PIPEWRENCHGRIP

Our travels so far have taken us from our home in South Dakota through the Northeast, into New Brunswick's Grand Manan Island, back northwest to the St. Lawrence Seaway and down to Quebec City. En route, we stopped to visit friends in Michigan, and they joined our trip in their fifth-wheel for about a week. We also joined Tom and Louise Butler in Ohio; they had just left the FMCA convention in Bowling Green. With the Butlers and our fifth-wheel friends, we visited the Warther Carving Museum in Dover, Ohio. This is a fantastic and interesting place, a must stop for anyone traveling through the area. We then traved together to Bliss, N.Y., where we were able to park two motorhomes and a fifth-wheel for a few days on an acerage owned by our ornithology (bird experts) friends. There, we had the privlege to observe and even help banding humming birds. This was a real thrill, especially for Laura, as she is quite a bird lover. We also made a trip by car to Niagra Falls, our second visit there, but the first was 30 some years ago. Our fifth-wheel friends headed for home from there. The Butlers and us traveled in tandem through the Finger Lakes area and to the Corning Museum of Glass. Laura and I had never been to New York City, so I made a suggestion to do so and off we went. Tom and Louise had been there before, but they were happy to go again. We camped out at Florida, N.Y., and took a tour out of the campground to see the sights. This was a quick one-day tour but very worthwhile. We saw Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero of the Twin Towers, and construction of the New Freedom tower. We then toured downtown , saw the UN building, Times Square , Fifth Avenue, the Theatre District and other stuff, too. We headed northeast, visited friends in New Hampshire, and continued to Acadia Park and Bar Harbor Maine. After that it was into Canada and Grand Manan Island. We boarded a ferry to reach Grand Manan, the largest island in the Bay of Fundy. With two 40-foot motorhomes with toad vehicles behind and a coupled of trucks alongside, this was close quarters. So much so that we had a hard time squeezing out the door to enjoy the 1-1/2 hour ride to the island. On Grand Manan Island, we went on a whale watching tour with Whales and Sales Tour company. This was a great trip. After touring the island, we again boarded the ferry and headed out toward Quebec. We are now near Quebec City. We walked the Old Part of the city today ... what an interesting place! Tomorrow we're off to the Montreal area and will spend a few days there before heading slowly toward home. We have really been enjoying this trip. The scenery has been fantastic and the places we've visited so far have been interesting. Our traveling companions have been very helpful, as they have been full-timers for a number of years. As Yakoff would say, "WHAT A COUNTRY!"

My previous Motorhome had a Freightliner Chasis. I changed my own, but it was a bit of a hassle. I had to crawl under and over to get to it. Next time I had it done at a truck shop. Bill

AS ONE TRUCKER FRIEND TOLD ME, YOU CAN GO DOWN THE MOUNTAIN GRADE TO SLOW AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT, BUT YOU WILL GO DOWN THE MOUNTAIN GRADE TO FAST ONLY ONCE!!!

I too had the notification for the ECM on my 09 Monaco ISB 400 engine. I had the work done yesterday with some strange results. I had the work done in Sioux Falls SD. Cummins Central Power. I picked up the Coach this AM and on the way out I noticed a warrning on the Aladin monitor that my parking brake was engaged, of course it wasn't as I was rolling freely. I returned to Cummins and had the mechanic take a look see. He connected his computer to look for fault codes, finding none he then checked the brake sensor, it too was ok. He then talked to his forman, he was at loss too. He thought we should take it to Monaco dealership, to have it checked out. . He called Schaap's Traveland (Holiday Rambler Dealer) and explained the problem, so I took it there. On the way there I notice most of the gauges weren't working and with the ignition in the off position, I had a readout on the monitor??? It should be black. After talking with the shop foreman at Schaap's, he made a work order and I was about ot disconnect my toad and leave it. Then I said, maybe we should try disconnecting the batteries and reboot the computers. The foreman said give it a try. I shut off the two battery disconnect switches for about 20 secs. and then turned them back on and VOILA!! everything looked normal. Apparently the reprograming sent some bogus information to the Aladin monitoring system and confused it. So if you do a recalibration and get some goofy stuff happening on your istrument panel, try the battery disconnect. All is well that ends well.

I use many of the same technicquess you use. The shift point on my New Monaco is at 55 so I can travel 55 up to 60 and seem to get about the same milleage. Also I set the transmission in Econony mode, this eliminates nuisance down shifting on small hills but will allow downshiffting on larger hills. You would't use this mode in mountain driving! Also depending on your travel plans, check the weather, which way will the wind be blowing, you might be able adjust your travel accordingly.

I have the same type of lights in my New Monaco. I just replace a bulb in one of them. I had the same problem untill I discovered I could pull the fixture down a bit and then remove the lens.. Putting in the bulb was a bit awkward with the two little prongs to line up. Tilting my head upside down and trying to see what I'm doing with bifocals. Good Luck Bill

Thanks for your suggestions! The coach is new and batteries are clean. I think the charge rate is the problem. I have a Magnum Energy Management System and the Max Charge rate was set to only 10amps. This is what is was set at when I bought the coach. I never checked it before. I think what was happening is that the battery voltage continued to drop during the day when were using the DC lights and a few other DC appliances. The batteries would then recharge during the night hours, and at that time were gassing. This is what caused my strap to get corroded through. I reset the charge rate so it would mainting a full charge during the day. I hope this takes care of it.

Here is one that has me stumped. I bought a new Monaco Diplomat in July. We took a few short trips, then this fall we traveled to Arizona and then to South Texas for the winter. After getting settled in, a went to check the battery water in our house batteries. When I opened the battery compartment I discoved that the plastice buckle on the hold down strap had burned off. Also one of the metal hooks was badly corroded. I assumed at the time that the strap must have been in contact with one of the positive battery posts. I then found a new plastic buckle, cleaned up the corrosion and reinstalled the hold down strap, making sure it can't touch any of the battery posts. Guess what!!! About a month later I went to check the batteries again and the buckle was burned off again. This all occured while we were plugged into shore power. Something is setting up a current thru this strap, but I can't imagine how. Can anyone shed some light on this situation?

We are fortunate to be friends with the Butlers and have taken several plane rides with them. The first a couple of years ago was from McAllen, Tx East to South Padre Island. We landed at a small airport in Cameron County and Took a courtesy car into port Isabell, had dinner there, then returned to car. We then took off and flew up and down the coast and the along the Mexican Boarder over and along the Rio Grande, staying in US territory. I was a great day with a great pilot and good company. We also tagged along to Port Isabell for an over night there. We able to tour Mustang Island on an over built golf cart. One more memorable flight was when Tom and Louise visited us in SD. We live near the airport at Yankton. The weather was clear so Tom asked if we would like a plane ride, of course we said yes. Tom got checked out at the airport and the next moring we were off. We made some passes over our home neighborhood for pictures then headed west over Gavins Point dam and west along the Missouri River. We crossed over into Nebraska to view the hills and Niobrara River Valley. The skies were clear, but somehow we starting getting specs all over the windshield. I pointed out that it looked like oil. "Tom agreed, he said that has me a little concerned" Fortunately we had just passed a small landing strip, so using his GPS he turned the plane back and headed for the landing strip. We had about 10 miles to go. I made it my job to watch the oil pressure and temp guage, by this time the windshield was completely covered with oil and the pressure was dropping. Finally no oil pressure, but were only a couple of miles from the landing strip. The engine temp never came up so we were sure we could make it safely and we did. Tom made a perfect landing with the windshield completely coverd. We found out later there was only a pint of oil left in the crankcase, the rest, 5 quarts of it all over the plane. The lost of oil was due an ispection plug not insalled properly. Plenty of exitement for one day.