Barth

When we bought Barth last year we intended to bring it to the Thompson CT race which was about a month away at the time. We went over a few things and notice the engine and transmission mounts were bad and the drive train was just resting in place. Not knowing what year or chassis the mounts were from we bought a dozen different ones at Autozone and found a combo that works. Barth also came with a Banks Performance package which from what I can tell is just a set of headers. They are the longest long tube headers I've ever seen but unfortunately they have a couple cracks. We were able to weld up a couple of them to quiet things down.

Since the race was in Aug we hoped that the A/C units worked. When inspecting them we noticed there was only one interior cover and control panel stashed in one of the compartments underneath. We hooked up the panel to the rear A/C and plugged everything in but nothing happened. Mice had gotten into that unit and we were not very hopefully anyway.

Panel then got swapped to the front and that one at least turned on. It didn't blow cold but it was a start. If needed we'd mess with it more in CT

Other then that we power washed the roof and sides then wiped down a few things inside and called it good.

Without any further testing Dave and Jeff loaded up Friday and drove the thing 75 miles to CT for the Lemons race. Other then being extremely hot inside it made it there without any issues. Since it was going to be extremely hot that weekend we immediately started working on the A/C.

After spending a few hours swapping some parts between the rear unit and other troubleshooting we got the front unit working! Now it didn't cool very well and it liked to shut off randomly but it was enough to take the edge off.We fought to keep that thing working all weekend since it was 100 degrees out. At one point it started leaking condensation which got into our control panel. It was already flaky enough and water didn't help things. After letting it dry out it it kinda came back and we could smash enough buttons to make the A/C turn back on. We had to move the panel to the roof to keep more water out of it.

With the working A/C we mostly stayed inside out of the sun and ate cheeseballs till it was our turn to race.

Saturday afternoon we were really happy to have Barth. Sever weather was heading our way and they stopped the race due to lightning. Fortunately we got to the race early and had picked a high spot on pavement incase there was any rain. From the roof you can see what the lot kind of looks like. Notice the white truck to the right.

Here is how bad the storm was. At one point there was a river of car parts and beer cans in front of us.

At one point there was a river of car parts and beer cans in front of us.

Sunday we dried out and went back to racing. Rest of the day was pretty uneventful.

I'm not sure how that weekend would have gone without Barth. Between having A/C and someplace dry to wait out the rain I'm not sure we'll go back to renting a garage or camping.

What's the price per pound on this purchase?
9 cents?

You're redoing the interior, yes? It needs a theme.

I'm thinking "Miami Vice Stripclub."

In reply to Sky_Render:

Or WWII U-boat.

I came to complain that this thread wasn't about an Abarth. Now that I've read it, I'm not even mad.

I've never seen an RV before that made me think: "Man, I wouldn't mind owning one of those..."

Mezzanine wrote: I came to complain that this thread wasn't about an Abarth. Now that I've read it, I'm not even mad. I've never seen an RV before that made me think: "Man, I wouldn't mind owning one of those..."

Heh...I've seen plenty of RVs that made me say that. This isn't one of them ("Thanks a lot, Donna!"). But I'm sure glad these guys have it (not me) and are chronicling the hilarity.

In perpetration for the NH race last fall we decided it would be nice to have someplace to sit. The original couch came in pieces and some of the brackets were missing. Dave was able to make new brackets and reassemble everything.

Once nice thing about NHMS was that they had power hookups for RV's. That's great but we had no idea how to hook power up to Barth. After digging around we found a heavy gauge cable and the spot to plug it in. We didn't know if there was some switch or something we had to do other then plug it in. Apparently its pretty idiot proof which was great for us and it switches automatically. With our new found reliable power source we plugged in a crock pot and made some pulled pork while hanging out inside.

We even got the microwave working and figured we'd try that out too. For some reason we had a box of pasta salad. We used the microwave to cook the pasta and used whatever else we could find to mix it up and serve.

Unlike our Aug race, NH was pretty cold in late Oct and Friday night it dropped to below freezing. The heater on the A\C unit kept things above freezing but it really wasn't warm inside Barth. Now when we got Barth there was a separate propane heater someone added on for some reason but the previous owner kept. Also the propane refrigerator was also missing. We had capped off those lines but never really tested anything else and assumed the 80 gallon propane tank was almost empty. There is an info center above the Donna plaque and if you press enough buttons it says the tank is full but did didn't trust it. After a few beers Saturday night we decided to look into the heating system and start testing things. First we turned on the propane detector inside and sprayed down our capped lines and other fittings with soapy water and found the main valve for the tank. We turned it on and opened one of the burners for the stove to light it but didn't get any gas. There was an electric shut off by the tank that has some corroded terminals. We cleaned those up and tried again. After a minute or so we got gas to the stove. Next we tried the heating system. To our surprise it kicked right on and didn't kill us. Within a few more minutes it was up to 70 degrees inside.

Of course Sunday morning we couldn't get the heat working again right away. We learned that the propane detector controlled the electric valve on the tank and that had to be turned on first before the heat. Also at some point we will need to redo the wiring to the valve because we kept having to messing with the terminals.

It was nice to be dry and warm that weekend. We are starting to see why so many other teams have RV's. Maybe someday Barth might even be nice enough to sleep in.

Is that one of those weird FMC mobile home chassis setups with the De Deon rear suspension?

A few weeks ago we started prepping for our Aug race in CT. Since last year was so hot we wanted to make sure we had a reliable A/C unit. Normally we're pretty cheap but we actually splurged and bought a new A/C unit. We were dreading the install and starting discussing over complicated plans on how to get the old unit off the roof and the new unit up there. Turn out it wasn't as heavy or awkward as we thought. We pulled a truck up next to Barth and were able to just pass the unit down.

New unit is nice and dumb with knobs. No fancy control panel to get wet or break and install was pretty easy.

At some point we'll have to recover that roof panel. The fabric was ripped and blowing foam everywhere so we stripped it for now. Oh and ignore the red cup. We'll fix that leak someday too.

With the new A/C in we turned our attention to cleaning. We bleached all the walls and started prepping for new flooring. Sorry this picture was apparently taken with a potato.

We also took the opportunity to remove all these plug adapters. Last thing we need is to have a drunken teammate plug in a welder, crock pot, microwave, drop light, fish finder or whatever else is in Barth all into one plug.

We also added what appears to be some period correct cupholders.

Last major project for the day was to install new flooring. We wanted something that would be easy to clean and hold up to wet feet and random roof leaks so we got vinyl planks that lock together. It took a while to cut and fit them but the new floor looks way better.

Plugception.

Or...

Plugipede!!!

In reply to Tony Sestito:

Ha, I prefer plugipede.

That's only half the adapters we found.

Over the weekend Dave and Jeff made a bracket for a TV. It's removable so we can take it down while driving.

PseudoSport wrote: ...so we can take it down while driving.

Why?

I'm worried that whatever crappy 80's RV particle board it's screwed into will break and the TV will hit us in the face.

run an aux cord into the RV soundsystem, if it's got one. I love these budget house-busses, they look like a ton of fun.

klipless wrote:

PseudoSport wrote: ...so we can take it down while driving.

Why?

Exactly, wire it up to a reverse camera!!!

If you look next to the steering wheel there is a small monitor hooked up to a security camera or something on the back of Barth as a reverse camera. We could easily get that up on the big screen.

Dave and Jeff are the audio nerds so i'm sure they have something in the works for a sound system. We also want to hook it up a laptop so we can watch our gopro videos and make fun of each others driving at the end of the day.

We also have a projector and screen we setup outside for movies or playing Nintendo on.