The Dieselfication of FMC #1046

[BigRabbitMan]

A number of you are aware of the project that I have going on with my 1976 FMC as there has been a link to the photo album that follows the project in my signature for some time. I have also done a little posting in the "What have you done to your coach today" ongoing thread.

However, a number of times forum members have requested that I start a thread dedicated to this project. Up to this point I have resisted as the project was going slow for the last year as I also took significant time moving from Dixon, CA to Cottage Grove, OR. Also, there was a lot of prep work being done and that is never as interesting as the actual assembly stuff!

The main story will continue to be told in story board format on the FMC Owners Club website. I don't have the time to tell it twice! What I will be doing is giving periodic updates on this site with a link to that point in the storyboard on the other site. That will keep my writing time in check yet enable RV.net members to follow the project in a timely manner.

I will be happy to answer questions on this site as appropriate. Note that I started this as a two year project and we are now at three years and three months! BUT, I feel it will be worth it when done. It is my goal to have the engine running by June 1 of this year so things will have to move along consistantly from now until complete.

Just to give you a little more feel for the project, I agreed to do it when a friend and fellow FMC owner agreed to help provided that I did it at his house so that he could work on it as time allowed without any driving time involved. For that reason the project is being done in a driveway in Gilroy, CA which is 9 hours from my new home in Oregon! Consequently, I am staying in my coach for a period of time and then will go to Oregon for a period. The time in Oregon will interupt coach work but we can all live with that!

I am going to start this off with a batch of links so that those who want a little more information about FMC coaches can learn a little about them if so desired.

The FMC 1046 project itself.

A video of our Minden, NE rally by the local TV station (I am the squeaking door!!).

Discussion of this project on the FMC Owners website forum.

Thats all for now!

I do encourage you to explore the rally photo albums on the FMC owners website to see that we do indeed drive these coaches and not just work on them! We are having a small rally in Felton, CA next month and one coach will be coming from Denver. Our next large rally will be in Carthage, MO next summer and we will have coaches from all over the US and one or more from Canada.

If you "Subscribe" to this thread, you will be able to stay current without searching for the thread after a period of inactivity while I am in Oregon.

Enjoy,

[BigRabbitMan]

Yes, it is still in Gilroy. My friend has had little time to work on the wiring. Also, I bought a "fixer upper" house here in Cottage City which we are having renovated in a major way so that has kept me tied up. But planning on taking it to a rally in So. CA in Febuary and Alaska next summer.

[Golden_HVAC]

Funny how two months can click by in a hurry! Still in Gilroy - or did you bring it home and winterize it?

At my work, we are just about ready to winterize the cooling tower that is used with our water source heat pumps. In 3 more weeks, we will not need it at all to cool the water loop. Today the water loop did rise to 77F, but never did run the water tower. It was 45 this morning and 60 or so for a high in Oregon City.

I hope that everything is going well with your FMC! I know that GM does have some special things that they do to prevent a truck from being stolen, then chopped up for parts. Yet I think that you have the complete truck. And can at least take it to the dealership, give them the GM truck serial numbers, and get the memory reflashed for your new use!

Good luck!

Fred.

[BigRabbitMan]

Golden_HVAC wrote:
Well is it ready to hit the road yet?

How much more needs to get done?

I hope that you have it on the road soon, and get to start enjoying it!

Fred.

Not on the road yet. I am hoping that it will be done by the end of the month, but because of the fact that the coach is in Gilroy, CA and I live in Cottage Grove, OR it complicates things.

Yes, I am very anxious to be on the road as well!

[Golden_HVAC]

Well is it ready to hit the road yet?

How much more needs to get done?

I hope that you have it on the road soon, and get to start enjoying it!

Fred.

[BigRabbitMan]

Golden_HVAC wrote:

If you are in the Portland area, I would love to see it! I live in Fairview, near the camping world there.

Fred.

At some point, I will be in that area as I have a couple of friends up that way that have FMC's and also one of my daugters moved to Graham, WA so we go through Portland going and coming from Cottage Grove.

[Golden_HVAC]

What a great project!

I did go to look at a couple of FMC's back before buying my new 97 Bounder. But at $15,000 I was not ready to put that much into a RV at that time. It was after getting married that I bought the Bounder, and I know my wife would not want a older unit.

There are no other RV's out there - even today with dual engine powered air conditioners! That did not become popular until the 80's with dual air in passenger vans, that then became dual air for Suburbans, and then the minivans.

And no rooftop A/C units on a FMC, but basement A/C in them. I recall they looked like a 12,000 Btu refrigeration style condenser, and slide out to service them, just like a bar style refrigerator compressor does.

I liked the very low step in height! Always liked the FMC's but never could convince the wife about all the great engineering that went into them, and how it is still a great RV.. .

The only thing that came close is the GMC motorhomes. Yet they had a front wheel drive system, using a car transmission, and not as much HP can be transmitted to two tires as 4. I never drove a GMC, but could imagine torque steer - I had it in a 1500 pound Civic, so why not a motorhome?

I did look at one RV with a rear 6.2L Diesel engine. Passed on it, because it was 6.2L diesel and we had SO many problems with it at work.

Trailer Life did a write up on a Suncrest rear engine 454 powered motorhome ones. Back in the 80's of I recall right. I wish I could have found one of those too, I really liked the idea of rear gas engine. I guess it did not take hold, because with a front gas engine, you can hear it ping, and let up on the throttle, or start buying higher octane gas. Pinging probably did a lot of damage to rear gas engines. Yet now days with electronic controls, the engine management system manages all pinging, and makes the fuel rich or retards timing to prevent pinging (at the cost of poor fuel mileage when you use 87 octane gas in a heavy vehicle).

Good luck on your project!

If you are in the Portland area, I would love to see it! I live in Fairview, near the camping world there.

Fred.

[BigRabbitMan]

Golden_HVAC wrote:

WOW,

That is one long belt!

I was looking at all the pictures, and wondering when this will be back on the road?

I once road in a FMC bus! It was at Portland Airport, in Oregon, and transported people to the rental car area. I recall it looking like the FMC motorhomes that I saw in Midway City (I used to ride my bike by a place that restored them there years ago, they closed up shop back in the 90's). The Portland bus had a diesel engine conversion too. It sounded like a big inline 6.

Did FMC keep making busses after motorhome production stopped? Or could this have been a factory built bus, or a motorhome conversion of some sort?

Thanks for the interesting pictures!

Fred.

Fred,
FMC made 1050 production coaches (mine is #1046 - one of the last ones!) plus 2 prototype coaches. Both prototypes are still on the road! Out of the 1050 production units, approximately 150 of them were Transit models of one configuration or another. There was the city bus model, the rental car model (mainly Hertz) for airport duty and a few city bus models that were specifically set up for handicapped/elderly use with two doors and a wheel chair lift.

There were also some specialty layouts made such as the several units that NASA used as mobile comunication units at landing sites. One of the most widely known units was the one used by Charles Kuralt for his On The Road series. That one is in the Ford museum in Detroit.

Most of the transits were powered by a Chrysler 440-I coupled to an Allison 540/545 4 spd tranny. A few were powered by GM 4-71 diesels. Later a number of motor home units have been converted to the DD 8.2 diesel when that engine became available. The Allison 540/545 tranny was used with all of the diesels. All of the motor home units used the Chrysler 727 Loadflite transmission as did most other gas powered motor homes of the era.

Production started in early 1973 and ended in spring of 1976. Mine was built in Febuary of 1976.

As units came out of transit/rental agency use they either were scrapped or purchased by individuals and converted to motor homes. I have seen a couple a very good conversions. There also are some still "in process"!

It is estimated by knowledgeable people that approximately half of the units built are still either on the road or still driveable. My neighbor just saw one the other day heading East between Florence and Eugene, Oregon. For someone wanting a solid older coach, they are a very desirebale unit.

My own engine conversion project is running behind schedule, but should be done before long. All mechanical stuff is done and all but a little of the rear wiring is done. Electrical cables are pulled for the front to back connections.

The main thing left is the wiring of the front end body control module and the dash cluster. Some health issues in the family of the person that is doing the electrical has delayed things at the moment. I will be posting here when it is fired up!

Thank you for your inquiry. Here is a link to page 28 of 29 pages of pictures with explaintory commentary.

[Golden_HVAC]

BigRabbitMan wrote:
Time for an update. The first is that the site where I was putting the photos has been having some bad spammer caused issues so the links will not work.

edit: The site is back up and so I will be bringing the pictues uptodate over the next week. The links now work again.

Second is that work on the coach has continued. The Duramax 6.6L Turbo Diesel is now installed into the coach. While I am headed to Oregon for the holidays, I will be back next week to continue the process. With the engine set and the face of the engine set up like I want it with dual 145 amp alternators and a vacuum pump for my brakes, that phase is done.

The easy ones will be installing the heater hoses and fuel cooler. The more difficult will be designing and building the bracket that will hold the radiator and the water-to-air intercooler.

Primarily due to the shape of the radiator the decision was made to go with an early 2000 Ford radiator that was used with the 7.3L Powerstroke instead of the GM unit.

A second major decision was to go with a water-to-air intercooler instead of the normal air-to-air intercooler. Given the space available the water-to-air intercooler will do a better job and fit into the coach more effectively.

While the above is happening, we will also be stripping down the wiring harnesses to just what we need and connecting all of the computers and dash cluster and fuel pedal up as well.

Here is a picture of the engine face as it now sits in the coach.



I plan for the coach to be on the road before the end of June.

WOW,

That is one long belt!

I was looking at all the pictures, and wondering when this will be back on the road?

I once road in a FMC bus! It was at Portland Airport, in Oregon, and transported people to the rental car area. I recall it looking like the FMC motorhomes that I saw in Midway City (I used to ride my bike by a place that restored them there years ago, they closed up shop back in the 90's). The Portland bus had a diesel engine conversion too. It sounded like a big inline 6.

Did FMC keep making busses after motorhome production stopped? Or could this have been a factory built bus, or a motorhome conversion of some sort?

Thanks for the interesting pictures!

Fred.

[stugpanzer]

Very cool! Another 'project' thread I will 'need' to follow! Thanks for sharing!

[BigRabbitMan]

Well, I never made it to the rally in Carthage as this project is like all other projects in that everything takes more time than one thinks. But completion is getting closer and closer!

Here is the link to page 27 of the photo album. You will notice that the engine compartment is getting full of "stuff" at this point.

Depending on when you last looked at the pictures, you may need to page back so that you don't miss and sections. The radiator will be mounted today and then I will create the hosing arrangement and tranny cooler hosing arrangement as well. This weekend we pull the wires to connect the engine computers to the control systems up front.

[BigRabbitMan]

The conversion to a Duramax 6.6L turbo diesel has continued. There is now light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train! Here is a link to page 23 of the photo album with explainatory captions.

I had hoped to be running by the end of June, but it will now be in early July as we are looking at another 10 days before I take it on a test drive to Carthage, MO. Yes, I am currently in Gilroy, CA!

[BigRabbitMan]

Since the FMC Owners Club website is back up after dealing with a major spamming issue, I have updated the pictures with commentary taking you from the last entry in that album through several pages up to the picture in the above post.

Here is the link to where we left off.

From that link to the above picture is about 3 pages of pictures. You can follow the process of finalizing the physical installation of the engine. I will continue next week when I get back to the coach.

[BigRabbitMan]

Time for an update. The first is that the site where I was putting the photos has been having some bad spammer caused issues so the links will not work.

edit: The site is back up and so I will be bringing the pictues uptodate over the next week. The links now work again.

Second is that work on the coach has continued. The Duramax 6.6L Turbo Diesel is now installed into the coach. While I am headed to Oregon for the holidays, I will be back next week to continue the process. With the engine set and the face of the engine set up like I want it with dual 145 amp alternators and a vacuum pump for my brakes, that phase is done.

The easy ones will be installing the heater hoses and fuel cooler. The more difficult will be designing and building the bracket that will hold the radiator and the water-to-air intercooler.

Primarily due to the shape of the radiator the decision was made to go with an early 2000 Ford radiator that was used with the 7.3L Powerstroke instead of the GM unit.

A second major decision was to go with a water-to-air intercooler instead of the normal air-to-air intercooler. Given the space available the water-to-air intercooler will do a better job and fit into the coach more effectively.

While the above is happening, we will also be stripping down the wiring harnesses to just what we need and connecting all of the computers and dash cluster and fuel pedal up as well.

Here is a picture of the engine face as it now sits in the coach.



I plan for the coach to be on the road before the end of June.

[BigRabbitMan]

The engine support brackets that were removed from the donor vehicle are here. If you page forward through the pictures you will see them attached to the engine so that I could determine how to attach them to the frame. The fuel pedal is also now in it location in the last couple of pictures.

The rear frame member has been taken to a welding shop to be disassembled and revised to allow for the additional length and depth of the engine.

I will now be in Oregon for a couple of weeks so we will be in standby mode. The transmission support beam has been designed and its parts will be cut while I am in Oregon.