Hello All,

Looking for some insight from 454 powered Barth owners. My wife and I are considering a 454 powered 28'. Here are my questions:

Is the engine easily accessible for maintenance?
Any trouble with heat or fumes working their way up into the cab area?
What is the typical mileage obtained before an overhaul is in order?
Is the tranny dependable?
Adequate power for mountain driving?
What do you average in fuel burn on a trip without mountain driving?

I'm looking forward to your experiences and/or opinions on this subject. Thanks!

Q1 - Is the engine easily accessible for maintenance? Yes. Typical maintenance is plugs and wires, and belts adjustment, and adding oil.

Q2 - Any trouble with heat or fumes working their way up into the cab area? No fumes. Heat, perhaps, but I have windows open.

Q3 - What is the typical mileage obtained before an overhaul is in order? In some years, the exhaust manifolds had problems, and headers are then often installed instead. Other than that, I think it depends on the specific engine situation, regarding coolant levels, oil type, ignition timing.

Q4 - Is the tranny dependable? I like the Hydramatic 475. Later years have a 4 speed overdrive, and internet wisdom says the first few years of that might be weak.

Q5 - Adequate power for mountain driving? Depends on load, whether there is a climbing lane, and if you can keep the RPMs up.

Q6 - What do you average in fuel burn on a trip without mountain driving? Last time I checked, around 7 or 8. I think I had a bad spark wire at the time. The Ethanol in the gas doesn't help either.

Matt

Thanks for the prompt reply Matt. Have you ever towed a vehicle behind your Barth?

Welcome to Barthmobile.
As you will find while reading around here, no two Barth's are the same so you will likely get different answers.
Not all engines are easily accessible. Depending on the size and shape of the doghouse, access can be limited as mine is....



Fumes for me, have never been a problem, and the engine noise is audible but not irritating.

Power is adequate to get you over the mountain, slowly.

I averaged just under 7 when I brought her home from Seattle. That was the entire trip, over the Cascades and Rockies as well as all the flatland. I haven't paid attention since then.

quote:

Originally posted by MichaelR:
Hello All,

Looking for some insight from 454 powered Barth owners. My wife and I are considering a 454 powered 28'. Here are my questions:

Is the engine easily accessible for maintenance?
Any trouble with heat or fumes working their way up into the cab area?
What is the typical mileage obtained before an overhaul is in order?
Is the tranny dependable?
Adequate power for mountain driving?
What do you average in fuel burn on a trip without mountain driving?

I'm looking forward to your experiences and/or opinions on this subject. Thanks!

I am not a Barth owner but I do have a 454 in my 34' Bounder.

Is the engine easily accessible for maintenance?
- It depends on your access from above. With mine, I have a hatch between the two front seats that opens to expose the top of the engine. Most critial things (most things a tech saavy owner could do on their own) are accessable right on top. The rest is underneath (oil, filters).

Any trouble with heat or fumes working their way up into the cab area?
- I have not had fume problems but when running properly, there shouldn't really be fumes being given off at the engine unless you have something leaking. I do find that the hatch does get warm, but I would think that would vary between brands.


What is the typical mileage obtained before an overhaul is in order?
- I have too few miles to speak to this point.

Is the tranny dependable?
- I have the Hydra-Matic 4L80E, a 4 speed. It has been reliable, but I do long for a 5th gear on level highways. I turn 2200 RMP at 55mph and it just feels like it wants another gear.

Adequate power for mountain driving?
- I have been up most of what the Appalachians have to offer. The power is OK. Only twice have I had to do anything I would call "climb". In NC I hit a long incline and was left doing 45 at 3000 RPM in what seemed like 3rd gear.

What do you average in fuel burn on a trip without mountain driving?
- Have not really avoided the mountians yet. Never been worse than 6.5 or better than 7.5. Can't wait to see what it looks like in the Midwest.

Our 81 28 footer gets 8.375 mpg in a mix of Florida flatland and Georgia hill country. Never felt a lack of power. The only real hard thing to access is the master cylinder for the brakes. I have to remove the drivers side front wheel and a cowling just to find it, so I put in a new one so I don't have to do that very often. Like everyone says, every coach is different, but you asked for our 2 cents worth and that's mine.

My Barth is 34 feet long, 19,000+ lbs and I'm getting 7 mpg with a GearVendors overdrive at 60mph (that's with running the Kohler 7000 to power the roof airs for the entire time.)

I've had 3 different 454's in motorhomes. Road mileage was as high as 9mpg on straight highway and as low as 5mpg on the parts of trips where you were running around town. That was this 1984 Barth, on a 1979 29ft Pace Arrow and a 1983 23ft Overland without overdives.

The 454 is by far the easiest and cheapest to work on. I'd call accessiblity as the best you'll find. As far as fumes, no problems. I'm kinda nutty about recarpeting, insulating and really sealing up around the engine compartment. My Barth currently is EXTREMELY quiet because I have probably 200lbs of insulation (multiple layers of FATMAT, layers of foil covered bubble wrap, carpet padding, and carpet along with caulking and foam insulation.) etc...around the engine area....

I have a 33 ft Regal with 454. The engine is relatively easy to work on but will depend on how much junk is on it. Mine originally had two smog air pumps, engine AC and tons of hoses, none of which worked. I removed the pumps and brackets, the AC compressor, and all the extra hoses, etc. I have one less belt as well. Access is now very good... plugs, wires, belts and hoses can all be reached. I can remove the fan, power steering pump, belts, hoses, alternator and the water pump from above if I need to.




As for durability, the 454 is pretty good. Most will go well over 100k miles if run regularly. Mine has 90k miles has excellent compression, does not burn any oil. The weak point for mine is the 2 piece rear main seal, a poor design at best. Mine started leaking last month and I'm currently in the process of dropping the pan to change it, not much fun but fairly straightforward. (This is a 26 year old engine so I can't really whine too much about these problems. Prior to the seal leak I was using about 1 qt oil in 2000 miles.)

The TH 475 tranny is fairly robust, haven't heard of any problems. The 480 has had some issues but mine is a 475 and I have had zero problems.

Pulling a toad up hills is a strain, but easy on the flats.

I run about 60 mph and I get between 7 and 7.5 on the highway.

Noise and fumes are not a problem.