[Doug]

I want to thank you guys for making my hat to small to go on my head now. The unintended benefits of this forum are amazing. Appreciate the comments a bunch.

[Doug]

Thanks much, i get about 10 spamm calls a week.

Jim

[Doug]

First thing I would do is see if I could locate a new lockset. Then you should be able to look at the internals and decide on a course of action. Might just be a simple fix that will reveal itself once you have a peek.

[Doug]

Dale if I was looking for a coach like you want , I would be looking for Royale 1995 to 1997 they have solid front axle and series 60 motor great coaches good dry camping coach and lots of them have wood inside I had a 1997 it was great coach had lots of water and batteries for dry camping and a great gen, I also am from Canada was born in Banff my brother still lives there now

[Doug]

Mark: As Jeff pointed out, the key thing to remember is that there is one compressor, one condenser (the thing in an A/C system that gets hot), and two evaporators (the thing in an A/C system that gets cold). As a non-HVAC technician (hence a regular person), I’ve found its very, very important to understand its configuration when trouble shooting (and even running) the OTR system.

Mark wrote: “The dash air blows cold (62 degrees) but the rear of the coach on the sides barely blows at all and what it blows is hot air.” From that I would deduce that the compressor is working properly and “making cold”.

I think you probably have two problems.

Barely blows at all. Some air comes out, but not much? If so, then the fan is probably at least working. Is the “Coach Fan” control turned all the way up? I presume it is. Could it be loose in the dash and the entire device turning when you adjust it and you’re not turning it up at all? Play with it a little. See what happens.

What it blows is hot air. Again is the “Coach Temp” knob turned down to the coldest position? Is it loose in the dash? Can you see if hole device turns when you adjust it? As stated above, then it might be one or both of two things … expansion valve and/or engine coolant heat.

Since we have an XLV and not an H, I can’t go out to my coach and try to tell you where some of things are located.

[Doug]

That’s correct Davy, in a Vantare, only the #1 inverter is connected to Gen auto start.

[Doug]

OK, old man, let’s set the record straight. Pay attention so I don’t have to repeat it.

I like OTR because it is simple and with it operating everyone is comfortable, no matter where they are in the coach. There are no hot or cold areas because it is controlling the temperatures through the entire length of the coach.

That should be so simple that even a CC owner like Michael could understand that. (Michael, you pick on me, I pick on you).

But if I did not have an OTR coach (not likely, but let’s pretend), I would use my dash air, plus I would run my generator and turn on every AC or heating unit (as appropriate) to keep the entire coach comfortable. We paid serious money for a coach we all like to think is top of the line, so we should make use of all the features, including the ability to have every part of the coach comfortable.

I would not run one or two ACs off of the inverters because I want even distribution of temps, and since I have a generator I am dragging around everywhere I go, I might as well use it.

So repeat after me, OTR is ideal because it keeps the entire coach comfortable, but if I did not have OTR (hard to imagine) I would be running my generator and every AC unit to accomplish the same objective.

Those who run dash air and one or two AC units from inverters here is you opportunity to tell me how comfortable you are doing things that way. Just remember what Tom has said about my interpretation of comfortable, and how mine is the coach with water pouring off the windows from condensation.

[Doug]

The tire manufacturers have indicated at seminars how well our tires respond to frequent use. But they also indicated if we are storing the coach the best thing we can do to increase their useable life is to take the weight off them.

Storage is a complex issue because of various conditions under which owners store their coaches, so each owner has to determine the best compromise for their particular situation. The ideal storage is in which the coach is not exposed to the sun, is in moderate, steady temperatures, and is protected from rain, wind, snow, etc. Ideally the chassis should be supported and the air bags to be deflated so weight is off the tires.

Dump the tanks, fill with fuel, and keep the batteries fully charged at all times.

I do know from personal experience on a coach whose pneumatic system is bone dry that storage for any length of time (maybe a couple of months) may create “lazy” valves, both air valves that operate various house systems like pocket doors and floor slide, or suspension valves such as the Norgren valves. I have had to exercise them by having them work a few cycles before they operated the first time the buttons were pushed.

[Doug]

Any response is likely to be pure speculation. I have had a panic stop in which I had my foot planted hard on the pedal and I was pulling up so hard on the steering wheel my butt was almost off the seat. In that case I didn’t have a free hand to even think of pulling up the emergency brake, or the time things happened so fast.

According to Bill Jensen when the emergency brakes are applied at highway speeds it is not an emergency sudden stop but a rapid slow down. I do know I can over drive my emergency brakes. If they are locked (on) I can apply enough power to move the coach. I haven’t tried this with the coach, but I know for certain I can apply full power to any of my cars and I cannot over come the brakes.

[Doug]

I cannot speak about all coaches, but my personal observations for cooling are as follows.

To adequately cool a 40 foot coach in a reasonable time from a hot condition you need no less than 3 13,000 BTU units.

A 45 foot coach needs 4 13,000 BTU units. Both will stay comfortable with 2 units operating if you keep the sun out, and if the coach is not moving. On very hot days……..90 plus you may need 3 units operating. If the coach is moving it becomes very hard to keep it cool because the air moving past the windows tends to wick away the cool, just like the effect of strong winds.

Having said that nobody agrees on the definition of comfortable. My definitiion is if the windows are sweating on the outside, it is comfortable inside.

[Doug]

Maybe you Marathon guys should tell the whole story because the way it was first posted the pump selected sounded like it was either / or.

The same applies to earlier discussions of the Marathon aux air system. It took a while before how it operated was fully explained.

The bottom line is it sounds like Marathon did a great job with the design, provided the owner with flexibility regarding how to operate some of the systems, and allowed isolation of components if their is a problem. I answered about the second pump in the context of how it was explained in the previous posts, and my concern was owners need to know limitations so they can devise methods for handling problems. It is now apparent there is a means to use both pumps whether the key is on or off.

This is drifting, but another example of how we as owners need to understand our coaches relates to shore power interruption. A lot of us travel with pets. If we leave our pets on a hot day we leave the A/C systems working. It has been often repeated that to protect the pets the generator is set to start upon shore power interruption. Just like understanding if we have back up water pump capability we have to understand what happens if shore power goes down. Often folks think the generator will start and the A/C will keep running. Not every instance of shore power interruption will result in the generator start and resumption of A/C. In some if not most cases the A/C will not restart without manually restarting the A/C itself.

My effort is to encourage a line of thinking about what owners are going to do if certain things happen to our coach. I’m fortunate in that I have a dedicated back up water pump, but I am not so fortunate if power is shut off to our coach, even for a short time because once my A/C units shut down due to lack of power they will not restart without manual operation of the A/C units.

[Doug]

Hello Admin….

What happened to the pictures I posted? They were all originally in a neat row down the page (exactly like Michael’s and now they go from side to side making the page way too wide to even mess with?

Just trying to figure it out ?

Thanks… Diane

[Doug]

Karl…what TV show do you play an attorney?

[Doug]

Have dumped a bag of ice thru toilet into holding tank when leaving camp ground(almost empty) and the drive with the ice cubes churning did dislodge crud. What worked for me may not work for you! Ice then metled and came out next dump.

[Doug]

We started of with smaller buttons and when that did not work we made them bigger. Then when that did not work we made it the brightest red we could find.

Here’s what we hope will happen. Everybody gets bored, and when they do go to the site and click on all the buttons, open all the pages, peek in all the corners and see what we have on the site. If everyone does that we won’t need neon flashing signs for the discount programs or any of the other features.