Bob Nodine

Hi Van, I am also a fan of Blue Sea and got my start from you. Even through I don't own a Class A any more I converted the stupid IRD charger in my Class C built on A Ford E-450 to the Blue Sea ML-ACR. Here is the stuff I took out: Replaced with this: We got excited about the new 3rd Gen Colorado and ordered one in December. Received it in April and now in the process of setting it up to tow. Since it is a new design no one has the baseplate out yet. We have one on order and they tell us it will ship on Sept 18. I have been doing what I can while waiting on the baseplate. The Colorado has an electric parking brake and electric steering and requires that the battery be disconnected before towing. I decided to use the Blue Sea ML-RBS for that. On this new truck there is almost no place to mount anything on the inside of the fenders or the firewall. I decided to mount the ML-RBS on top of the battery making it unpluggable So the the battery can be removed. Here is what it looks like: Made a cover for it from black ABS plastic: Bob

Great news Scotty and Debbie.

I just watched both full length videos that Chris posted and now I feel like a destitute, ignorant, inadequate redneck, which is probably what I am.

Call Cary Kaiser at Kaiser Brake and Alignment at (800) 877-5890. He can build any of the Monaco drag links with adjustable ends (both ends). Bob

Sometimes it does not matter what kind of signs you have or the experience of the driver. Drivers often have their heads in the clouds or are just plain not paying attention. This is a famous railroad bridge in Durham, NC that has made for a bad day for all sorts of vehicles even with flashing warning lights.

The real problem is the lack of detent once the rivet starts to wear. Bending the arm can add detent but then the arm often strikes the door frame or rattles as you drive down the road. After fighting the swing arm problem for years and purchasing a new one once I came up with my own fix. I drilled a hole thru the detent bubble (you must use a glass drill bit because the stainless steel is hard) and used Locktight Red to glue a panhead screw into the center of the detent bubble. Cut off the screw threads so the screw does not protrude below the swing arm. I maintain that the rivet wear is a non-linear process and once it becomes loose it will wear very little. This fix worked for our coach for years.

When you are on your deathbed it is not the trips you made that you will regret, it is the one's you didn't make that you will regret. As long as we are able to travel we will find a way to absorb the cost of fuel. In 2016 we made a trip to Alaska and back and drove the motorhome over 8000 miles. We would do it again in a heartbeat. So many fun memories and thousands of mind blowing photographs and videos. Also the previous record high for diesel was $4.84 July 17, 2008 and adjusted for inflation is around $6.19 a gallon.

Scotty, Pam and I will keep you and Debbie in our prayers and hope Debbie has a fast recovery. It is tuff enough when health issues happen at home but the situation is compounded when on the road. Bob Nodine

Rick, I have a Tire SafeGuard system we no longer use. It has 6 flow thru sensors for the coach and 4 standard sensors for the toad and the monitor that mounts on the dash. No repeater. It was working fine when we took it out of service. We downsized to a gas Class-C and it has OEM built in tire pressure monitoring for all six wheels on the coach. We use the RVi3 braking system that supports tire pressure monitoring so we use 4 Tire Patrol Sensors on the toad. If you are interested in buying the Tire SafeGuard let me know. We are heading down to Florid now but have to be back home on the 1st of Feb for medical stuff. If you are interested I can ship it to you in early February. Asking $75 and I will pay the shipping. You can contact me at nodine@gmail.com Bob

When someone says something is not political you know right away it is. This whole thread is political. If we are being honest we know we will never produce anything without using energy from at least one source. Most folks who are against electric vehicles are because they think their diesel motorhome will be taken away, or they want be able to hear the rumble of a big V8, or they don't like the politicians who are pushing them, etc. Electric vehicles have their place just like internal combustion engines have their place. We need all the energy sources we can get. Anything we can do to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is a good thing. Take the environmental aspect out of the equation and think about how we can reduce our consumption of crude oil without giving up our motorhome or that big earth mover that needs a lot of power. Wouldn't you like to tell OPEC to go jump in the lake. By the way, you could build another interstate along side of I-10 that does not allow trucks and has an imbedded inductive charging system that would charge your passenger vehicle as you moved down the highway.

An advantage of the Dynasty and above coaches often overlooked is the rigidity of the chassis. Because the motorhome structure is a steel frame welded to the frame the frame is very stable and does not flex. When we purchased the 2006 Diplomat it was only a year old and I think it was traded in because it handled so poorly. The ride height was way off and when we would hit a dip in the road the bathroom door would fly open. Being a newbie to the motorhome scene I did not understand what was going on but later understood that the frame was flexing. After getting the ride height adjusted the bathroom door did not fly open. Still when driving on the interstate and getting hit by a gust of wind or passed by a semi the coach would jump a foot in the lane. Very unnerving. That is why we spent so much time and effort on the Watts link. So besides the tag axle you have the stiff frame in your corner of the ring. If you pay much attention to the forums you will notice that the folks who are always complaining about wandering and handling are those who own the non tag and non S-frame Monaco coaches. Another downside to these Indiana built coaches is they usually have a Shepard steering sector that has lots of dead motion. It would be nice if everyone could own a coach like you have but that is not always the case. Even the lower end Monaco coaches have a well built house with nice cabinets and often folks are sucked in by the eye candy and the quality of the coach. Once they purchase the coach they love everything about it except driving it on the interstate in windy conditions. You may not see the value of the Watts link or the cross bars because they add little improvement to the Dynasty and above coaches. They make a world of difference on the lower end coaches.

JD, I ran the front and rear sway bars on our 2006 Diplomat for 13 years and never had any problem from the way they were mounted. The sway bars were the second thing I did in my quest to improve the handling of the coach. On your coach have you looked real close in the rear for broken welds? If there is a broken weld that will allow movement of the rear axle then taking the truck off would make a difference. Often towing a vehicle reduces wandering but in your case it seems to exacerbates it. Bob

JD, have you checked the alignment of your rear axle? Often the rear axle is not square and perpendicular to the direction of travel and will cause a constant pull either left or right. I mention this because you made a comment about the coach not wanting to go straight. On a level and straight road you should be able to turn loose of the steering wheel and the coach should continue straight. Bob Van, Hope Sandy is OK. Bob

Scotty, I did not solder them. Bob

Van beat something into my head and I think everyone needs to keep that lesson in mind. It is a simple statement, "your coach is going to go where your wheels are pointed". If gusting winds are changing the direction of your coach then the wind pushing against your coach is changing the direction that the front wheels are pointing. The design of the Roadmaster chassis makes it almost impossible to completely stop this because the wheels are floating on four air bags that must be stabilized by trailing arms and a single Panhard bar. The Watts link makes a huge difference because it removes the tendency of the H-frame to twist on the fulcrum point created by having only one Panhard bar. That is why it is important to keep the Watts link as far from the Panhard bar as possible. If the Watts link is mounted on the same side of the H-frame as the Panhard bar then it will not be as effective in keeping the H-frame from twisting when trucks pass or a gust of wind hits the side of the coach. The trailing arms are long and that coupled with the fact that bushings must have some give makes it impossible for the trailing arms to completely stabilize the H-frame. I don't know the relationship of your Watts link to your Panhard bar but I suspect that it is either not far enough away or your Watts link is not firmly attached or has a loose or broken pivot pin. Just 1/16 of an inch of movement will affect the straight line handling of the coach. This brings up the subject of the TRW and the tie rod ends. Any slop in the tie rod ends or movement of the Pitman arm on the TRW will cause the front wheels to change direction when wind pushes against the side of the coach. Remember your coach is going where your wheels are pointed. I could bore you with some trigonometry of what will happen at 60 MPH if your font wheels slightly change direction but I want.

I agree with David that you do the front Watts link and rear crossbars and wait on he sway bars.

Jim, Is this what you are looking for?

Good to hear because I am sure our dog would prefer to stay in familiar soundings. We were also looking at Fantasy RV because we have used them in the past. Thanks for your help. Bruce, Have not seen you around for awhile. You once were very active over on iRv2. Guess I don't have room to talk because we have not posted much lately. We were planning on 2022 or 2023 and going as late as practical because of the warming trend at the pole. We will keep our ear to the ground for trends up there.

Thanks Jamie, that is very interesting and I will check that out. Good to hear David. We did not know about Rover and this is very helpful. Thanks Ron, good information and yes the tour we were looking at does the Tundra Lodge overnight stay. I got to keep my wife from seeing your photo of the polar bear at the window. She will be on the first flight up there!

My wife has had seeing a polar bear on her bucket list for years and every now and then brings it up. I am 75 and she is 68 so if we are going to do one of the tours we need to start making plans. I know some of the older members here have been on one of the tours and would be interested in your comments about your experience. Another thing that has always stopped us from making the tour is our dog. Once the tour reaches Thompson, MB the group goes by either air or train to Churchill for about 4 days. That is where the problem with the dog comes into play. I would be very interested in hearing from members who took their dog as far as Thompson and put them in one of the kennels there for the time they were gone to Churchill. I know each dog is different but mainly concerned about the attituded and care from the kennels there. I have not reached out to any of the tour companies yet and just started doing research. Maybe the campground there offer a service for those that leave their dog behind. If that kind of service exists would be interested in hearing about it. We are looking at October 2022 at this stage and hoping the Canadian border will be open by then.

Why would you want to program the shade with the ignition on? The brown wire was probably never connected and is used to disable the shade while the vehicle is in motion.

Great Scotty. When you talked to me on the phone you did not tell me it was only the three small holes that were not on the substitute drums. I would have told you that they are not necessary. As the other poster said they only keep the drum in place when the wheel is off. No way that drum is going to come off when the wheel is on.

I'm not very bright but this makes no sense to me. I always thought drug dealers and crime organizations were all criminals and I doubt they care where the interstates are. No matter what the government or law enforcement does the criminals will always adapt.

Scotty, I put the fresh water tank sensor on the passenger side but had to put the black and gray sensors on the driver's side because the black and gray tanks are sloped and the deep end is on the roadside. I did use existing wiring that was in the coach for options that were not there. Unfortunately you have to pull that white panel in the service bay to get to the end of the black and gray tanks.

Sharon, You will not be able to run 3 air conditioners on a 30 amp shore power connection even with the Soft-Start gizmo. All the Sort-Start does is reduce the start up current on the compressor. It does this by supplementing power from a stored capacitor. That capacitor will be discharged in a very short period of time and charged again at a slow rate before the compressor needs to start again. I have never seen inside one of these Soft-Starts but imagine there is a steering mechanism that blocks current from the main AC input during compressor startup forcing all the startup current to be supplied by a large capacitor. After the compressor starts and the capacitor is discharged the current flow reverts back to the main AC input and a resistor limits the charge current to the capacitor thus keeping the overall current drain from the main AC line on a average of what the air conditioner would draw with both the fan and the compressor running after the startup up surge. A 13K or 15K BTU RV air conditioner is going to average between 12 to 14 amps with both the fan on high and the compressor running. Multiply 12 x 3 and you get 36 amps which is 6 amps over the maximum of 30 amps. In most campgrounds you will not even be able to draw 30 amps from the pedestal because of weak circuit breakers and bad sockets. With two units running with the compressors on you will have very little power left for the rest of the RV. Don't even try to run the microwave or a hair dryer. The unit that is short cycling is most likely because one of the registers is blowing cold air on the thermostat. If you know it is going to be a hot day then by all means put the fans on high a the beginning of the day and leave them there. Remember the largest source of heat in a Class A motorhome is the windshield so consider using outside screens to reduce the heat that enters the coach. I would not waste money putting a Soft-Start on the middle unit and just know you must leave it turned off when on 30 amp shore power.