Bob Nodine Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 About 5 years ago we replaced the day/night shades with MCD shades through out the coach with the exception of the cockpit area. The wife wanted to keep the curtains so we stayed with that configuration for privacy up front. We already had Magneshades for the windows and windshield in that area. Last year on our trip out west the driver's side sun visor started acting up and we had to use sunglasses when driving towards the sun. That coupled with the fact that there has always been a large gap on either side of the windshield that the OEM visors did not cover motivated us to install the MCD shades in the cockpit area. Seems we always had the sun shinning thru that gap on the driver's side when traveling south on I-75. This was a frustrating project because everything had to be custom fitted. At times we felt like a 17th century gunsmith where all the parts were hand made and not interchangeable. We know there have been some who were able to install the MCD windshield shade without adding any guides on the A-pillars but we were not able to accomplish that. A friend who has an almost identical coach and who's work we copied also had to use A-pillar guides. One mistake we made was to use his measurements. We even cut a length of wood and placed it up into the windshield area to test the fit before ordering the shades. Even through our coaches look identical his is a 2007 and our is a 2006 and there must be a slight difference in the placement or size of the electronics cabinet used to house the entertainment equipment. When we tried to place the shade in the same position as our friend it hit that cabinet. Since the windshield is curved and we had to move the shade forward about 1/2 and inch to clear the audio/visual cabinet it barely clears the windshield. The increased forward position of the shade required us to use wider A-pillar guides so we could close gaps that would look ugly when the shades were closed. It also meant that we removed to much material from the top section of the A-pillar and had to make covers and use a board across the front to completely close of the windshield. So if you undertake a similar project be sure to remember that Monaco coaches are like snowflakes and no two are alike. Our friend used cherry wood to fabricate the A-pillar guides and any boards he added to cover the shades. He stained these to match the cabinets. This is another area where we deviated from our friend and thought the finished look would be more visually pleasing if we matched paint to the A-pillars. We have custom matched stain on hand that we have used for other projects in the coach along with a supply of cherry. Since we were painting and did not have cherry boards long enough to span the distance on the passenger side we used high quality pine boards instead of cherry. Getting the max travel positions set with the ignition on and off was also frustrating. We have two sun visor control switches on the driver's side that were originally used to control both the driver and passenger visor and a single switch on the passenger side to control the passenger visor. We used the driver's side switch to control the day shade of the windshield and the other two switches to control the the night shade. The day shade worked fine but the night shade was doing weird stuff and would not work at all with the switch on the driver's side. I finally decided that there must be a voltage difference between the two switches that was confusing the control module inside the night shade motor. After setting the max travel positions with both switches even through they were controlling the same motor it seemed to fix the problem. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Nodine Posted December 20, 2019 Author Share Posted December 20, 2019 (edited) I just took two more photo that shows the difficulty we had eliminating the openings where the shade meets the A-pillar. You can also see in the photos that I have added small sections of pipe insulation to keep the shades from banging when we travel. I found this to work quite well. Just cut a section for each end of the day shade if that is the shade against the wall and slip it over the shade bar at the bottom. The shade in the photo on the passenger side does not have a day shade because it is for the door. We now have this project where we can live with it but it had me worried at first. Edited December 20, 2019 by Bob Nodine 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertL Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 Very nice installation, thank you for the insights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leezafindingfun Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 Thank you for sharing, Bob, this is on our list to do in the coming 2 months and we are wondering about tackling it ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Nodine Posted February 4, 2020 Author Share Posted February 4, 2020 17 hours ago, leezafindingfun said: Thank you for sharing, Bob, this is on our list to do in the coming 2 months and we are wondering about tackling it ourselves. Lisa, Guess it all depends on your do-it-yourself skill level and the tools you have available. MCD will install them if you make the trip to their facility. I prefer to do my own work when possible. I know that they would never take the time to do a custom fit that would please me and for sure they would not make custom parts and paint them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leezafindingfun Posted February 4, 2020 Share Posted February 4, 2020 (edited) Thanks, Bob, you've given us lots to think about. Hubby is very handy and I know, like you, he would tackle it himself. Now if only I could find him some more time.... Edited February 4, 2020 by leezafindingfun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chargerman Posted February 4, 2020 Share Posted February 4, 2020 Looks very nice Bob. I have an unrelated question. What are the four different monitors for that I see at the helm? safe travels! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Nodine Posted February 5, 2020 Author Share Posted February 5, 2020 12 hours ago, Chargerman said: Looks very nice Bob. I have an unrelated question. What are the four different monitors for that I see at the helm? safe travels! The monitor to the left is a Garmin GPS that has saved my butt more times than I can remember. The illuminated thing next to it with the antena is a tire pressure monitor. Our coach came with the worthless and constantly failing Weldex camera system with the monitor installed in the dash where you new see a tablet computer now. That tablet is hosting the Silverleaf VSP monitoring software. I removed the Weldex monitor and installed the computer tablet over the hole. Our OEM water temp and oil pressure gauges are worthless and I find myself looking at the VSP software running on that tablet more than the OEM dash. I prefer my rear view camera to be full time and constantly watch it just like a rearview mirror in a car. I installed a Voyager camera at the rear of the coach and ran a new cable to the front. The first monitor to the right of the steering wheel is the full time Voyager for the new rear camera. For the most part I find side cameras to not be very useful and prefer mirrors. One exception to that case is the blind spot near the door on the right front. That side camera is connected to the third monitor to the extreme right and is also full time. The original Weldex camera at the rear is still there and is still intermittent. I suspect a cable problem. That camera pans and I have it pointed down at the hitch. I installed a switch on the dash that will switch the side camera monitor to the hitch view if I want to see what is going on there. I have plans to add a third item to that monitor. We have never had an effective exhaust brake and have replaced the exhaust brake and checked for leaks without any satisfaction. I plan to add an exhaust brake pressure gauge and monitor it with a camera that can be selected on that monitor. Probably a waste of time but since I have completely retired now I need projects to keep me busy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chargerman Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 Thanks for the info. I know what you mean about always looking for projects after retirement 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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