When will see the last of these mid-late 70s Dodge motorhomes? 2056? They’re the cockroach of motorhomes, and our streets in certain parts of town host a number of them…indefinitely. They’re the cheap home on wheels for the homeless crowd, and they’r egenerally not exactly easy on them. But this one seems to be holding up pretty well. And it has such nice shiny “gold” trim, so I had to stop and shoot it.
Isn’t that lovely? The RV industry is highly cyclical, and the 1975 – 1979 years were perhaps the biggest boom years, until this last boom era we had before the last bust. And in this period, Dodge practically owned the Class C market, spewing these chassis-cabs at a prodigious rate. Of course, it all came to a crashing halt during the second energy crisis cum 1981 recession. A huge number of RB manufacturers went belly-up. Winnebago barely survived. And Chrysler pulled the plug on its once dominant motorhome business. You wont see any Dodges from the mid eighties and up; all Ford and Chevy. But while the going was good, Dodge was spinning gold.
Nationwide phenomenon, too. Still the cheapest way to acquire a big block Mopar.
That said, I’m shocked at how many of these I see that are actually in good-to-very-good shape, and usually with less than 100k—and that’s in rust-prone Midwestern states.
Truly cockroach status.
Looks like this one was stored under cover most of it’s life. As old as they are, many of them still have well under 100k original miles on them.
The bought new ’72 Winnebago the folks had was a class A 21 ft Brave. It had the 318 and Torqueflite trans, and never had any drivetrain issues in 70k miles except U joints.
Stored outside long term without quickly and properly attending to any leaks the elements quickly will reduce these motorhomes to dryrot and mold.
Interesting you should mention U-joints. When I had my shop from the late 80s-2011, U-joints was one of my largest sales items. People completely disregard them until they fail. That sometimes also destroyed the driveshaft or the yoke, which leaves them stranded while replacement parts are sought. I use to do a service of repacking the U-joints and that prevented any failure on the road for customers.
Actually, funny story. Dad had rented the motorhome to our postman and it actually dropped the driveshaft while he was using it. Had to be towed, repaired and I don’t doubt more than just the U joints were replaced at that point. I think after that expense he didn’t rent it out anymore. Classic case of disregard until they fail.
This is one of those peculiar cases where someone living in the vehicle may result in it being better cared-for, at least with regard to leaks. If you’re in it every day you’ll notice a leak quickly, and be much more likely to address it, even if just with a shot of expanding foam.
A friend of mine had one, a ’78 with 440 and ThermoCrud carburetor. Spent most of the time he had it, at Garibaldi during fishing season. The vaunted Torqueflight everybody brags about here failed twice. And as somebody who has rebuilt numerous automatic transmissions, from all corners of the globe, I fail to see what makes a Chrysler trans any better than a Ford or GM one. Let alone Borg-Warner.
Just a guess, but lack of as many different weight grades as GM and Ford? A trans that wasn’t *quite* up to channeling a 440’s power to move one of these beasts would still be bulletproof in a slant six Duster.
There were two Torqueflites back then, a 727 for the heavy stuff and a 904 for lighter fare, like Slant Six Dusters. 🙂
I’d imagine the motor home would have the 727.
My allergies would not forgive me if I bought one of these motor homes, but they’re still cool.
You imagined right. 🙂
The 727 in our ’77 Dodge Chinook motorhome has 140k original miles on it, and is as good as ever. As is the 360 in front of it, except for a puff of blue smoke on a warm re-start (valve guides, my guess).
Could even be just valve seals… If it’s only on an occasional startup, I would just leave it. The guides are just getting a little extra oil, that’s all… 🙂
Yup Dick’s motorhome was 727 equipped, and both failures happened out of town, so I never got to rebuild it/them. Could just be shoddy work by the shops that did rebuild them. Both died within 50K of each other.
Well one of the reasons that the 727 is considered “better” than the C-6 and TH400 is that is supposedly has lower frictional losses. Try as I might I’ve never found any actual numbers showing it take X HP to run it or there is X% loss due to frictional losses of the bearings/bushing. The other thing that is a plus with them is that they use a throttle valve rather than a vacuum modulator to determine shift points. So there is no vacuum modulator to blow its diaphragm and let fluid get sucked into the engine.
nlpt has a good point in that Chrysler put the 727 behind many of their small blocks while over at Ford and GM they put their C4/FMX/TH350 at least in the cars. Ford would put the C6 in trucks even if they had the 300 6cyl.
Interestingly when IH dropped the BW for Chrysler supplied trans they specified the 727 even behind the AMC 6, which used the 904 in their cars. So Chrysler tooled up for another bellhousing pattern for the AMC 6 even though they had a 904 case with that pattern. IH even specified the 727 for use behind the Chrysler-Nissan diesel. Since they bought the engine and trans from Chrysler that combo used a Big Block Mopar pattern bellhousing and trans case.
The thing I dislike about the 727 (and TH400) compared to the C6 is that it will not do a second gear start. You can put it in 2nd but it will still take off in 1st. Put a C6 in 2nd and it is in 2nd and will stay there. Useful in driving in slippery stuff to reduce the torque multiplication and make it harder to spin the tires.
I have heard that as well, that the 727 required less horsepower to operate. I don’t think it had the same brute strength as the 400 or C-6 being that the TorqueFlite was a 2 band 2 clutch Simpson type transmission. The 400 and C-6 used clutches for all forward gears as I remember. Then again, the bands made the 727 gear engagement faster. Strange, but the Turbo 350 is very close in many respects to the 727.
For about a year I had a ’93 1 ton dually Cummins Dodge that had 237 k miles on it. It had all the paperwork from new, my Dad bought it from the original owner who was at the assisted living home with him. It had the 727 torqueflite, along with a factory overdrive unit which made it a non lock up 4 speed. It was used mostly to tow a 32 ft. Airstream Trailer all over the US. Up until 175k miles the transmission wasn’t touched except for fluid and filter changes. The rebuilt transmissions was replaced after 24k miles, along with 2 rebuilt torque converters and 1 trans drive plate. Also needed new solenoids in the overdrive unit as well. The drive plate failed a second time shortly after I sold it.
Would have to be poor quality rebuilds in this case as well. The original transmission proved to be very durable.
I’d rather have a Econoline conversion. Just not a Chrysler fan.
I just never understood how anyone could justify the expense of something like this new. How often would you ever use it to justify the expense. I hope those who bought them enjoyed them but in my world these just didn’t make much sense.
I had one of those just a few years ago, a 1975 Dodge/Coachman with 60K miles on it.
I had received orders to Camp Lejeune for 3 years, which is 4 hours away from my home in Virginia. Since my (then) wife had a good job and my kids were in a good school, I didn’t want to pick everyone up and move, so I decided to be what in the military is called a geographic bachelor, where I commuted from my home in one city to my duty station in another and I bought the Coachman from a Craiglist ad and stayed in it on my duty days and went home on my days off. It was in incredibly well-kept condition, and on the inside, it was still 1975 with orange appliances and shag carpet and working 8 track stereo, all looking and working like new. It only had a 360 instead of a 440 but it had a bigger cam, headers and a 4 barrel; it sounded like a musclecar and pulled like a semi-truck. We took it on one big camping trip in the mountains of West Virginia and it had no problem passing the modern diesel RVs on the mountain interstates. I don’t think it ever did better than 8 mpg but that’s not what they are designed for. I wound up getting divorced soon after I finished my tour and figured I would keep the Dodge for weekend getaways with my kids but that’s a big expensive toy to maintain for occasional use so I wound up selling it for exactly what I paid for it. I sure do miss it though.
Maybe a vagabond just bought this so it has yet to accumulate wear and tear. There are some fairly distinctive motorhomes around Portland too.