[Mike]

I am not taking sides on this issue. I pointed out earlier apart from selling the oil he must inventory, Jeff has costs few consider, ranging from disposal of the old oil to the waste generated from the containers and the fact he has to more than cover expenses to have the profits required to keep him in business.

But I do know oil can be purchased less expensively. The link is below. But I am going to let the world know that if Jeff sells his oil for that price or uses oil provided by the owner he should add $20 per gallon for all the other costs associated with putting in a gallon of oil in a coach unless the owner wants to take the oil drained from the bus along with all the empty containers.

I change my own oil and filters and every time I do that I have to take the waste oil and containers ot the Knox County transfer stations. It is a pain in the butt, costs me at least an hour of my time but is the only way we can deal with such waste.

http://www.farmandfleet.com/products/228828-mobil-delvac-1300-super-15w40-diesel-engine-oil.html.

[Mike]

Picture of the newly completed club house at Hearthside. This would be an excellent meeting place for any events during the planned rally…..

[Mike]

I ran the generator 178.5 hours last week. I ran it 151 hours straight and had intended not to shut it down for Peter’s reason but the weather broke and it was in the 50’s the last few nights so I did let it rest over night.

I was pleasantly surprised by the fuel consumption. I filled up right before I parked and then filled again after 151 hours and after I left. In 178.5 hours I used a shade less than 93 gallons for an average of .52 gallons per hour. At that rate I could have easily ran the generator the whole ten days without refueling.

FYI: It is a 13.5 Martin generator with a Yanmar engine.

At $2.40 a gallon it cost me $1.25 an hour. The generator was loaded up every hour it was running with at least two AC’s and most of the time three, plus the electric side of the AquaHot, the fridge and all the rest. It was also running 11 amps of lights under the tent overnight and was the tent trailer was plugged into the bus as well.

Thanks for your help.

Davy

[Mike]

This is Trina

I will start with an apology – Tom you aren’t a clown and my sharp words were il uncalled for. John put mostly what I was thinking into a much more eloquent answer than I did….and yes peter is a preventative maintenance person as it’s much easier to fix a minor piece than wait for the minor piece to cause a major wreck. I do believe it is a justified practice that more people acquire. As for selling a bus and it being “up to snuff” … Tom did sell the bus acceptable to his guidelines… And after buying a bus from liberty and what their acceptable guidelines as were… I have learned to quickly check dates on things like batteries and date codes on tires to not get too specific… And to question what there definition of “service” is… For example, I own a Mercedes… And if I tell you it’s been serviced… Did it get the $150 oil change or did it get the $375 A+ service?

Lastly, I do think by involving an appraiser for your buy and sell needs you are going to lose your personalized “Prevost community” as it will become more blue book, cold…rather than taking the time to get to know the people that lived in it and the buses quirks and life… Which in turn is creating this special community you have…. With that I sign off and apologize again for offending anyone …

Regards,



Sent from my iPhone

[Mike]

Don,

Before you reassemble everything make an effort to examine the flexible exhaust for leakage or potential failure. Some coaches have had no problems with that exhaust, but others have had to be replaced. The wound coil type of exhaust has had problems, and there are other types that are more reliable available.

[Mike]

I really don’t know exactly what kind of relays you are talking about but I wouldn’t use WD40 on anything electrical.

Clean them with a electrical contact cleaner from say Radio Shack or a auto parts store. Like CRC brand contact cleaner, it is non conductive and want damage circut boards and the such.

Maybe some one knowing exactly what you have will give further advice.

[Mike]

24v units no problem to get

[Mike]

Jon,

Great idea… AL tell them Bill isn’t going to buy a new one until they fix all the stuff on Jon’s list plus I want a 3 point seat belt in both front seats.

You can pick out the color for me 🙂

[Mike]

We chose a KitchenAid side by side with ice and water in the door for the dimensions and a frig in the home wife liked. Sears had the easiest website to compare many different brands and had all the dimensions. We did a physical measurement also as insurance because it was shipped to Panterra for installation as part of a remodel. Best advice I have is choose a brand you like, check out reliability comparisons and make sure it is rated for quiet.

[Mike]

I agree with Tom … the CAC is in good condition ? You had CAC checked out in the pre-purchase inspection and it passed ?

So… with our former 2005 Marathon XL-II acceleration from dead stop was not anything to brag about. Just to get the 53 K lbs rolling off the line as turbo boost kicked in RPM came up then up shift to 2ad then 3ad steadly increased in speed.

I’am driving our current 2000 Marathon the same way just letting the engine, trans and turbo do the work. If you drive her hard the fuel economy will be awful.

AL

[Mike]

The purpose of this post is to verify the fans work and this is a simple test involving low voltage.

Dorel – If you’re not comfortable using a jumper wire, use a hair dryer to heat the snap disk.

I wanted to make sure the fans were working while at home in the garage instead of having an expensive inverter failure while on the road becuase of excessive heat.

[Mike]

So Jon, do I understand correctly that the ugly fix is useless unless the ECM is reprogrammed with new parameters?

[Mike]

Mine is a three binder, mileage date where and items done, parts replaced,

[Mike]

Most of the time I turn the cruise off when I get to the downhills, and turn the Jake on as needed. If the Jake gives me too much braking, I ease off the trottle so it stays in the same gear, but the Jake is not engaged. Of course you can tailor the Jake position to the hill ( I have a 3-position Jake), and then use service brakes as needed.

[Mike]

Dick,

If you take it to the generator shop the very first thing is replace the fuel filter. This is standard operating

procedure in the repair world.

Next item check fuel delivery lines are tight along with hose clamps if they are used.

Your message does not say that might of already been done.

AL