Mr. Monroe's Welcome

[kentouw]

Thanks for the welcome! Just got my password straitened out. I'm the proud new owner of a Champion Telstar 1987 on the Ford 350 chaisis 460 motor.Got the water system working right.Waiting for a face plate for the water heater.AC works (I'm an AC tech so it didn't have a choice !) The interior was in good shape.I fixed the overhead doors what little they needed.going to tear out the blue shag carpet and put down pergo or allure flooring .not sure yet. Got the drive train in good shape.Going to take it for a ride this weekend.post pic's soon.does anyone else have one of these?Checked the Vintage foroum and found it was defunct. Have a great day and happy motoring!

[CLIFFTALL]

Welcome to IRV2.

Cliff

[Bruce C]

Welcome to the site. Good luck on your maiden voyage. Safe travels.

[MSHappyCampers]

Welcome to IRV2! It's great to have you join the gang!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

[frankdamp]

We had what I think was the Telstar's predecessor, a 1985 Fleetwood Jamboree "Spirit". It had the offset rear window with the external spare and the curved sides. If I can find a photo in my archives, I'll post it.

It was a 26-footer with a Ford 460, and '85 was the only year Fleetwood made it. It had a fold-out couch behind the driver, two pedestal tables that plugged in in front of the couch (an wobbled like crazy, since they were steel tubes in holes in the wood floor!) Behind the front passenger was a small pull-out wall-mounted table with two fixed chairs.

At the back was a corner bed, hemmed in by the bathroom on one side for about 3/4 its length. The passenger-side outer wall ran the full length of the bed , the back wall was all the way across and a wardrobe covered 2/3rd of the foot of the bed.

Since we travelled with two Labradors, it was much too confining, so we sold it after a season and a half.

I'll caution you about one problem we had, which was a surprise. We got awful gas mileage - 6 mpg at sea-level and less than 5 at altitude. On our third trip, I found that full throttle on a level road with no wind, I couldn't get more than 45 mph top speed.

It turned out the the very high under-hood heat had evaporated all the lighter volatile compounds in the brake master-cylinder, leaving a very high viscosity fluid. It had migrated to the rear wheel cylinders and was so sticky, the brake return springs couldn't pull the brakes off. That was an $800 repair bill! We also had the dreaded 460 manifold problem, over $1200 to fix.

A friend who worked at Ford said they'd done tests on the E350 and got manifold temps well up into the "glowing red" range when climbing at low speed and high throttle. The recommendation by the factory is "ABSOLUTELY NO GASKETS" and use of the required Class 8 bolts to hold the manifolds on and the designated torque values.

[JohnRR]

[tomwalt]

Welcome - you're well on your way to many adventures via the freedom of RV travel.

[Medico]

Welcome and glad to meet you!

[sdennislee]

Hi and :greetings:

[87bounder]

Congrats and welcome to iRV2!

[historyljc]

Welcome, best of luck on you remodeling.