We decided to convert our shades to MCD's, including the windshield. I wish I had decided earlier when they were 33% off
. When I did the post about the old shades that I was giving away, a few people asked me to post on installing the new ones, so here it is.
As we got ready to order, my wife stabbed me in the back again...asking why I don't just have someone install them! You think she would know by now that I'm very picky. I looked at MCD's website and I didn't care for the way they finished the cockpit shades and I didn't want to drive to Texas for an install. I'm know there are people that can do the installs, but often they don't have the time or profitability to do it the way I want it done.
I read how to measure several times and then called MCD to make sure I was doing it right. They connected me to Charlie Cox who discussed the measurements. During the final order, this was very important. The shades can be built to roll in different directions and one shade over the other. On the shades in the living area of the coach, I wanted the night shade to be the top roller and have it roll outward away from the window. The day shade was the lower roller and rolled toward the window. By doing it this way, the night shade (solid shade) rolled over the day shade, hiding it when up.
The tough one!!!! Measuring the windshield was tough. It needs to be as wide as possible to cover the windshield, but too big and you wasted $800.00. To get a good/accurate measurement, I had to remove my power shades. I used my telescoping flagpole to make the measurement. On the windshield, I had the night shade placed on top and the day shade on the bottom.
They offer two lines of shades, their most expensive, American Duo, and then their Gold Series. I went with the American Duo which has a couple of subtle differences. The adjusters for speed and stop point are roller wheels on the side of the shade on the American Duo and the Gold Series uses a screwdriver. The American Duo has a little better quality day shade. I bought (10) living area shades, (3) cockpit shades and (1) motorized windshield shade. The total was $3450.00. There is no tax, but you pay shipping. The Gold Series was approximately $700.00 less.
The passenger side of the coach takes two cockpit shades. The one over the door was just a single night shade, since we didn't need a day shade their. They offer a shade that attaches to the screen door and lifts up, but I wanted the matching roller shade. I received the shades in about two weeks. Because the valances are so deep on my coach, it only took me about an hour to remove of all of the living area shades (easy access with a long driver on a electric drill). Installing the MCD shades was almost as easy. I had ten of them up in about two hours.
Windshield Install.....The windshield install requires removing the plastic corner pieces at the top of both "A" pillars. These corners are reused, but need to be trimmed carefully. I saw on other installs where these were not trimmed well and looked bad. This was one of the things I was concerned about making look right.
The roof requires a 1"x 3" x 8' board installed where the power sun visors were located as a mounting location and to lower the MCD shade down to a point where it fits inside the windshield. Here is a photo of the board.
I originally made the board out of a 1"x 4", but a 1"x 3" is sufficient. I have the large TV box in my coach with a louvered door on the back side (between windshield and box) that allows access to the back of the TV. It angles toward the windshield. Once I had the board install, the shades hung straight down and didn't clear the TV box and cover like I would like. I removed the board and angle cut it lengthwise so that it pitched the shades toward the windshield.
The power visor wires are used to power the windshield shade. On mine they dropped through the ceiling behind the TV box. I pulled them out of the ceiling and back into the TV box. I rerouted them behind the front cabinets and over to the passenger "A" pillar. The windshield shade wires directly to the old visor wires. I wired the day shade to the passenger switch and the night shade to the driver's switch. This way I have control of both shades from the driver's seat. There is an additional wire (brown) that is added by MCD. It can be wired to your ignition to prevent the shades from being lowered all the way while the engine is running. I stubbed the wire down to the dash, but didn't wire it in.
Once all of the little odds and ends were tied up, I worked on the plastic corner pieces. They were easy to cut with a saw so that they fit nicely.
Once you install the cockpit shades, they are exposed because there wasn't a valance there before. This is where I thought I could make it look nicer. I bought some maple 1"x 6" to make wood valances. Making the valances was easy, finding a stain to match was tough. It took several tries, but I eventually got a combo of stains to work and then used a semi gloss polyurethane to finish it. The two pieces that "T" into one another in the photo are the new valances.
It would have been nice to make the valances longer, but they would have looked funny. My other valances have pieces of cloth panels attached to the wood as a decorator item. If I can find the same cloth, I may add some to the new wood valances and consequently extend them maybe another 1/2" lower.
Finally, one of the things I didn't like about other installs I saw was that they need a flat surface on the front of the "A" pillars for the shade to ride on and seal the view into the coach. Some of the installs used a piece of plastic angle that was screwed to the "A". It didn't match the color of the "A" pillar, wasn't trimmed nicely and just didn't look finished. I haven't added anything to the "A" pillars yet. Currently, my shade runs along the "A" pillar smoothly. There is about 3/4" of daylight along both sides of the windshield. The bigger concern is for night privacy. Theoretically, you can see into those gaps, but you would have to be on a ladder to do it. For now were going to leave the gaps there and see if it's a concern. If it is, I found some 2" wide aluminum strap that I will paint to match the plastic "A" pillars and then use silicon to glue them to the front edge of the "A" pillar.
Hanging the windshield shade on it's six snap in clips (same design as other smaller shades) was easy. MEASURING and making the wood support was the tough part. There is plywood in the ceiling where the wood support is attached, so it's pretty easy to screw onto the ceiling. I did this job by myself, but a second hand in fitting and supporting the wood support would have been handy.