My 1976 Palm Beach Total Overhaul

For some reason I never got notifications about these posts I'm sorry!

The aluminum came from Advanced Plastics, TAP plastics, Piedmont Plastics, etc should carry it.

Total for all the pieces I needed was 348, I don't remember how many I used so I can't tell you price per sheet but it's not bad at all.

HA!
We brought along a good bit of wine, but forgot the corkscrew, so we did a while two seek trip using vice grips and a large screw as a corkscrew. Worked just fine!
No worries, thanks for the reply! I never would've thought to shop at a plastics place for that aluminum sheeting. Good tip, and thanks! Now to shop around...
 
I usually use Vectric Aspire for most wood stuff and Fusion for metal. I much prefer vectric its just so simple.
i used fusion for the shower pan because it has multiple complex curves.
Thanks Justin.

I'm following in your footsteps in my own build. Any advice with the aluminum panels? Any pros and cons after you've had time with it installed?
 
Thanks Justin.

I'm following in your footsteps in my own build. Any advice with the aluminum panels? Any pros and cons after you've had time with it installed?

Not really I would do it again the same way.
I think doing it again I might laminate a piece of felt or similar to the back side of it to cut down on rattles and such on washboard roads.
 
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Not really I would do it again the same way.
I think doing it again I might laminate a piece of felt or similar to the back side of it to cut down on rattles and such on washboard roads.

Thanks Justin, that's sage advice.

Local sourced the ACM at a great price. Thanks so much for sharing that golden info.

Looking into using the Vectric Aspire program for interior Wood. Did you use the dimensional drawings found on the web to get your wall and ceiling shapes for your cabinets?
 
Thanks Justin, that's sage advice.

Local sourced the ACM at a great price. Thanks so much for sharing that golden info.

Looking into using the Vectric Aspire program for interior Wood. Did you use the dimensional drawings found on the web to get your wall and ceiling shapes for your cabinets?


Glad you found it!
I pulled a factory panel out and digitized it. There are several complex curves to get right and every coach is a bit different.
 
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Still one of my favorite parts on my coach!
Haha, yeah it's a nice piece--and you tried to keep it to yourself! I blundered into it on r/woodworking somehow. :LOL: The safety police really cracked me up on that one.

I do like the blend of old/original and new/snazzy.
 
I’ve painted trucks, walls, boats, and LOTS of countertops but this one was more job than I wanted to take on!

I randomly met a guy who happened to own a custom shop that loves doing oddball jobs like this. After this experience they are not interested in doing any more (sorry guys!)

We made the 5hr drive up to the paint shop and left it in their capable hands. This is not easy for me! This is the only thing on the whole coach we outsourced, so the lack of control drove me NUTS for the 4 weeks that they had it.



And a little before action:
paint before

Here you can see some of the body work, we moved the refrigerator under the counter, removed the stove vent hood, moved the electrical cord to a quick disconnect in the rear and the water fill to city water connection (also on the rear panel). That meant that we needed to patch some massive holes in the body. To do this we used 3m Panel Bonding adhesive and adhered a piece of 16ga aluminum to the inside wall with about a 3″ overlap in all directions. This leaves a recessed filled hole (as seen in the above photo). From there it’s back to the panel bonding adhesive. Another sheet of 16ga was cut to fit perfectly, curved on an english wheel to match the body contour and then adhered to the interior piece with rivets and 3M PBA. The rivets were removed when dry and ground flush the whole repair was then sanded flush with the rest of the body for a seamless super strong repair.

The basic plan was to scuff the old paint and clean it up, patch any issues and paint. No problem!
I dropped it off with a paint chip and a photoshop mockup. We wanted to stick with our theme of retro-modern so we went with a light 70’s green but with some gloss and a hint of blue to it to give it a more modern color scheme



GMC color

3 or 4 days later I got the call. The original paint was too far gone, what did I want to do?

13702

I expected this, I’d been working on it for a year I knew the paint was crap. They were confident that it was salvageable but ultimately I knew better so I said STRIP IT!

And off they went.
2 straight weeks of 2 man 8hr days ended up with:
13714

13712

We ended up taking it down to bare aluminum and SMC and starting 100% from scratch, which was fine by me because now I Know it was done right and I don’t have any nagging worries about the quality of the underlying paint screwing up my fresh stuff.

After 4 long weeks we got the call that it was ready:
14669

In all of her glory:

IMG_20170709_203052_01-1944x1457

IMG_20170712_195148-EFFECTS



We are thrilled with how it turned out, it looks great all around.

Some thoughts on others painting a GMC:
Make sure your shop is aware of how big a job it can turn into. My guys were great, but I can see it being an issue with other shops.

Expect to spend 10K minimum for a decent paint job. 15+ for a good one unless you get lucky and find just the right shop.

Use high quality paint, the paint to paint a coach this size should run anywhere from 1500-3K by itself. Don’t cheap out here!
 
The finished product looks fabulous. They did a great job removing the 'oil-canning' on the lower FG panels on the sides. It was very difficult to fair mine out half decently.
 
So from there the project really got rolling.
First up was to R&R the fuel system so we opened up the tanks (nice and clean) and replaced all the fuel lines with fuel injection rated modern hose. This is a MUCH easier job when the floor's out than it is laying on the ground. I wish I had had the foresight to do the Exhaust at this stage as well but I wasn't thinking that far ahead unfortunately!

While working on the fuel system we also noticed that the body mounting cushions were either missing or flat as a pancake. This makes the body ride rougher on the frame, crush the fuel lines, bend in the middle etc. Bad news.
There are a few commercial options for replacements but like most things GMC they are pricey for no reason other than small production runs and limited vendors. A trip to TSC and a 4 x 8 x 3/4″ sheet of rubber solved this problem. We used a band saw to cut it into pieces the appropriate size and then used the forklift to lift the body enough to get them under the frame. Big improvement!
View attachment 408

Now that everything under the floor was fixed it was time to take care of the actual floor. To do this we reinstalled the aluminum pieces underneath the floor, replacing the ones that had holes in them from the original plumbing. We insulated underneath with 1″ poly sheeting cut to fit snugly and filled any remaining gaps with spray foam insulation. This should give us better road noise isolation than the ultra crappy job the spray foam guys did at the factory.

On top of the insulation we laid 3/4″ marine plywood and took a note from GMC and glued it down with 3M 2 part panel bonding adhesive and screwed it in with stainless screws and a bit of antisieze. Another theme here: Replace with better than factory.

View attachment 410View attachment 409
How did you take up the floor
 
So from there the project really got rolling.
First up was to R&R the fuel system so we opened up the tanks (nice and clean) and replaced all the fuel lines with fuel injection rated modern hose. This is a MUCH easier job when the floor's out than it is laying on the ground. I wish I had had the foresight to do the Exhaust at this stage as well but I wasn't thinking that far ahead unfortunately!

While working on the fuel system we also noticed that the body mounting cushions were either missing or flat as a pancake. This makes the body ride rougher on the frame, crush the fuel lines, bend in the middle etc. Bad news.
There are a few commercial options for replacements but like most things GMC they are pricey for no reason other than small production runs and limited vendors. A trip to TSC and a 4 x 8 x 3/4″ sheet of rubber solved this problem. We used a band saw to cut it into pieces the appropriate size and then used the forklift to lift the body enough to get them under the frame. Big improvement!
View attachment 408

Now that everything under the floor was fixed it was time to take care of the actual floor. To do this we reinstalled the aluminum pieces underneath the floor, replacing the ones that had holes in them from the original plumbing. We insulated underneath with 1″ poly sheeting cut to fit snugly and filled any remaining gaps with spray foam insulation. This should give us better road noise isolation than the ultra crappy job the spray foam guys did at the factory.

On top of the insulation we laid 3/4″ marine plywood and took a note from GMC and glued it down with 3M 2 part panel bonding adhesive and screwed it in with stainless screws and a bit of antisieze. Another theme here: Replace with better than factory.

View attachment 410View attachment 409
How long did it take to take up the floor? Did you have to saw it out?
 
I swear, once I saw you gut the coach, I was afraid it was going to be one of those stories.

I was wrong...Totally amazing transformation

excellent inspiration for others to follow

I wish I lived near you
 
Good timing on resurrecting this thread.
It's time for an interior update!

Since we built this coach we've had 2 kids so that radically changes the way it gets used.
As a result it's time for some updates. I'll try to update here as we go.

I pulled the sofa dinette things today to replace with a functional dinette so the boys have somewhere to sleep.

Going to build a dinette very close to stock, may start with a stock frame if I can find one, will build one if not.
 

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