Allstar Modifications

[Nathan Focht]

While I am in Georgia for the holidays I have been working on a few modifications to the coach and trailer to get ready for next year. So, I decided to post some of them here that might be of use to others.

[Nathan Focht]

While I am in Georgia for the holidays I have been working on a few modifications to the coach and trailer to get ready for next year. So, I decided to post some of them here that might be of use to others.

[Nathan Focht]

The first was a fix for the mud flap. From day one, I have been unhappy with the design of the mud flap. Specifically, the support chains are attached to the close too close to the center. As you drive down the road the flap will swing from left to right. This is worse when you are driving beside a large vehicle like a truck.

The pressure difference will lift one corner of the flap and cause it to hit the lower corner of your coach. This caused damage that I had Newmar fix only to find it happenning again after the drive home. I was following my coach one day when I realized the issue.

What I did to fix this was to attach the corners of the mud flap to restrict its movement. It is now able to move as designed but is prevented from lifting to hit the coach.



This is a very simple fix. Find the back corner of the coach box and drill a hole. Bolt on an Eye Bolt. Remove one of the small bolts holding the mud flap to the steel stiffener. Get a small chain and attach it to the eye bolt and the small bolt. All done!

[Nathan Focht]

The next is one for larger families more than couples. We have a W/D closet but did not want the appliances. While on the road we purchased a Rubbermaid shelving unit that was close to what we wanted. It was placed in the closet and used as a pantry. However, it had space on all sides so items fell behind the shelf and it also seemed to consumer a lot of space.

So, while in Georgia, I took out the shelves and built my own.



I put two 2x4s on the back wall to space and protect the plumbing. Then I add a back wall of plywood and two side walls. To these I simply attached adjustable shelving bars. Then, I cut shelves and dropped them into place.



This is a view under a shelf. You can see the bars and the pegs that hold the shelves. This allows me to adjust each to the idea height. Also, because the fill the space, there is no way to drop off the shelf. I was amazed at the space this created. We have enough pantry space for a small european army (or 3 kids) plus the vacuums.

As a cosmetic finish, I painted the shelves and then added a stained trim to match the coach wood.

[Dav5942]

Well done! Our 42' ATME does not have the sway problem on the mud flap. But it did have a problem with dragging so we raised it by shortening the chain.

[Lug_Nut]

Nice job and description. For the mud flap on mine I found shortening the chains did not prevent it from being forced into the body when airing down. I cut the entire flap 2 1/4" shorter. I removed the name cutout and hardware and cut off 2 1/4" off the bottom, drilled new holes for the cutout and hardware, rounded the flap corners and screwed everthing back on. Works great.

Peter

[cwg]

Peter's modification served as a template for many of us in South West Florida last year, but after making the same mods as he said, I still had a few problems with the flap hitting the bottomrear of the coach in some campgrounds, so I opted for an exchange of an O8 mudflap at Newmar last summer. (thanks to Paul)