Vintage RV upgrades

[Ashton1012]

Hey everyone! I’m back with more questions. Recently purchased a 1977 dodge Sportsman RV. 43k original miles, in excellent shape for its age. All appliances in working condition. Picked it up for $750. Interior lighting already upgraded to LEDs.

I’m looking for tips and advice on the best upgrades you’ve all done to your old class C RVs. Really any kind of upgrades, but specifically looking into suspension. Are there any anti sway bars that would be a direct fit, what about steering stabilizers? Anything in the interior I should upgrade or double check before I drive her 5 hours home?

I already have 7 brand new tires waiting at my friends house where the RV is, so I won’t have to stress about old tires blowing out. Also plan on replacing; plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor. If it’s doable in just an hour or two I may replace the serpentine belt, or at least pick up a spare. Oil and coolant will be changed. Will also flush, sanitize, and fill the water tank, flush and sanitize the black water tank.

Anyone ever upgrade from exhaust manifolds to headers on one of these old rigs, are there are direct bolt in fits for headers or would I have to get something custom made?

I appreciate any and all tips. My wife and I are really looking forward to fixing up the rig and finally bringing it home where we can start doing cosmetic upgrades.

Thank you!!

[PatJ]

Congrats on the 150 miles and hope you have many more to go!

Does the fridge's pilot flame run all the time, but the fridge does not cool? Do you see any sign of yellow-ish powder residue in the area of the fridge coils under the outside fridge access door? A friend of mine once had a fridge die in a small 1977 trailer, that's the only one I'm aware of personally that had an ammonia fridge die of my many friends with older rigs. That friend had a good flame, but no cooling (after 24 hrs) and yellow flaky/powered residue under the tubes in the outside compartment. I hope you don't have that issue, because the fix is a new fridge. Good luck.

As for the exhaust leak, I don't know anything about Dodge, but for Chevy an exhaust leak between the manifold and the down pipe was very very common. So common that as a hobby owner of multiple 73-87 pickups I've actually memorized the Fel-Pro part numbers for the "doughnut" to fix it 60985 or 8194. I think that part number is good for something like 1930-1990. It is so common that they make common kits to address the issue and it is a common wear item. I assume Dodge is the same as this common Chevy issue (but I don't know the Dodge part numbers.) For Chevy you would also visit the "help" section of the store and pick up a set of exhaust studs and brass nuts for $5 to complete the job. Again, I don't know about dodge but assume it's similar.

I love older rigs and smile when I hear of people putting the effort in to keep the on the road. I wish you luck and let me know if there is anything I can do to be helpful. Good luck.

[Ashton1012]

So far so good! I’ve put about 150 miles on her without any major issues... I do have a couple questions though. My refrigerator worked great the first day then died. The pilot light stats lit but the fridge does not get cold. Any ideas?

[Ashton1012]

Well everyone she’s almost road ready. Picking up a couple radiator hoses and today around noon then she’s ready for the journey. Also need to get the tires swapped on the way out of town! The closest place is 45 minutes away so wish me luck driving on the old tires so far....
Everything done so far;

Oil and filter
Air filter
Coolant flushed and filled
Thermostat
Spark plugs
Spark plug wires
Cap and rotor
Radiator and heater hoses
Bought some belts as back ups but didn’t replace them yet


Still need to pick up a couple batteries, and some kind of battery monitor so they don’t run dry. Having a hard time finding one, even the RV store didn’t have anything. I can get it off amazon but camping this weekend wouldn’t have it. How could I keep an eye on my deep cycle batteries?

Unfortunately the exhaust manifold gasket did not fix my problem. I discovered it’s not really leaking where the manifold meets the intake, but leaking out where the manifold meets the exhaust pipe. I cranked it down tight but it leaks a ton. Idk if it’s cracked or what! I’ll have to take it to an exhaust shop once I recover from all the money spent lol

[PatJ]

I have great memories with my previous class C which was a 1984 Chevy, very similar. I also had 16.5 wires which I replaced three times in the years I had it. The last time they were harder to find but were still available by order, glad you got all 7. You were smart to go to the 8.75, that's what we did too. I've never heard of them not fitting a class C.

I agree with replacing the convertor, I did a progressive dynamics PD 9260 because the convertor was stand-alone then (not part of the fuse panel like today.) It was a good upgrade. Also add hard-wire CO and propane leak detectors. Keep up on all the maintenance like you said, belts, hoses, filters, fluids and it should be good to go. Keep an eye out for house leaks.
With proper care and maintenance there's no reason it can't be as reliable as anything out there.

The rig was built during 55 mph speed limit so regardless how much power you have you may run out of gearing much above 60, which is fine as you will get much better mileage at 55 then faster anyway.

I would pass on the headers, the engine compartment is cramped and hot already and headers would make it much worse for not much if any gain. That smog-era engine's heads and cam are not going to flow enough to take advantage of headers and may actually make performance worse. I'd focus on maintaining what you have and keeping stock if possible. IF your manifolds are cracked get some new from LMC truck or something. You shouldn't have cat convertors but if you do I'd consider removing those.

I don't think you will be able to run the fridge long through an inverter especially with one house battery. When I am on the inverter the fridge itself draws 55 amps at 12v if I leave the fridge in auto. Compressor fridge will be less but I'm not sure how much less.

We put many miles in our old 84 all over the country and have many great memories from that time. We've upgrade since and yeah its nice to have 2x or 3x the horsepower from a new rig, but once your parked they are all still pretty similar. You might have to go outside to light your water heater instead of pushing a button, but I'm sure you can handle that 🙂 I'm excited for you. Good luck.

[DrewE]

Ashton1012 wrote:

DrewE wrote:

For the house part, if the converter is original or even comparatively old, replacing it with a modern multi-stage converter would be well worth doing, and probably doing fairly soon. There haven't been as many improvements in most of the other appliances and stuff over the years.

Lucky for me, I bought a modified sine wave years ago thinking I’d use it camping in the car, and never did lol. So it’s brand new, ready to go in. Not as nice as a pure sine wave inverter but honestly I won’t be running much with it. Currently just have lights to power, fridge when it’s not on propane, and will eventually get some more small stuff to put in but no major electronics like a TV or computer. The modified sine wave should do great, we will see.

An inverter (like your modified sine wave unit) and a converter (which is built into the RV) are two different things: they work in opposite directions. The converter takes 120V power when you're plugged into shore power or using a generator and converts it to 12V power to recharge the house battery and to power the 12V systems like like the lights, water pump, furnace, fridge controls (if applicable), etc. An inverter, on the other hand, takes 12V power and turns it into 120V power for whatever 120V gizmos you wish to power.

[Ashton1012]

bobndot wrote:

Lucky for me, I bought a modified sine wave years ago thinking I’d use it camping in the car, and never did lol. So it’s brand new, ready to go in. Not as nice as a pure sine wave inverter but honestly I won’t be running much with it. Currently just have lights to power, fridge when it’s not on propane, and will eventually get some more small stuff to put in but no major electronics like a TV or computer. The modified sine wave should do great, we will see.

Just to be clear. Do you plan on running your fridge off a battery and inverter ?
How many amps does your fridge draw ? How long do you think it will run ?

You can only safely deplete a deep cycle battery 50%. From 12.6v down to about 12v. Once you repeatedly drop below that mark you begin to shorten the batteries life.

Not all the time, just when necessary like propane runs out or something. Just long enough to keep things cold. I have no idea how much power it draws, that is a great questions I’ll have to check into.

Batteries will be a future upgrade as well. It does not appear a budget option exists in this category haha. So I’ll have to skip the batteries for now, and save up for a nice pair of them.

[bobndot]

Lucky for me, I bought a modified sine wave years ago thinking I’d use it camping in the car, and never did lol. So it’s brand new, ready to go in. Not as nice as a pure sine wave inverter but honestly I won’t be running much with it. Currently just have lights to power, fridge when it’s not on propane, and will eventually get some more small stuff to put in but no major electronics like a TV or computer. The modified sine wave should do great, we will see.

Just to be clear. Do you plan on running your fridge off a battery and inverter ?
How many amps does your fridge draw ? How long do you think it will run ?

You can only safely deplete a deep cycle battery 50%. From 12.6v down to about 12v. Once you repeatedly drop below that mark you begin to shorten the batteries life.

[Ashton1012]

DrewE wrote:
If it has 16.5" wheels, I'd replace them with 16" wheels. Since you have a bunch of new tires, I'm kind of guessing it doesn't have the 16.5" wheels as 16.5" tires are getting pretty hard to find.

Otherwise, there's not much chassis related I can think of beyond usual old vehicle stuff: make sure the brakes are in good shape and operating freely, change fluids if they're at all questionable, check belts and hoses and spark plug wires and distributor bits, that sort of thing. (Note that my inability to think of stuff doesn't mean stuff doesn't exist that would be good to do!)

For the house part, if the converter is original or even comparatively old, replacing it with a modern multi-stage converter would be well worth doing, and probably doing fairly soon. There haven't been as many improvements in most of the other appliances and stuff over the years.

Thank you! I actually did find 16.5” tires, I ordered them through giga tires and it only cost me $750 for 7 tires. With install through Walmart will he another 175. Wish I could have done a 16” swap but I need tires to get her home, I live in the middle of no where so wouldn’t have been able to find them before I go pick up the RV. The RV currently has 8x16.5, I went with 8.75x16.5 because i read on some forums they will fit and drive a little nicer. Hope I didn’t get to wide of tires I guess we will see.

Lucky for me, I bought a modified sine wave years ago thinking I’d use it camping in the car, and never did lol. So it’s brand new, ready to go in. Not as nice as a pure sine wave inverter but honestly I won’t be running much with it. Currently just have lights to power, fridge when it’s not on propane, and will eventually get some more small stuff to put in but no major electronics like a TV or computer. The modified sine wave should do great, we will see.

Anyone upgrade their bumper? There is a guy on YouTube (Deep South homesteader) that put a really nice cargo bumper on one he renovated. I would love to have that but he didn’t mention where he got it.

[rjstractor]

Replacing belts is a good idea, but your rig probably doesn't have a serpentine belt. It likely has two or three standard V belts to drive the various accessories.

[Capt_Steve]

Check that the heat riser valve in the exhaust manifold is working properly. Replace the PCV valve. Make sure the dual fuel tank valve is working. If it has hydroboost brakes, check the fluid.

[gbopp]

Ashton1012 wrote:
As sweet as that would be, I don’t think I could ever justify it on this old rig. I think I’d spend more on the fuel injection kit than the whole RV is worth

Yep, you can buy a lot of gas for the price of a FI system. I wouldn't even consider it.

[DrewE]

If it has 16.5" wheels, I'd replace them with 16" wheels. Since you have a bunch of new tires, I'm kind of guessing it doesn't have the 16.5" wheels as 16.5" tires are getting pretty hard to find.

Otherwise, there's not much chassis related I can think of beyond usual old vehicle stuff: make sure the brakes are in good shape and operating freely, change fluids if they're at all questionable, check belts and hoses and spark plug wires and distributor bits, that sort of thing. (Note that my inability to think of stuff doesn't mean stuff doesn't exist that would be good to do!)

For the house part, if the converter is original or even comparatively old, replacing it with a modern multi-stage converter would be well worth doing, and probably doing fairly soon. There haven't been as many improvements in most of the other appliances and stuff over the years.

[Ashton1012]

As sweet as that would be, I don’t think I could ever justify it on this old rig. I think I’d spend more on the fuel injection kit than the whole RV is worth

[jdc1]

I'd be looking for fuel injection.

[Ashton1012]

Not yet, that will be among the list of to do’s once I get it home! I wouldnt be able to fix it before unfortunately. I do have it covered with a tarp, and I live in a much drier area than where it is currently parked. 60 inches of rain annually vs 18 inches lol, will definitely help keep it together until I can fix it. I’ve been watching tons of videos on can over rebuilds, looks like something I can handle and will give me an opportunity to insulate it while it’s open, probably add some more support/structure to it, then seal it back up with something that will last. I’d like to pull the whole ceiling panel eventually, it sags a little in some spots and would be nice to insulate up there as well. All among my list of to do this winter!