Guardian Plates - Could Use Some Help

[Chris T]

Bob:

I appreciate your position and again I apologize for all your troubles. I have called a staff meeting for next Tuesday and changes will be made.

I further want to say that there are 5 of us techs across the USA who are considered Monaco experts and who have decades of experience fixing Monaco brand coaches. I have talked with all of them at one time or another and the demands being placed on us is getting to be excruciating. I myself work with customers and field phone calls and e-mails from all over the USA and Canada as well as our European brethrens who own Monaco brand coaches. On top of that the 5 of us are also fielding phone calls from RV techs around the country who are looking for answers to complex issues.

As a result the demands placed on us have been difficult to the point one of the very best body and slide guys left the industry all together. We all will at one time miss returning a few phone calls and e-mails just because of the shear volume we get. I myself work 7 days a week and sometimes till 10 at night trying to keep up. It is not an excuse but reality.

Your complaint as well as Georges has brought forth a problem we need to deal with internally and that is to find a way to effectively communicate with all Monaco owners. My heart and soul has always been with the Monaco brand coach owners and will be till the day I retire.

I wish you the best with making your own plates.

Chris T

[BobJones]

Thank you Chris - I understand your position and it makes perfect sense. As mentioned, there are no hard feelings! Things are working out really well for me up here so I'm making excellent progress. I think we should call it a win-win and I'll certainly be open to doing business with Talin in the future!

For others reading this thread, Chris has been, almost universally, praised and thanked for the work he has done for the Monaco community over years and given his responses, I think it's well earned. So let's call my experience a 'one off' that is not typical.

Final note, before looking into the Talin Guardian Plates I read every thread on this site going back years and in each one Chris was spoken of very highly. So...have no fear!

[georgebonord]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Bob:

I appreciate your position and again I apologize for all your troubles. I have called a staff meeting for next Tuesday and changes will be made.

I further want to say that there are 5 of us techs across the USA who are considered Monaco experts and who have decades of experience fixing Monaco brand coaches. I have talked with all of them at one time or another and the demands being placed on us is getting to be excruciating. I myself work with customers and field phone calls and e-mails from all over the USA and Canada as well as our European brethrens who own Monaco brand coaches. On top of that the 5 of us are also fielding phone calls from RV techs around the country who are looking for answers to complex issues.

As a result the demands placed on us have been difficult to the point one of the very best body and slide guys left the industry all together. We all will at one time miss returning a few phone calls and e-mails just because of the shear volume we get. I myself work 7 days a week and sometimes till 10 at night trying to keep up. It is not an excuse but reality.

Your complaint as well as Georges has brought forth a problem we need to deal with internally and that is to find a way to effectively communicate with all Monaco owners. My heart and soul has always been with the Monaco brand coach owners and will be till the day I retire.

I wish you the best with making your own plates.

Chris T

Thank you Chris for the reply and apology. I remember the days when I was pulled in 20 different directions. There will be some issues that get dropped because of the sheer volume of incoming calls.



I did get the Guardian plates installed and it appears they are doing their job.

[vito.a]

All of us Monaco owners are very lucky to have Chris and Ingrid in our camp.
Thanks!

[RustyTools]

x2 for sure!

[Jaceutah]

Originally Posted by vito.a

All of us Monaco owners are very lucky to have Chris and Ingrid in our camp.
Thanks!

Ditto!

They are top-notch people and wonderful to work with.

[BobJones]

I've got the front plates done !

All that's left is drilling holes in the first and last plate and then the install.

These are for the kitchen slide (the main slide). The first plate is a whopping 23" wide. This is the plate that goes directly behind the driver's seat (for reference) and it's a corner plate.

That width gets it well past the small amount of floor rot and also well past the first roller. When I trimmed off the aluminum corner piece I was able to pull down the white plastic covering and the floor is actually pretty darn good. As it turns out, the fact that the plastic was dropping a bit made it look much worse then it really was.

After the first wide corner plate comes the two 12" wide straight roller plates. This width puts the rivets outside of the roller. Lastly, a corner piece which is just a corner piece because there is no roller in the immediate vicinity and no floor rot.

I'll do the corners for the rear (bedroom slide) as well but it's very solid. In fact, it doesn't need to be done but I have extra stainless so....

[shootist]

Do all of the corners for sure, they are the root of the problem.

[BobJones]

Originally Posted by shootist

Do all of the corners for sure, they are the root of the problem.

Exactly. Now that I'm in the swing of it and I have the extra material there is no point in not doing the rear as well. Especially since it only needs right angles 1.5" on each side.

I also have new weatherstripping on order, sufficient to do both slides. This is the updated weatherstripping that has the encapsulated metal part and is wider. I will have too much so if anyone needs some let me know. I think I'll probably have 30 feet left (or so).

When I install that I will pull both canopies from the slides and clean the top of the slides and then goop them with that white stuff they used at the factory. Point is, when done, everything will be sealed 100% and the next time it rains, all I will do is listen to the rain drops

That leaves me with a pretty big chunk of stainless left over. The other day some water boiled over on the stove, and not the first time either. After that, lighting the stove was harder. So, I pulled to stove top and then pulled each of the 3 burners and ran them through my ultrasonic cleaner. Now the flame is perfect in every hole and it fires up instantly. BUT, while I was in there, I saw that the crappy galvanized metal plate in there was all rusty......

So....before I'm done I'm going to pull that crappy galvanized plate and replace it with.....18 gage stainless That should use up half of my remaining material and make the stove impervious to boil overs and cleaning will be a breeze!

[mydogmax]

Is there any one in Texas that installs these plates?

[BobJones]

I just finished installing 3 of the 4 plates on the kitchen slide - very easy. Have no fear. Just a drill and a rivet gun and the 3M 5200.

[georgebonord]

Originally Posted by BobJones

I just finished installing 3 of the 4 plates on the kitchen slide - very easy. Have no fear. Just a drill and a rivet gun and the 3M 5200.

I have bought the plates and installed them myself. If I can do it, you can do it. Any of you owners can do this and don't need to pay someone to install them.

Bob -- My hat is off to you!! Good job and congratulations. Yes, it is fairly easy to install the plates.

[BobJones]

Originally Posted by georgebonord

Bob -- My hat is off to you!! Good job and congratulations. Yes, it is fairly easy to install the plates.

Thank you much! Job Done!

I have to clean up all the goop once it's dried but all the plates are in place and riveted in. I bought two packs of rivets and had one left. I bought 2 bottles of 5200 and had 10% left

The bedroom rear corner bracket was not quite perfect - there was a small gap on the bottom of the bracket. Rather then cut & bend a new one I filled it with the remainder of the 5200 so it looks messy. Let me put it this way, there is NO WAY water can ever get in under the plates ever again. I have new weatherstripping coming late next month and that will close off this chapter

Here's some pics, bear in mind, I have no cleaned up the goop yet. It will look much better when done!

Many thanks to all that helped and gave advice. As it turns out, my measurements were very accurate. Note how massive I made the first plate! On another note, most of the plate holes ended up in aluminum braces. So it went really well. There are two identical flat plates as well (only one pictured)

[96 Wideglide]

If thats 5200 around the rivet heads, that will be a bugger to remove when dried.
I cleaned all of mine up with acetone, while it was still wet.