Allegro Restoration - Engine R&R

[Jim Stoltz]

If you recall, my RV has been sitting for around 6 years with a bad engine. I bought it for basically nothing. The owner said everything works, and so far he has been 100% correct. He also said he put Stabil in the 80 gallons of fuel when the engine failed. But, the generator would not run unless I put the fuel supply into a 5-gallon container of fresh gas. Today, I decided to siphon 5 gallons of the "bad" gas out of the RV. I dipped the generator feed into the "bad" gas. Holy cow it runs. If the generator will run, then so will the new engine!!! I was dreading sucking out and disposing of 80 gallons of bad gas.

And...the weather is finally cooperating. I'm going to do the underneath work today in order to prepare for the removal of the old engine.

[Jim Stoltz]

Well, the ice isn't melting as quickly as I had hoped. The Allegro casts a pretty huge shadow. The spots that don't get sun don't melt. As a result, an ice moat has formed around it causing the melting water to pool underneath it. Tomorrow is going to be warm, too, so I'm hoping to be able to break through the ice and drain the pool.

In the meantime, there's still a substantial amount of snow and ice on the roof. I've been siphoning the water off of the cover as it melts, but there's still been some intrusion inside. The roof needs sealed badly and the blue tarp put up a valiant fight, but water is seeping through it, onto the roof and into the RV. I'm catching it with Tupperware though. Had a lot leak into the rear bedroom onto one of the foam mattresses. They make great sponges, apparently.

It was finally warm enough to test the water system. Someone had winterized it properly so everything appears to work. Externally, the hot water heater appears very rusty but it fires right up with a switch inside by the sink.

I'm on a mission to get this thing running by the end of March.

[Jim Stoltz]

Today I chopped the last of the ice from around the front of the rig. It's going to be a balmy 54 degrees out tomorrow so I'm going to take advantage of the extra hour of daylight to finish up the underneath work. Maybe try to lift it out - that might be a bit optimistic though. I'm shooting for the end of the week because I'm picking up the new engine on Saturday.

I fiddled with the generator on my lunch break today. It was running really rough - shook the whole RV. I pulled the plugs out and found that one was soaking wet - no fire. So it was only running on one cylinder. I swapped plug wires - didn't fix it. Checked for spark - had spark. Did a compression check - almost 125 PSI - so that's not it. Finally it dawned on me to switch the plugs around. When I did, the misfire moved from the front cylinder to the back. Eureka! New plugs and the thing hums like a sewing machine.

[Jim Stoltz]

Here are some pics. I tried to put them up in chronological order but it didn't work like I had hoped, but you get the idea. The guy bought it with a blown engine as a project but instead let it sit in his father-in-law's tow yard for 5-6 years to rot. I picked it up for basically nothing.

[Wesley Cullor]

Keep us posted Jim !!   Maybe some pictures  !  Wes