pianodan

Hi Gary. I wouldn't say you're "bothering" anybody, you've got some valid concerns there. That would really bother me if a chapter neglected to respond to a contact I'd initiated too. I probably goofed in that respect with someone that tried to contact our Maestros chapter also. My wife had a paper letter sent to her from National alerting us to the fact that someone wanted to know more about our chapter, it got misplaced, and then found again 3 months later. I did reply, but I never got a response in return. The Pioneers chapter here in the Midwest is pretty active and they return all inquiries, and seem to be a pretty good bunch. So far we haven't been able to connect with any of their rallies, but we have been told we're welcome if we can. Don't give up on finding a chapter if you'd like to join one yet. Thanks. Dan

I don't see what the big to do over the difference between a class A and Super C is. Nearly every Super C I've seen is every bit as nice as a class A (the exception being some of the ones the race car circuits use). I'm sure your resort has caveats against motorhome age as well, so not just any class A is able to be in the resort. I'm not really into that kind of restrictions, but I would only restrict motorhomes (A or Super C) that are in obvious poor repair, not let "Cousin Eddie" in for instance. In other words, the motorhome must present a good clean appearance and otherwise fit in with the standards of the resort, whether it's a Super C or a class A.

Hi,welcome aboard! I don't know if your steering wheel is set up like mine, but mine is adjustable up and down. The outer ring will twist right and left. Twisted to the left allows the the wheel to be raised or lowered, turn the ring to the right and it locks it in place. I can't give you much more info on that steering system, but it sounds like maybe there's been some work done on the drag link or tie rod ends and it was never aligned after the work was done. Freightliner should be able to take care of that pretty easily. Hope to see at the rallies sometime.

Just starting to stir the pot, the rally begins June 9th thru 12th at the Walworth County Fairgrounds in Elkhorn WI. We (MidWest Noteables) are planning to have a pre-rally starting the 7th at the fairgrounds (I think that is still the plan), and of course, we'll have a potluck and happy hour get togethers. Come along and help us with our joyful noise!!!!!!!!

I feel your grief in the loss of your son-in-law. I lost my baby brother just before his 21st birthday due to a motorcycle accident. The driver that caused it was clearly in the wrong, he fled the state before his arraignment and as far as I know has never been apprehended (this was years ago). My father died at 63 due to a brain tumor, 10 years after my brother died. Grieving the loss of a loved one is always difficult and sometimes people who haven't had that loss have little understanding as to the many paths it takes to accept it and that sometimes, unbidden it can return while in the middle of a happy, fun moment because of a memory. I also had to get away after my Dad's death, at the time I had a sailboat in San Diego Bay, and I spent way too many hours on it. My mother-in-law died due to pneumonia caused by the flu the same year my grandson was born, she was my daughter's favorite Grandma, I had to take care of all the paperwork for her, my wife is the oldest child. That legal stuff seems to take forever, it lasted almost a year to close that stuff up. I'm glad you could be there for your daughter, I'm sure she really appreciates having a Dad and Mom to love her and hold her when she cries as I'm sure she does even if she is a strong woman. Oh, partly because of my brother's accident, I teach motorcycle safety. He had all the wrong advice from friends who rode and I hope that by virtue of the lessons I teach I might be able to spare another family some of that grief we went through, even though some of what happens on the road can't seem to be avoided. I hope some healing has happened by now, but I do know how long the process can take, hope to see you at a rally we end up at some time.

Sometimes the truck tires are retreads, supposedly the retread technology is so good that they aren't supposed to come apart like that. Truck tires are also regroovable, in other words, when the tread depth is down to the wear indicators they can be regrooved and used for another 50,000 miles. Overall, what causes a tire to shed its tread (retread or not) is overheating of the casing due to damage, low pressure or overloading. On my pickups I've thrown 4 tire casings (not retread) two were old tires, two were because GM installed load range "C" tires from the factory on a 3/4 ton truck that should have had at a minimum load range "D". Most tire shops won't even install less than load range "E" on 3/4 ton pickups now. On my motorhome (it has 19.5 tires), I replaced the front tires (had Michelin 8R19.5 XVA load range "F") with BFG 255/70 R19.5 load range "G" so I have a wider footprint (4 rib vs 3) and more room in load range. I run 90 psi in all my tires as the plate in the coach recommends, it works best. My rear tires are still the Michelin 8R 19.5 XVA load range "F". I found that maximum tire life in years on my coach has been 7 years, that's when I start having tire failures. I've also done somewhat like TButler, I replaced the two front tires two years ago, one pair of duals last year, the next pair of duals will be this spring. That way I have good rubber on the road all the time. The only drawback is I can't rotate the tires as my front tires are lower profile than the rear. I do carry a mounted spare to use in case of flats, however it's the same as the rear duals.

I have always been a wanderer......that is, up until I retired from the Navy. When I retired, and we moved up here in North Central MN, where my wife grew up, I was so enamored with having a home that I own and close to 4 acres of property, I had a hard time pushing myself to travel very far. I sort of became a recluse, the thought of going anywhere near a military base almost scared me. I'd had enough of govt., more than enough of large noisy ill mannered cities, and besides, up here, it was just very beautiful and peaceful. For the first time in my life, I've lived in the same place for more than 5 years. I've been over half the globe aboard ship, as far west as you can go when turns into the far east and the mid-east, down to Australia south, up to the Arctic waters north, at times following Soviet subs into Russian territorial waters off of Siberia, eating the foods of all the locals in every port visited. When I retired, I was ready to quit traveling, but my wife wasn't. So, gradually, over a period of years, we started traveling again (even during that time period I ended up going coast to coast, our son was stationed at Quantico, my mother lives in CA, our daughter was in college in WA). I still wasn't comfortable traveling, but I gradually lost my aversion to it, we went through tw truck campers and a borrowed pop-up trailer before we bought our motorhome in '03. My wife immediately wanted to full time, put the house up for sale, and go. I dragged my feet, which turned out to be a good thing due to some problems that surfaced during that time period. Now, we're both ready to full time, but she's getting her MBA in Quality Systems, and owes her employer the next five years for their assistance there and the house isn't sold yet anyway. My itchy feet have reappeared, so now we're both on the same page. I hate to have the motorhome sitting not being used, but if we don't use soon, we will be out again with it in April. On the gaming subject, I've never played on-line games, I've been content playing the X-Box my daughter bought me. I'm going to pick up a Wii to play, my grandson has one, it's a lot of fun, and there's also good exercise to be had there, and my wife will even play that one.

This same business came up when I was active as the commander of the San Diego United States Power Squadrons, and again in the late '90s for boat owners, and it mostly affected the liveaboards who would anchor out utilizing no services of the (eastern seaboard) state where they anchored. It came up in our board meetings in San Diego because we had two free anchorage areas in the bay, and the communities that the water touched were looking for a way to generate revenue from the liveaboard boat owners. It got quelled there for awhile, I have no idea what it is like now, but I think it was Virginia that confiscated some boats anchored out to collect personal property tax from the owners by virtue of the fact they were technically residing in their state long enough to qualify as residents (the boats were Coast Guard documented, didn't require state registrations), so the state felt they weren't getting the taxes due them. Hopefully the issue wil be stuffed, everybody's out looking for more money, and the recreational communities are always an easy target.

Another consideration, as I have done interstate business with my small business of piano tuning and repair, is the business laws of the states, cities, counties and townships (parishes in La) where your business will be conducted. I discovered when I rebuilt, sold and delivered an antique pump organ to a small church in an almost ghost town in IA (Carbon, the only coal mine town in IA), that one county over I would've been required to buy a permit to conduct my business. Of course, the only way I would've been caught up in that would be if someone had turned me in for doing business without that permit. In my travels I've seen signs outside of a lot of towns stating that a visit to the city hall is required before any out of towner can conduct business there, I suppose to stop the fly by night carpetbaggers from conning people out of their money.

Once upon a time, many years ago I was a Colorado resident, even joined the Navy from the Denver AAFES station. It was just a short period of time though, from August of '71-Jan of '75 that I had the dubious honor of experiencing the "Rocky Mountain High". I loved the mountains, I drove all over them, graduated from high school in'72 in the shadow of the Rockies. At that time, all of Colorado had a bi-annual vehicle inspection law, twice a year, any vehicle that was owned and driven had to have a valid month sticker in the lower left corner of the windshield. I think it cost $22 each time, when you pulled into the inspection stations (gas stations, auto dealerships.....) they immediately scraped the sticker and commenced the inspection. If any portion failed (cracked marker light lense, rusty shocks, etc.), you didn't pass. You couldn't drive it home to correct it either, they had to fix it for you, amounting to bigger bucks than normally carried around. When I left for the Navy, my Dad told me the safety inspections were deemed overly expensive and too often by the feds, so they went to annual inspections, but included smog as well. There were no vehicles grandfathered. If it was 1964 model year or later it had to pass what was currently required in '75 or '76. It appears the legislature there has changed the laws, but it hasn't improved, all who wish to have the grandeur of the Rockies in their front or back yards must pay the fee to enjoy it 24/7. I still enjoy taking trips out there, I've ridden over Independence Pass on my motorcyle, been through Eisenhower Tunnel through Glenwood Canyon many times, but I can say I'm glad I don't reside there anymore. No emissions testing here in MN, but the state income tax system is getting out of hand. Hopefully we can afford to retire in the next 5 years, and maybe find somehing better (and warmer).

When we make it to the East Coast again (we've got no kids there any more), I'd love to stop in. If you ever make it to the upper MidWest, feel free to stop in, I've got 30 amp available, not 50, but we have property we're planning on building our home base on (when we sell our house) and start full timing. Looks to be about 5 years in the future and we said that 5 years ago. Our Midwest area rally is in June in Elkhorn WI, if you happen to make it that far west, it could be nice too, I think you'd enjoy it.

Hi Gramps, I'm one of them too with two wonderful grandkids. Your story here brings back a lot of memories for me as well, I turn 56 on 2/18. When you kids were going through the trying times of your Dad retiring from the Navy (which I have also done, as a Petty Officer 1st Class), my Dad was in the Aerospace industry. We uprooted my 5th grade summer and again my senior year of high school when the Aerospace industry did mass lay-offs in reaction to Congressional budget cuts. I've read your 18 months in it's entirety, I'm hoping that maybe sometime we'll meet at a rally/convention somewhere, we could probably yak all night, boring our spouses to tears.... Keep up the good story telling, I might have to blog sometime too, who knows?

When I talked to Allison about the use of an exhaust brake on my non-lockup torque convertor (the lock-up is listed, but not available), their only concern was the same as the exhaust brake suppliers, that I wouldn't get as much braking performance as I might like. As far as I'm concerned, it would be better than what I have now. The only real effective engine braking at the present moment is in 1st gear, limiting me to about 25 mph on long steep downhill grades, otherwise service brake application is needed much more often. I'm fully gauged up, including a tranny temp gauge which has rarely hit 150 deg f. I have the deep pan on the 545 instead of the shallow pan, when I installed the 545, I wanted the extra fluid and cooling capacity. If, with the exhaust brake installed I could run down the mountain from the Eisenhower tunnel in 2nd gear and maintain 35-40 mph and not have to use the service brake very often I'd feel like it would be performing the task as I would like to have it do. As a general rule among Allison 4 speed trannys, there were no lockup torque convertors installed on any motorhome applications, and when I talked to the big truck shop at Mills Ford/GM, he told me most of the schoolbus/commercial applications didn't have them either. I was willing to pay extra for one with my new tranny, but there were none available.

Here in MN, the veteran's tags and handicapped (all known as special plates) generate an extra $10 for the initial issuance of the tags, then normal renewal fees following that, based on value and weight ( weight jumps in over 9600 GVWR). For example, my two old Chevies ('95 Suburban K1500 and '94 X-cab LWB 2500 HD) are $42.50/yr now, up from $38.50 last year, and my '91 motorhome 18k GVWR is $125/yr (up from $115 last year). I think we need to move to La. At least I don't live in CA any more, where it would be much more expensive and we would have to pay for smog inspections every 2 years as well.

I have a front engine diesel that was made way before they named them FRED. I've been happy with it, I would prefer one of the FREDS now though, since they sat the engine lower in the frame rails and they increased the CCC. However, that being said, we have logged over 58k miles on ours since we bought it in 2003, I've had a couple of major problems I had to fix (two due to Cummins putting out a flawed product, one due to Allison transmission doing the same), those are corrected now and I believe the coach will fall apart before I wear out the powertrain now. I get from 8.5-11 mpg now, but the new engine is barely broken in with about 11k miles on it. Engine noise in the cab is minimal, my wife and I can talk over it, no problem. I will be adding a Spicer aux transmission to get a higher final drive and lower RPM (my Allison is a 4 speed), and an exhaust brake to assist my downhill braking in the mountains though. We're happy with our old coach overall, if I fell into some money somewhere though, I'm sure we would upgrade.

This is only the second dues increase since I joined FMCA, which was in '04, I think. Get real!!!! You'll spend $5 buying coffee and sodas, snacks, a couple of beers, whatever! I think I can afford it, and my goose egg's not going topsyturvy in protest.

Check out this article. The truck driver didn't notice the sign, was following his GPS, and I think the hammer was down .... Semi and low trestle

I also submitted my comments. I used some of what TBUTLER wrote, with changes (thanks, T), but I made the point that I am a disabled veteran and I have the Access Pass. Also, I said that there will be many more of us out there that qualify, I happen to be both Vietnam and Desert Storm, now there will be more with worse disabilities from the desert wars that could benefit from the Access Pass, it may help them to slay some of their dragons. I ended with the fact that as a kid I always wanted to be a forest ranger, and I've never been a fan of privatized conession run national parks, forest or monuments.

I just saw this one. I had several slide in campers with those jalousie window systems. Generally if they're not opening together, it means that one or both of the operating gears are worn out. It uses either a worm drive or a ring and pinion drive gear system. Best fix? Replace them with a sliding type of window system, they leak less and have less problems over all.

Your coach is 10 years newer than mine so you probably don't have the options I had for correcting the problem. Mine came out with those now unobtainable surface mount tailights (two red, w/back-up in the center). They were almost invisible especially in bad weather. I removed the assemblies and replaced the square red ligts with oval rectangular led lights (in aluminum frames screwed thru the old plastic box that I gutted), and it's real visible at night and in inclement weather as well. The job's not quite done yet, I'm going to make complete new light assemblies in fibreglass frames with led backup lights as well, just haven't had the time to do that part of the upgrade yet.

Yeah, I could've done that, but since I seperated the wiring it's been working fine ever since. It's nice having the clearance and tail lights on a seperate switch anyway, now I can flash my lights as "thank you" when I pass a truck and he dips his headlights for me to move into the lane. I may add relays anyway to keep the wiring cooler. It's a horrible rat's nest that I've been trying to sort out.

I would hope the headlight switch on your '02 isn't the same as the one on my '91 coach. The mfg used a Ford headlight switch (every Napa in the country knows of them because of this problem) that overheats with the load placed on it of all the clearance lights. The headlights will go out but the rest of the lights will stay lit. I replaced mine twice, then seperated the wiring, put the clearance and tail lights on a heavy duty toggle switch (on trucks they call this the ICC switch) and I haven't had a problem since.

Just saw this thread today looking under New Posts. Here's OUR (my wife's and my) service. Me First Dan Armstrong USN 20 years, 16 days and some odd hours. from 75/13/01-95/31/01 Honorable discharge Boiler Technician, (discontinued rating)Petty Officer 1st class, Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist ('85) Various specialty NECs, Bailey Automatic Boiler Controls, Instructor , Pressure fired Boilers, Boiler Repairman, Recruit Company Commander, Water Survival and Physical Fitness Instructor, Oil and water King on two ships. In order of precedence, served on the following duty stations: Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, IL Propulsion Engineering Command, BT "A" school, Great Lakes, IL (now decomissioned) USS Juneau LPD-10, San Diego, CA,(now de-comissioned), LPO as a 3rd class PO in the FWD Fireroom, on station for the fall of Saigon, with the resulting chaos of evacuation...we had the flag on board, so we evacuated the AF base in Sattahip, Thailand USS Preble DDG-46, Pearl Harbor, HI, ABC tech for both engineering plants, made 2nd class and 1st class PO there, stood watches in the after fireroom. 1st shore duty in Great Lakes, IL , Propulsion Engineering Command, teaching advanced boiler operation and theory to BT-6 year obligatory trainees USS Albert David, FF-1050, San Diego, (leased to Pakistani Navy in '86, sunk by them in the Indian Ocean), Oil and water king, responsible for all liquid load and fuel oil/lube oil quality on board. USS Ajax AR-6, San Diego, LPO of the Boiler Repair Shop, decomissioned in '87. USS Denver, LPD-9, San Diego, LPO of the FWD Fireroom Recruit Training Command, San Diego(closed and gone in the mid '90s), Company Commander (7 companies), Water Survival and Phisical training Instructor TAD to USS Harry W. Hill DD-986, San Diego to map steam lines for Gas Turbine Specialists for 3 months while on shore duty (they had steam heating from auxiliary boilers and didn't know where it went) USS Niagara Falls, AFS-3, Guam (where America's daylight begins), Oil and water king, decomissioned Aug '94, re-comissioned in the Military Sea Lift Command as TAFS-3 My wife's Navy time was a little shorter: Susan Armstrong USN '74 (delayed entry program) '75 active duty-'78 (son was born) USNR '80-'83 Honorably discharged twice. Machinest's Mate Petty Officer 3rd Class No specialty NECs Duty stations: Recruit Training Command, Orlando, FL (closed and gone in the mid 90's) Propulsion Engineering Command, Great Lakes, IL, MM "A" school (5th female MM trainee in the US, 1st from MN) Miramar Naval Air Station, Security Division Service Craft, Port Operations, Pearl Harbor Naval Station, HI Active drilling USNR in Great Lakes, IL and San Diego, CA NOTE: We're both considered Vietnam Vets because we were in at the end of the conflict, though I was the only one over there for any reason, we both wear the "geedunk" medal/ribbon, but mine has a star on it because I also did Desert Storm.

We removed the ugly old kitchen flooring (vinyl) and replaced with a real expensive (forgot who made it right off hand, I'll have to look it up) wood grain oak sheet vinyl flooring with cushioning. It has been mistaken for real wood many times. We also replaced the mauve (ugh!) carpet in the living room with a very good indoor/outdoor carpet with heavy felt backing underneath. At the same time we installed a flat screen 24" LCD TV and rebuilt the front cabinets (they're golden oak, the floor is dark oak, they do well together).