[ccjohnson]

We had a crack in the laminate rear wall of dinette area on ours. Newell covered it very nicely with a mirror as the laminate in ours is no longer available. Be sure to get a Silverleaf VMSPC as soon as possible. This will provide peace of mind regarding overheating while pulling grades. Be sure to downshift & keep rpm's up. If you start to get hot PULL OVER & let it cool off for a few minutes. Even if you can't get completely out of traffic lanes, STOP & cool engine for a few minutes. The few minutes of inconvenience & perceived embarrassment are nothing compared to several hours broke down in traffic lanes with a seized engine waiting on a heavy haul tow truck. Not to mention north of 20K for engine rebuild on 8V92. Not to mention close to 3 months out of service for rebuild. I learned this the hard way. (I still think it was just a catastrophic failure that "just" happened. Regardless of the exact cause, it has certainly changed my driving habits!) We are in NM & travel western states.

[Little]

We had a crack in the laminate rear wall of dinette area on ours.  Newell covered it very nicely with a mirror as the laminate in ours is no longer available.  Be sure to get a Silverleaf VMSPC as soon as possible.  This will provide peace of mind regarding overheating while pulling grades.  Be sure to downshift & keep rpm's up. If you start to get hot PULL OVER & let it cool off for a few minutes.  Even if you can't get completely out of traffic lanes, STOP & cool engine for a few minutes.  The few minutes of inconvenience & perceived embarrassment are nothing compared to several hours broke down in traffic lanes with a seized engine waiting on a heavy haul tow truck.  Not to mention north of 20K for engine rebuild on 8V92.  Not to mention close to 3 months out of service for rebuild.  I learned this the hard way.  (I still think it was just a catastrophic failure that "just" happened. Regardless of the exact cause, it has certainly changed my driving habits!)  We are in NM & travel western states.

We now have a 1979 MCI bus thay we swapped out the 8-71 for a 6-92 I pulled the stacker with it to Moab from NE montana, thru Colorado. Tongue was hanging out for a bit but keeping rpm high seemed to be the trick. I was impressed with the 320 hp engine. We had 2 razors, harley and a 3 wheeled Spyder inside. only 5000 lb but prob 13k all in. The MCI were never designed to tow and for sure not that much. We built the hitch. Anyway we decided to give MCI to grandkids *who use iy more than we do) and get something more tow freindly. Thanks for the info and the history lesson. Nice to know about the trans, we have 2 good 740's in the shed.