1988-1990 Pace Arrow

[JimVol]

We may be looking at a 88-90 Pace Arrow over the weekend. It's 34 ft long and has two ac units and a generator. Everything is supposed to work and the Motorhome looks good from the ad pictures. 

We have about decided that we would prefer to have a motor coach instead of a truck and travel trailer.  We simply do not use the truck the 98% we are not towing and could really use A smaller car for our daily commute.  I do all our maintenance on the vehicles and feel that I could handle the maintenance on a Motorhome. 

Do you have any suggestions or words of encouragement?

Anyone have any experience with this coach type?

Thanks!!

Jim

[LJ-TJ]

Hey Jim if you look to the bottom right of the main page you'll see a buyer's Checklist. It really is handy. Welcome aboard ya might as well be as broke as the rest of us. Makes for a good dog house too and a great place to watch NASCAR on the weekends. :)rotflmao

[ClydesdaleKevin]

Pace Arrows, in that range of years, will probably have a Chevy P-30 chassis, with the 454 engine.  Which is great...reliable, powerful engine, 4 wheel disk brakes, etc.

At that length it will probably also have the Mor/Ryde tag axle. 

The Mor/Ryde suspension is awesome and brilliantly designed, but take a close look at the rear rubber suspension shear springs...they will be black blocks of rubber between the rear drive wheels and the tag axle wheels, on both sides.  Make sure they aren't too dry rotted and cracked...especially DEEP cracks or the rubber pulling away from the metal parts of the blocks.  They run about 600 bucks to replace them...and it is NOT an easy job.

Typical things to look out for on the 454 would be carburator issues more than anything.  Make sure they let you test drive it to make sure it runs great under load...try to find a hill to drive it up.  It will probably have a Rochester Quadrajet, which when they are going bad run great in the driveway...until you get it out on the highway and drive it up a hill at speed.  Watch for flat spots as the secondaries are opening, and bogging down during acceleration.  Again, not horrible deal breakers if the carb needs to be rebuilt or replaced, but might affect the total price you are willing to pay.

Other than that, P30 chassis are built like tanks.  So use the Checklist at the bottom right corner of the page here, as LJTJ suggests. 

Those are the only Chevy specific issues for a 34 footer from those years that I can think of.

Kev