Herding the Cats: Putting the Rescue Mission together....

I just booked my flight to Daytona and car rental for the middle of September. It's now or never at this point and the adrenaline is starting to build (could be the 3 cups of coffee, I guess). Tim, my contractor friend, is delivering the 440 V8 and other bits to Florida for the engine swap. Bill's Carburetor Shop will host the swap and let me plug in the RV to live in while I work on it.

We did have a slight detour into a "Plan B": just junk the RV and get another one up here. Lather, rinse, repeat.... We saw it and test drove her. A 1983 Chevy Mallard. Couldn't get the thing past 55 mph and she needed work as well. Back to plan A: the devil you know sort of thing.

Right now I'm searching and ordering those hard-to-find parts for the project and also to fix the soft front end that may have been the cause of the problem when the oil pan hit the pavement and likely caused the oil to be lost out of the original engine.

Small prep projects happening before the delivery: palletizing the engine, collecting the other bits, bolts and hoses. Rebuilding the instrument panel (not happy about the loss of gauges on the trip!) and other stuff prior to the flight.

A month will go by quickly! Fly down, get the RV out of storage (should be a fun post in of itself, trying to restart her after a year and to see if there is any wildlife that has moved in since then) drive to the shop and get the repairs done. Hoping it will be 2-3 days of focused work to do it. Then drive carefully home over the next 2-3 days if all goes well.

It will be just over a year since this started. Will be very glad to be crossing the NY line with the "Long Hauler".

 

 

 

A picture sent in July of the RV in storage. 

The replacement engine awaiting pick up and delivery...