[Tom]

Liam/Jon,

Thanks for the information. If I was just passing through a Walmart or shopping mall lot might work. But I intend on arriving on the 3rd of June and not leaving until the week of the 17th.

We may have found a campground, Quaker Woods in Quakertown PA that might work out for us. The facility is about 40 miles from the event area and an estimated 52 minutes car travel to get to work daily. We sent them an email requesting some information on their accomodations yesterday. I’ll post the reply when we receive it.

[Tom]

Well, its finished! Went at the failed clearcoat spots and found that the base had failed or was failing as well! Attacked the whole thing with a DA on 400 paper, still some areas that needed help. Cleaned everything and applied a coat of primer surfacer to fill the minor blems that would take forever to wet sand; caution here, I have been down this road before. The high solids primer surfacers need to be topped with a sealer, a primer sealer or a two part primer otherwise theres a chance that the solvents in the color coat may lift the surfacer. Additionally, the primer sealer was laid down over the old failing paint just to keep it from lifting underneath, as a precaution. Next came the base coat to cover followed an hour later with the clear. No sags at all but a bit of orange peel in the top coat most likely caused by using the fastest reducer I could buy because I was painting outside;I will remove that in a few days with 2000 paper wet sand and follow with a buffing with compound.

Now the question, was it difficult…NO. Was it time consuming, yes. Compared to changing the air bags, this type of repair is a walk in the park, at least for me….plus I didn’t have to crawl under the beast. Everyone should take a shot (no pun intended) at spray painting and not with a rattle can, a few hundred dollars worth of equipment and you are in business. Start out by giving your garbage cans a new look, then move up to say your tow bar or lawn mower.

My best guess is that the paint will fail on the top of your coach at somewhere around 10 years, maybe a little longer if you wax up there say each year. You have, as I see it, four options. You can sell it, you can ignore it (not recommended) you can have it repainted or you can repaint it yourself. Now whilst many will consider this a quantum leap from changing a say Norgen Valve, it really is not. I am not suggesting by any means that you should give your entire coach a re-spray, but you can certainly do the touch up’s…top, below the rub rails (on the rivited ones), etc.

[Tom]

[Tom]

Careful boys, you don’t want to fill up your rear discharge toilet with ice. Greg’s idea works well wtih direct drop toilets.

[Tom]

I think Larry needs to come to Branson, hanging with Jdub takes practice..

[Tom]

You hit the nail. The actual bus looks a little different but can be found on the Farber web gallery. This does also answer the very interesting question of who does these conversions. Thanks for replying!

Cheers,

Ronald

[Tom]

Tom,

Depending on your future plans for ownership you might want to consider refreshing your entire suspension system while you are at it. Over time as the components age they stop working as intended. The shocks lose effectiveness, the Norgren valves start to leak and the air bags either get rust leaks in the bottom “can” or they leak due to cracks that begin to form around the bottom where they flex and roll. In extreme cases an air bag just gives up and bursts like a tire blowout.

So if your coach ownership is intended to be long term you will get a lot of peace of mind replacing Norgren valves, maybe ride height valves and shocks while you are in there doing the air bags. If you average 1 1/2 hours per air bag add another hour to the labor and you can get everything else done also. Do that and you probably have at least 10 years of peace of mind.

[Tom]

Tom Are you talking about replacing just the rubber part of the air bag? If so I don’t think you buy just that part.

Rick

[Tom]

Selling lot 1262 on Saturday. Check out: http://www.barrett-jackson.com/application/onlinesubmission/lotdetails.aspx?ln=1262&aid=466 Hope all of my Prevost friends will wave to the auctioneer and I during bidding.

[Tom]

Al,

I Just checked it again and it appears secure…. I tried to remove it and reconnect it but I couldn’t get it to come off and didn’t want to damage anything.

Do you or does anyone know if there is more than one path for the 12V to the geny… I clearly am a newbie to all this Prevost stuff but what I can’t figure out is this:

1) geny starts perfectly when house batteries are at our near full charge

2) geny starts perfectly when drive engine is running even if house are depleated

Even when house batteries were depleated last night… Isolated Geny Battery tested 12.89

I need to give Marathon a call in the morning to confirm the connections on the replacement Voltage regulator I need to install…. so perhaps they can shed some light on the Geny Auto Start / start issue as well.

I was hoping my first minor Prevost Repair was going to be uneventful….. Oh well I did get the vender off 🙂

Thanks for the suggestions everyone… Happy New Year!

Bill

[Tom]

Thanks for the link. Exactly the type of information was looking for. I have basic mechanical skills but unlike most engineers I will read the instructions or if not available will just tear it down to see how it works.

[Tom]

I got all my wiring diagrams for our Vantare from http://www.featherlitecoaches.com all they needed was my coach number… they may be of help to you…Shannon Adams was a wonderful help.

Good luck

Diane

[Tom]

To have a generator battery charged solely via the generator alternator is a cheap way to do it, but when we have several sources for charging it makes no sense except the converter was trying to save money.

If you choose to modify the system to use inverter charging via the house batteries, or bus alternator charging just make sure there is an isolator in the line so a bad generator start battery does not pull voltage from house or chassis batteries.

If the generator alternator is the only charging source I hope at least the converter put a voltage gauge for the generator battery in a prominent place so it could be monitored easily.

[Tom]

any pics?

[Tom]

Looking in the suspension section of my parts manual, I am unable to find the air dryer, would it be listed in another section?