The big reveal

These are photos from our trip to Waterton Lakes National Park in September 2010. (The USA side of the park is called Glacier National Park.) At this point in Myrtle's restoration, nearly everything is complete. Next season we will be installing the furnace and hooking up the stove and fridge.

Other motorhomes...

These are photos of two other motorhomes I have come across. The Travco was in Alberta and the Barth was in British Columbia. For more on Barth Motorhomes see: http://www.barthmobile.com/

Myrtle and the Moos

Here you can see Myrtle on her way home from her successful camping trip at Waterton National Park. In one photo she's surround by cows and in the other electricity generating wind mills. She turned a lot of heads and I have out about 10 cards with her photo and blog information.

Mirrors and Music

We installed new side view mirrors. They are convex mirrors from Traction (the Heavy Truck Division of Napa). They provide much better visibility than the previous small mirrors. We also found an antenna that finally fit, also from Traction. So now we can both see and listen to the radio!

Retro Radio

Today we installed the retro styled radio. It is a good match to the rest of the dashboard with the black bezel. With most things on Myrtle it took long than expected as the holes on the bezel need to be custom drilled, everything needed to be wired and connected, and then the actual installation of the radio and speakers. We also installed an extra master on/off switch to override it drawing from the solar batteries when in storage. Now that it is in, it works well and has a remote for convenience. The ashtray you can see in the one photo will now serve as an ipod holder as the radio has a MP3 jack.

The little things

I found a cute tin plate from Fisheries and Oceans Canada at a vintage shop. It will look great somewhere in/on Myrtle! We are lucky to have lovely provincial and national parks, which remind me of this plate. Next month we plan on taking a trip to Waterton Lakes National Park, adjoining the southern Montana Glacier National Park.

Myrtle is getting more popular and has a post on the Get Campie Blog. I figure she now needs some business cards, so I ordered some via Moo Cards, with her stats and the sweet photo below. Then I'll have them to hand out to the folks who stop to check her out.

My Cool Caravan Site

Check out: http://www.mycoolcaravan.com/index.html

A website full of handy hints, photos and information on vintage caravans. They also have a book for purchase.

Maiden Voyage

We took Myrtle out for her maiden voyage; camping at a provincial park 250 kms away. She made the round trip journey easily! She was terrific to camp in and drew a lot of attention from people passing by. Her solar power and plumbing was terrific. Her fridge and stove are not yet hooked up but that's next on the list.

New glass!

We finally successfully have the new windshields installed! They look terrific. You can see the two before photos at the bottom with the terrible silicone job, from a previous owner. We also got the back window pulled out and put back in with a new gasket. We also had the cracked glass in the louvered door window replaced. Both the gasket and the windshield came from RV Glass Experts, and was installed locally. The glass installer also had to do some fibreglass shaving to ensure a good fit on the windows. Glass work on the old Travcos is not cheap. The cost of the windshield installation, rear window re-install, the rear gasket (including fedex cost from the USA), the door window, was about $1500.00 (this includes 12 hours of labour). The cost does not include the purchase of the windshields. The approximate cost of the 2 sides of the wind shield was $1700.00 USD, in 2009. was a lot of labour needed to remove the mystery grey substance a previous owner had used to attempt to seal the windows.

Blog of a 1963...

Check out this new dodge motorhome blog:

My Rebirth, Each Step '63 Dodge "Frank" Motorhome

I came across the blog on the Yahoo Dodge Travco Group

Almost there!

Myrtle is getting very close to completion. The new exhaust manifold was installed today and works well. We also put in a new Victor Reinz exhaust manifold gasket that we purchased at Napa. We took her for a test drive and she she runs great! I also tried out the solar power system by using the the vacuum to clean out some accumulated debris. It had great power and barely made a dent in the stored battery power levels. The AC and DC power is working great.

We were also able to add in some nice decorative touches including a hanging a clock and a piece of metal art. The curtains were a great find from a vintage store called Populuxe. They are new old stock and in mint condition. We added in some extra security with new strike plates on the doors as well.

Tomorrow we are hoping to drop her off to get her new windshields put in as well as the back window resealed.

New 318 poly exhaust manifold!

As luck would have it, I was talking (whining) about trying to repair or find a replacement 318 poly exhaust manifold at a local parts store, and one of the staff mentioned having a 1965 318 at home. He called the next day with the manifold removed and we bought it for $60.00. It lines up with the old manifold and should hopefully be a good fit. From the photos you can see the new and old manifold, a close up of the JB Weld we attempted (NOTE I don't know if works as we are going with the new manifold now) and a photo of the passenger side manifold (which at this point is still intact on Myrtle).

318 Poly Engine Resources

Mopar Magazine (September 2001) has an article on the 318 Poly Engine: "Chrysler's Poly-Head Engine - Mopar's Rodney Dangerfield Part 1 The Lowly 318 Poly Engine Gets No Respect"

There is a 318 Poly Yahoo Group as well.

Master Cylinder & Exhaust Manifold

Today we had intentions of installing the new master cylinder for the brakes, which we found via Family Car Parts. They were great to deal with!

However, we not only found out that we did not have the correct wrench, but also that the exhaust manifold was broken. (Note the photo of the cast metal corner busted off). Now we will either be hunting for a new exhaust manifold (for a 318 poly) or finding someone to weld the original cast metal one back together. We located the correct exhaust manifold gasket via our local Napa Dealer.

Safety First!

We installed several safety features today including; kitchen fire extinguisher, front area fire extinguisher, fire alarm and CO2 alarm. We also installed the final LED light bulb, from Philips and purchased at Home Depot, in one of the kitchen light fixtures. I am happy to report that the solar power system is working well and with the inverter we have great AC and DC power. While we were there we inspected the terrific plumbing work done by my father in law. From the pictures you can see the water pump, new tank and some new pipes in the washroom.