[gary]

Instruction manuals for three types of ZipDee manual awnings are available for download on ZipDee.com. They have pictures, but I did not see any showing the tool that has been referenced by several posters. The instruction manual says “Revised 10/05.” Perhaps there are later versions.

[gary]

Use it or lose it Paul.

[gary]

Are you talking about just turning it off and back on again, I have done that but to no avail, is this what you refer to as power down Thanks Gary

[gary]

Taking 4 8D’s down to 12.2, 50% discharge in a days time is pretty normal with just light loads such as lights, TV’s, coffee pot, micowave, fans, etc. There are so many AC loads in our buses, that 12 hrs of inverter time dry camping will get you to 12.2 easily with 4 8D’s.

[gary]

Tom,

There are going to be times your coach is going to get heat soaked. If it is a 90 plus day and you leave your coach to go shopping and your shore power trips or drops to a marginal voltage level the AC will go off and they will not restart automatically. Or you will forget to turn on an AC unit and it gets hotter than expected. The point is there is no way to quickly cool the coach unless you have excess capability. And coaches will get heat soaked.

But keep in mind there are folks completely satisfied with the 3 AC units on their 2 slide coach. I believe CC had three units, not four. Rumors I hang meat in our coach are not true, but over the years we have learned we bought a luxury coach and not an aluminum tent. We want to enjoy the luxury and we do not want to compromise unless we have to. We also realize AC units break. When they do if you are marginal when all are working, you are suffering when one is not working.

But the bottom line is still you. What I need may dictate 4 AC units, but your standard for comfortable might be 10 degrees higher than my definition and that might make a 3 AC coach perfect for your needs.

FWIW our current 2 slide coach is very comfortable in 90 degree temps with one front and one rear Cruiseair working as long as we are able to use the awnings to keep the sun off the windows so how you use the coach assets also comes into consideration when determining how many AC units get the job done.

[gary]

I am 99% sure the inverter is needing some money.

I have narrowed the problem to the unit not passing full amperage when it is in bulk charging mode. When the charger is in float mode, I get full amperage through the unit.

The symptoms are; when the unit first synchs up with shore or genset power, I do get full amperage to the house loads. After a few minutes, the input amperage starts to drop 1 or 2 amps at a time over a 2-3 minute period and settles around 3-4 amps. As the input amperage drops below the house loads, it draws from the batteries which is why I was seeing the (-) amperage. Again, this only happens when the charger is in bulk charge mode.

To confirm my findings, I waited until the charger was in float mode and then turned on most of the house loads on that leg. I had 38 amps of house load passing through the unit and the input amperage was within 1 or 2 amps of the load and stayed that way for 20 minutes. I then shut off the shore power, let the inverter power the loads for 5 minutes, then turned on the shore power. Same situation as before, input amperage from shore power matched loads and charger amperage then slowly dropped off to 3-4 amps.

The sympoms and situation is very repeatable.

I have been through all the connections AC and DC, reset the inverter a couple of times and batteries are new. Vantare does not use an automatic transfer switch, it is a rotary switch and I have confirmed no loss of power through it.

It looks like I am in need of a repair facility unless some has some other ideas. Does anyone still service the SW 4024? I am in the Tampa, FL area.

Paul

[gary]

Thanks Jon and Gil, The clutch froze up so I assume the pulley is fine. I will try and find an A/C shop tomorrow in Binghampton. Luckily we have a set of belts that by-passes the A/C unit and just goes to the alt. Am rolling, just w/o bdrm air.

[gary]

I have a round digital one from snap on tools I like it the best easy to read

[gary]

Trimming to 14ft really doesn’t do alot of good because when it rains or snows the limbs will hang much lower due to the added weight. Most trees grow 3 to 6 inches per year. And some white pines will grow up to 12 inches per year! It really doesn’t take any more time to cut 2 more feet off to gain a few more years of growth. Try to explain that to a tight budgeted town. In the long run it would cost less to maintain the road height but some how they don’t understand that. Rick

[gary]

I am paranoid about my Kohler generator,I have had a total failure once and one shutdown.I have found Kohler to be impossible to deal with as we’ll as their distributor/service center.I wish that Liberty used Power Tech as they have more service centers.Since I am concerned about the gen I also carry a spare fuel pump.

[gary]

Good one, Paul.

I have no idea what it does. Did fire a e-mail & pics to Leon at Marathon, Coberg OR.

Will post his response.

[gary]

A number of us have tried to create a checklist, but the two problems we always encounter are the inspection sequence and what items there are to check. No two converters locate things in the same spot so what might be a systematice sequence for my coach, might be all wrong for another with a different floor plan or equipment location. I once spent an hour trying to find the 120 volt electric panel in a Marathon. Mine is in the kitchen area. The Marathon was behind a mirror in the toilet area. I have seen them in the bedroom behind a panel near the floor. So where in the sequence do we include that for example? How can we discuss the operation of a Webasto or Aquahot if the coach has suburban propane furnaces and there are multiple ones and they are scattered through the coach?

So in an article I wrote a long time ago I suggested starting a a specific point in the coach and systematically pushing every button, turning ever knob and operating every switch to verify the operation of whatever the device or system is.

We cannot even write a generic one for the chassis with any specificity because my Liberty leveling system is not like and does not operate like a Prevost Level Low or an HWH and my slides may not operate like someone else’s non-Prevost slides Obviously pushing a button to open or close slides is going to be the same from coach to coach, but a buyer also needs to learn and verify the abnormal slide operations such as manual retractions.. So the important thing is to just encourage the buyer to work with the seller to prove the operation of everything.

But the problem is not a checklist. The problem is far too often buyers never do the necessary prep work prior to a purchase and only after the purchase do they begin posting and revealing what they did not do as far as inspections before money changed hands. They probably feel bad, are afraid to admit they might have bought the first bus they saw, and might even be reluctant to post questions, instead they take their new purchase to someplace to fix a problem only to get their wallets vacuumed. The problem is how can we help folks before they enter the school of hard knocks? Or do we have to wait for the inevitable first post?

I admit to considerable luck in my purchase of the first coach, but the one thing I did that I never was advised to do was to have a converter (Don Hoffman or Hoffman Coach) do a 100% inspection. Even thought the coach was a Liberty he went through the coach systematically checking everything and at the same time telling me what he was doing, how things worked, and verifying it worked properly. At the time I had no clue so even though the coach was less than 2 years old I didn’t know what I didn’t know and recognized the need for help. I was lucky he agreed to do the inspection and I was lucky it occurred to me I couldn’t rely on my ability to check it out. I am glad he did not do the inspection alone and give me a report. The inspection was my initial learning. That was followed by Harvey Mitchell who sold the coach originally providing 4 days of training on his sales lot in Tampa.

[gary]

Thanks all, I will see how far I get and then decide where to stop, not pushing it but taking our time, heck it will be better to be in the bus than sitting at home! Thank goodness for a wife that can help drive and hookup the toad, hopefully I will be able to do this in a couple weeks. Now that Miss Mattie is gone we are pretty much free to go and do as we please, what could be better than traveling in your bus . Gary

[gary]

It was a huge dust storm as I pulled in and I had shut off the OTR and drive at walking speed. Everyone that came in raised clouds of dust.

But the sites were large, all pull through, and plenty of room to get around.

The black Hummer was gray with dust.

[gary]

I will give my findings. I have owned a 99 Marathon XLV 45 and a 01 Marathon XLII 45, both had about 112,000 miles on them when I bought them. At about 120,000 or 125,000 I did the top end. On both motors there where roller rockers that the hard face was starting to come apart. I think on the 99 I changed 3 roller rockers and on the 01 I had to do 6, but I also did one of the cams as well on the 01. I sold the 99 with about 155,000 and the 01 I still have with about 166,000.

I have no clue if they would have failed but I belive that prolonged sitting without starting the motor is the killer, all oil drains from the top end and it is very slow when you start the motor to get oil up to the cams and rollers. I strugle with runnimg my bus without driving it because I keep mine inside a bldg and it is a big PIA to get it in and out but I do run it about every 30 days making sure the water and oil get up to temp, it takes about 1 hour with cardboard covering the radiator.

My 2 cents worth, you just got to love a Detroit motor!!