jacwjames

I live ~100 miles from Visione and have been there multiple times. They have (had) a huge inventory of salvaged units. Check their website. I have bought several items from Visione RV, they are very good to respond to email inquireies or via the phone. Whey my wife damaged 3 doors on my Windsor I did check on replacing one of them, the small door that accesses the water pump and Manabloc area. Visione quoted $600 at the time. The door itself was warped pretty good. I was able to clamp it to the top of my workbench and then using very large pipe wrenches with wood to protect the wood I was able to force it back flat. There was a large dent that I was able to fill with bondo and repaint. The other two doors had the hinge portion crushed from where my wife hit a metal post pulling out of a fueling station, it was at the same height of the hinge and as she pulled out it pancaked the hinge for ~4-5 ft. Minor scratches to the doors. I was able to remove both doors. I replaced the fixed portion of the hinge with a piece I bought from Visione. The part of the hinge that is attached to the door I was able to remove by drilling out the hinges and replacing with pieces I got from Monaco. I was able to get everything back together mounted and aligned, then had to paint 3 of the 4 colors Maybe you should post a picture of the door so we could provide better advice

I believe you doors open by lifting up. If so the hinge will be the worst part of repair, especially if the portion of the hinge mounted on the side of the coach. When my wife crushed the hinge portion on 3 doors I tried to order from Monaco at the time, they offered the door portion but not the part that mounts to the side of the coach, I ended up buying a ~8' piece from Visione salvage. I was able to buy the door portion from Monaco. REV currently does list this part, you may contact them and see if they now offer the other side. https://parts.revgroup.com/search?keyword=S08410937

There is a product called Irontite that is a stop leak product. https://irontite.com/ Dr4film used this starting in AK and all summer without a problem before he changed his radiator. I had to replace my radiator when road debris took it out, it would leak as fast as I pumped water into it. I filed under insurance and was replaced by Cummins but I was the one that sourced the radiator. I had prices from ~$7K down to $2500. I ended up buying one from CG&J, if they've ever replaced one in an Endeavor they'll have schematic showing size and ports that you can confirm. The CG&J will make both aluminum or copper, I ended up going with Al. So far so good, I did this in 2015. There was a recent post by Bob Nodine showing what he had to do to get to his radiator to clean, it might be worth looking at.

Yup Great Mimes think alike!

One thing I'd be interested in knowing is how many people who replaced the Norcold with a residential has had problems with the residential and if so what type of problem. I know I've read on other forums of problems with the Samsung but not many. Based on the poll to date it looks like about 50% of the ones replaced have been Samsung.

From memory about 5". Not a problem if you have a drawer underneath you mind loosing. I had a furnace. Lower the furnace 1 5/8" to the floor, which meant I had to drill 2 new holes in the side of the motorhome for the intake/exhaust and install a larger cover plate on the outside. I removed the shelf and the supported the refrigerator ~1/2" above the furnace but left it all open underneath for airflow. Just barely missed the light cover in the front of the fridge when I open the door and had to trim the facia piece over the pocket door track to be able to open that door. But I'm a happy camper now. You can go the the AJ Madison site and they have a good filter that can show you what is available based on the dimensions. https://www.ajmadison.com/refrigerators/ If you would be satisfied with a smaller 2 door fridge it opens up more possibilities. But the Samsung at +17 cu ft is about 50% bigger then the Norcold. Plenty of room for cold beer and frozen ice cream (neither of which I had in the Norcold)!

Both the RF197 & RF18 are counter depth and the same width as the Norcold, they are taller. So if you have the headroom it can be a pretty simple install. They also work well with MSW inverters while others don't. Current price on a Samsung is ~$1500 (but can buy them cheaper on sale). The Fisher & Paykel is another option but it's MSRP is $4350. More brands are becoming available so it pays to shop around.

Our Norcold never really performed well but we learned to live with it. It finally failed in 2018 but since I was in the middle of building a house so wasn't in a rush to fix. By luck though I purchased a Samsung RF18 on clearance at Lowes for ~$850 (with the ultimate goal of putting it in the coach) and used in the house while we were building. Finally installed in didn't replace until Sept 2019. Have not a chance to give it a good test yet but I am sure it will work fine. It was a slightly harder install since I wanted to keep the furnace. Thanks to Bob Nodine & Van Williams for the advice during the install.

When mine failed I was using it on electric. The black box was showing the dreaded red light, it had kicked the refrigerator off due to high heat sensor. I reset the box and shortly after it kicked again so I shut it down and ultimately scrapped it. I replaced the Norcold with a Samsung but with the furnace underneath it was not an easy install. Here's a post I did on IRV2.com on it. https://www.irv2.com/forums/f115/samsung-install-finally-done-461001.html

Next time you test to see whether your refrigerator is working I would closely monitor. It is a known problem that the coolant within the system will crystalize and form a blockage preventing it's circulation and ultimately cooling of the refrigerator. Once this happens the refrigerator is basically toast. Some people have had success pulling the refrigerator and turning it upside down to dislodge the blockage but it never goes away and it's a short term fix. I was concerned about mine early on and purchased and installed a automatic fire extinguisher behind the fridge that might prevent extensive damage if it was triggered by heat but not a guarantee of putting it out since flames travel up quickly. Here's a link to one along with the ARPV system https://www.arprv.com/rv-fires.php

You may have one of the good ones. FWIW, when I removed the Norcold to replace with a Samsung we took the cooling unit off the back to be able to take it out the front door. It was installed very poorly with a large gap between it and the cooling plate so the cold transfer was very poor, no wonder it didn't work very well. Good luck

I kept a remote temp sensor in both the freezer and fridge. We kept extra freezer blocks in the freezer and move them to the fridge if the temps started to climb. We became very paranoid of the fridge over time and even though we monitored it we lost lots of food stuffs over the years. We never saw temps much below 40F in the fridge, most of the time warmer then that. Freezer was slightly better, my wife enjoys ice cream but learned to live without int the motorhome.

Below the refrigerator is your furnace, the 2 ports you see on the outside are the intake and exhaust of the furnace. There are a couple of small fans mounted on the rear of the refrigerator up high and will occasionally come on but I never heard mine. They are intended to improve airflow and cooling. Some people have opted to mount additional ones to improve the refrigerators performance. I mounted on below that was controlled by a snap disc attached to the burner tube. I saw marginal improvement. My Norcold failed a couple years ago and I replaced with a residential. Also, the Norcold refrigerator of your vintage had a recall where they installed a couple of heat sensors in the exhaust stack ad control Black Box and would cut the refrigerator off it reached a certain temperature. The Norcold has a know safety issue, many fires have been caused by the Norcold resulting in a class action suit (hence the recall) back years ago. When my Norcold failed the Black Box kicked the refrigerator off and the bottom was covered in the yellow ammonia dust. No fire but at that point I had enough of the Norcold.

The breaker that is shown in the photo is in the OFF position. This is preventing power from going to the transfer switch. So before when you got the generator running it was not feeding power to the coach. With in the ON position it will provide power to the transfer switch and start charging the batteries. In most cases the transfer switch is set to give the generator priority, even if you are plugged in to shore power. If you are not familiar with the systems in your coach take the time to thoroughly read the manual. Mine does a pretty decent job of explaining everything and even though I've owned my coach for ~12 years I still take the time to pull it out an review different systems, especially the more complicated ones. I spend hours reading both Monacoers.org and IRV2.com posts. If I see one that peaks my interest I will even dig into the problem a little more and download any info I can on it. I have an extensive library of documents for the systems on my coach.

WOW, I never even knew Monaco did Tech Tips, what a great resource and now that it's in one document I will definitely use this.

Thanks Scotty, Now we know there is a quick option to disable. If I were going to do this long term I'd install some sort of switch to over ride it. I would also record the typical amperage of the AC1 &2 to know if I could run them on 30 amp. One thing to remember is that if you have lower voltage your amperage will increase which may limit your ability to run both AC's.

The coolant tank shown in the 1997 Dynasty photo must be the volvo type tank. I have no knowledge of this tank and it's performance. My original tank was similar to the one shown in the Veurinks link but it was made out of a different type of plastic that over time of expansion and contraction would crack. When I first bought my coach in late 2008 I had several small weeping spots that I patched using gorilla glue, this lasted about 5 years until I finally replaced with a nylon type (I think) tank. At the time I purchase it from Guaranty RV, slightly cheaper). I bought the coolant sensor from EBAY and the fittings from Lowes. I am going from memory on the direction of the fan air flow, next time I start the coach I'll try and remember and check, I could be wrong (wouldn't be the first time). Maybe someone else can comment. Here are a couple pictures of the new tank and sensor that I installed in 2014. Originally it was a one wire sensor. The Ford was a two wire sensor so I just attached 2 wires and then jointed them to the original. I did seal the end of the sensor with silicone. I have not had a problem with the sensor giving me a false reading and it seems to be compatible with the low coolant alarm gizmo.

Mine blows out, picks up cool air from under the coach. I think it helps to keep engine compartment cool also.

I only have parts pages for my 2002 Windsor. Back in ~2010 when Monaco was in bankruptcy they left access to their site that dealers used to look up parts. Someone posted a link on IRV2 and I spent a couple days skimming and downloading ~100 pages. My suggestion would be check for play at the U-joints. Also look and see if there is a part label on the shaft.

The newest version of the original coolant tank on my 2002 Monaco Windsor that I replaced in ~2014 had multiple ports for the coolant sensor. At the time venders were supplying a Ford 2 wire coolant sensor but only one wire was needed since you just were using the coolant to send a signal to ground. I opted to just go ahead and use two wires but joined them together and connected to the original coolant wire. It worked and in fact alerted me when road debris took out my radiator and I lost a substantial amount of coolant before I could get stopped. I had to have the radiator replaced in 2015. The Ford sensor mounted on the side of the new tank about 2/3rds way down. The Ford part number is XC4Z-10D968-AA and are still available. This will not work on the old tank unless you have a port on the side. Veurinks offers the new version of the nylon type tank but also offers the metal for the same price. https://shop.findmyrvparts.com/searchresults.asp?Search=tank&Submit=

There are 2 U-joints on the intermediate shaft. I would have someone try and turn the wheel while you visually see if there is actually any play at the slip joints. I would think you would be able to see if that was the problem. If in doubt you could pull the shaft and clean and inspect. The U-joints could probably be sourced at a large truck shop. Here is the parts page for my 2002 Windsor, it may be the same as yours but it will give you an idea what to look for. I did a quick search for one of the two shafts listed and only had one source that said it was special order. 1 Steering Column.pdf

Mine is not labeled was not listed on the parts page for the front drivers side electrical bay, but it is mounted on the left side toward the bottom. Here is a picture of it on the NW RV Supply site. Note that this is for repair. The part is obsolete. http://www.nwrvsupply.com/product/16614041.html Looking at the picture the black button is in the top left corner with the small orange LED light to the right of it about center along the top.

Wonder if something like this would work? It is suppose to be compatible with Cummins and ABS systems. https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEXIQ-USB-Link-Truck-Diagnostic-Scanner-Truck-OBD-Fault-Diagnostics-Tool/114628295051?hash=item1ab060f98b:g:FgIAAOSw84Nfnnym

In my past life I had experience with doing Dyno tests on rebuilt engines. Back in the early 80's when I worked in underground mining I had several engines rebuilt that did not perform when installed in a piece of equipment. We usually kept several engines as spares and would change them out as needed. So a rebuilt engine may not be used immediately but when you did install it you expected it to run. If it didn't perform well and had to be pulled and sent off again you may end up with a piece of equipment down for extended period of time, loss of production and butt chewings from my boss drove me to do something. So when we sent an engine in for rebuild I stipulated that the company contact me and I'd go watch it run on the Dyno. Basically the engine was put on a stand with a large hydraulic pump mounted. The engine would be brought up to temps and they could test out put by restricting the pump, putting heavier loads on it. During the test oil pressure, temps, torque and other criteria could be monitored. When the Dyno was completed I'd sign off on the engine and it would be delivered to the mines. Initially I'd watch every engine run but over time I'd randomly observe a Dyno run but the companies never knew when I'd show up so they made sure to do a good job on the rebuild. I'd always get a copy of the Dyno run report for the records. Doing this improved engine rebuilds and performance. I did a search and found this site that will actually do a Dyno test on a OTR truck. https://www.pacificpowergroup.com/blog/our-dyno-test-erases-worries-about-your-on-highway-engines-performance This might be something to consider if I were buying a newer coach, especially if there were any doubts. It would check engine, transmission, drive train.

Dyno mode is used when they test the engine's performance. The Dyno mode actually disables the ATC but it does end up throwing a ABS blink code. If you read the literature it should come out of dyno mode when you start it after the test. But on mine the ABS stayed on and I got the blink code for the Dyno mode, 17-8 showing the ATC was disabled and it would not go out. I finally found an old procedure, my wife had to help, she stayed in the drivers set to cycle the key and press the brake as I pressed the button on the diagnostic board. I can't remember the specific sequence but it took 2 people. It solved my problem and since then I've been careful not to hold down the button more then 2 seconds to get the blink codes.