jimkate

I put new Dunlop tires on our coach in the fall of 2009. They have been excellent tires. I will have to change them out in another year or so. To date, they have about 30,000 miles on them and they still look exactly like brand new tires. Last fall we had a road event that damaged a front tire. We switched both front tires out for new Bridgestone tires. They too seem to be excellent tires. If you're thinking Dunlop, do check the GVWR of your axles and check the weight carrying capacity of the tires. Dunlop's load rate G has a little higher weight carrying capacity than some. It was absolutely fine for our coach. It may be for yours too. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' 2005 Honda Pilot Canada, eh?

Over the last two or three years, I have replaced all the original fluorescent tubes in our coach. Which, considering the age, isn't so bad. Now I'm thinking it's too bad I had not thought of LEDs. O well. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' 2005 Honda Pilot Canada, eh?

I'm sorry that I don't have any suggestions for you how to fix the Norcold. I don't agree that Norcolds are superior to others, but that's my personal view. Others my differ. From my own experience, I can only offer my opinion for you to exercise caution when spending money on the Norcold. It can be easy to spend a tremendous amount of money on it, and still not have a properly working fridge Another issue; have the safety recalls been performed on the Norcold? Another option is to install a residential fridge. To do that, there are considerations such as Modified Sine Wave Inverter or Pure Sine Wave Inverter, and the size of the house battery bank. Jim .

Boy, that looks great! Any chance you can ship it to me? Jim

Ray, Good catch. It seems that the folks at Monaco were doing that for a long, long time. Our much older coach had exactly the same problem. Ours was easier to fix because we have no slides. By your pictures, I say, 'Good work'. Jim

I wouldn't put up with this. I would package everything up and send it back to TST for examination, repair, replacement or refund. I have never believed that my TST system was perfect, but I have been impressed with the folks at TST to try to support their product. I do believe it is wise to have a tire pressure monitoring system, irregardless of brand. Jim

I empathize with all the thoughts about the inaccuracies of tire pressure monitoring systems. I have used a TST system for several years, and have not felt that I was totally happy most of the time. Finally I sent the system back for examination, repair or replacement. I received the system back from TST the morning we were hitting the road. I'm an old diesel mechanic, driven truck for years, so I thought 'I'll set this up tonight.' I walked around, checked all the tire pressures and we hit the road. We stopped twice that day. Each time I checked the tires and the bearings with my hand. All was good. All was cool. Late in the day we decided to pull into a truck stop for the night. As we stepped down from the coach, the front tire was flat! Not only flat, the bead was broken from the rim, and the rim had been running on the tire sidewalls! You could have knocked me out with a feather! I had not felt any change in the handling of the coach. The last half hour on the highway, we were floating along at 65 MPH. Oh boy! Fortunately the truck stop also sold and serviced truck tires. With my wallet a bit lighter, the next morning we drove away from the truck stop with new steer tires installed and balanced. The friendly tire man helped me to install the tire pressure monitoring sensors. He thought that it would be a good idea to keep the sensors on the wheels. I agree. Jim

I agree that we should not stray off the topic of this thread, which is a discussion about the new Holiday Rambler Ambassador. Jim

I found the solution to the wandering problems for my coach here: http://www.irv2.com/forums/f115/wandering-sway-bars-alignment-ride-height-oh-my-124491.html Jim

Opinions will abound. My propane air cooled generator does not have a block heater. When I wake up in the morning, the batteries need charging, it's cold outside, oh what the heck, I push the start button. When the Onan starts, it immediately runs at full governed speed. I expect it to start in the cold and begin to work at full capacity within a minute or two, and do it well for a couple of hours. Then I will shut it off until the next cold morning. I use 10W30 car oil. Jim

I'm not complaining about the demise of the Roadmaster Chassis, because it has taken until this past year to discover why so many of the 8 bag Roadmaster chassis have had wandering issues, right out of the factory. It's great that the reason has finally been found, and wonderful for anyone purchasing an older Roadmaster chassis coach today, because they can easily and affordably modify their coach to be one of the absolute best handling coaches on the road. It's unfortunate that the solution didn't come from Monaco or Roadmaster themselves, and disturbing that so many folks that bought brand new Monaco and Holiday Rambler coaches relied on Monaco and Roadmaster for solutions received no help at all. Having said that. Even considering the shortcomings, the Roadmaster (ie. Chrsyler, ie. Belguim bus) chassis was years ahead of its time. It is unfortunate that it has been destroyed. Someday, it may be realized that the basic tenants of design of the Roadmaster chassis are superior to much of what will continue to be used on the road for many years to come. But, I believe it's a sign of the times. Profit is the only bottom line. Very few customers care about semi-monocoque chassis. It's all about fancy and glitz. Talk about floor plan. It doesn't matter what's underneath the floor. So. I agree with all opinions thus far. The new Monaco Dynasty is an American Eagle with different decals. Please understand, I'm not knocking the American Eagle. It's a fine coach. It has always been a fine coach body built upon a Freightliner chassis. It has never been a proprietary semi-monocoque chassis that some expect to be able to have when they buy a Monaco Dynasty. I think that the new Holiday Rambler Ambassador is a price point marketing stategy on a Freightliner chassis. I think the manufacturer is assuming that the new generation wants a coach for the occassional weekend holiday a few short miles from home, and possibly the occasional trip. Again, focus on the floorplan, and don't talk about the chassis. I think there will be a few of our older generation that will search for quality coaches on proprietary chassis. I suspect that the manufacturers believe that the next generation of purchasers don't care about details. They just want the fancy and the glitz. I believe that eventually the next generation of purchasers are in for a bit of a surprise, and the suppliers to that generation are in for a wake up call. While the purchasers are only concerned about the glitz, they are assuming that the quality is already there, and won't put up with surprises. They have been trained by the evolution in the automotive industry. The RV manufacturers are waking up to supplying the glitz, but so far they don't have a clue regarding the quality. I'm not trying to argue here. I'm just sharing my opinions. Jim

When we bought our coach about 8 years ago, it came with the FMCA 206229 goose egg on the back door. The PO had done a great job of mounting it on the rear engine grill. After we repainted the rig, we removed the old goose egg and simply mounted FMCA 407500 in its place. It looks like it has always been there. I've sometimes wondered about somehow letting FMCA member 206229 know that their coach is still being babied and appreciated, but a lot of years have gone by. Jim

To Ehoger, If you want to find out why your 2013 Roadmaster 8 air bag chassis motor coach is wandering, I am confident you will find a solution if you join the conversation here: http://www.irv2.com/...-my-124491.html Jim Sanderson

It is a confirmed fact that some of the coaches built on the 8 air bag Roadmaster chassis have serious wandering problems. It has been proven to be caused by an inadequate design of the trailing arms and panhard rods that maintain the position of the H frames within the chassis frame. In addition, many of these chassis were fitted with inferior suspension bushings at the factory. New design aftermarket bushings have recently been produced to address this issue. As per the threads in irv2, trailing arm cross braces have been designed by Van Williams and have been installed in many coaches with resounding success. Van Williams has since designed an additional improvement in the form of a Watts link to further stabilize the positioning control of the H frames. It is also a confirmed fact that the Sheppard steering boxes have produced a wandering problem in that most of those steering boxes have too much steering wheel free play, and the boxes are not adjustable. Some owners of Roadmaster chassis coaches have found that switching over to the TRW steering boxes solves this problem. My coach was a road wild, uncontrollable wandering all over the road white knuckle beast. None of the standard approaches such as alignment, ride height, etc. had any influence whatsoever on solving the nightmare. The new design suspension bushings and Van Williams rear trailing arm braces changed our coach into what I believe is now one of the finest handling and riding coaches on the road today. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' Canada, eh?

Our local tire dealer(s) can sell any tire that has decent looking sidewalls and a reasonable amount of tread, irregardless of age, for gravel hauling trailers at a price of $150.00 per tire. The demand is greater than the supply. Jim

Not Brett, but a Canadian. Dexron III is a good choice for the hydraulic system in Canada. Synthetic hydraulic oil will be fine. Be warned thought, that synthetic oil in older systems can cause oil leakages from seals not designed for synthetic oil. If it was mine, I would use Dexron III. That's what I use in mine. Jim

If the vehicle is pulling to the right: 1. Ehe camber is off. That's one of the most difficult adjustments to make on a solid axle. It means using a hydraulic jack to bend the axle. Unless you have Independent Front Suspension, in which case it should easily be adjustable. or 2: There could be a problem with the right front wheel bearing or 3: There could be a problem with the brake on the right front wheel. or 4: There could be a front steer tire problem. Hope that helps. Jim

I went through a time when my steps did exactly the same thing. However, it usually happened during rain or times of high humidity. I took the control box from the bottom of the step apart, dried it out, cleaned it, and caulked it when I put it back together. I re-did every connection under there. That was a couple of years ago. It has been working OK ever since. Touch wood.

We all can have differing opinions regarding the best steering aid. Something like the Ford-Chevy conversation. My understanding is that all of the available steering aids are primarily spring operated. The ones that look much like shock absorbers attach to the tie rod that runs from one wheel to the other. I chose not to use this type because of cost, and also that while this type stabilizes the movement of the tie rod, it forces the tie rod ends to absorb the stresses to control the wheels. I was intrigued by the Steer Safe design in that by design, it controls the movement of the wheel itself right at the king pin, therefore theoretically reducing steering system stresses. I know, it's a small point, and not one that I wish to be the cause of a dispute. I believe that any of the available steering aids will be just that, a great aid in steering. I also believe that someday, this will be accomplished electronically. In fact, I believe it is already available in some higher end new coaches today. I do not believe anything in electronic steering aids is available as an aftermarket add on device.

The blower fan is directly behind the front of your dash just to the right of the wooden console box that's holding up the center of your dash. It looks like it's impossible to get at, but it's not. It's slow tedious work, but if you're handy at all, you can do it. You have to remove the wooden box. When you've removed all the screws, if the box won't move, try very carefully working a very thin blade between the box and the vinyl dashboard. The vinyl has a tendency to melt into the lacquer on the wood. You have to remove the heater ducts from the front of the dash. Once the heater duct is removed, look at the top of the heater duct hole in the dash, and you'll see a screw that holds the top of the dash to the front of the dash. Remove that screw from each heater duct hole. Remove the trim from around your entrance door. It will be in the way. Gently lift the right side of your dash up, keep looking for screws that are holding it down. Eventually you'll find them all. The goal is to get the right half of the top of your dash lifted up high enough that you can start working on getting the right half of the front of your dash pulled out. Soon you'll see the blower motor. It's between the wooden box and the dashboard glovebox that's in front of the passenger seat. The blower motor is held in with 3 or 4 screws. The issue is to be able to pull the dash out enough to get at that motor and get it out. It's a popular little motor, used in all the GMC pickup trucks from the '70's. The part # at NAPA stores is PM105. It's built by the cheapest bidder, probably from China, and there's no HD replacement. While you're in there, in the circuit for that blower is a Bosch relay that sometimes fails, causing the blower motor to not function. It's a good time to find it, check it out, and move it out from under the dash. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' Canada, eh?

I can confirm what Mike Canter says about Bilstein shocks. Our coach rode terribly with the Bilstein shocks. The coach literally pounded when the tires hit those 'bang, bang, bang' joins in the pavement. I ordered new Bilstein shocks last year. Once removed, the old Bilstein shocks were so stiff that I could not close them without assistance, and once compressed, the shock would return very, very slowly to its full length. The new Bilstein shocks were fairly easy to close, and returned to full length fairly rapidly. The difference in ride is like night and day. We still feel the 'bang, bang, bang' joins in the pavement, but now it's not knocking the fillings out of our teeth. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' Canada, eh?

I installed the Steer Safe unit a couple of years ago. It works exactly as advertised. It assists in keeping the wheels in a straight forward position. It does stiffen the steering a little bit, but it's not an issue. I recommend the system. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' Canada, eh?

I agree that my next move needs to be an actual weigh of each wheel. Although I've tried alignment work, new tires (although the old ones looked great), ride height adjustment (again, basically just a check, because ride height was in spec), etc, etc, nothing has made much of a change, if any at all. The greatest improvement was to tighten the steering box slack adjustment screw a little, which reduced the steering wheel play. I have tried ridiculously low tire pressure, and ridiculously high tire pressure, and everything in between. Changing the tire pressure doesn't seem to have any affect (good or bad) on changing the way our coach handles. Our friends coach is exactly the same coach, same year, same model, it was even the same color out of the factory. The only difference is theirs is 4' longer. Their coach steers nice, ours.. not so nice. It's OK. It's not really bothered much by wind or passing trucks, in fact often I find myself surprised that there's a wind out there. The best description I can find is to say that the coach handles 'vague', not that much unlike my pickup truck when I've got too much load on the back axle, and the front end is up in the air and kind of floating all over the place. Something like that. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' Canada, eh?

Our coach is also 36'. Alignment work, steering box adjustment, new steer safe unit, new shocks, new tires, and ride height adjustment have all helped to make it a reasonably well steering and handling machine. However, I have come to suspect that the coach is too light on the front end, and that is contributing to much of the wind handling issues. I have not weighed the coach yet, so I am not yet able to confirm my suspicions. I do know that friends have a coach exactly the same as ours, except it is 40'. With the extra 4' wheelbase, and weighing in at almost the front axles maximum GVWR, their coach handles very well. I suspect that the way our coach handles is due to the combination of 4' less wheelbase, and the resultant lesser weight on the front axle due to the shorter length. Jim Sanderson 1995 Monaco Dynasty 36' Canada, eh?

We bought the TST 510 system a year ago. From the beginning, the sensors would give false readings. Often, at start up in the morning, a sensor would read low tire. Upon removing the sensor, the tire checked fine. Also, the sensors would seize on the valve stems, particularly the Borg Warner valve extension stems. That eventually broke both of the special tools that TST supplied to be able to install and remove the sensors from the valve stems. I sent the entire kit back to TST for examination. They returned it to me, reporting that 3 sensors were defective, and they replaced the monitor (it sounded like just because they felt like it). They returned the kit back to me with my broken sensor installation tools. So, I haven't installed the kit yet. Our coach is in storage right now, so it's no big issue. I'll contact TST and order a couple of installation tools. I think the TST monitoring system is OK. I don't know if it's the best, because I haven't had the pleasure of using a properly operating system of any brand. I will say that when I contacted TST, they took my concerns seriously, and I do believe that they tried to do their best to address those concerns. Based on my experience, if I was shopping for a tire pressure monitoring system again, the most important thing that would be at the #1 spot on my "must have" list would be sensors that allow you to check the tire pressure without removing the sensor. Absolutely must have that ability.