Re: The remodel of our 1982 Travco Reply #25 – April 20, 2016, 09:05:16 am Quote from: D.J. Osborn – April 20, 2016, 07:54:00 amVarious sources such as History of Monaco Coach Corporation – FundingUniverse state that Monaco bought the Roadmaster Chassis Division from Chrysler in 1984, and if that's correct then who made the chassis under the 1982 Travco? In addition, John Deere documents from the late 80s show a chassis that looks very much like the Dodge M600 chassis.Does anyone know the complete story? Did the Chrysler front-engine chassis business get sold to Monaco and then to John Deere, or what? To me, at least, this is a really fascinating story!roadmaster I think was the successer to the dodge/Fargo truck chassis and from cherry valley(?), Illinois. Dodge stopped building chassis in 1979. Rumor had it that gm got dodge out of the chassis biz as their payback for actively helping the chysler bailout.Foretravel bought hundreds of the chassis and used them on 35's up to the 1982 models. Then the 35's were on roadmasters with a 454 Chevy engine and a air bag tag axle. Drove well.Chevy was a problem as gm had blocked the heads water flow with a different head gasket to raise the temp for smog compliance and the exhaust manifolds leaked after hard use for everyone in the Rv biz.I remember Don "Boney" Moore, one of the original founders of Foretravel, standing on my ca sales offices porch and saying "I wish we still had them old dodges. You could run them flat out. Unlike the sorry chevrolets."He and a young mike grimes the parts manager had driven the original prototype unihome out for a road test from Nac to California.Boney told me not to look under that coach as I probably would like what I saw and they had a lot of Oshkosh's to sell still."Wonderfull things" is what I saw that day under that 250 cat 36' unihome....Brakes were not as good as I wanted for a customers 8.2 front end diesel 33' FTX. Their engineer suggested the bigger calipers for the front. Worked much better. Quote Selected
Re: The remodel of our 1982 Travco Reply #26 – April 20, 2016, 11:03:34 am The challenge with a diesel motorhome is to help the coach last as long as the engine will. Might , have a shot at it with Foretravel and the similar coaches IMHO. Quote Selected
Re: The remodel of our 1982 Travco Reply #27 – April 20, 2016, 11:37:28 am Quote from: Bob & Sue – April 20, 2016, 11:03:34 amThe challenge with a diesel motorhome is to help the coach last as long as the engine will. Might , have a shot at it with Foretravel and the similar coaches IMHO. When Dodge came out with their diesel pick-up the bodies were junk, which spawned the saying :"if you buy the pick-up, buy a boat to put the engine in when the body falls apart." Quote Selected
Topic: The remodel of our 1982 Travco