Revcon Class A

whem2fish wrote:
give dave time to check o he has the 502 fire breathing dragon

X2... oh oops that's me, aaa...OK.

The gritty: At that price, you want to know a few things. First, the front suspension should not have ANY signs of wear. Front end parts are expensive, he is asking top dollar, so one needs to know they will not be investing money in expensive repairs. For the price I would expect more than just "mechanically sound". He mentions the front windshield is cracked. The windshield its self is only around 500 bucks, but to replace it is around $2000.00. The reason is that to pull the windshield requires trimming off some of the fiberglass around the windshield and then repairing it, once the windshield is replaced. If you look closely at the fiberglass, you can see a seam where it is designed to be separated, so the windshield can be removed.

The Good:A Revcon in good condition is a wonderful coach. It is by far the best handling full size motorhome ever built. Aircraft aluminum stretchform shell is structural. Interior cabinets are Wilsonart lament formed over a solid wood frame, with honeycomb support inside - extremely light weight, but very strong. I can easily hang my full body weight from the upper cabinets. This design means the center of gravity is around 30 inches from the ground. Unless you hit something sliding sideways, this things is impossible to roll - and yes I have slid the front end in a hard swerve - swerved so hard I pulled a muscle in my back - yet no sway or loss of control. I have driven 70 down a 2 lane road, and when meeting a semi oncomming, let go of the steering wheel, until he was passed. The coach just stayed straight, with no movement from wind. I have been in a microburst, estimated 90 mph crosswind. The only problems I had was the wind hit the side of the coach and blew up the wall, pulling my window awning open. That and the window drain holes were spraying water straight into the coach. No problem driving in it, other than visibility. I did pull off at the nearest exit to secure the awnings.

more good: As mentioned, the cabinets are Wilsonart laminate. The laminate is very strong and durable. On a 30 year old coach, most interior cabinetry will look just like it did when it left the showroom. The upholstry will show wear, but the cabinets will look new. The interior walls are plastic coated aluminum, which provides a surface that is durable, cleanable, and does not rot. This is a low profile motorhome, so the underneath storage is shallow, however the interior storage is very good. Lots of usable space. About 10 years ago, someone posted they traded their 33 footer in for a 37 footer multislide with full size basement. They found they had difficulty fitting everything in from their old coach.

Things you should know:The Revcon is a very well built coach, with great handling. But FWD coaches, while they handle well, do require the front end to be in good condition. Not that the front end parts wear significantly faster than a rear wheel drive coach, but that when parts do wear, it aggravates the handling worse than a conventional drive train. The engine is a stock 454 truck engine with a Revcon specified trans - meaning Kevlar bands, straight cut gears in 1st and 2nd, and a Revcon built torque converter. They use a custom transfercase/chaincase and then run the drive shaft forward. The front differential is a Dana 70 run in reverse. Even though the Dana was specified for front drive, the diff does wear faster in that position than it would in the rear position. It is not a high pinion diff, or reverse cut gears. Crazy as it sounds, differentials twist under load - a lot. The carrier twists which causes wear on the sleeve where the bearing race presses on to wear. Eventually you loose mesh, and break teeth. The solution is to use a Tru-loc carrier, which is much tougher than stock. I also have girdles and a custom made cover to stabilize the bearings, so they do not move under load. I don't expect mine to ever break. OK, 600 ft-lbs of torque and a hard shift from 4th to 2nd at 50 mph may not have been fair to the stock diff. But I was doing over 85 by time coach plus toad got past the slow truck.

Lyle also posts here sometimes, he may be able to give another perspective. He is running a modern 8.1 in his coach. Not sure why, but it seems gear heads gravitate towards Revcons.