I got a great Xmas present from my wife and 2 daughters: a Dyson DC44 cordless vacuum for the Newell.

It is awesome! It only weighs 5 pounds and has a docking station so it is charging while it is stowed away.

I know it's not cool to get excited about vacuum cleaners but this thing is really a great little vacuum. Most cordless vacuums are small and don't have a rotating brush at the head; this one does! And it has good suction power.

Google Dyson vacuums and click on the DC 44 Animal Cordless vacuum.

Happy New Year to our Newell Family from Clarke and Elaine......Fulltiming on the road for exactly 11 months today! We have visited many of you, and hope to visit more of you this coming year as we cross the USA once again. If we miss anyone we'll catch you at the Spearfish mini rally in June.

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On Christmas Eve, I received my new Garmin Dezl 760LMT. This unit was released 12/17/12. I finally got feeling well enough to go out to the coach and play with it for a few minutes with my Garmin 3790. First, let me say that a 7" GPS is BIG. My 3790 is a 4.3" and it looks like a toy compared to the 760. Finding a place to put it in a car could be a challenge.
   
Secondly, this unit does NOT support an external GPS antenna but neither did my 3790. I put the 3790 and the 760 on the center console and fired them up from a cold start. It took about 2 minutes for the 3790 to lock onto enough satellites to display a green signal. I moved the 3790 over and put the 760 in the place where the 3790 had been sitting to the start up test and plugged the 760 in. It took about 1 minute 15 seconds for it to display a green signal. The location of the 760 in the above shot is where each GPS was located during the start up period. Later, I will try to determine how far back into the coach it will be able to lock on to the satellites.
   
I have the 760 set up for both a Truck profile and an RV profile. So far, I don't know if there is any difference between the two. The symbol at the top of the opening screen above shows which profile you are running (Car is a third option as I recall.) Each allows input of height, width, length and weight and whether you have a trailer. Truck also has a hazardous materials option.
I put in downtown Spearfish, SD in each unit. They came up with similar but slightly different routes (note the ~20 mile different in distance to destination). In the photo below, you can see that on a residential street, the 760 doesn't have any truck route information. It also doesn't have any information on RR-620 which, as a number of you may remember from the Austin Mini Rally, is a major road that does show as a truck route in the 2012 Rand McNally Motor Carriers Road Atlas. That is not a good sign.
Although you only have a choice to display 2 pieces of data at the same time (bummer), information included in the right hand display is % grade. Not sure how it gets that information but it could be interesting.    
Below is a shot of the search for nearest truck stops
   
and nearest rest areas
   
When you have your smartphone attached via bluetooth, you can also see on screen the current weather
   
Traffic is in the area is also available through the built in receiver.
   

I will add more as I get a chance to play with it.

If anyone removes their dash cover & breaks or has any of the xmas tree retainers missing, here is a replacement source. Mine were white & shaped slightly differently than these, but these fit the dash holes perfectly & snap into the dash cover just like the original ones. They are also the same length. Here is the part info.................

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail...&ppt=C0329

I saw this rather odd '90 on eBay and wondered if anyone had any history on the unit.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1990-Newe...v4exp=true


Mike M.

Late 1960's and early 1970's Newell coaches were most commonly powered by Ford industrial gasoline V-8's (391 and 534 cubic inch displacement) although L.K. Newell would use almost any engine a customer preferred, such as the 460 Lincoln and the 440 Chrysler engines.

By the mid to late 1970's Newells were powered by diesel, typically, Caterpillar 3208's, Cummins V555's (Triple Nickels) and naturally aspirated Detroit Diesel 6V92.

By the early 1980's the primary engines were turbocharged Detroit Diesel 6V92T's and the Cummins V903 turbo. In 1985, Newell began offering the Detroit 8V92T and 1988 models were equipped with the DDEC (Detroit Diesel Electronic Control) 8V92T engines. Still, customer preference was supreme and other engines were installed at owner request.

The next big change occurred in the middle of the 1994 model year when Newell began offering the Detroit Series 60. That engine would remain the primary engine for Newell for over 10 years.

In 2004 and 2005, Newell began offering Caterpillar C12 and C13 engines. These were well received and in 2006, the Caterpillar C15 became the 'standard' Newell engine although the Detroit Series 60 was still available at the customers request.

Emission laws and ownership changes started changing the landscape of over the road diesel engines and in 2010, the use of the Caterpillar C15 was discontinued and replaced with the Cummins ISX650. This remains the current powerplant of choice by Newell.

After purchasing Streamline Travel Homes from Streamline Trailer Company and moving the operation to Oklahoma, L.K. Newell had a health scare in 1973 and sold Newell Coach to Chuck and Letty Goldenberg of Kansas City, MO. Immediately Chuck and Letty moved to Miami, OK to operate the business.

Meanwhile, in Mount Vernon, WA, Karl Blade and his wife Alice owned a Chevrolet dealership and sold Executive and then Blue Bird Wanderlodge motorhomes. In 1979, Karl and Alice Blade and two partners purchased Newell Coach from Chuck and Letty Goldenberg. The Goldenberg's still reside in Miami, immediately next door to their close friends of 30 years, Karl and Alice Blade. In 1985, Karl and Alice bought out their remaining partner's interest. For 33 years, Karl and Alice have been the driving force behind Newell Coach.

With Newells being constructed in Miami, OK (pronounced My-am-uh not like the city in Florida) and placing his name on his coaches in 1967, Newell started looking to the future. In 1969, L.K. Newell purchased a Madsen rear mounted gasoline engine school bus chassis and built the first rear-engine Newell. It was the ONLY Newell built on a Madsen pusher chassis. In 1969, L.K. purchased a 1950 Fitzjohn rear engine bus. When he removed the body, he found a self-supporting 'bird cage' or 'bridge construction' chassis with frame rails. This was a major step in the direction he had wanted to go when he purchased the Streamline Travel Home. In 1970 L.K. built the prototype for Newell's rear engine chassis. The self-supporting feature was the key for Newell. This allowed doors and windows to be located anywhere without the problems resulting from cutting into the sidewalls of a monocoque body that most buses use.

The Newell Chassis utilized welded steel, bridge-truss construction to distribute stresses throughout the coach and chassis. It was the first motorhome with a basement. It eliminated frame rails between front and rear axles. L.K. probably couldn't fully appreciate the ease with which his chassis design would allow the integration of slide-outs over 25 years later.

In 1972, Newell built his first rear engine diesel powered motorhome. In the tradition of giving his customers what they wanted, that coach was a special order by customer Al White. L.K. originally objected to installing a dirty, smelly diesel engine but Mr. White insisted. The combination of diesel power and rear engine placement was unique to Newell for several years and put Newell on the motorhome map. Newell continued to sell front engine coaches until 1976 but the die was cast for rear diesel power.

This link was recently posted as an example of a coach that would be within our budget: http://www.rvt.com/rvdetail5014717.htm

While we can't buy anything (yet) I'm trying to learn all I can. As I understand things, Newells of this vintage generally use the air bags to level the coach at the camp site (Foretravel does, too), rather than jacks ('Birds). I prefer the Newell/Foretravel system.

Questions:

1. Is there an air compressor that periodically runs to keep the bags inflated when parked?

2. When leveling at the campsite, is all of the air dumped, and then bags inflated to level the coach, or is air let out of bags to level the coach? It would seem to be that the former would put the entry step closer to the ground.

3. What sort of safety device do you use when replacing the bags or working on the air system? Some of the Foretravel guys have made brackets that will take the weight of the coach (one bracket by each bag) which keeps the coach from suddenly dropping. The 'Bird guys have a different air system, and they use some really heavy jacks.

4. This summer I saw a fairly new coach (didn't catch a brand) with a tag axle in Sam's. When the driver wanted to make a sharp turn he was able to raise the tag axle. Would a Newell such as the one above have that feature?