tbutler

The less there is in the tanks, the less you have to drain and flush when you start traveling again. I'd leave them as dry as you can. Tilt the motor home so the drains are on the low side and drain as much liquid as you can from each tank. Any bacteria growth and/or sludge will likely dry up over the storage time and can be rinsed out easily when you begin using the tanks again. A little residual moisture that you can't drain from the tanks will not cause any damage if the tanks freeze. You will never get rid of all of it and leaving water in the tanks simply leaves more moisture for bacteria to grow in. The storage tanks are heavy duty plastic and don't need moisture to keep them in good shape. Dry them out if possible!

Great information! I second everything you said! We're going to Oregon this weekend to join our daughter and son-in-law. We'll leave Thursday and take the grandkids and go to Lava Beds National Monument in northern California on the way. We'll stay two nights and spend all day Friday exploring Lava Beds. Maybe visit the Japanese WWII Interment Camp in Tulelake on Saturday morning. Mom and Dad will make the whole trip on Saturday, typical working folk schedule. Thanks for the great article. Tom

Victoria, Welcome to the FMCA Forum. A good place to start looking might be RV Park Reviews. You'll get the low-down on the parks from people who have been there. If the reviews look good to you there are links to the campground web site if they have one, plus phone numbers so you can call and talk to someone at the park, make reservations, etc. You can't beat national and state parks for natural settings but finding one near a city (stores) might be a challenge. Usually the connections (water, sewer, electric) are limited in national and state parks and many have limits on how long you can stay. As Bill said, Arizona has a lot to offer. What kind of natural setting do you want. There is everything from desert to mountains, hot to cold, forest to city. If you are full time, I'd recommend that you go exploring. Pick out several areas and spend a little time in each this winter. You'll know when you find a place that feels good to you. Some people are comfortable staying in one place for an extended time, others like to move occasionally to explore something different. As a full timer, you are free to follow your interests. If you travel then stop for a week or two and then travel again, you can stretch the travel out so the fuel costs aren't huge in any one month and you can take advantage of weekly and monthly campground rates which usually offer a nice savings over the daily rate. Once you are out exploring, you might want to venture further than Arizona. There are many other areas where people winter and each offers its own unique set of plants, animals and natural resources. We winter in the Rio Grande Valley, the southern tip of Texas. McAllen, Edinburg, Mission, Harlingen, Brownsville and South Padre Island are a few of the cities in the area. There are over 70 RV parks, some small, others huge. Some are rustic, others resort quality. Some of the parks are near or within cities and others are rural. Some have many activities, others don't have any organized activities. There are many nature parks and state parks there. Our park is called a resort and is truly a resort with well kept grounds, heated pools, tennis courts, a part time restaurant, apartments and a recreation room. One of the big attractions of this area are the birds from Mexico and Central America. The native plants are also quite different than those found in the the rest of the US. The Gulf Coast offers a bountiful supply of migratory birds from the the northern US and Canada so you can enjoy the birds and butterflies to your heart's content. Within a 20 minute drive we have every big city store you could want. There are three international airports in the area and each of the large cities have quality hospitals and plenty of doctors as well. Parks in the area cater to the winter visitors as do the parks in Arizona. There are craft clubs in nearly every park. Parks have dance and music groups, bicycle and motorcycle groups, golf and exercise groups, just about any interest you want to pursue can be found in some park. This is true of areas like Arizona, Florida, and many other wintering areas in the southern US. I hope that you find the full-time RV lifestyle as enjoyable as we have. Again, welcome to the FMCA Forum.

Thanks to all for the comments. We had a great night here in Valley Springs. Skies were crystal clear. We had our two granddaughters up and they really enjoyed the show. Loved seeing all the stars show up as the moon faded and really enjoyed seeing some meteors as the night went on. Temperature were cool and no bugs, can't beat that.

One of the hazards of astronomy, clouds! And now the tropical storm clouds really don't help. Best of luck!

One of nature’s great spectacles, a total lunar eclipse, occurs on Wednesday morning, October 8, 2014. There are many interesting things about a lunar eclipse. For one, the lunar eclipse is a show going on in space. We are all seeing the same thing at the same time. That is, everyone on Earth who can see the eclipse is seeing the same Moon. It is as if we are all watching a drive-in movie. When I say we are seeing the same thing at the same time I don’t mean that our clocks will all be the same, clocks in the eastern US show a different time than those in the central or western US. So to describe the time to look it is necessary to list a number of different times. Likewise, the circumstances of the eclipse vary depending on where you are when you watch the eclipse. A lunar eclipse occurs when Moon is directly opposite Sun in the sky. A lunar eclipse can only happen at full Moon. A full Moon always rises as Sun sets and a full Moon sets as Sun rises. They are 180 degrees apart in the sky. Another way to think of this is that Earth is exactly between Sun and Moon. For those in the eastern US, Moon will set during the eclipse. The exact time of moonset depends on your location. If you have access to a program that gives sunrise and sunset times, you can find the time of moonset. The partial phase of the eclipse begins at 5:15 a.m. EDT. At 6:25 a.m. EDT Moon will be entirely in the full shadow of Earth and the eclipse will be total. Totality lasts until 7:24 a.m. which will be well after sunrise for much of the Eastern Time Zone. The partial eclipse ends at 8:34 a.m. EDT. For the Central Time Zone, the times are 4:15 a.m. CDT as the moon begins to enter the umbra of Earth. The umbra is the darkest shadow of Earth. As moon enters this dark shadow the partial eclipse begins. At 5:25 CDT the entire moon will be within the umbra and the eclipse is total. For many in the Central Time Zone the eclipse will end with moonset during the total phase of the eclipse. The total phase ends at 6:24 a.m. CDT. The partial eclipse ends at 7:34 a.m. CDT which will be well after moonset for most of the Central Time Zone. In the Mountain Time Zone, Moon enters Earth’s umbra and the partial phase begins at 3:15 a.m. MDT. At 4:25 a.m. MDT totality begins. Totality ends at 5:25 a.m. MDT and the eclipse ends at 6:34 a.m. MDT about the time of moonset for many people in the Mountain Time Zone. Most of the Pacific Time Zone will be able to see the entire eclipse. The eclipse begins at 2:15 a.m. PDT, becomes total at 3:25 a.m. PDT, totality ends at 4:25 a.m. PDT and the partial eclipse ends at 5:34 a.m. PDT, about the time that dawn is beginning to brighten the sky in the east. Alaska and Hawaii will see the entire eclipse as will most of the Pacific Ocean. For our friends in eastern Australia and New Zealand, the eclipse begins shortly after moon rise the evening of Wednesday October 8 on the other side of the International Date Line. Don’t miss this special event, set your alarm on Tuesday evening, October 7 to be up to see the eclipse in the predawn hours Wednesday morning, October 8.

Looking at your list of repair items, I think the simplest solution would be to visit the Country Coach Factory Service Center. I recently did the same with our coach at our factory service center. Check my blog for my write up of that visit. They have all the parts and the people who built your coach all in one place. The service you get will be so much better than visiting a generic RV shop and waiting for parts and dealing with people who don't know your coach. The factory service center for Country Coach is located in Junction City, Oregon and may be out of your way but I think you'll find the time and distance to be a good investment. Call them and talk to them anyway, 541-234-2167. Factory service centers are usually scheduled in advance. Get on their schedule now and you'll get service when you arrive for your appointment.

After our stay at the factory service center in Oregon, we are now in California staying with our daughters family in the Gold Hills south of Sacramento. We come here every fall to take care of the two girls, age 6 and 8. Their school is on a year-round schedule and they get a break this time of year. Mom works in another school district which has a different vacation schedule. Dad has a varied night work schedule. So we take care of the girls for a week. It saves them money for child care or a babysitter and we get to know our granddaughters better. We've been here for one week, the week before our babysitting duties. The girls have been in school and we've been free to do some shopping and relaxing. There are no RV parks near where our daughter lives. For a number of years we stayed at a park about 20 miles away. We tried several parks over the years but none was convenient and we were often driving home in the dark. Last year the kids put in a 50A outlet and we there is a water faucet about 50 feet away and a sewer connection. Life is so much more convenient when we are living next door. We've had an opportunity to go with the girls for their gymnastics lessons. They have been attending classes for several years and they are showing nice improvement. It is fun to watch them develop their skills. The girls love to visit the motor home. They find excuses to come visit us when we aren't at the house. We keep a store of coloring books and drawing paper to entertain them. There are some other toys and games and they enjoy those as well. Both the girls are in 4-H and we will take them on a 4-H field trip to Apple Hill next Wednesday. Apple Hill is a fall festival area for children. There are dozens of apple orchards, wineries and farms. In the fall they all market their wares, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, petting zoos, and a host of other activities for children. For adults there is food, a pleasant outdoor shopping and recreation experience and a place to entertain the children. We've taken the girls in the past. This year it will be part of a larger group. Both Louise and I have done many field trips with children when we were classroom teachers. This will be a flashback experience for us. Today we went with Mom and the girls to the Grape Stomp in the town of Murphys. Each year they hold a festival to celebrate the grape harvest. As part of the festival they hold a grape stomping contest. This is "I Love Lucy" grape stomping. There are two person teams, one person stomps the grapes and the other moves the grapes and pushes the juice out the drain to a collecting bucket. Each team is given 5 gallons of grapes, freshly harvested, still attached to the vines. The grapes are in a half barrel which has a one inch drain. Contestants are sometimes in costume, sometimes just shorts and t-shirts. They have five minutes to get as much liquid as they can from their 5 gallons of grapes. It is as much fun for the spectators as for the teams. Louise posted the girls near the stage so they could see the action. They were close enough to catch some of the splattering juice from one of the teams! We only watched one of the preliminary flights of contestants. There were over 50 teams competing in the contest this year. The main street of Murphys is lined with vendors and all of the wineries in the area have their tasting rooms open. In the park where the contest is under way you can purchase a souvenir wine glass and there are many wines there to be tasted as well. With the girls along we didn't do much wine tasting. As the designated driver my job was to entertain the girls while the ladies tried some of the wines. We brought home three bottles of wine. The girls enjoyed wading in the stream that flows through the park. They met several of the dogs who were also enjoying the cool water on a warm afternoon. They spent some time touring a real old-time toy store. It had all the great stuff many of us remember from the neighborhood dime store. I resisted my impulse to steer the girls toward some of the musical toys even though mom refused to pay for my silence! We all had a good time. We've taken the girls on trips in past years and this year will be no exception. We're going to take the girls on a trip to Oregon. Mom and dad have a family vacation house not far from the Oregon coast and they will spend a week at the vacation house. We'll take the girls in the motor home for the trip to Oregon. It will just be a two day trip, no special destinations, just a road trip in the motor home and the girls will be thrilled with that. After we spend several days with the family we'll begin our trip south for the winter. There are so many ways that having a motor home enriches our lives and the lives of those we love. We truly are fortunate to have this wonderful home.

South Texas is a lot closer to Michigan and further south than any of the above. In addition, there are a wide variety of parks and an equally wide range of prices. Generally the cost of living in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas is below average. You will find park rates that are quite reasonable for quality sites. Some parks fill but many have spaces available all season long. As a first time visitor I would encourage you to take some time to visit other parks near where you are. Even parks that are booked full this winter will welcome you to visit and see the parks facilities. The winter season varies, many people arrive in October and stay through March or April. Others wait until after a specific holiday, Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year. A month will give you a taste of the good life in the warmer south during winter. If you really like it, you may want to stay longer this winter or in future winters. For your first time south, you may want to do some traveling along the southern border of the US and try a variety of areas. Different areas have resources that may address a special interest you may have better than other areas. When we made our first trip south we didn't make any reservations and traveled around a bit until we found a place that was comfortable for us. We've been returning there ever since.

The side to side clearance is a very important factor with the rear duals. There must be sufficient space between the two tires for cooling and also to prevent "kissing" at the point where the tires are on the pavement and bulging at their greatest. Kissing can destroy tires in a short period of time. Poor cooling will destroy the tires over a longer period of time.

Chevracer, Seems the simple answer to your problem would be to run through the local truck scales and get a recent weight ticket and keep it handy if there are any questions. Last time I weighed at a truck stop it cost about $7.

I just checked a tire chart and 5 extra pounds buys you an increase in load carrying capacity of about 180 pounds per tire. Times 4 tires that is 720 pounds, and you have a 900 pound bike plus the weight of the lift and that doesn't even take into account the calculations from the information Walt provided. I would strongly advise running your exact numbers and looking up your tire pressures from the tire manufacturers tables. You could load it all up and weigh to see what your rear axle is carrying. If you can get individual wheel weights the information will be even more accurate. I'm guessing you might be surprised by the results and not in a good way.

Ray, Yes, we are at the Factory Service Center. This isn't where the factory was years ago but is nearby, still in Coburg, 91186 N Coburg Industrial Way. This place is now known as the Allied Recreation Group Factory Service Center and they are working on Fleetwood, American, Monaco and Holiday Rambler coaches here. The crew is mostly if not all former Monaco factory workers so they do know their "stuff!" We're mainly getting repairs done, all the things I can't fix or don't want to. I am really pleased with the work they are doing. They have water and electric sites and a sewer dump on site. We're in the coach every night and in the lounge/reception area during the day. Yes, they do upgrades, remodeling, alterations. If they don't, there are numerous shops here they can direct you to for additional work. We made our reservations in July and this was the first date they had available. I had one problem that was going to take some time and they indicated if I came back during the winter they would give me a discount on the work so obviously the winter season here is their slack time. You can get an appointment by calling the Monaco Customer Service Number: 877-466-6226

Thanks Brett, I've noted this in my files. We haven't had any engine maintenance this spring but I'll check in the near future to make sure any filters are not in this batch.

Thank you Executive 45. I'll be traveling through Arizona in about a month and if I wasn't aware of this I might just pick up the wrong hose and get ticketed. The main point here is that there is a potential for confusion and out-of-state motorists may well make an innocent mistake if they aren't carefully watching for the difference in the two hoses. It helps to have this information on the forum, everyone reading should be able to avoid a ticket.

I don't know about your coach but on ours, the bulb assembly (socket and bulb) can be removed from the back side of the taillight assembly (try a quarter turn counterclockwise) and the bulb replaced and then the socket and bulb can be reinserted into the taillight. I think this is common in newer taillight assemblies. Our cars have had this kind of arrangement. If you can get to the back of the assembly, try this. You shouldn't have to remove the entire taillight. Our headlights are replaced the same way.

Lowe's and Home Depot, other large hardware dealers have filters that can be cut to size. I can't remember the brand now but you will find them with other furnace filters. I purchase one of these and cut them to fit our rooftop air conditioners. The ones I get have a two stage filter, particle and carbon filter for odor. The filters we use come with a plastic grid that can be cut to size and provides backing for the filter to keep it in place if necessary. There are also filters like this for allergies. Remember if you put in a better filter it will collect more material. You will need to replace the filter more frequently to allow the air to move freely through the air conditioner. I replace ours about 4 times a year depending on how much time we are traveling.

I use the tires and the accelerator if the temperature gets into the teens. Get me out of there!

If your coach is 30A there will be no advantage to installing a 50A box unless you think you might upgrade to a 50A coach in the future. No matter what you plug into, your coach will only have 30A. Your 30A coach should handle a 1500 W heater without a problem. Having 50A at the outlet, you will still have the same problems running the heater and the microwave that you would with a 30A outlet. Using 100' of wire is a concern. The longer the wire, the heavier it must be to deliver the full current at the other end. A wire capable of handling 30A may deliver only 110V instead of 120V at the outlet after 100' of wire. This web site has all the information you need for planning your external power outlet. Be sure to look at the information about wire length and recommended gauges. A #10 wire will support 30A with a 25' wire, it takes a #8 wire for a 50' wire and #6 for 100' wire length according to the table on the web site. Every job is different. I have installed underground line to a remote pad at my daughter's home and an installation on the side of the garage at my mother's home. Surge protectors are made to be weatherproof if they plug into the outlet at the post in a campground. If you want the surge protector inside, you'll have to build a shelter to accommodate that. Get dimensions for the model you want to install before building anything.

Considering what we put these coaches through, it is a wonder they hold together at all! Just driving down the road is like an earthquake! It is a vehicle and a house and you have the problems of both. We're in the shop right now and will be here for a while. I fix the things I can and hire some to fix the rest. Right now they are working on the rest. We have what I consider a high quality coach. It is not without problems but we have nowhere near the problems the OP listed. With 130,000 miles over 11 years, our coach has performed pretty well. We've had days in the shop, some normal maintenance, others fixing things that I wish hadn't broken but they did. I turned over a list of 17 items to the shop today. They've already fixed two of my top four before lunch time. We had a DC lighting system failure which knocked out all the 12V lights in the front half of the coach. When I went to view the progress the cabinets were all disassembled, wires were hanging out everywhere but the tech had found the problem. All the lights are working and he consulted with me as to how to route the wire patch to permanently fix the problem. It's going to cost me a bundle but I'd have never known where to begin to look to find the problem. One of the drivers seat arms fell off last year. I tried my own fix and it didn't work so we'll have the techs take a look at it and make recommendations. The existing seats, driver and passenger are showing their age so we may replace both. The list goes on. The long and short of this is even a quality coach is going to need upkeep and it won't be cheap. If you are looking at coaches, look at the full spectrum of coaches. Attend an FMCA National Convention where you can walk from one coach to another and make many comparisons in a single day. It is easy to see the quality differences in coaches. Look at plumbing fixtures, open and close drawers and cabinets. You can test drive coaches, see what they sound like and how they handle. When we did this at a recent rally, it was easy to see the vast range of quality. Quality has a price tag and if you want a motor home with the best furniture and best quality cabinets you will have to pay for it. By the way, the factory service center here in Coburg, Oregon is now the Allied Recreation Group facility and they are fixing Fleetwoods, American Coaches, Monaco and Holiday Rambler products. The techs here are the same people who built many of these coaches and they can tackle the really tough problems and solve them for you.

You are near Elkhart, Indiana which is a center of the RV industry in the US. There should be a number of facilities in that area. I've attended workshops at rallies that featured remodeling companies and heard several from that area however I don't have names.

We seldom make reservations at campgrounds but on occasion it is necessary. We just came from a campground that had almost exactly the same cancellation policy, word for word. We haven't had to pull out of a park ahead of schedule for quite a while. If I had to pull out of a park with that policy, I wouldn't say a word to anyone. If they didn't know you were gone for good they wouldn't be able to rent your site to someone else until your term expired. You can at least deprive them of the double rent they would get from turning the site over to someone else. Park owners and campers should be two sides of the same coin. We need each other. In markets where there are more campers than campgrounds, park owners hold the upper hand. They can set restrictions as above and raise prices higher than in other locations. In areas (or seasons) when there are more campgrounds than campers, park owners have to compete to attract campers to their parks. They have to charge lower prices and be friendlier to campers to encourage them to return. In these cases campers hold the upper hand, we can pick and choose campgrounds with better rates and/or policies.

On our coach the light on the dash is labeled "Wait To Start." When it goes out we can start the engine. That gives the heater time to warm up.

The most comprehensive site I've found for trailer and towing supplies is etrailer.com

I've been looking at motor homes on the highway and I see lots of changes. They are small changes, but if you look at the newer coaches, you will begin to see some significant differences. Not all manufacturers are making changes but some have made their coaches more aerodynamic. Some of the changes I've seen is that many have eliminated or minimized the number of awnings. There is a trend to tinted windows instead of awnings. Window fittings on many coaches are smooth on the outside of the coach, no indentation and if they do open the opening glass is very closely spaced to the fixed glass. When coaches have awnings, which I like for their effectiveness in eliminating heat from the coach, the awning support arms are much smaller and more streamlined and the awning roll is smaller and more sleek. Slides on many coaches fit much more seamlessly into the sides of the coach than on older coaches. I haven't noticed significant changes in the aerodynamics of rooftop features but that may be happening, just a little harder to observe. I know there are coaches without rooftop air conditioners. We know that more modern engines are designed for less pollution but they are also more efficient with electronic fuel injection and other design features that improve fuel mileage. We will always be a consumer of the over the road power train components because as Bill said, we are not a very large market. In fact I suspect the size of our market is becoming smaller, not larger. I believe that all manufacturers have a strong incentive to make their vehicles more efficient. As fuel prices continue to rise, many buyers are factoring fuel efficiency into their purchase decisions. Of course one of the major factors affecting fuel mileage is the operator and that is beyond the control of the manufacturers and designers. They have given us tools to improve our mileage, it is up to us to learn to use them the best way possible to improve fuel mileage. As you may have noticed, many trucking companies have their truck regulated so they can't exceed a set speed. Others monitor their drivers with GPS equipment to assist with route planning and to monitor speed compliance with company policy. UPS has their GPS units set for only left right turns where possible. Are we ready to accept any of those changes? This change is in our hands, all we have to do is follow accepted industry practices for increasing fuel mileage.