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Hello Gurus,
My wife and I recently bought a vintage coach. We are planning a trip to Breckenridge CO. My coach has the Cummins Vt903. I've never used a Jake Brake before and reading through some threads, not sure if I want to, but may need to. I've driven an '87 Airstream MH on I-70, but that was not like this coach. 
Any advise to a newbie who will be heading out late Dec? 

Thanks in advance!
Herb

Checked with Newell and was told that fuel pickup in the primary diesel fuel tank is purposely placed higher in the tank and with less than a quarter tank full may not siphon fuel adequately.  In addition if the fire extinguisher is not pressurized and in the green zone it will short the system and prevent starting the generator.  The cause of ours stopping was simply need of coolant.  Once the reservoir and overflow tank were properly filled the problem resolved.

Hi.  I'm new to the community and trying to do some research on a 1978 40' Newell coach located near Grass Valley, CA.  It has a Cummins 555 and Allison transmission. I am headed up to look at it this weekend and apparently its in turnkey condition although I have my doubts. The Facebook market place ad has very little info but I did talk to the owner and got some more pictures and details.  I'm here to see if I can learn some things about this coach and try to avoid any pitfalls.  I know the 555 motor is regarded as underpowered by some and prone to high maintenance.  Any info would be greatly appreciated, Thank you!

hi all,  

sometime in the next month we are doing a slide seal on a 2003 newell at my place in wittmann arizona.  i will post the date soon.  

i welcome any gurus that would like to join us to help and or watch.  it will take us most of a day i am guessing.  

this is a front slide seal that rolled out alot and we will probably be changing the extend hydraulic solenoid as well.  as it had creeped out and rolled the slide seal out.  

please let me know who is in the area and interested in joining us.  we will be doing it inside my shop so weather has no impact.  

and we will feed you as well.  

tom

i saw this.  i know one time we had a mouse in our coach that we never found but disappeared.  

we tried a few things.

i have not tried it but it appears interesting

tom

https://mouseblocker.com

1986 Classic 40' #121 owner here. Some past owner jury rigged the grey water plumbing where it enters the waste tank. Anyone have a picture of what it is supposed to look like? I attached a picture of their handiwork.

I am recovering from Covid, so I don’t have much energy other that to provide a long tale about some critical mistakes I made when I replaced all the tires on our coach prior to our 2020 trip. You have my permission to laugh at my folly. 

First, the tires were 6 years old according to date codes with very minor cracking. They would have easily gone one or two more years. But we were sitting at home waiting for the lockdown to end, and I was bored, and started to look at getting some new shoes. After shopping around, I found that National Tire Concierge Services seemed like the way to go. I want to be very clear. The whole debacle that followed was NOT David Ward’s fault. He worked patiently and tirelessly with me to try to rectify the problems.

David had the tires delivered to Snider Tire in Ocala. I show up on the morning appointment, check in with the service manager, and he tells me the installer was on a late call, and will be in shortly to install my tires. Cool. It’s a cool morning and I am sitting in the door drinking coffee when the install truck pulls up at the other end of the parking lot. The installer climbs out of the truck SCREAMING an obscenity over and over. I immediately do not want this guy touching my rig. I follow him in the building and start looking for the service manager. I want to call this deal off. I search for twenty minutes with no luck, not answering pages. When I get back to the coach, the gorilla already has all the back tires off. He is calmer. Now, I notice, that the rear tires he is installing are not steer tires. They look like dump truck lugged tires. This was a huge mistake on my part. David had told me they would be XDN2 tires, and I sort of looked at them in the Michelin catalog and said ok. It was clear seeing them in person, that there was a low probability that I was going to like this. One of the few times in my life that i was physically intimated prevented me from putting the brakes on this operation. I was no match for a 6 4 280 pounder with crack teeth. 

So he mounted the 365s on the front, and took them inside for spin balancing. As soon as I hit interstate speed I had rhythmic vibration. Now I am the one screaming obscenities. 

So, in my effort to take control of this situation, I install beads in the rear tires with a homemade device that blows them through the valve stem. It doesn’t help. I am not just judging by the seat of my pants. I have vibration analysis software on my phone, and I would Carefully maintain a speed on a smooth road while Rhonda place the phone above every tire in the coach. I had data. 

Our first layover was in Chattanooga. On the way up, at one rest area, I added beads to the previously spun balanced fronts. No improvement. So I contacted the Michelin truck guy in Chattanooga, had all the beads removed and all eight tires spin balanced. These installers are worse than than guy in Orlando. First they significantly damaged the rims with their tire iron. Second one of them applied the stick on weight to that outside of the rim. When the error was pointed out, he removed the weight, but instead of using solvent to remove the adhesive, he used a wire wheel on die grinder.  ARrrggggh. AS we are leaving Chattanooga I hear and feel weights coming off the wheels. I find some of them stuck to the hood of the tow car that evening. Shop manager took one look at the drive tires and said you will be removing those. Seen them tried before on high end coaches. They always come off. And I called them back after the weights flying off, and they refunded what i paid them

OH yeah, replaced the tow car windshield in Chattanooga where the dump truck tires promptly cracked. Towed the car fo 75k miles with no issues, and first long drive with lugged tires results in broken windshield.

I installed a Thetford Sanicon Turbo Macerator in my curbside AquaHot/Waste Tank bay. When we arrive back home I back the coach into my shop driveway. This addition allows us to dump and rinse our waste tank and send it to the shop’s sewer cleanout. 

The curbside bay has the air controlled dump valve and a 3” pipe the exits the bay through the bottom of the Coach. I plugged the hole with a standard 4” plumbing pipe test plug. The system requires a 12v 30 amp circuit, I modified the Thetford on off switch as you’ll see in the photos. The original Thetford hose sprung a leak on its maiden voyage, a quick call to customer service and the new “sleeved” tube was on the way.

                                                       

I plan to add a pass through for the hose to the bottom of the bay. 

Take care,
JK

I’m installing a new product from Aquor Water System in the water bays. My first change is in the curb side AquaHot/Waste dump bay that also has a water tank fill port. 

I’m replacing this fitting.
   

This is the new fitting.
   

I used a knockout tool used in electrical work to enlarge the hole where the new valve mounts. I also drilled three new holes for mounting screws.
       

The rest of the install is straight forward.
       

No more messing around with the traditional hose ends.
           

I plan on replacing the fittings on the driver side water bay and modify my “City Water” inlet connector. 
I’m also adding valves that will be used to rinse out the waste tank and ThetFord Macerator. 

Check the system out at:

     aquorwatersystem.com 

Take care,
JK

My coach has a dedicated electric heater for the bathroom with it's own thermostat.  Turned it on last night by turning the thermostat up.  It kicked in just fine, but won't shut off now when hitting the set temp or when turning the thermostat all the way down.  I dismantled the thermostat and made sure the circuit was broke, heater continues to run.  The heater itself is buried under the bathroom closet and has the blower for the dometic unit sitting on top of it.  It also appears if I throw the breaker I will be shutting off power to several of the heaters in the coach.

Any ideas how to shut it off?