Welcome to the Forums, and congrats on your picking up a bargain!

Welcome to Barthmobile!

Gave you an avatar until you can come up with a better picture. Thanks for the data tag number.

Must have been the paint that year. Ours is peeling in the same way.

Nice Score Trucker. My wife was quite serious when she said no buying another motorhome. I have a feeling if I had seen it, I'd probably be sleeping in it now....with the dog.

Gear vendor overdrive aye? Lucky duck.

Congratulations! I have almost the same unit and also have the Gear Vendors also. BE CAREFUL with your Gear Vendor. DO NOT spin the wheels in reverse and try not to back up steep angles or leveling blocks...it will knock it out...look at some of our past posts for more details...just a caution. I knocked mine out shortly after I got it....

Enjoy!

K&E

Congratulations Trucker! I was digging up coffee cans in the yard waiting for a response so you beat me to it. What a steal!

K and E, tell me about the problem with Gear Vendors in reverse. Do you mean that even if you don't have the Gear Vendors engaged, you can screw up the GV unit if you back up in reverse a little too aggressively?
Humbo

I had parked my Barth at another house. It was muddy. I was spinning the tires in reverse to try to get out of the mud. I drove forward and after that, I did not have a reverse gear at all. Naturally, I assumed I had knocked out reverse in my transmission. I had a mechanic drop the trans and I took it to a well respected transmission shop. The trans guy called me and said, "there is nothing wrong with your transmission at all...reverse is fine." He then asked if I had a Gear Vendors. I told him I did. He said I had knocked out the reverse in the Gears Vendors. (I had no idea the GV had a reverse band in it.) I called the Gear Vendors company. I talked at length with one of their tech people. The GV people told me that you can knock out the reverse in the GV by spinning the wheels in reverse, or by backing up with a heavy load (the tech told me that the GV reverse band was much smaller than the forward band and not designed to take a lot of power). I did a little research and Gear Vendors warns not to back up with a heavy load or up an incline. The people at Gear Vendors said never to spin the wheels in reverse or to try to back up on leveling blocks...that is what usually knocks it out. Apparently, it doesn't matter if the system is engaged or disengaged, this can happen.

Comically, Gear Vendors has a solution for this. They will send you a rebuilt unit for only $800 exchange. I would guess it's easier to sell the cheap rebuilt units than redesign a 70 year old design (I had read the GV is a design from the overdrive systems popular in the 1930's)

Hope this warns someone and keeps them from spending $1000+

K&E

Great info. Especially about backing up on leveling blocks. Since we don't have leveling jacks, we use blocks all the time. Will only go 'forward' on them in the future. Does GV say anything bad about going forward? I think if I had it to do over again, I would do what Lee did. All we ever use the GV for is cruising in top gear.
Humbo

GV said to "only drive forward onto leveling blocks...never back up onto them." The forward band is designed to take the abuse.

Apparently, another contributing factor is our Barths are such heavy coaches.

hey thanks alot on the gv advice.