CALLING ALL BARTHS! CALLING ALL BARTHS!

Be On the Look Out!

The BarthBluesMobile is going to be rolling down America's highways this summer. Destination: Adventure!

We'll be touring the great National Parks of the Glorius Southwest, watching the Yankees play in Anaheim, heading through to sequoias, redwoods, meteor crater, crater lake, and on and on.

The BBM sports the fantastic paint job of the Massachusetts State Police, "French and Electric Blue". The interior has been updated with new furniture, Dick Dubbs cabinets from an older Barth, new fridge, new HW heater, counter, shower, and a bunch of windows.

Down near the pavement, we've got new Goodyears, new shocks, a Safe-T-Plus steering stabilizer, and Firestone air suspension in the rear. [ who wants to guess how I spend my weekends? ]

Have a great summer guys and gals!
Matt

Matt, if you make a loop through the south on the way out west or the way home, your welcome to a free night in Georgia. Love to meet you and the family and the BarthBluesmobile.

Enjoy the trip

Nick

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Post

Hey Matt,I would loe to see before and after pics. Do you have any ?

Dave

not much further south you can go but you are welcome down in Naples.we are leaving for the great lakes Thursday.1320 miles one way new to us ...
lenny

I also own a former state police command center, mine from Anne Arundel, Maryland.

Would like to see pics of yours.

Just finished a round-trip from Brooker to Lodi (near Akron) OH and back. No road issues, except for about 25 miles of construction on I-95, but that's all four-lane (2 in each direction) and speed limits mostly 55-60.

You'll want to use the far right (Wide-load) booths on the WV Turnpike.

I-26 is clean, and I-77 only has a few wretched road-suface places. The only really long grade is 7% starting at MM2 in WV, and is only 6 miles, ending at Fancy Gap. (Piece-of-cake, compared to the US 250 6 mile 9% up and 5 miles 8% down near Green Bank, WV!)

Statesville KOA in NC is decent, as is Ft. Chiswell RV Park in VA (I haven't stayed there, but a few miles west is Wytheville KOA). The RV parks in WV north of Charleston are hard to get to (nasty, winding, narrow roads - OK for my midget Barth, but no fun). There is one easy-to-access at Fancy Gap, at Exit 8.

If KOA is not in your budget, then you can try Raccoon Branch (believe it is an Army Corps Park). Good electric and water, dump as you enter the park. Beautiful creek that runs to the back of the park. We could get our 36' with a toad Jeep in, but it was tight. Nice, inexpensive, QUIET, little park.

Tina

Forgot to say, Raccoon Branch is just outside of Marion, VA.

Tina

...Matt has been on-the-road about a month now....Has anyone made contact or heard from him?

We made it back under our own power!

10,350 miles. Ten million dead bugs on the windshield. Or should I say, on the "broken windsheilds". I've learned to despise the signs on the highway "Rebuilding America and Reinvestment". Lots of highways are torn up for resurfacing. The 18 miles from Yellowstone to Grand Tetons took 2 hours. One traffic jam in Ohio was due to a lane closure, so an excavator could travel in the high speed lane, with its bucket extended over the median strip, so it could operate a small lawn roller like you'd use at home. Talk about the right tool for the job.

I'll post some pictures after I get a bit organized at home, we saw the Grand Canyon, Zion, Sequoias, Redwoods, Meteor Crater, Crater Lake, Craters of the Moon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Mammoth Cave, and some other spots.

On the front, the windshields are busted, and a marker light lens cover is gone. On the back, it seems a rock busted the black water tank up high on the front. In between, a couple belts broke, on some days, the alternator would output 9v, the isolator may have died also, the fan clutch may have died, the fridge needed help, the bracket for the AC compressor broke, but through it all, we managed to keep running mostly. We had an unscheduled stop in Matamoros, PA, but replacing the plugs and wires got us rolling again and firing on all 8 cylinders.

Kansas has the best rest stops.

If I was to plan this again, the first consideration would be for additional cooling system components, like an auxiliary radiator or electric fans.

I've also got a "Barth Sighting" to give, observed first as we were pulling out of the Madison campground in Yellowstone.

More to come!
Matt

I go back to work tomorrow, so I better issue my report now.


The Journey of the BarthBluesMobile, summer 2009

The BarthBluesMobile is a 1987 Barth mobile command post police vehicle, built on a 1986 Chevrolet P30 chassis. This vehicle was purchased at auction about 3 years ago, and has been getting much attention from professional mechanics as well as myself since. The truck portion of this vehicle, though only having 29K miles on it while in police use, had suffered from neglect. The vehicle has been changed from a mobile office to a civilian RV with changes to the interior, such as additions of beds, a stove, windows, shower, and a refrigerator. My crew consists of myself, my wife, and two sons, one of whom is multiply disabled.

The trip had the family visit places like Meteor Crater, Durango CO, Mesa Verde, Four Corners, Gallup NM, Sedona AZ, the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Hoover Dam, Los Angeles, Disneyland, Yosemite National Park, Sequoia NP, Redwoods NP, Crescent City CA, Crater Lake NP, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Yellowstone NP, Grand Tetons NP, Dinosaur National Monument, and Mammoth Cave NP. We were on the road for about 45 days and 10,530 miles. We went places along the way like Vail Pass at 10,660 feet altitude, and the dirt NASCAR track in Paducah, KY. We met many nice people along the way.

On the way west, the alternator belt broke. This was a warning to me that I didn’t recognize at the time, and charging system problems continued through the trip. I had a spare belt, and installed it. I thought at this point it was just a bad belt.

There is nothing like the heat of the Southwest in the summer. The vehicle didn’t like it, so we scratched the plans to go to Death Valley. Some Swiss RVers we met explained that their rental company forbids them to go to Death Valley with a new RV, so not going there for us, in a 23 year old RV, seemed sensible. Earlier in the trip, our RV had problems in the heat. The charging system ran in to problems related to the heat, and the refrigerator shut itself off, thinking it was on fire. When driving from the south rim of the Grand Canyon to the north rim, the voltage gauge showed that the voltage was slipping down under ten volts. To conserve battery power, I shut off everything drawing power on that day, and even my eyeballs were feeling hot. The desert there seemed void of life; though there were trailers off in the distance that I think the Navajo live in. We stopped in the next town (a town in this context means an intersection of two state roads, with a post office, gas station, and National Park visitor center). I used the generator to charge the batteries, and rewired the charging system to remove the battery isolator from the system (it seems to have cooked), and we gave up on getting to the north rim. I also noted that the refrigerator was no longer working. We drove in to Utah instead.

We passed through Zion NP, and made it to the town of Hurricane. I wanted to find a way of getting the fridge going again. I was afraid that the electrical problems of the vehicle had killed the controller board for the fridge. I drove to the first auto parts store I saw, a NAPA, and asked the clerk, "where is the best RV repair guy in town". I was told to go down the alley, across the street. There was no sign for the guy; all I saw was a bookstore and a restaurant. I didn’t know what to expect, and I was a bit worried. Well, out back, I found a large lot with some very big and very nice looking rigs getting various repairs done to them. Charlie of Main Street RV in Hurricane became my hero! He quickly identified that a thermal sensor, intended to shut down power in case of fire in the fridge, had failed in the heat. He replaced it, and the fridge had no operational problems the rest of the trip. He also advised me to mount some fans near the fridge roof vent to improve operations.

I told him I also had some problems with the isolator, and how I’d wired it out of the system. He said, "Isolator? We don’t use those in the desert. We use continuous duty solenoids." He told me that I didn’t need to have him install it, I could go to the NAPA, buy one, and install it myself and save some money. I was in and out in 30 minutes with Charlie. I went to the NAPA, and said "Charlie sent me to get a continuous...", and before I could complete the phrase, the clerk said "duty solenoid". I guess that I wasn’t the first east coast RVer to have this issue in Hurricane, Utah.

Voltage: early in the trip, without knowing about my voltage problems associated with the charging system faults, I learned that at E on the fuel gauge, I still had 25 gallons. So, later when driving through Idaho, I thought I had plenty of fuel even when getting near E. And horror of horrors, 3 miles out of a town, I ran out of gas. The rig sputtered, and we coasted on Idaho 33. I restarted the engine as we rolled, and we got another mile along, I got to a crossroad, and turned on it, to get off of 33. It was Sunday night, and the Good Sam Club road service operator was not on duty. I called the local police, and asked what to do. They said they’d send an officer out. The officer ran my ID to make sure I am not wanted or whatever, and we drove to the police emergency building and got a gas can. We then drove to an all-night gas station. I filled the 2 gallon can, and turned to see the officer working under the hood of the Dodge Durango. It would crank over, but wouldn’t start. We checked the gas cap, it was fine, we removed the battery cables to reset the computer, to no avail. Another officer was summoned to get me and take me back to the RV. He asked me about what weapons I had, and whether any dangerous items might be in my pockets. He frisked me, and took me back to the rig. With 2 gallons added, the thing started fine. I immediately drove to the gas station, and filled up. The Durango was being loaded on a ramp truck. I will be sure to send a check in to the Christmas fund of that department. By this time, the cell phone my wife had was dead. She didn’t know why it was taking over an hour to get gas, which was 2 miles away. She was worried with nightmare scenarios of us having walked in on a robbery or something.

I sometimes measured the voltage on the battery and found it at 12v with the engine running, a bit low. I’d remove the ground wire, and without the battery in the circuit, the voltage was measuring 9v! Quite some problem with the voltage regulation, which seems to vary with temperature. 100F and above seemed to be most problematic. I had to use jumper cables on 3 days to start the rig. I’d jumper to the house batteries.

I am glad I put VDO gauges in the dashboard. I don’t think the stock gauges would have given me as good an indication of the status of the engine systems. One thing I will do though is run wires to the voltage gauge, directly from the battery, to ensure that I am getting good readings. I have been concerned that I have had some grounding offsets in the vehicle, and that his may have compromised or destroyed the isolator and alternator. I think I’ll be adding some additional grounding wires and I will be cleaning up the existing ones. The isolator is mounted on the aluminum body of the rig, and I am guessing that the aluminum body was depending up steel bolts for connection to the frame. And I am guessing that the galvanic corrosion has appeared here as well and is causing some of my voltage problems. These are the sorts of problems that will occur in a Barth, I guess. Because of the construction methods, a Barth can stay alive for decades after other rigs have been thrown away. But this exposes some problems that other rig owners will not have experienced. Throughout the southwest, I’d see many trailer homes, and out back, would be a multitude of old RVs. I am guessing that some were broken down in the desert and essentially abandoned. Maybe someone is using them for storage now, or keeping visitors in.

With the system I wired up, I had to run the generator to charge the house batteries. One day, I had not done this. So, at 3AM, the carbon monoxide detector started with an alarm to warn me that the voltage was going down. Well, no problem, there was no carbon monoxide at risk, and I had to shut down the detector. It had no 'off' switch, so at 3AM, the tools had to come out to remove this from the wall.

On the way from LA to Yosemite, we went near Palmdale, CA. This is in the vicinity of Edwards AFB. I saw an odd brown streak in the sky, and figured it was a strange type of rocket or jet propulsion system. I’ve seen dust devils before, but they’d be less than 50 feet high. This thing stretched for what I though was miles. As we got closer, we saw that this was not a contrail across the sky, but a cone of a very narrow and tall dust devil or tornado. It was going up a thousand feet or more!

It is also odd to drive in the desert and find where the map shows nothing, that there is an airfield with unmarked white aircraft. I figured it unwise to stop to take pictures.

I’ve learned to fear the road signs that say something like "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act". That is a warning that probably the road is going to be torn up. I think I’ve driven down over 500 miles of dirt and gravel roads, that were Interstate and state highways. This led to damage of both windshields, and the black water tank. There are stories that many of these highway jobs have been rushed in order to spend the money. Yellowstone to Grand Tetons is an 18 mile trip; it took two hours. There were many similar problems near Scranton, Vegas, Yellowstone, Louisville, and the middle of no where. Sometimes there would be flashing billboards to alert drivers to tune to an AM radio station for important information. The stations were never operational. We’d come to a dead stop quite often.

People on the way often were interested in the Barth. At Four Corners, a man driving out in a restored 1972ish Chevrolet Sportcoach RV gave me the thumbs-up. At Yellowstone, a guy with a 1970 Dodge rig came to say hello and show his appreciation of an older machine. Also there, a guy came over to talk, saying he really likes the aesthetics of the BarthBluesMobile, and said I should NOT paint it. Japanese tourists seemed very entertained and interested when I drove by.

One day, driving out of the Madison campground at Yellowstone, I saw another Barth drive past. We followed, and when we met up with a Yellowstone traffic jam, my wife got out to take pictures. We were given a CD, "Walking to Wyoming", by Earl Wear and Haywire. This Barth was pulling a trailer, which is apparently full of the music gear. I was very surprise to see that Earl is coming to CT in September and will be the opening act for Ricochet. I had this CD in the player at least 20 times on the trip. This man knows his stuff.

Vail Pass: the highest altitude reached was in Vail Pass, I think it was 10,660 feet. A new carburetor had been installed before the trip, and even with the thinner air, the engine ran well. But the engine heat was a problem. I am guessing that the fan clutch was a problem. The temperature gauge showed the temperature at 240F. This is even with the "Water Wetter" added. So I stopped a few times on the way to allow the engine to cool. The breakdown lane had lots of evidence of other vehicles having problems. I remember seeing stains from oil and coolant on the ground, and I saw where people had thrown oil and coolant jugs down the embankment. I saw where a vehicle had a fire there. On the way up, I smelled coolant as well, and I stopped to check out my rig. It was fine. A few more miles up the hill, we came upon a guy towing a camper who had overheated. I was very happy to have had new hoses and a radiator. I am still wondering whether I should do more than just install a new fan clutch, like installing an auxiliary radiator.

This experience with Vail Pass convinced me to think about the system I had. With the compressor bracket having broken, the AC wasn’t running. The AC condenser has two fans attached to assist with cooling the radiator. I rewired the relay which controls those fans to use a dashboard mounted switch, so I could turn on those fans and get the engine to cool a bit more.

Coming back, about 5 hours out from home, getting on I84 near Matamoros, PA, the engine did not have the power I wanted to go up the hill after the Delaware River. I had seen a Walmart back a few miles. Divine inspiration told me that the problem was with the spark plugs, so I drove back on local roads to the Walmart. I then saw an Autozone, and went there for the spark plugs. I stopped at a defunct Grand Union supermarket parking lot to change the plugs. I sent my wife and kids off shopping. 2 plugs were easy to change, but removing the wires was a problem. 3 wires had burn marks (I have headers) and #8 was burned through. Although the plugs only had 10K miles on them at this point, I was guessing that the heat extremes damaged the dielectric of the plugs and power was being lost. I also saw a faint rust stain on the plugs, from sitting so much I guess, and the rust stain might also be providing a current path for weakening the spark. I needed new wires also. At this point, a storm blew through. There were forecasts of golfball sized hail, worries of 70 MPH winds, and dangerous lightning. The lightning was firing off like strobe lights at a disco. The RV was shaking with the wind and hail. No hail damage. So, I wouldn’t be getting the job done this night. We went to a local RV park and checked in, went to Autozone for wires, went to a restaurant, and then back to the RV park for bed. The next morning, I replaced the plugs and wires, and for good measure, put in a new HEI ignition module. The engine did not start. OK, Matt, what did you screw up? Chevrolet firing order is 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2, right? You worked from memory, and maybe that is failing. Well, not this time, the firing order is right, and the wires were properly arranged. I put the older HEI module back in, and the engine fired. We took it out for a test drive, and we could drive up hills, and accelerate up the hills. On flat land, my son noted that the bow of the rig was lifting up during acceleration. Oh the joy!

After this though, the engine was running on all 8 cylinders, and producing plenty of heat. The temperature in Connecticut was over 90F. So on the long gradual inclines on the hills east of Hartford, I had to take the speed at 35MPH, and run with the flashers on, 0n I-84, to keep the temperature under 240F. I didn’t want to boil over 2 hours from home.

Hairpins: The nice thing about a 27’ RV is that there are not many restrictions about where you can drive. But, it is rather troubling, to drive on roads where the edge of the road is next to a drop off, and the next thing in the field of view is the opposite canyon wall. I gave myself a blood blister inside my lower lip from biting it during the driving some times. My hands had cramped up on some days from holding the wheel so tight. I’d seen hairpins with guardrails wiped out, and in a place where I could not imagine anyone would live after going over the edge. I thought about how I was happy to have new tires and good mechanics working on the steering and hydroboost system. I remember thinking "Dear God, please keep my family alive here!" By the end of the trip, hairpin turns in the mountains were "old hat". Just keep the speed down, keep it between the lines, and hope that the driver coming the other way is attentive as well. At Yosemite, I was talking to a bus driver about this, and he told me that RVs don’t go over the edge; it is the guys with the sports cars, pushing the limit, that go over, and that many cars are left in the woods due to nature of the cliff the car went over.

Wildlife: a rattlesnake, a scorpion, bison, brown bears, a grizzly bear, moose, pronghorn sheep, elk, eagles.

Activities: hiking everywhere, Yankees vs. Angels in LA, met some relatives in CA, trout fishing in Grand Tetons, rafting in Grand Tetons.

People: met folks from dozens of states, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand.

Damage: lost a marker light, an alternator belt, ac compressor belt, ac compressor bracket broke, 3 exhaust header bolts got lost and had to be replaced, the isolator cooked, all the interior plastic door shelves in the fridge and freezer broke, the black water tank got a crack in it on the front near the top I am guessing from a rock kicked up by the rear tires, both front windshields were broken in construction areas, the dinette tabletop was stapled together and needed screws, fan clutch seems to have crapped out. Spark plugs and wires.

Dining recommendations: Cowboy dinner at Roosevelt Stables in Yellowstone (it is an all you can eat steak buffet), Rosies Restaurant, behind the Cracker Barrel, in Cave City, KY (great BBQ buffet), Colter Bay restaurant in Grand Tetons NP (have them cook the trout you catch in Jackson Lake).

Biggest lessons learned: (1) spare belts and ignition parts are good, and maybe I should also bring a set of plugs and wires. (2) you can’t simulate 120F in your driveway, so if you think there is a remote chance you have grounding problems, you will certainly find out in the desert. (3) kids like 12V accessories, and additional 12V outlets in the RV would be good. (4) driving all day, and expecting to get off the road at 10PM and sleep is not a good idea, there is probably 2 tons of metal heated up to an average of 300F. (5) highway visitor centers and highway road condition websites are not informed of the torn up roads. (6) Kansas has great highway rest areas, many with a loop road behind the bathroom building, where RVs can stay for the night. The PA system is tuned to the NWS radio to warn of impending tornados.

Great report. You drove right through Newburgh NY on I-84 and you didn't stop to say hi? Huh!

Please post some pictures of your trip for us to see.

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Originally posted by BarthBluesmobile:
I saw another Barth drive past. We followed, and when we met up ... We were given a CD, "Walking to Wyoming", by Earl Wear and Haywire. This Barth was pulling a trailer...

We have talked about Earl's Coach in the past. He was trying to sell his 33' Breakaway as a 34' Regency on Ebay. Based on what we could tell, it was fraudulently sold to him as a Regency. He now knows it to be a Breakaway instead.

Here, in the next post, is a video of Earl and his Barth when he blew out a tire on the interstate... Does it look familiar?

.

Ditto on the compliments! Bill's a great host! (I've stayed there twice). You shoulda given him a call...

Darn it, I should have added pictures months ago....

A scene from a Mesa Verde parking lot...


This is a Kansas rest stop. The land is flat!


A pose in Yellowstone.


This is the Watchman campground at Zion NP.


The dashboard I put in, with the VDO gauges. Don't worry, the engine oil temperature and the transmission temperature aren't hooked up.


My distinctive paint job is called "French and Electric Blue".

happy motoring!
Matt