more space for the plates. Guess the back bed will have to be stripped.

Tim

Well, the replacement of the camshaft is a new idea - but hydraulic lifters are self-adjusting.

I don't know about the oil pan removal, but once freed from the gasket, most will slide out.

No paper plates. Parts slide off. Use paper soup bowls lined with Saran Wrap to avoid the dreaded oil soak-through. And cat food cans. Take digital pictures.

As to the distributor, I posted instructions on that a while back. Heck, I'll ride up and help you with that if it is a biggy. My knee is good enough now that I am back on the bike.

The pan doesn't come out without either raising the engine or dropping the crossmember. But you don't need to remove the pan. Just drop it enough to replace the gasket. It already needs to be dropped at the front just to do the timing cover, right? People have tilted their engines to replace the pan, but I have not done it myself. Raising the engine is pretty easy, too. I did mine with a jackscrew attached to the intake manifold. I raised it up, removed the crossmember, then lowered the engine onto a dolly. Put the new engine in the same way.

If you replace the cam, the new lifters will require adjusting just once. That is sometimes called pre-loading or some such. The adjustment is at the rocker arm pivot nuts. Back em off till they clack, then tighten down a quarter turn. It can be done pretty much the same way on a cold static engine, too, but I like the bleeding that the clacking facilitates. I do it cold, then running hot. A Haynes or Chilton manual will probably have the drill.

If you are just going to do a manifold change, doing it later will have no penalty. Doing a cam change later will involve removing everything again. My normal feeling that is with a short MH, replacing a cam is too much work, because your lighter weight already gives you fairly decent performance. You will get a good power increase from an RV cam, but you are not in as much need of more power as owners of heavier coaches. So it's an individual thing. I would not even mention it if you didn't have the front open already. The intake manifold is much less work, so it is a slam dunk. The Thorleys, Performer and cam do their best work together as a team. Oh, yeah, and an X pipe or X muffler.

Yeah, rocker arm adjustment is far less difficult than it sounds - although it'll be a bit messy...

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
Yeah, rocker arm adjustment is far less difficult than it sounds - although it'll be a bit messy...

Rocker Stoppers make it much less messy. Plus, I hate to waste that expensive Mobil 1.

Tim, if you get your Chilton's manual, the valve lash advice you find there will differ from Bill H's. Believe Bill's advice for 1/4 turn, not the manual. Bill's advice comes from John Geraghty, erstwhile Trailer Life Magazine performance guru. He's had more experience with 454's in RV's than all of us put together, & I've never been misled by him.

I've used clips similar to "Rocker Stoppers" to keep from taking an oil bath while adjusting valve lash, but the pix of the Rocker Stoppers look like they'd work better than what I have.

What is the advantage of the X pipe?

quote:

Originally posted by shtym:
What is the advantage of the X pipe?

it's a proven fact that joining the exhaust pipes of multi-cylinder engines improves power and torque over a broad rpm range. A "tuned" set of exhaust headers (with pipes of calculated diameter and length) actually assists sequential firing cylinders to scavenge spent exhaust gases, making room in the cylinder for an undiluted, fresh charge of fuel and air. The velocity of exhaust gases in one header tube causes a low-pressure area in an adjacent tube, literally sucking the exhaust out of that cylinder. The more cylinders, the greater the effect.

That which works with headers also works downstream with dual-exhaust systems. Unconnected dual exhausts on V-8-powered vehicles act as two independent four-cylinder engines and exhaust systems—and we all know what four-cylinder engines sound like. Back in the '60s, performance engineers at the Big Three car companies discovered that running a balance tube between the two branches of the exhaust system (subsequently called an H-pipe) would broaden the torque curve as well as cut down the interior noise caused by resonance in the exhaust system.

Fast-forward 30 years to the '90s, where a revolutionary development in exhaust technology has taken the balance-tube H-pipe to the next level. Instead of connecting the branches of a dual-exhaust system with a restrictive 90-degree connection, the X-pipe union simply flows the two branches together without changing the direction of exhaust flow, and one side can easily draw from the other for a sizeable reduction in back pressure.



For those who have vehicles where no X-pipe is available, a custom X-pipe can be made by any competent muffler shop by purchasing the X-pipe union and bending up some exhaust tubing to make it fit. If you are fabricating your own X-pipe, a tip is to place the X-pipe union as far to the rear of the car as physically possible—it will make more power that way.

The whole article can be read here. I would also like to add that Advance Autoparts have most of this stuff and I have found them to be a good company to deal with.

Bill N.Y.

quote:

Originally posted by bill N.Y.:
Maybe you could do a Tom Sawyer, fence painting thing...

It's starting to work.

quote:

Originally posted by bill h:
Heck, I'll ride up and help you with that if it is a biggy.

Bill N.Y.

quote:

Originally posted by bill h:

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
Yeah, rocker arm adjustment is far less difficult than it sounds - although it'll be a bit messy...

Rocker Stoppers make it much less messy. Plus, I hate to waste that expensive Mobil 1.

What will they think of next?!

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
What will they think of next?!

The original devices for that purpose were little clips made of sheet metal. They blocked the squirt, but still dribbled a lot. I have also used an old set of rocker boxes with a wide slot cut into the top allowing access to the ball stud nuts. This is still the cleanest way.