Hess Training Van

[vintagercr]

Hi, I haven’t been on for some time.  Has anyone taken one apart?  Steve

[modelercarl]

I have had one of these models for years.  I worked for a company that bought one to use for customer entertainment activity (shuttle to shows, restaurants, etc.) and used it many times, even for vacations with my family.  Always wanted to take it apart and finish out the interior to resemble the company van.

I came across a post by Repstock on here a couple of years ago.  The header was "GMC Motorhome (Hess).  I just did a search for that post and quickly gave up, you get 227 pages of hits!  The search function on this is site is absurd!  You might be more inclined to go through it or maybe contact a moderator to see if they have a trick that could make it easier to find.

I contacted him and he was very willing to explain and send pictures of what he did with his model.  He left the upper and lower body together, didn't split the body along the side molding.  He cut the floor out.  He then built up the interior components in modules and inserted them into the shell and glued them in place. when that was complete, he replaced the floor.

I asked him if he reworked the floor pan as it shows a rear wheel drive but GMC motorhomes were powered with the Oldsmobile front wheel drive setup.  He was aware of that but decided not to tackle that.

Unfortunately, I can't find my file on this.

I can tell you that the work he did was amazing!  Having spent many hours in one and putting many miles on one I was very familiar with the interior of these motorhomes and he nailed it perfectly.

I hope this helps or maybe gets you pointed in the right direction to contact him.

[peteski]

Yes, the search engine on this forum is not the greatest - that is why there is a sticky thread (actually in this section) on a better way to search it.

 

[vintagercr]

Carl, thanks for replying. 
 

[hct728(Bob)]

 

[hct728(Bob)]

 

[Alison]

I've got a pile of Hess vans that I intend to rebuild as various specs of the GMC Motorhome (one as a 1973 Glacier or Sequoia, one as a Transmode shuttle bus, one as a sci-fi build with the turbine engines from the Amtronic). I've split the body on one and I plan on holding the halves together with magnets. I did it this way so I could lift out the interior tub in one piece and not split the body in any places that were solid panels on the 1:1, but the interior tub is pretty much useless anyway. (it's all one piece except the steering wheel and the cockpit chairs, so draft angles make the dashboard totally unrealistic)

Having the body split this way will make it easy to show off the interior, but it'll probably create headaches with registering the halves of the body to each other. I'll see how building this one works out and either keep doing it or switch to removing the roof and assembling everything right side up on a solid floor. I don't think I could do the Repstock method of assembling everything upside down through the bottom, my brain doesn't really work that way.

[Repstock]

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Maybe my build will help you (?)