In late 1999 we were enjoying RVing so much that we ended up getting out of racing and decided to upgrade coaches. We had developed a friendship with some neighbors and had been doing quite a lot of traveling/road trips with them and were really having a great time. We also thoroughly enjoyed sand duning and were thinking of stepping up to a sandrail and I told the wife we needed something with a bit more "umph" to haul the trailer loaded with sand toys around. ;D That is how I sold it anyway and yes "umph" is a technical term. 8)
Our friends were looking to upgrade as well and they had just purchased a 1998 model year gas coach. They thought we were crazy when I told them what we were looking at. I was looking at late 80's/early 90's diesel pushers on heavy duty chassis to haul the weight around plus I am a stickler for safety and although I did a lot of upgrades to our Travelcraft, the braking was always one of my pet peeves. In absolute perfect condition I felt that they were barely adequate, I even upgraded to larger trailer brakes so the coach wasn't burdened with that as much.
My cousin had a 1985 Vogue on a Crown bus chassis and my aunt/uncle had upgraded to a 1988 Beaver Marquis on a Gillig chassis by this time as well. I was impressed with both of those especially with the Gillig and the size of brake drums/shoes they outfitted them with. So the search started.
Within a few months our local dealer who knew what we were looking for called and told us that he had just taken a older Beaver coach in on trade and it needed some of my TLC and he would make us a "screamin" deal. Evidently is idea and my idea of a "screamin" deal on a neglected coach were not the same. We did however, after about two weeks of negotiating come to an agreement and the wife and I were the proud new owners of a not so clean 1991 38' Beaver Contessa on a Gillig chassis, 3208 CAT engine, four-speed Allison transmission and 64k on the odometer.
Once we got it home and got rid of our Travelcraft I commenced again on bringing back a neglected coach. First things first, all of the mechanicals from bumper to bumper were brought current and a lot of minor and a couple of major repairs were addressed. I also installed new tires all the way around and while the wheels were off I got a crash course in aluminum polishing. Enough to know I didn't want to do that for a living.
I also removed the hitch from the coach as Beaver stated it was rated for 3500 pounds and really didn't look all that strong. I fabricated a new hitch that tied up under the coach about 4' directly to the frame. I made it to where it was bolted in place with ten 3/4" fasteners so it could be removed had I ever had to do any major engine work such as drop the oil pan. The generator was also leaking like crazy and didn't really sound all that happy when it was running. A couple of the leaks were around the back side which were difficult to access so I merely decided to remove the 7500 watt Onan diesel genset and repair/reseal it out of the coach and to refurbish the generator compartment. I removed all of the torn and missing foil noise insulation and prepped to install new Dynomat thermal and noise barrier. After getting the genset leak free and purring like a kitten I touched up the paint and reinstalled it.
Next order of business was to address the poor paint and body. The clearcoat was gone in large sections on the rear end cap, the front endcap had too many rock chips to count, the bumpers were painted with a textured paint which was hideous and had no gloss whatsoever and there were a couple of areas on the sides where the clearcoat was peeling. Also there were a couple of compartment doors that had scratches on them so I was able to match the color perfectly and just repaired/repainted the ones that needed it. There was a broken section under the rear bumper where I am guessing someone missed hooking up a trailer at some point so it needed to be repaired properly. Lastly the water heater access door/cover had almost all of the paint missing from poor paint prepwork.
Again I used all PPG basecoat/clearcoat urethane as well as some PPG epoxy sealer. The water heater access door was bead blasted to bare metal, sealed with epoxy sealser, painted with body color and stripes then clearcoated. Once completed I installed some 3M clear protective plastic around the hole that the latch went through so it wouldn't scratch the paint in the future.
I had to paint the areas in sections because it wouldn't fit at my parents farm where I painted our Travelcraft six years prior. I backed the coach up to the shop door in the back yard at home and commenced doing prep work. In the pictures below you can see the prep work, masking and painting of the endcaps, bumpers and the water heater door as well as the generator once it was completed and reinstalled.
Mike.
