1984 Coachman Pathfinder 27' Class A

Laura and I have been looking for a motorhome to use for racing events & some camping now that we have Dominic. We were originally looking at stuff that would haul our current enclosed trailer, but after I saw a couple of the $100k+ price tags on those units, we set our sights a little lower. Neither of us really wanted a 15 year loan at $1200/month. :-)

So we started looking at "lightly used" Class C motorhomes. Those are the ones that look like van front ends, with a bed over the front. With some research, we figured out we wanted something like a 28' or so Class C on the Ford E450 chassis with the Triton v10. Ones a few years old with fairly low miles were in the $30k to $40k range, and cost around $50k to $60k new. We figured we'd sell our truck and replace it with a motorhome.

This made us kinda nervous, since we've never owned a motorhome and had no idea if it was really for us.

Enter a racing acquaintance... He was going the other way, with his kids all grown up and had an '84 class A for sale. Upside is that he was asking $8k. Downside was that it was built in '84, making it the 3rd oldest vehicle I've ever owned. Anyway, we figured it was worth looking at a picture or two, but that we probably wouldn't want it. You can see the pictures Jim (the seller) showed us below. We thought it looked great for an '84, and went and took a look at it today.

After checking it out and taking it for a ride, we agreed to buy it. We both feel a _lot_ more comfortable spending this level of money, since it means we won't have to sell any of our existing vehicles (i.e. if this is a mistake, its at least a mistake we can afford without major upheaval). The coach was also in great shape, and clearly well cared for. I'm certain there will be maintenance required, but its not some falling apart rattletrap. And there are no RF passenger window switches to fail (hi Dad! :-)

Its a chevy P30 chassis, with a big block 454 & TH400 three speed automatic transmission. It all seems to work, but Jim thinks it might be getting time to replace the hydraulic booster on the brakes, so I may need to take a look at that sometime. The brakes certainly require a good bit of effort, but with that they seem to stop the rig quite well. It runs fairly well also. Its been quite a while since I drove anything with a carb, so setting the choke & the slight hesitation before the secondaries kick in on the four barrel carb was interesting. :-) But it goes down the road really well, and should have the power to pull an open trailer with a racecar on it.

And towing is the next area we'll need to do some work. At a minimum, I'll need to install a brake controller and a seven pin trailer connector. This isn't a huge deal or particularly expensive to do. I may rework the hitch a bit as well so that I can use a weight distributing hitch, but we'll see on that one.

Also in the "need to fix it" category is the canopy. The one that's there has sun-destroyed fabric. Looks like you can get bargain replacements for $600 or so with better ones costing more. You can also get just the fabric, so if that looks like a viable way to go, we might do that.

Otherwise, its all set to tow to the track and head out to the campground! We'll figure out the money & finalize the paperwork next Saturday.

Oh, and I might as well say this now... "Borrowing the RV". We'll see. First, it gets <10mpg. Second, you'd need to be comfortable driving a big vehicle like this. Third, you'd need to be willing/able to fix anything that broke, particularly if it broke because you backed into a pole. Fourth, I'd need to believe that you could drive something this big and fix anything that broke. :-)

Seriously, I can't imagine we'll be lending this out this year at a minimum. After we're more comfortable with it... Maybe.