The better half and I haven’t got a newell yet we are looking at them now am hoping to get one by summer. I will be watching and reading all i can.

Been working on our hit list for the past week since acquiring coach #525.  The rear SCS unit has a shorted #1 comp terminal.  Sent flight systems the attached pictures, they seem to thick it is repairable.  My plan is to install the external relays to help with removing the high loads from the board on both units. 

The way I understand the system operation of a single unit, is that two compressors (#1 & #2) operate together when high demand is required.  When the temp has been reached the single compressor (say #1) maintains the temp unless the room temp moves to a point greater than 3 degrees of the T-stat setting.  With that scenario in mind, #1 compressor is the one that gets used the most in our systems.  I am thinking of putting #2 compressor to the #1 comp position on the board and #1 compressor to the #2 comp position on the board.  By doing that it would give the #1 compressor a rest and put #2 compressor as the one that maintains the t-stat setting until a higher demand is required. 

Is there something I am missing on this thought?

BTW I tried the photo editing Tom suggested so here goes.

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Gurus,

Many of us have heard of or experienced the long sad saga of the control boards in SCS basement AC units.  In case you have not heard....these boards are prone to failing...sometimes in a spectacular fashion.  The boards were not great when they were built and age has not been kind to them.  Some folks have added external relays to the board to relieve the stress of running current through the board.  Others have replaced components and added additional traces.  

Newell has used an external vendor to repair old boards, but the supply of the older (non-cooked) boards has dwindled to nothing.  This meant that if a board cooked it self, there was no way to get the AC running again.

All of that is now behind us.  Morgan Partman is the parts manager at Newell.  He told me that he was frustrated that he did not have a good replacement for a bad board.  When the supply of old repaired boards ran out, he had no solution for a guy with a bad board and no AC.  He set about designing and producing mock SCS control boards.   

This is the result. 

     

The board appears to be well made with clean solder joints on a very solid substrate.

I am not sure what input Newell corp had in the project but they are available from Newell.  Contact Newell parts department for the current price but I believe they are in the $575-600 range each.  Not cheap but much, much better than nothing.

Morgan said that they have been installed in 8 coaches so far and seem to be working well.

Kudos to Morgan and to Newell for spending the time and resources to make these boards available!

For details contact the Newell parts department.

Bill

Has anyone DIY replaced the Slideout trim?  Ours is sagging... Newell estimated a week to do the work but we cannot drive the coach to Newell currently or in the near future. TIA! Adrian

2004 Quad Slide listed on eBay with 79,900 miles and 715 generator hrs. New house batteries 2018
1N9468X8541011697

Serviced the trans, changed filters, changed out filter "cap" which was broke and leaking like a siv.
Made new lines and setup a new trans cooler, put it all back together.

Now this thing will go into Reverse, but no Drive...

It gives me the three codes
2511
5517
5587

The 55 codes refer to clutch pack 3 engagement...

Best part is, coach is backed 20' out of the shop and it's starting to sprinkle!

Any help would be appreciated gents.

Obviously I've checked all the plugs, loose wires, trans fluid level, etc

I think we will be getting our coach back from the shop next week and I can’t wait to drive it!  We had the engine completely overhauled and also the rear end and transmission were reworked.  The engine looks great so far and am looking forward to seeing it all go back together.

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Hello again,
As some of you may know I’ve been chasing a couple issues in the engine compartment. It appears I corrected a coolant leak that was dripping on the exhaust stack thus causing smoke. 

Now I have smoke coming from the valve cover vent pipe. I’m posting a picture but here are a few details. 
Coach had been driven approximately 10 miles, coolant temp 185*, oil temp 173*, and the outside air temp is 45*. 

I’ve reached out to the manager of the Tampa Florida Detroit Diesel Service Center who’s team worked on the engine before I brought it home. I have not heard back from him. 

In the meantime can anyone tell me if this looks normal based on the information I’ve provided. 

Thanks, JK

It's early, I have too much coffee, and it's too dark to play outside. 

This time of year, the forum gets a fair amount of commentary on air system weirdness and leakage. 

We all know that water in the air system creates rust in the tanks, the rust creates debris that can migrate and clog small orifices, and air valves such as the Height Control Valve, the potties, and all the air operated doors can experience problems. Not to mention the possible contamination of the braking system components. 

But there is another phenomenon that occurs that is a little harder to get your head wrapped around. You'll have to forgive me for getting all geeky with the engineer talk, but here goes. 

We know from experience that when a gas such as air goes from a high pressure to a low pressure that the gas cools. That's why your propane tank gets cool when grilling, it's why an aerosol can gets cooler when spraying the contents, and it's why the freon can gets really cold when adding refrigerant to your system. That cooling is caused by adiabatic expansion. The high pressure side is losing energy by releasing the pressure to the low side. Energy loss results in lower temperature. 

Of course the opposite is true when pumping a gas from a low pressure to a higher pressure. It gets warmer. Just touch the outlet of a running air compressor if you need proof. 

So why bring this up. If you have moisture in the air system, and it is escaping through a small orifice, then at temperatures above freezing, ice can form in the escape path. We don't normally think of ice forming below freezing, but in this circumstance, it can and it will. 

This information is particulary useful in helping to diagnose cold weather related air system weirdness. The first place this can really trip you up is the Height control valve. It is constantly releasing a small amount of air as the suspension moves up and down. In cool temps, you can form ice in that valve. The second place that this can occur is in the automated drain systems associated with the auxiallary air compressors. Those drain systems are prone to a bit of air seepage at the drain. Add the water in the separator bowl, the cooling effect of adiabatic expansion, and you have a recipe for ice forming in the drain valve at temperatures above freezing. 

Before you curse this physical phenomenon, keep in mind that it's the very principle that drives the air conditioning systems. But that's a conversation for another day. 

A common approach used in cold weather by truckers and RV owners is to add methanol to the air system. As Jon pointed out in another post, the methanol lowers the freezing point of the water in the system. However, it does not evaporate the water in the system in any meaningful way. Don't believe the marketing hype, unless the marketer has found a way around the laws of physics. There is no substitute for draining the tanks, and keeping the air dryers in working order.

I've looked longingly at Newell's every time my wife and I started thinking about full time RVing.  There don't seem to be very many coaches that really compare with Newell's.  So, here we are considering it again, and looking at pre-owned coaches and there are a number of them that are in our projected price range.  We'll have a lot more information in a couple of weeks.  Both of us are 70+, and we've had a diesel coach several years ago and really enjoyed travelling in it.  Glad I found this forum and registered, even though we are still WITHOUT at this point.  Cheers to all.