Time for New Tires

[zmotorsports]

Finished up tire installation earlier in the week.

I cleaned up and applied a coat of polish to the stainless steel center caps/hats before installing.

 

They look pretty decent for being 22+ years old and rolling around on the coach for 140k+ miles.  

 

Installing the Balance Masters along with the Crossfires can be a bit cumbersome, but the technique I have found that work the best is the following:  With the inner drive tire/wheel installed, I put the Balance Master in place, then rolled the outer tire/wheel up to the hub and align the valve stem on the inner wheel with the opening of the Balance Master and 180-degrees across from the valve stem on the outer wheel.  I then insert the hose for the inner wheel through and thread it on.  Once it stops leaking air give it another 1-1.5 turns.  By having the gap between the tires this makes it relatively easy to reach around with a wrench to tighten the air line.

 

Then I place a block of wood on the ground and use a prybar to just lift the outer tire/wheel up onto the hub and align with the studs, making sure the valve stems are opposing each other.  I tuck the outer hose over the center just to keep it from scratching the polished wheel.

 

Once the outer tire/wheel is installed on the studs, I place a towel on the wheel in which to place the Crossfire so it won't scratch anything plus it gives a little extra insurance just in case I drop a lugnut that it doesn't ding or scratch the wheel.

 

Once the lugnuts are torqued to 450 ft/lbs., I install the polished stainless steel lugnut covers and secure the Crossfire to the center cap before replacing the outer center cap cover.  The Crossfires do come with brackets that go under a lugnut to bolt the Crossfire valve to, however, I don't like that method as it puts undue force on the ridge around the center cap and positions the lugnut cover up off the center cap's base and looks terrible.  Plus I figured the closer to the center of the rotating assembly as possible would result in less work the Balance Masters have to do to keep everything balanced.  So I mount my Crossfire valves directly to the center cap.  They have worked well in this placement for the past two coaches (24 years and nearly 200k miles).

 

Here you can also see the center of the Crossfire is BLACK, indicating it is low on air pressure.  I set the tire pressures before installing but lost a few pounds while securing the hoses upon installation.

 

Here you can see that the center was BLACK with only being 5 PSI lower than the setpoint.

 

Once I aired the tires back up to 95 PSI the center of the Crossfire goes to YELLOW and the black hashmarks align.  If/when the tire pressures go approx. 5 PSI over, the center flips to RED.  This is often the case in the warmer months especially after a long day's drive.  By the next morning they are back to YELLOW with the marks aligned.  This is an easy visual check during a morning walk-around before departing camp.

 

With the drive axle complete it was time to move on to the tag axle and install the Balance Masters before rolling the tires into position.  I started by placing the air over hyd. bottle jack under the tag axle, raising it just enough to lift off the jack stands and pulling the smaller jack stands that were supporting the weight of the axle.  This is much easier before the tires get installed.  Then it is simply a matter of releasing the bottle jack and pulling it from under the axle once the tires are installed.  The 22-ton jack stands will remain until the coach's suspension is fully aired up then the bottle jack is used to raise the coach that last bit and pull the large jack stands from the coach's chassis.

 

Tag tire/wheel in place with half the lugnuts installed and a towel in the wheel as a safety measure again in case I drop a nut.  Next the center cap can go on and everything can be torqued to spec.

 

 

Done and air pressure built back up, jack stands removed and the ole' girl is sitting back down on its tires/wheels and suspension.

 

 

Not sure why the pictures have come out so "grainy".  They don't do that on another forum that I've posted these. 😕

 

While I was performing some chassis maintenance over the past couple of weeks with the tires/wheels off the coach, I recorded a video of things to check on the Roadmaster chassis, the S-Series in particular.  Would anyone be interested in that video once I post it to my channel?  If so, I can post it to the Monacoers video library as well.

 

Thanks for looking. 

[Chargerman]

Nice work Mike and thank you for sharing it. I, for one, would love to see the maintenance video you mentioned. Your coach looks as good as ever. Have you heard anything regarding the workmanship at Mike’s Custom Painting since the business was sold? Just wondering if they continue to do the type of work that they did when they did your rig  

[Scotty Hutto]

The pictures look fine to me!  Not grainy at all…

Good stuff!

[zmotorsports]

27 minutes ago, Chargerman said:

Nice work Mike and thank you for sharing it. I, for one, would love to see the maintenance video you mentioned. Your coach looks as good as ever. Have you heard anything regarding the workmanship at Mike’s Custom Painting since the business was sold? Just wondering if they continue to do the type of work that they did when they did your rig  

 

Thank you Steven.  I have not heard but then again, I hadn't even heard that he sold his business.  I have been referring people to him still but I did not know that he sold.  

 

All I can say is that I was extremely pleased with the work they did on our coach 7 years ago.

Edited March 29 by zmotorsports

[Scotty Hutto]

@pwhittle may have newer info on Mike’s; I believe the shop was sold not long after Paul had his coach painted and I think he stayed in touch with them for a while. 

[zmotorsports]

I hope the quality doesn't suffer being sold to a large conglomerate like Patrick Paint Group.  Looks like they have some heavy hitters in the RV paint world but I also know that many times when a first generation company gets sold, it becomes all about the bottom line to the acquiring company as there is less of the original owner's passion in the formula.

 

 

[tlpcolorado]

Mike, would love to see the video!

[zmotorsports]

Thanks for the interest.  The video is pretty basic, just a few thoughts of mine that I have acquired/gathered over the many years of working on various coaches, and more specifically the Roadmaster chassis.  I follow by walking around our coach with the tires/wheels removed and point out a few components and areas to focus on during routine inspections.

 

I just started editing it last night so I hope to have it uploaded to my YouTube channel sometime over the weekend.

Thanks.

[96 EVO]

Hey Mike, did you mark your tires and rims?

Myself, and at least one other member on IRV noticed our front Toyo's spun a few inches on the rim during the first drive.

Mine had been spun balanced.

[zmotorsports]

22 minutes ago, 96 EVO said:

Hey Mike, did you mark your tires and rims?

Myself, and at least one other member on IRV noticed our front Toyo's spun a few inches on the rim during the first drive.

Mine had been spun balanced.

 

I put a crayon mark on the backside.  Interesting that they moved on a steer tire as that isn't powered.  I've never had any other tires do that but did mark them just based on a couple comments here.

[96 EVO]

Yeah, it certainly had me scratching my head!

[zmotorsports]

I posted this video to my YouTube channel over the weekend as well as to the Members Videos section of this forum if anyone would like to check it out.

 

Hope it is helpful.

[Idoc57]

1 hour ago, zmotorsports said:

I posted this video to my YouTube channel over the weekend as well as to the Members Videos section of this forum if anyone would like to check it out.

 

Hope it is helpful.

Mike,

Thank you for a great, in-depth video about chassis maintenance.  I don't have the "S" chassis or oil hubs, but so much of the information that you shared is valuable to all of us.  I know that making this video took more of your time to make than it took of mine to watch it.  I really appreciate you taking your time and effort to share your knowledge and great advice with the rest of us.  I look forward to watching more of your videos!

Carey

[zmotorsports]

 

Thanks for the kind words Carey.

 

As for making the videos, yes, it takes some time, but I really mean what I said in the video about not wanting to see these quality coaches be neglected and or deteriorate.  If I can help fellow Monaco owners in some small way by sharing what I've learned over the years then that is rewarding to me.  Like so many others on this forum that share the knowledge they have acquired over the years, that is how we pay our successes forward to help others.