[Craig]

Geo. & Jimmy

will one of you guy call Direct for me the next time I travel? I used to do as you both have described but ran into a problem and multiple “supervisors” said it can no longer be done due to FCC rules.

if you have the secret hand shake plz share other wise I have to side with Tom and no one wants to do that.

[Craig]

Time is drawing near!!! Everything is setup and planned for
the Air and Coach Concours. Not much has changed on the agenda however, all of
the final touches have been put on the schedule. Tim an I have been working on
the landscaping in our area and we are going to start detailing the Cessna
building tomorrow. We still have some basic signage and things to do, but for
the most part we are just anxiously awaiting everyone’s arrival.

AutoFest on the other hand has been crazy. It seems like
everyday something else is added. From sponsors, to activities, wine tastings,
beer sales, more featured guests and the whole Burt Reynolds thing. The entire area is talking about Burt’s appearance. Every TV station within 50 miles will
be here doing interviews and two TV shows will be filmed during the event. Friday and Saturday will be crazy. I really recommend
trying to get here as soon as possible. Remember you can arrive as early as
Tuesday at no extra charge.

If anyone has any thoughts, concerns or suggestions please
do not hesitate to ask. The grounds look great and the weather has been
fantastic. This is going to be a great winter in FL.

Tim and I will be taking my Liberty to the Turkey Rod Run in
Daytona the week of Thanksgiving. Let us know if any of you will be attending
and maybe we can all park together. We have a pretty good hookup to get spots right by the track.

See you soon,

Bill III

[Craig]

Thanks for all the ideas. There may be a slight alignment issue. Jon, I wasn’t aware that the idler pulleys are supposed to move on their shafts. I’ll check.

The belt stays on as long as I check and retension to 200+ lbs regularly. I use the “cricket” tension gauge. It is not perfect but gets you in the ball park. Before this trip I noticed that the belt was not quite as tight as it should be. But I did not have the breaker bar with me to tighten it. Sure enough I lost it.

This must have been a common problem in the late 90’s since Detroit/Prevost went to the automatic tensioner right after my model year. In my setup, the alternator belt only wraps around 180 degrees on the alternator pulley, with the new tensioner it is more like 210 degrees. The automatic setup is an all around better solution for the poly V belt but from what I read it is not maintenance free either. They seem to last about 100k and then start jumping and should be replaced.

[Craig]

No sense speculating on how much Prevost will or won’t contribute to the delam issue which it sounds like the coach has.

The only true information is going to come from Prevost and anyone that wants to guess at what the answer will be is taking a chance.

Both the buyer and seller of the coach would be well served if someone took the coach to Prevost and got the answer. Then there is a known value that can be used to adjust the selling price of the coach. It is the only fair way to determine the price of a coach, and the Prevost repair is the only one that should be considered. Tom and I have seen a shop that has an advertisement about being able to do skin repairs, and it says “Prevost trained” technicians. The technicians may have been trained at some point by Prevost, but not in the skin repair process which is very technical and is best left to Prevost.

As to the pricing I am amazed that folks have the guts to bid on that coach, nice as it is, without getting a firm answer on the delam issue.

[Craig]

Ronald,

It sounds like you have made a well researched thoughtful decision. Based on what you have presented it sounds like a sound one to me. Reminds me of something that we heard about while in Alaska. While in Watson Lake at osign post forrest the lady there suggested we take our bus and towd to dawson city and then ferry over to the top of the world highway and on to TOK…. we did some more checking emailed Gil who recently made the trip and decided no way no how…. we still wanted to go to dawson city so we took the towd from TOK and it was a good thing… the road was bad but crazy bad for the last 12 miles on the US side as they were re-building it.. several cars with the side walls shredded from the road bed… we made it but it was 5.5 hours each way that I will never repeat…. I was so upset by the advice given… I tracked the lady down and called her and informed her she should stop telling people with big rigs to make the trip. We crossed paths with another Alaska traveler in a foretravel who said there was a foretravel caravan that took the Top of the world highway and one guy got to far over and rolled his coach… trees stopped him but the rig was totalled…end of trip… The guy I talked to saw the wreck and was surprised they survived…

If you decide to go to Alaska let me know.. happy to share our expereinces with you.

Bill