Upgrades/Repairs Thread - Big Blue - 2001 Monaco Signature

[JJTL]

Originally Posted by Vanwill

I used Teflon paste sealant...sparingly, being sure not to allow any ahead of the threads.

Ok, thanks. Good to know. Will look to do the same.

[engine103]

I am passing this along from another forum and have no personal information or opinion of this. Just FYI.


"I just got a message from a friend of mine telling me about an owner who was crushed to death under his Dynasty.

I do not know the full particulars of the accident so I am not going to arm chair quarterback or try and surmise what happened.

I did not know the owners but my friend owned the 2015 Dynasty previously and I inspected it at the gathering in 2019 and was helping them chase a leak.

Mark traded it in on a Prevost recently and the new owner picked it up. While staying at a campground they developed an electrical issue

so the guy climbed underneath. The auto leveling dumped its air and the coach crushed him to death.

The point of this post is to remind people that on coaches with auto leveling you have no business being under your coach unless you know

the safety procedures for dealing with the auto leveling system. The big coaches with auto leveling like the Dynasty's, Exec's and Sigs have very little ground clearance

underneath to begin with and if that air dumps you WILL get crushed. Stay the hell out from under your coaches unless you know what you are doing and have taken necessary

safety precautions.

The wife and family of this gentleman will remain in my prayers."

[JJTL]

Originally Posted by engine103

I am passing this along from another forum and have no personal information or opinion of this. Just FYI.


"I just got a message from a friend of mine telling me about an owner who was crushed to death under his Dynasty.

I do not know the full particulars of the accident so I am not going to arm chair quarterback or try and surmise what happened.

I did not know the owners but my friend owned the 2015 Dynasty previously and I inspected it at the gathering in 2019 and was helping them chase a leak.

Mark traded it in on a Prevost recently and the new owner picked it up. While staying at a campground they developed an electrical issue

so the guy climbed underneath. The auto leveling dumped its air and the coach crushed him to death.

The point of this post is to remind people that on coaches with auto leveling you have no business being under your coach unless you know

the safety procedures for dealing with the auto leveling system. The big coaches with auto leveling like the Dynasty's, Exec's and Sigs have very little ground clearance

underneath to begin with and if that air dumps you WILL get crushed. Stay the hell out from under your coaches unless you know what you are doing and have taken necessary

safety precautions.

The wife and family of this gentleman will remain in my prayers."

Thanks Jim. I did read this from the other thread. Sad and sorry to hear this. Our condolences and prayers to the family. Crawling under the coach is a serious task and certainly every precaution should be taken.

Hopefully this is understood, but regardless of what procedure someone might see in this thread or any thread on IRV2 forums, it is everyone's own responsibility to make their own informed decisions based on their situation, knowledge, skill level, resources, etc.

We personally do not have hydraulic levelers and do not use air leveling when under the coach. As you saw in an earlier post we use sold ramps to drive up on, and will let the air completely out of the coach before crawling under to replace the protection valve that is leaking.

Stay safe,
Josh

[JJTL]

A quick update on our ongoing projects. Progress has slowed a little as Big Blue was moved into storage for a bit, and as we waited for parts to arrive.

However, a number of parts have arrived and we are planning to do more work this coming weekend. We have the new digital TV antenna and mounting plate from King Controls. Also got in the converter box which will allow us to connect an optical audio out cable from the new front TV to the digital coax input on the existing Bose Lifestyles surround system. The struts have also arrived to mount to the new cabinet doors we built that the TVs are mounted on. These struts will allow the doors to stay open on their own. Finally, the Pressure Protection Valve has arrived. As noted in an earlier post, this was found to be the source of our main air leak in the front air system.





Not sure if we will get to all of these items this weekend, but certainly plan to knock a few off the list.

Josh

[Timaz]

Just so you don't run out of Projects. You might want to add a gas charged ram to your front door.

Tim

[JJTL]

Originally Posted by Timaz

Just so you don't run out of Projects. You might want to add a gas charged ram to your front door.

Tim

Haha, the list was getting a little lighter there... thanks Tim!

Jokes aside, that does seem like an interesting idea that I have never considered. Where did you pick yours up?

Josh

[Timaz]

Originally Posted by JJTL

Haha, the list was getting a little lighter there... thanks Tim!

Jokes aside, that does seem like an interesting idea that I have never considered. Where did you pick yours up?

Josh

This is an email I received from Bill. (a very helpful poster on here) All the info is in here. Note: the scissor bracket is mounted to the door with aircraft style Cheery rivets. If you remove this bracket like I did you'll need to drill them out...it's easy. Here is Bill's email to me. Including pictures he sent.

Here's some pictures to help you out. This is a pretty easy project and I really like the strut better than the scissors.

If you look at the brackets that hold the strut, they are different. One is RV Designer G825 (3/4" offset)
The other is JR Products BR-12553. You can find them on Amazon and many other places. Unfortunately, I could only find them in pairs so you'll have extras. I ended up using them for another project, otherwise I'd send them to you.

when I did mine, I couldn't find any in black. I primed and painted them.

I just recently upgraded to a 15 pound strut, I used to have a 10 #. I noticed on IRV2 he put a 20# on. That's a judgement call, but I like the 15# I have now. The higher the pound rating, the harder it's going to be to close the door---take that into account with you or the Mrs. or any guests/ kids that may want to close the door.


Couple of suggestions when you start. Take the Scissor hinge off first. Then mount the bracket on the door frame (not the door) first. See my pictures for dimensions. Right behind the trim the bracket is sitting on in my picture, is a heavy steel frame--it's in the wall, you can't see it. Pre-drill those holes first and then use self drilling screws. (use screws for steel, not sheet metal as they are a little more heavy duty), You don't want to sheer off those bolts if you're using an impact gun. I also put a tiny bit of black sealant caulk on the screw before I put it in. It oozed up and sealed the hole when I screwed it down. Maybe not necessary, but thought I'd share.

When you're ready to mount the bracket on the door, be sure when the door is fully closed there is still a little bit of strut (1/8-1/4" is fine)showing. You don't want the strut to be fully compressed and the door is still not closed--things will start to bend.

Clip the strut in and you're good to go.

Note: you can actually move the mounting points on the door and frame more forward than my dimensions in the pictures and that will cause the door to open up past 90. You can experiment with that a little if you like, but I didn't like the way the coach/door looks with the door opened passed 90, again personal preference.

Good luck.

bill

Sorry I don't know why the system rotated the pictures. Tim

[JJTL]

Originally Posted by Timaz

This is an email I received from Bill. (a very helpful poster on here) All the info is in here. Note: the scissor bracket is mounted to the door with aircraft style Cheery rivets. If you remove this bracket like I did you'll need to drill them out...it's easy.

Excellent! That is a detailed write up right there. Added to the list, thanks again Tim. I recall our door has some sort of top or bottom mechanism that locks the door 90 degrees open. Don't believe it has any dampening feature though.

[zmotorsports]

Nice work on your Sig.

Not too many 2001's without slides and it appears that yours seems to be a clean starting point.

Subscribed to follow along.

[JJTL]

Originally Posted by zmotorsports

Nice work on your Sig.

Not too many 2001's without slides and it appears that yours seems to be a clean starting point.

Subscribed to follow along.

Thanks Mike! Really appreciate the kind words. Learned a lot from your thread and inspired me to document some of our project shenanigans .

Admittedly we weren't hunting for a MH without slides, in fact 2 slides was the preference. We've had many RVs in the family, and not since the 90s have we had one without a slide. But as soon as we all saw this one, we knew it was the one. Although we would never try and convince anyone that no slides is better, there is a surprising amount of space inside and its just perfect for us. Interesting to think about the rigid S-Series semi-monocoque with no slide holes in it. Some added bonuses for us in the space staying the same as you go down the road, and never have to think about slide seals or reliability. For us came down to value, a lot of coach for the money.

Funny someone said to me it was like a 42' submarine going down the road .

Thanks for following along!

[JJTL]

Well we had a beautiful sunny and warm day up here in the North, so made for a great day to get a lot of little projects checked off the list. Started out with finishing up the TV upgrade project. Left to do were install the gas struts onto the TV cabinet doors, to hold them up when open. And secondly, to install the audio converter box to connect the TV to the Bose surround sound.

Bought some struts off of Amazon, they seem to be of decent quality. Each strut is rated for about 30 lbs, and we installed 2 per door. This turned out to be perfect for the front TV and a little bit too much force for the bedroom TV, but close enough. The install was not too difficult, but did have to relearn grade 8 trigonometry . The math was required to work out the heights of the strut bracket locations, to get the opening angle we wanted while also compressing the strut the right stroke length when closed. Some how we managed to get it right first try .




The second item to finish off the TV upgrades, was getting the Bose Lifestyles 30 sound system connected to the front TV. Our new front TV only has an optical audio out port. The Bose system has a plethora of analog audio in ports, but only 1 digital coax audio in port. The converter box we purchased simply converts the optical audio out signal into a coax digital out. Plugged it in and set the Bose to AUX, and what do you know it automatically recognized the digital signal and it worked! Wow, 2 for 2 today. The sound is really great, this will do just fine for now.



Well that does it for the TV upgrade project. We do have a King Controls digital TV antenna ready to install. Hope to get to that soon.

[JJTL]

After finishing the last items for the TV Upgrade project as per above, we tackled a few others on the list. It is amazing how many little things are on the list and each takes a little bit of time. Sometimes good just to dedicate some time to the little things. I thought I would include some here, more for those who are also getting into a new to them coach, to see the vast array of little things to keep busy with.

Dinning Chair Feet Replacement
The original foot pads were down to the metal studs, installed some new ones on all the chairs. Required pre-drilling as the nail size was quite large.



Re-seal Around Keyless Entry Keypad
Always having to check sealants and refresh as needed.



Outdoor Faucet Leaking
The faucet in the water service bay has been leaking. Removed the handles and seems to be some cartridge valves inside them. Wonder if the rubber gaskets can be replaced or maybe the cartridge itself replaced.



HWH Air Leveling Aux Air Pump
Since we have owned Big Blue, I have never recalled hearing the aux air pump kick in for the air leveling system. With the air out of the main systems tanks, I thought it would be a good time to test it. My theory was that with no air in the main tanks, if I turned the system on and then pressed any UP arrow it should signal the aux pump to kick in to provide air to that airbag. Alas I gave it a whirl, and could not hear anything turn on. I could hear the clicking of the solenoids when I pressed each arrow, so there is that. Looks like the aux pump is definitely on the to do list.

ABS Light
Finally, for today was looking at the ABS light. It has been on ever since we bought the coach. When we test drove the coach it was not on, but quite a bit of brake work was done by the previous owner's shop to get it safetied and ever since we picked it up the light has now been on. With so many other priority projects, have been putting this one off.

Anyways, was able to pull the fault code from the ABS system. It is a 5-2 code. Now going through all the manuals I had downloaded last fall I have 2 different code charts which show 2 different results. 1 chart is for a Benidix system and the other for Meritor Wabco system. Now just have to refresh my memory with which system we have. If anyone has any insight or experience with this, would be grateful to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

Wishing you all a great rest of your evening,
Josh

[AnotherMike]

The code sounds familiar... and my notes confirmed it. This may be a false lead but my Aerostar van ABS code was 5-2, maybe 5-3. Some research and troubleshooting said to replace the ABS controller. A bit more research said that there was a fuse INSIDE the controller. I opened it up and replaced the fuse... as I remember it didn't look like a fuse... but no more light.

I hope this is some use, but as I said it might be a false lead.

Mike

[Radacravitz]

Originally Posted by JJTL

The second item to finish off the TV upgrades, was getting the Bose Lifestyles 30 sound system connected to the front TV. Our new front TV only has an optical audio out port. The Bose system has a plethora of analog audio in ports, but only 1 digital coax audio in port. The converter box we purchased simply converts the optical audio out signal into a coax digital out. Plugged it in and set the Bose to AUX, and what do you know it automatically recognized the digital signal and it worked! Wow, 2 for 2 today. The sound is really great, this will do just fine for now.

i’ve been thinking about doing the same with our bose 25 and our ‘95 dynasty ... thx for sharing your refresh.