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Makes three of us here that I have seen.  Who dis?

   

Elaine and I purchased our 1982 Newell Classic coach from Fred Hornbacher, the 2nd owner, on March 1, 2008 with the intent of eventually living and traveling full time in her.  At the time of purchase our coach had 103,500 miles on her Detroit Diesel 6v92TA.  We now have close to 175,000 miles on the odometer, almost 13 years later.  

On February 1, 2011 that full time dream became reality.  We leased out our home in Ontario, CA for a year, and became camp hosts at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park near Riverside, CA with a one year commitment, before we began to travel full time.  Neither of us had yet retired, but by October of that year we both had done so.  On February 1, 2012 we began our full time travels, and leased our home out for another year.  Our first task was to have a 300 watt solar system installed on our coach courtesy A.M. Solar out of Springfield, OR.  They have mobile technicians, and one of them, Mike Sylvester, did the installation at the Escapee Park in Aguanga, CA (near Temecula) where he and his wife wintered each year.

           

From there we headed to Mesa, AZ to visit Newell owners, and very good friends, Tom and Darlene.  We had intended to spend just a few days there, but ended up staying 11 days fixing our air system, the brake, turn and running lights in our 26' American trailer, and installing a new to us Dometic Classic refrigerator courtesy Tom and Darlene....here is a picture of our rig + trailer in front of their home.

   

From Mesa, AZ we headed south into Texas to visit friends, including Elaine's sister, Phyllis, who lives near Tyler, TX.  Just as we arrived there at Phyllis' home our gear driven water pump main seal failed gushing gallons of coolant onto the ground.  With Tom's help we found an exact replacement on eBay, had it shipped from California to Tyler, and had it installed in 8 days....I did the removal and installation.

   

From there we headed further south to Austin, TX to courtesy park at the home of Michael and Georgia Day near Lake Travis.  They were the first Newell owners we met back in 2008.  We also visited with in-laws Glenn and Laureen Parker, on Elaine's side of the family (Laureen is her sister).  Glenn and Laureen bought a 1984 Newell 9 years later and traveled with us this past summer.

We covered some 12,000+ miles in 2012 crossing the country 3 times over that time span.  We have slowed down considerably since then averaging fewer than 5,000 miles per year since then.  We continue to be amazed at how well our 1982 Newell Classic has held up to full time living over those 10 years, and how well she handles all types of weather from below freezing for months at a time, to a very wet climate here on Coastal Oregon where we are currently finishing up another camp host job.

This 12 months has seen us replacing all of our major appliances.....the Dometic fridge, the Splendide washer/dryer, the water heater (converted to tankless), two TV's, our Dometic toilet, and basement Norcold pull out fridge.  The water heater, washer/dryer, and Norcold were over 38 years old when they failed.  The fridge was around 14-15 years old, and the toilet was 11 years old.

Over those ten years we have served as camp hosts 8 times.  We have worked the sugar beet harvest in Montana, the INDY 500, worked as cashiers at general stores twice (Yellowstone and Grand Canyon), worked Peak Season at Amazon 3 times, and spent a lot of time boondocking in Utah, Arizona and the California desert.  We have visited, in our Newell, all lower 48 states.  We have flown to Hawaii, and had planned to spend last summer in Alaska traveling in our Newell when the pandemic struck. 

Since that initial solar installation of two 150 watt panels we returned to A.M. Solar in 2015 to have two more 160 watt panels installed to give us a total of 620 watts now, which is just about perfect.  We may add one more panel, but that decision of for another day.

I could literally write thousands of words about our travels.....in fact I have done just that.  I began blogging daily about our full time lifestyle back in October of 2012.  That blog can be found at whatsnewell.blogspot.com if you are interested in how our life on the road has evolved over that time.  There are many ways to fulltime, and our choices on how that looks are just that.....our choices.....they work for us, but may not work for you.  How you do it is totally up to you....there is no right, or wrong.  Hope you will check us out.

Many thanks to Michael and Georgia Day, Tom and Darlene McCloud, Richard and Rhonda Entriken, and the many other current and former Newell owners who have befriended us (David and Denise Zonker, Dean Stoops, Pam Regenall, Forest and Cindy Olivier, Tuga Gaidry, Matt and Connie Russo).  Our life would not be complete without you in it.

Whenever you log into Newell Gurus I am sure you have noticed the masthead pictures of four Newells of various vintages.  Our Newell is the one on the far right.  Going from left to right you will see the 1982 Newell Classic owned by Steve Ward (Prarieschooner)....our coaches are 1 serial number apart, and were both delivered to brothers (last name Law) in March of 1982....we call them the sister coaches.

   

I'm picking up my Newell next week to drive home.

As the rig has a ZF 10 speed and my old rig has an Allison, I'm wondering what differences I should expect? Are there any tricks with hill starts, long descents etc? I'm assuming having at least 90psi air pressure is a good start as the ZF needs air.

To check the oil level in the transmission is it the same buttons on the controller as the Allison? Or is that irrelevant without the converter?

Thanking in advance for any advice.

Pete

Needing some help finding rv parks near yellowstone

Hello Everyone.

 I am a long time RV'er (see www.thewanderman.com) Who has had many RV's over the years. I love to tinker!

I am in the market for a NON SLIDE coach with a Series 60. Would prefer a coach with propane as well as electric.  Also prefer a table and chairs rather than a dinette, though that's not a deal breaker. Mid 90's is fine.

I KNOW the right coach is out there!

Please feel free to message me if you have or know of something like what i am looking for.

Immediate buyer for the right coach!

Many thanks to all!

Rick

Gurus,

This may be a long post so here is the short version for folks with limited attention spans:   2000ish vintage coaches use a series of relays along with automatic reset DC circuit breakers to control the ignition and starting.   A high current short not related to the ignition can cause breakers to trip which can shut down the engine....sometimes while driving the coach!   The breakers did their job in protecting the wire...but the side effects were weird and not obvious.   Read on to hear the story along with a few thoughts and lessons learned.

There is an old guru adage:  When you hear hoof beats behind you...you should think horses instead of zebras.  In other words before you jump to a complex cause to the issue you are having you should rule out the simple / obvious causes first.   In my case...not only was it NOT HORSES....It was not even plain zebras...in fact what ended up causing my issue was multicolored unicorn zebras!   

Here is the setup....  I have had (every once in a while) a problem where I would turn the key and nothing would happen.  No lights on the dash, no cranking noise....nothing.   A few more tries and the coach would eventually act like nothing happened and the coach would start.  A guru friend helped me find and fix a loose wire going to one of the relays under the passenger kick panel a month ago or so.    Coach started and the problem was solved!   In the words of Coach Corso......Not so fast!  

The issue came back with a vengeance.  I was driving along and had been on the road for about 3 hours on a warm day.   At a stoplight...the coach died.  Turn the key....nothing happens.   Oh great I thought.   I turned on the flashers and got ready to start troubleshooting.   I had beens stopped for maybe 30 seconds when I tried to crank the coach.   It worked!   Off I go.

Five minutes down the road, the coach died again.  This time while I was at speed.  I dove for the shoulder which turned out to be flat and clear.   I turned on the flashers and started troubleshooting.   I found the wire that my guru friend had helped me with had come unsoldered.   Hmmmm.   No worries!   I simply replaced the spade connector going to the cube relay with a fresh spade connector.   Reinstalled the cube relay and off we went.   Or so I thought.

Five minutes later, the coach died again while driving.   I again found the shoulder and started troubleshooting.    I found that the relay that I had been fooling with the wiring on was rather warm.   Hmmmmm.    My guess is that the loose wire had caused heat to build up which failed the relay.  No problem I thought....I will simply replace the relay.  That got me going again.  I said to myself....OK....THAT SHOULD DO IT.   IM FINALLY FIXED.

I got the RV park I was going to only to have the coach die again while I was putting the slides out.  Arghhhhh.

This time the coach really did not want to start.   I even tried to use the starter switch in the back near the engine.  That did not work either.  

About this time a guru who shall remain unnamed, called me to offer his support and extended a generous offer to buy the coach for a heavily discounted price.   I was so frustrated that I almost took the offer on the spot.   But like my dad always told me....never make important decision in the heat of the moment.  I told him I would think about it and let him know.   

If you are still reading...let me summarize.   The coach will sometimes not start and other times will die while you are driving along.   The engine runs smooth and strong when it works and when it doesn't it is just like you turned the key off.

I called Newell support and an electrician got on the phone.   He suspected that I was having an over-current situation and that breakers were opening up.  He turned out to be right.  He asked if I had a clamp on DC ammeter.  (I did).       . This is similar to mine (Fluke 374FC).   First we found high current in the exact same wire that I replaced!   I don't remember exactly but it was more than 20 amps DC.

He then told me to go back to the terminal block at the engine and we found high current on terminal 4.   There were 4 orange wires tied down and we used the ammeter to figure out which one was drawing current.   When I removed that wire, the coach cranked like there had never been an issue.  It was quitting time, so I told the Newell tech that I could figure out what the wire went to.

So what do I mean by "breakers"?   It turns out that this vintage of newell uses a boat-load of resettable breakers similar to this:     . These breakers protect similarly to a fuse but reset themselves when the current draw is removed.

Have you figured it out yet?  What was causing the problem?   

In another post, I found where my hydraulic fan control solenoid had failed and gotten melty.  This caused a dead short. whenever the fan was called on to operate.   This is why I could drive five minutes and then suddenly the engine died.  It turns out that somehow the fan was powered through the ignition circuit.   In other words, the fan has power whenever the engine is on.   (It is controlled by an elaborate set of relays in the bay next to the engine).    When the fan was supposed to come on...the ignition breaker saw enough current for it to open up which is why the coach died as if I had turned off the key. Update: A guru friend (also a real Electrical Engineer) pointed out that the voltage to the solenoid is removed when the fan is supposed to run so this part is probably not correct.   What IS true is that the fan circuit was drawing waaay more current that it was supposed to.  It occurs to me that there could be some sort of time-lag or maybe even a faulty breaker that only works when it wants to.  Either way, the coach has driven about 12 hours without a repeat of the issue.

Replacing the solenoid and the associated valve along with the melty wires seems to have fixed the issue.  

Lessons learned:
1).  A clamp on DC ammeter is your friend.   I would never have found the solution without one.
2).  Breakers can trip with NO EXTERNAL INDICATION.   If you find an electrical problem  that comes and goes...you might want to check the breakers.   Often times a breaker will feel warm to the touch if it has failed.   In my case I found where breakers had voltage on one post but not the other....this is a sure giveaway that the breaker had tripped.  Remember that the breaker will reset if you remove the current....this made me think I was going crazy.
3).  The little Bosch cube relays that Newell uses come in different flavors with 4 or 5 pins.   The pins can be in the right location but have the wrong function.   Double check the little numbers on the pin side and make sure they are the same.  Also, these relays have a maximum current rating.  The auto reset breakers may or may not open in time to save a relay from damage.   Keep extra relays in your spare cabinet.
4).  Keep an eye out for loose and melty connectors and wires.   I think that my issue goes back months and I fault myself for not noticing the wires going to the fan controller were getting hot.  
5).  Remember that when you hear hooves behind you...think horses....except when they are multicolored unicorn zebras.

I have a burned pin on a HWH electronic board. When power goes to this pin, my coach goes to ride height. I've attached two photos. One photo shows the back of the board and you can see where 1 of the 4 pins has gotten hot and looks slightly burned. The other photo shows my finger touching an orange connector. This connector goes on the 4 pins and you can see the darkened right side of the pin where it has overheated. 

My electrical skills are fairly good, but I don't have much experience with boards like this. So, here is what I'm thinking:
1. I don't think the board is burned too badly (although i haven't removed the connector yet and I might find out otherwise)
2. My thought is I can probably remove the connector
3. Put a new connector on the wire(s).  THIS IS A PROBLEM as I don't know where to get this connector and it looks like it may take a special device to attach a wire to this connector.  (I sent email to HWH hoping to get one of these, but they never responded)
4. Clean the existing pin
5. Connect new connector to board.


Item #3 is the problem.  (Although I welcome any other thoughts if you think I'm going to have trouble with the board).  Where can I get a connector like this and am I going to need a special tool to attach it to the wires? It didn't occur to me when I had the board loose and was looking at it, but is it possible there is a cap on the top of this connector that just pushes the wire down into the pin, and therefore doesn't require a tool?  

Thanks for your thoughts!

Hi there,
I recently joined the site to gain knowledge about Newell Coach's as I am slowly starting to shop for one.  I have owned a deisel pusher coach in recent years but sold it due to lack of use.....I still have kids just finishing up school so leaving for long periods was not an option.  I'd like to get back into traveling with a coach and I want to purchase a well built one, not another production line build.  So my question is, are there any year(s) that a person should be aware of that were prone to issues or problems?  Before I buy I will edjucate myself so there will likely be more questions.
Thanks
Devin

My Aqauhot heating system is blowing cold air from some of the Zones.  The Zones blowing cold eventually blow hot after several hours.  Only part of them, one or two, blow cold at any one time.

There is always one that is blowing hot.

I need to get this figured out ASAP as the temps here are in the low 20's.

It's not the antifreeze level.  It is full and holding since I put the. Roger Berke filler neck on.  I also have Hot water at the faucets.  So I think I can rule out the boiler.

The thermostats are calling for heat and turning on the blowers, but evidently no heated antifreeze is circulating through the radiator.

I replaced the aquahot relays a couple of months ago.

I'm running the Aquahot on electric and diesel when it's this cold.

Any ideas?????

Cummins ISX, Allison, quad slide, heated ceramic tile flooring except bedroom which is carpet. COMING SOON to Newell

https://www.newellcoach.com/default.asp?...dInventory