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One of the 'Final Fifteen' drives again!	View previous thread :: View next thread
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Tank Girl Posted 2020-05-01 11:31 PM (#7280) Subject: One of the 'Final Fifteen' drives again! Location: Lake Waynoka, Sardinia, OH (184.59.114.216) Hi All, I'm the proud new owner of #1036 affectionately christened "Swamp Thing" (see the photo album and you'll know why). Just picked her up today. She runs like a champ with her low mileage 7.3 Power Stroke diesel. Just a short 10 mile trip to the campground but she feels real solid and surprisingly powerful. After getting her home we spent about 5 hours with the pressure washer. The before and after picks speak for themselves. Cheers, Sound Guy Steve Tank Girl 484 Swamp Thing 1036

BigRabbitMan Posted 2020-05-03 12:24 PM (#7283 - in reply to #7280) Subject: Re: One of the 'Final Fifteen' drives again! Location: Cottage Grove, OR (71.94.238.133) Congratulations, you have saved a good coach. Having 1046 it is one of the last five coaches and I claim the position of newest one on the road.

dkarnath Posted 2020-05-04 3:54 PM (#7288 - in reply to #7280) Subject: Re: One of the 'Final Fifteen' drives again! Location: Medford, OR (204.10.247.1) Congratulations.....Keep posting pics, looks like a keeper.

JEV1A Posted 2020-05-07 9:44 AM (#7304 - in reply to #7280) Subject: RE: One of the 'Final Fifteen' drives again! (65.41.158.2) Congrats .. a little History At 1000 Vehicles we had a plant shutdown. The Chief of FMC flew in and told us we were shutting down. Blamed everything on the energy crisis. Only a select crew was brought back 2 weeks later to work a few more months to complete the vehicles that were out of mold and ready to assemble on the line. So any Club Coach or Custom Coach after 1000 was made by a skeleton crew myself included. After those vehicles were completed the Denver Transit busses were built myself not included. It took weeks to build your vehicle because a 600 man plant was reduced to about 50 working 2 shifts. Most Supervisors were leaving or gone by then, the plant manager left and the leadership was reduced to a single plant manager and a few department heads. Why I'm saying all this is that you truly have a choice 2900R which was truly hand-made. We were rolling out 5 vehicles a day and after 1000, we barely were completing 5 vehicles a week. It was said that we were moving to fast on the line which accounted for stupid mistakes and engineering flaws, So anyway, I'm new on the board and wanted to let you know what most would never know about your Coach. Best of luck John V. Formerly FMC RVD & AED Divisions Electrical Line Inspector (Union)

Tank Girl Posted 2020-05-07 10:58 AM (#7306 - in reply to #7280) Subject: RE: One of the 'Final Fifteen' drives again! Location: Lake Waynoka, Sardinia, OH (184.59.114.216) Hi John, I love your tidbits of inside info... keep them coming. I will print this to include in my documentation for future owners. I bought this sight unseen from ebay hoping that the Alcoa's, water tanks, and brake parts were all good to donate for our recently acquired #484(Tank Girl). Ends up the diesel conversion was done quite well and the exterior cleaned up nicely. After driving it I've decided not to part it out and to use it in my audio/video business as a mobile studio for outdoor events. Since it is way too modified to bring back to original I am toying with the idea of painting it with the CBS "On the Road" scheme. Kind Regards, Sound Guy Steve Tank Girl 484 Swamp Thing 1036 Edited by Tank Girl 2020-05-07 11:05 AM

JEV1A Posted 2020-05-08 10:11 AM (#7307 - in reply to #7306) Subject: RE: One of the 'Final Fifteen' drives again! (65.41.158.2) No problem... can you point me in the direction of seeing pics of your vehicle. Or you can send any size pic to my e-mail address. centralhsd@earthlink.net Would love to see those tanks and diesel conversion. Glad the interior is holding up too as my Dad known as Fisherman Pete designed all the Interiors on all the models. At home in San Jose he converted our garage into a FMC 2900R Interior design shop for tests on new woods and veneers etc. At one point he acquired a FMC 2300R built at the San Diego plant in which he could experiment new interiors. I personally loved that vehicle more than the 2900R. Shorter wheelbase, faster more economical but only a few were built. I argued that it was the perfect solution to change the plant over to a smaller vehicle but my yelling fell on deaf ears as the Recreational Vehicle Division was abandoned all without consideration of the hand crafted workmanship put into them. It was truly a bad ending based on Corporate greed and stupidity. On Charles Kuralt "On the Road" they were somewhere in the Midwest on Location and a driving hailstorm hit and the windshield wipers both flew right off. Up the line the wipers were installed originally onto the motors with little lightweight cotter pins and it was a engineering flaw which we later solved with bigger sturdier steel pins. Kuralt called the plant and was not happy and somebody had to go and fix his wipers. Enjoy the ride.. John V.

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