[Rodger]

Good, I wanted to park inside in August, too hot in horseville….:)

[Rodger]

we have determined that there is no power at the lighting master solenoid or the tivoli master solenoid. What now?

[Rodger]

Greg,

The numbers are in the Prevost Service manual for the degrees of caster. Think of it this way….

If you have zero caster no matter which direction you are rolling you better have your hands on the steering wheel at all times because the wheels will go in any direction they want to. Think of a supermarket cart with the pivot directly above the centerline of the wheel.

With the proper caster, which is only a few degrees when the coach is rolling forward the steering wheels will tend to always center themselves and point the coach straight down the road. Again think of the supermarket cart and how pushing forward on the cart tends to make the wheels point straight. Now think of the same cart and wheels, but limit how much they can pivot left to right. You already know going forward they will pull themselves straight. But as soon as you pull the cart backwards they will cock to the left or right and the cart will not go backwards in a straight line. The same thing happens to the bus. Let go of the wheel backing up and it will turn and no matter how far you back up it will not straighten out.

So the right amount of caster keeps you tracking straight, and because there is so little caster when you back up the wheel is not snatched from your hands while the wheels try to turn.left or right.

The amount of caster is very important to tracking. But so is having everything tight and the proper toe in.

[Rodger]

Hey Al: If you come up this way this summer, let me know. I am only a few miles from Knife River.

[Rodger]

Was just wondering how cold is your dash air? (the temp at the vents)

[Rodger]

Heading down early Thursday morning.

Curious how many busses are firmly attending?

[Rodger]

Ditto…great session!

[Rodger]

As Greg has pointed out our coaches are different.

One of the most difficult things to do as forum members is to be able to offer advice regarding problems another member is having. All of us offer advice from the perspective of how our coaches are equipped or based on the vintage coach we own. Owners seeking advice can help themselves and us immensely if they realize our advice is only as good as the information they provide.

While unusual in the sense most of our coaches have auxiliary air compressors, Glen’s coach does not have one and the lack of that information could lead someone to assume his aux air system was maintaining pressure and therefore the leans was due to a leak in the suspension. Another thing that made it difficult to offer good advice is the fact that as a percentage of coaches owned by our members, the number that have the system logic that dumps air when aux pressure drops is getting smaller so fewer owners are aware that could be a factor. The point is when owners ask questions they have to assume we do not know anything about their coach so either in their signature or in the post a detailed description is needed. As folks attempting to answer questions, we often need to spell out that our answer is based on assumptions, and we need to spell out the assumptions.

At this point apart from having some repairs to his repairs, Glen’s coach may be OK. His leans may be solely related to his suspension system logic which is the sme as Greg’s and if he wants to eliminate that issue he needs to work to make his coach “leak free” or do as Greg has and add an aux compressor.

As a final thought I think we are beginning to see a wider variety of house and chassic configurations as the bus and converter evolution continues making diagnoses more difficult. I can say the changes over the decades on my coaches are extensive and while the basics remain the changes to everything have been extensive. It is entirely possible the people servicing Glen’s coach may not even be aware his coach suspension logic causes it to dump air at low aux system pressures and that they are on a wild goose chase trying to find a problem that does not exist at Glen’s expense.

[Rodger]

News Flash: Liberty’s new H’s have,gasp, ducted roof airs and a decent size shower. And yet, the the sun still rises in the east.

[Rodger]

There are a lot of KOAs, but there are significantly more RV parks than KOAs. Most are privately owned so you may not ever run into the policy KOA has. There are also many options on public properties such as state and national parks.

One thing you absolutely have to consider is the season. In warmer climates the RV parks are going to be open all year long, but during the winter getting a site may be difficult unless you make reservations well in advance. Up north it is common for campgrounds and RV parks to be closed during the winter and you will not find any sites.

In your planning for the schedule it sounds like you already have you might consider early reservations and alternative considerations if you have to be in Minnesota in January for example.

[Rodger]

I’m a little uncomfortable characterizing the average life of a seal as 70,000 miles.

I have had two coaches that each had about 250,000 miles on them when I sold them. My memory isn’t good enough to recite how many total seals I changed, but I doubt if I changed more than a total of 4 or 5 seals on both coaches.

So over 500,000 coach miles and assuming 5 seals would it be better to say we could expect to change a total of 2 or 3 seals every quarter million miles? In the context of seal life all I could say was I could expect to change one seal every 80,000 to 140,000 miles.

On both of my previous coaches most of the seals on the coaches had 250,000 miles on them and they were not leaking.

[Rodger]

Bounce and Shake, is that a Marathon thing? I don’t experience any of that in my Liberty, what say you boy’s?

[Rodger]

I am looking for any diagrams of the electrical systems. I have all the books from prevost and one from monaco but it doesnt have much to explain the systems I have.

Anything you have would help me learn this coach.

Thanks

Dennis Slade

dsrslade@gmail.com

[Rodger]

I quoted a “$400K price” and then Jon said that the Okie was wrong, it was closer to “$500K” and not the figure that I mentioned. Now I am reading it is back down to $400K …. So what is what here?

But there is good news! Thankfully, my NAPA card recently saved me 30-40 percent, which is going to help me out down the road, when I go to get my Dallas One Star bus. Here is my reality … The last thing I got for free, I had to go to the doctor’s office and get shots for it.

BCO

[Rodger]

It has been my experience that fuel dilution, if bad enough to ruin the engine, will be caught if you check the oil. You will be way over full. Coolant on the other hand, needs far less to ruin bearings which will take out the crankshaft. A good fuel bath may only clean things out if caught early enough by a driver who actually checks the oil as part of a proper per trip inspection. Most coolant leaks are found at oil change time, or by samples coming back with high sodium levels.