My new 1971 Barth Continental just arrived today after much ado about shipping, transferring cash, geez what a hassle, covid has made it hard to deal with folks. The delivery drivers we ended up with were fantastic it was a hassle, but they put the coach where I wanted it and were nice guys!!

So, after the shock of orange speckled 1-inch-long shag carpet throughout and a weird layout inside, got down to looking closely and it actually is pretty high-quality stuff inside. Better than either 88 or Nose.

A quick check shows the engine has been messed with and I do not think it was oiled up for long term storage so got some work to do on that for sure, even the air cleaner was not on it, but is in the coach. I do not know how long it was stored but it was inside and heated. The brake master cylinder is in easy view, removed the cap and no fluid and lots of rust. surprisingly the parking brake works!!! Being the only working brake.

Believe it only has one fuel tank it is on the passenger side. Probably needs to be pulled and cleaned. First start up try will be from a gas container and electric fuel pump. Squirt some oil and WD 40 in the cylinders too.

Could not find the Barth data tag, only the Chevy tag it is under the front access door, will keep looking. The original battery is under the front door, looks like Barth built it in, so an owner put a battery box under the passenger seat and rewired to it. Believe the old battery can be removed if the head light case is removed first.

The generator is a real mess, batteries are stored in the same compartment, and it is not on a rollout mount, the land power plug is randomly stored in there also. Have not found a 12 volt power supply yet either.

Going to be a bit more project than I thought....of course!!!

May the Force be with You

Happy Piddling

And one day soon Happy Motoring

Wow. Orange shag carpet... Brings back memories of bean bag chairs, Lava lamps, and hippie chicks. You're gonna need some Grateful Dead bumper stickers!

Good luck with project! Hopefully the engine and brakes aren't too far gone. Hope to see you on the road again soon.

Well today a bit of progress has been made. Got the old spark plugs out sprayed some lubricant and WD40 in the cylinders turned the engine over by hand then with the starter, did not gage it but there is compression in all cylinders.

PO has taken out the old GM points distributor and replaced it with a GM HEI clone. The old plugs look like it was only firing on about half the cylinders. Have to give this distributor a good looking over.

Was told there was a two barrel carburetor on this 350 but it is a Rochester clone four barrel. Hope it works and I can find rebuild parts for it.

Took a look at the front brakes, they are drums. not happy about that!!

Plugged in the land power line, somewhere in the system is a working DC power supply, not found yet, so that is good news.

Might give the engine a trial chance to start tomorrow! After installing new spark plugs and wires.

Looks like there are no power brakes or steering, old school!!

Might have gotten lucky on the rubber fuel lines they look new, so I assume they are alcohol resistant. Well the lines I can see around the engine anyway.

If you find the carb a problem call me I have two one I took off the new engine since it didn't match the other. It would be available. Be advised it is 20teen compliant with fuel pump diaphragm failure hose fitting etc.
Hopefully what you have works.

quote:

Originally posted by ccctimtation:
If you find the carb a problem call me I have two one I took off the new engine since it didn't match the other. It would be available. Be advised it is 20teen compliant with fuel pump diaphragm failure hose fitting etc.
Hopefully what you have works.

Thanks Tim, lots of rain today probably not get any work done, pretty sure this carburetor is a piece of junk...will let you know!!

Does anyone know how to interpret the vin number from Chevy, the drum brake on the front might be 1970 chassis but not 100% sure.

Hard to read in this pic the number is PE320F123775 the 0 might be a C hard to tell!

From the 1974 Chev light truck manual - hope this helps.

chev74.pdf (994 Kb, 111 downloads)

Strange number:

I was not able to find any vin decoder that matched well to that number. We'll need a real GM guru...

There is a partial match on the 70-71 here but not all.

http://outintheshop.com/vin_decode.html

Both of those confirm what I really needed to confirm and that was the chassis is a 1970. When I buy parts online I get the right ones.

Thank you guys for the information!!!

First part was a new master cylinder.

The new HEI distributor was not installed as the GM distributor comes from the factory, have to reset just for my peace of mind. A kid who likes to HELP me pulled all the plug wires so I have to start from scratch. Also have to check the wiring to make sure 12 volts are applied all the time. I never knew old points distributors ran with 9.5 volts except when the starter was functioning.

A bit of good news for me, hidden way low is a power steering pump so we do have power steering, hope it works..

Back in the day of points and coils, most of the coils were about 6 volts. Since the battery voltage while cranking would drop below 12 volts, the spark voltage was lower when you needed it most for starting. To compensate, the lower voltage coils were used. To prevent the coils from overheating while running, the running voltage was lowered one of two ways.

Some brands used a second resistor wire to feed power to the coil when not cranking. This wire was bypassed with a normal wire with full voltage while cranking.

Other brands used a so called ballast resistor. It was a ceramic block, usually mounted on the firewall. When cold, it passed full voltage. As it warms up, the resistance goes up and the coil voltage went down.

Dinosaur technology indeed!

Good to hear you have power steering! Power brakes would be nice too but the GM HydroBoost system was not that great in my opinion.

Have Barth, hope you will travel soon!

Needed to jack up the front end to look at the timing indicator, no lower one as on newer coaches. There starring me in the face was the Barth Data Tag on the outside of the driver's side front fender.

If I had been smart enough to read the opening of the Data Tag Project, from Bill NY and Nick Cagle it would have told exactly where to fine the tag!!!

Barth number is a bit hard to see 7012888MC.

quote:

Originally posted by Duane88:
Needed to jack up the front end to look at the timing indicator, no lower one as on newer coaches. There starring me in the face was the Barth Data Tag on the outside of the driver's side front fender.

If I had been smart enough to read the opening of the Data Tag Project, from Bill NY and Nick Cagle it would have told exactly where to fine the tag!!!

Barth number is a bit hard to see 7012888MC.

Every where I told you to look and that was one I never remember seeing. Because all 3 of mine were easy to find I guess I never looked at that info.

Midnight had just a sticker that had been removed but it was in with the extensive paperwork. Multiple copies.

Glad you found it.

Not cold for January, but nasty to work on the RV.

Got the number one plug wire identified, but the tach and batt wire to the HEI have disappeared when I disengaged them I put the connector end of the wires somewhere where they were safe, anyone remember where I stuck it??? Not me!!

Captured the gas pumped while working on finding the Number one plug wire location. It is dirty, orange and in a tank big enough to supply the Enterprize must be 6 foot long, a foot deep and 2.5 foot wide. Bigger than the 88's tank, the stuff in it is just as nasty! Probably gonna have to drop and clean another ******* Gas tank!! There is no drain in the bottom and any rubber used inside more than likely is disintegrated.