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Loving our new to us 1995 Beaver Marquis, 1st went great and she ran great! Looking forward to making many more trips. Going to do some upgrades and fix some minor issues.

We own a 2002 Beaver Patriot, 37 foot, magnum chassis, Cat Diesel, Allison Transmission. We purchased this coach two years ago. We have a long list a repairs and upgrades that we've completed since purchase. We have installed a "super steer" system with the "Safety Plus", new shocks, and have had the air system checked and repaired multiple times, the repair being an air bag replacement and check valve. Here's the ongoing issue: After trip of 200 miles plus, (the last trip was over 1,900 miles), the drivers side of the coach will not hold air for more than 10 hours. However, this is not a "full time" occurrence, it only happens ever so often. Some times it'll hold air for days on end. It's seems good to go going down the road but when I park it and let it sit after a trip it'll lose air on the drivers side 50% of the time. I have had the air system checked multiple times, they have fixed a couple of minor leaks, but they can't seem to discover the source. I've been told third and forth hand it might be solenoid? Sticking periodically? If this sounds familiar or if you have any insight I'd appreciate it. And here's the other thing about this coach...after thousands of dollars in upgrading the suspension/steering I still have to "chase it" down the road. I'm down to tires being that culprit. It had new Firestone tires on it when we purchased it, verified they were recently purchased new from a reputable tire dealer. Firestones aren't the best I understand so that's my next and last option on that front. Love the coach but wow...tired of chasing these two issues.

New coach owner here. Learning a lot with a lot left to learn! We bought a 2003 Beaver Monterrey early this year and are using it regularly. However there have been and are many items that either don’t work or don’t work properly. I have run down and repaired or replaced several of these and the coach is quite usable and comfortable. I’m now chasing more minor issues. Just got the rear view camera and monitor going and would like to see if the Aladdin system might be made operable. I found a lot of the sensors in a waste tank bay, but I can’t find the control module or the reset button ANYWHERE! Any hints will be appreciated. Monaco Tech just said “dunno, we didn’t build it”. (Have checked all cabinets inside the coach, multiple times. Have not pulled the front tv to check behind it.)

I've been wrestling with a full-wall slideout topper since I bought this 2007 Beaver Patriot Thunder. As with most things, the problems trace back to incorrect maintenance. Early in its history, the long mast (these systems are engineered for much shorter lengths) cradle became loose, and the fabric-wrapped roller tube fell onto the top of the slideout. Someone replaced it with their own hardware, long boltsets which tore at the fabric and chewed holes in the aluminum extrusion (pn 1110089-30 Slide Lead Rail) in which the spline is retained. To compound their incompetence, they lined the cradle with duct tape, which broke down over the years and formed a sticky length of rope, impeding the roller action and shattering the mounting plates on either end. All that stress loosened the mounting brackets. In attempting to clean up their mess, I'm faced with grinding out the damaged backside of the second articulating rail. It is only a $60 item, but shipping for a single 30' length is a whopping $700. By comparison, an entire new topper system is $3,800 plus about $1,000 in shipping. The $1 million question for me: did the dealer from whom I bought the rig know this cascading maintenance failure was in play? If they did a decent inspection of the rig -- they had it long enough to install a Silverleaf system and day-night shades, front to back -- it would've been apparent. I noticed small tears in the topper fabric, some chipped paint on the outer portion of the rail. Of course, there was no way to see the massive damage inside until I cut the old fabric off, today. Recommended Action: Inspect topper fabric for tears, and observe extension and retraction for smooth operation. Lift the cover on longer toppers and check for security of the cradle mounting hardware, and check to see that nothing is binding during movement. Remove end covers and carefully inspect pn 1511100-00R Side Plate Assembly with Gudgeon Support to determine that the corners of the support adjacent countersunk holes have not cracked or broken (symptoms of binding). Following Girard procedures, remove tension from the topper, detach the topper fabric, and tighten the Allen screws that hold the entire assembly on the RV. I found 20% of mine either loose or missing. Time in service: 7 years Mileage: 30,000 miles Failure to accomplish these checks can lead to the assembly coming off the RV at highway speeds, which can cause injury or death to others. [My plan is to use aircraft building/repair techniques to rivet the cradle to the extrusion. Allen bolts will be dipped in thread locker, and then have torque seal applied after installation. The rail is unusable, I'll have Girard cut three ten-foot sections for shipping. This plan passes muster with my expert on all things Girard, Kevin Waite. He can be contacted at 541 953-6162 or by email at kvn.wt.7629@gmail.com.] Followup: Girard mentioned that the articulating extrusions are stacked, i.e. the fabric can be mounted to either. I used a bungee to hold them upright and closed the slide. To my absolute horror, the extrusion did not clear the mounting brackets, bending it backwards the same way your air conditioning unit did, that time you drove under the 12' overpass with a 12'2" rig Really. This is a manufacturing error by Beaver. The poor stupid technicians who rebuilt the cradle and saw the worn fabric simply didn't see that, upon closure, the fabric was sandwiched between crushed sections, and then mauled as the rig moved down the highway. Still, check your toppers. That tube for one weighs some fifty pounds and will leave a mark if it hits anyone, catapulted off your rig at seventy feet per second. Chances are, the strip didn't bind against the roller assembly when the bus rolled off the line. At 30 feet, a small amount of sag took place, and soon the parts started binding. Inept technicians failed to see what was happening, and inadvertantly made the situation worse. You humble correspondent is simply the boy with the shovel that follows their ugly parade...

I have a little seaplane, a jet ski with wings. A homebuilt aircraft. In our fleet, a dozen or so planes were built north of the border, in Canada. There, the Canadian Ministry of Transport dictated that (a) fuel boost pumps were not permitted inside the fuselage; and, ( inline fuel filters also constituted an unacceptable hazard. As a result, our small 400-plane fleet lost two of its dozen or so Canadian-certified aircraft, killing one of the pilots. Oddly, neither accident would have occurred, had the planes been certified to the more lenient US standards. My Beaver Patriot Thunder was also subject to the additional constraints of our northern friends, who I generally regard with admiration and profound respect. In the case of the Beaver, the front axle hubs were not allowed to have oil bath bearings, like American models. The logic: a leak might compromise braking. So, apparently, Beaver owners are afflicted with the same requirement of some older American models: periodic bearing repacking is needed. I've a few question for those who have to repack their steering axles: How often do you re-pack the bearings? Is the interval one of miles or years? What shop time is involved? How much have you spent in the past to have bearings repacked? Have you transitioned from packed to dry hubs? If so, what is required? Thanks for helping me get my bearings on... well, bearings

Every now and then the front fold down TV will not come down, when it is working correctly you hear a loud click when the relay powers the motor. When it does not work you only hear a faint click and no motor movement. Five minutes later it will work fine, it has only not worked a couple of time. Part time electrical problem are a pain. Also does any Monoco owners out there know how to get the TV panel to drop down if the motor will not run? Has a manual crank but you cannot get at it with the panel in the up position. I have also asked Monoco this same question, I would bet I will get the answer here before they reply.

We're at the end of our first thirty days' ownership of a new Beaver Patriot Thunder, and the learning curve remains steep. Compounding our problem is the dealership's failure to locate our manuals: they were removed from the rig when the Silverleaf system was installed, and somehow became misplaced. Were it not for online resources, I'd be lost. But, I'm chugging along, learning many lessons from the coach, online resources and fellow Monaco/Beaver/Navistar owners. The highlights: Leveling systems are not created equal. The Beaver utilizes a dual mode arrangement that has a Valid Technologies touchpad, Power Gear hydraulics. When I hyper-extended the left rear leg to lift the bus off a jackstand onto which it had settled, I popped a seal in the leg. Ever since, it has dripped fluid. Worse, it doesn't send the computer an "Up" signal; the alarms persist during the first few minutes of driving and system logic is boogered up, even though operations are possible with only air-leveling. Utilities bundled for the purpose of linking a kitchen slideout to the main coach are fertile grounds for leaks and shorts. Inspection of those areas should be made periodically. Tag wheel tires suffer indignities others don't. Small divots out of the tread are to be expected, don't necessarily compromise the safety of the tire. Remember to raise your tag axle when making sharp turns. Full-length slideouts are tricky business. Visually confirm perfect sychronization between the ends of the slideout when extending and retracting. Do you know how to manually retract slideouts? Every owner should. Power reels depend on operators ensuring the hose/cord are wiped clean during retraction. The health of the reel depends on that simple act. Our Beaver suffers silently with a loss of shore power. A popped circuit breaker in the garage could spell drained batteries in the RV. Each time I enter and exit, and after I run heavy loads on the same circuit, I glance at the Silver Leaf DC POWER screen to make sure the inverter is powering (recharging) the battery and not vice versa. Few owners follow manufacturers' maintenance guidelines. Ostensibly, our new rig was sufficiently cared for, but many lubrication points in the chassis look like they've been untouched, in the coach's five year life. Use your nose. We noticed a diesel smell in the bedroom en route. 'Turns out, someone had dragged the tail, torn the exhaust pipe open. That's a big safety item. Use your ears. I detected a faint clanging from under the driver's seat while driving down the road. The generator's long cantilevered exhaust pipe had, via lever action, loosened the bolts securing the exhaust to the generator manifold. A HUGE safety item, potential carbon monoxide poisoning threat. According to my tire expert, all truck tires represent an imminent blowout risk at ten years of age. He looked at mine, with their pristine tread and perfect sidewalls, dated late 2005 and pronounced them overdue for replacement. Not just the steering tires, but ALL of them.

Folks, The new chassis batteries are being drawn down over a period of a couple of days. As most, I have an electrical distribution panel in the front of the coach. There is a continuous duty solenoid that is activated with the ignition on. But there are a lot of things that are on before the solenoid. I am showing a 2.5 amp drain at this point. Does this seem excessive? How long would a 2.5 amp drain take before batteries are discharged? Thanks for the help, Dennis