Mini POG at TGO, Titusville, FL

[ajducote]

We had a few POG members that are visiting TGO over to the house last night and had a great time making new friends.

Left to right,
Bill aka Bill&Jody, Sawdust_128, Joe Cannarozzi, Bruce aka 533

More fun to follow on Sunday for a pot luck and barbecue.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Andre, nice photo, but where's the gals?

JIM

[ajducote]

The pictures of the gals did not come out very well. So I thought it best for my own safety to not post them. Will get more pictures on Sunday. I am still learning how the new camera works and just did not get it right after a few beers. Will try to do better.

[0533]

They were smart enough to rent a limo and hit the town. Letting us five drips hold down the fort and tell old war stories about leaky airbags, who would want to listen to that?

We all enjoyed ourselves and found TGO to be a very nice destination indeed. And of course Ann and Andre are wonderful hosts.

We have voted, and Joe was elected to go out into the forest and bring back a Ferrel Pig for Sunday's Cookout, so if you show up and do not see a pig on the fire, it's Joe you want to blame, of course Joe may have been eaten by a Black Panther, or become Alligator Bate, at least chased back to his bus by a pack of wild Bobcats.

We left for TGO at 3:30 yesterday with no reservation, showed up at the gate, picked up a slip at the Rally location for $30, 50 amp water, great spot, easy in, and extremely quite.

[phorner]

Looks like everyone's having a great time!

See you Saturday...... :D

[merle&louise]

Cindy w/TGO told me that the the launch date has been postponed from Feb. 12th to Feb. 14th.

Can anyone else confirm that?

[ajducote]

according to the NASA we sight it still shows 12 Feb.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Will check the local paper to see if there is any new information.

[0533]

We all had a great time Saturday evening. Here are a few Pics for the POG yearbook.

Image one: From Left to Right: Janice & Paul Horner, Andre Ducote, Pam Harris, Joe Cannarozzi, Cindy AKA Mrs. Sawdust, Ed, AKA Sawdust, Ann Ducote, Debbie Cannarozzi, And yours truly.

Carley: Joe and Debbie's Grandchild Took the Big Pic, Great job. Carley is in Red with the big smile.

[ajducote]

Sunday afternoon all the POG'ers visiting TGO came over for a pot luck. Joe brought over a huge pile of kabobs and everyone who came brought along something delicious to eat. Joe barbecued the kabobs and some chicken wings and we all had a wonderful time swapping bus stories (possibly stretching the limits of what the wifes could stand). We had a great time and feel like we have made a lot of new friends. The attached pictures do not include everyone. Some were going back and forth to the kitchen and the food buffet so it was hard to catch everyone in 1 place. What a great bunch of people to spend time with!

[phorner]

It wouldn't be POG without a few Busted Knuckles and Greasy Jeans....

A big THANK YOU to Joe, Bill and Ed for helping me out with some long awaited suspension maintenance.

[phorner]

A few more pix of our "work in progress"....

[rfoster]

I nominate yall for the POG Poster chilren.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Those rear bags on Pauls 99 are none other than those 260's for the drives and the 259's on the tag.

Once again Prevo was true to form and sent us a 5 port norgren that leaks out the end.

One more note we had a hard time getting the push type compression fittings on Warrens bus but we did get them to seal. This 99 was not as cooperative. The darn two fittings for the rear bags for the drives just will not seal up. When we tried to order replacements we were told that Prevo is reverting back to the old style compression fittings for the air bags and that is what they are sending us.

I completely agree and anyone with the same should do the same when replacing bags.

[dalej]

Photos are great, thanks for including your online buddies.

[garyde]

Hi Joe. I was looking at the support stands, and they did not look like a rated stand. Also, did you use Hydraulic Jacks as Stands or did you have other support I could not see.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Ditto on the stands. I think Joe has enough smarts to keep himself out of danger, but from the pictures it looks scary.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Great post, with the pictures and all.

Wondering where you are doing the work. It looks like a deserted air strip in the South Pacific, but I know you wouldn't drive that far for such a small job.

Seriously, do they allow that kind of "PLAY" at TGO?

Paul, you and Janice living in the bus during the repairs?

I would guess that Jon's stands are under there for the main support and everything else is just extra! I hope!

JIM

[phorner]

Jim,

Yep, we're living in the bus while under repair, as we are truly homeless without it!

The work is being performed at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum in Titusville, which is about 10 minutes from TGO. They were VERY generous in allowing us to use a concrete pad adjacent to their parking area.

They also have another pad (which we didn't know at the time) which has electric, water and sewer and is used when they have visitors driving coaches.

These folks have been very accommodating and I can't thank them enough for their cooperation.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Looks like a great place to be, as long as it doesn't rain.

:)JIM

[Joe Cannarozzi]

There is 2-6 ton jacks (one being a screw jack) side by side forward of the drives and a 12 ton stand rear of the tag and that was on both sides.

The axles are being supported by the 12 ton bottle jacks and they were all but bottomed out.

Another thing I have discovered on this 99 is those tapered flat head screws that hold the brake drums to the hubs on the drives were NEVER installed by prevo and I came to this conclusion based on the what the threads and tapered seats looked like.

IMO those screws are a PITA to get out and are really not necessary so evidently someone else came to the same conclusion but still surprising to see.

Also they evidently decided that the large upper nut that goes around the air fitting on the bags was also unnecessary cause they were also nonexistent. The front drive bags have air supplied by a 3/4 inch line and all the others 5/8 ????????

Each bag has a small air tank coupled to it and we put pet cocks for drains on all of them as well as the brake tanks and we also pulled all the push-in type compression fittings for the bags for the old style ones.

We also found that braking system that they had installed at a rally totally loose, a disaster waiting to happen. We tightened up the mount and then added support to it, really a very unprofessional installation. All the air lines for it were just flapping around rubbing and wearing. We also discovered a original air dryer cartridge, it still had spray foam on it from the factory and Marathon told them it was one of the things serviced prior to purchase. The 3/4in feed line from the wet tank to the drier was crimped bad maybe 20% flow. Paul had Prevo send us 10 ft of 3/4 in plastic air line so I could add it to my inventory and they sent it to him in 5 pieces of varied length, unfriginbelievable. The new 5 port norgren worked like a charm.

[dalej]

Great work Joe

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Anybody care to review again why owners should manage repairs, including watching to make sure what is said is done, really is done?

[truk4u]

I thought the Air Force One installation problems had been resolved, but sounds like Joe found out the re-do that Paul had done this summer (causing a break down) was once again not done properly.:(

[Joe Cannarozzi]

I am going to call there tomorrow and let them know what I found and IMHO what might be some good ideas. It sounds like they are good folks and will be open to positive suggestions.

[Denny]

My repaired Air Force One came off when the mounting bracket broke; the first one was fine but the replacement was not. I had the local dealer mount it on the cross member in front of the drive axle where the air dryer is mounted. If the air dryer can last in that location for years the AFO should be able to also. It is a much more solid mount than hanging it the way they do. There is very little pressure on the mounting plate.

Thanks for the photos showing what is being done.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

I thought it was Bruce that had so much trouble with the Air Force One unit and not Paul.

JIM

[JIM KELLER]

Happy New Year Jim, How is the weather up there ? Sunny and mid 70's down here.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Happy New Year back to you Jim. Well yes the weather is fine here too as usual. 65 and a little misting rain to keep things fresh. Yah right. You know how the weather is here :eek: We always say if you don't like it wait 10 min it will change, usually for the worse.

JIM:)

[0533]

I thought it was Bruce that had so much trouble with the Air Force One unit and not Paul.

JIM
I did have problems with the unit coming off twice. Finally Air Force One made a new mounting bracket with both the air tank and valve attached onto one bracket that could be mounted together in one location. So far no problems, keeping my fingers crossed.

Paul should make sure that his is the new bracket with the air tank and valve connected together onto one bracket, if not what happens is the valve will vibrate and break off, when this happens the valve can fall down onto the drive shaft along with the black airline and make a real mess. It is worth a look.

Unfortunately when we all about ten of us had the installs I think the Prevost install was a new idea, and on top of that getting around under the bus was made more difficult as it was done by only lowering and raising the air to one side so Brent could scoot under and get the job done and move to the next bus. Success was the cause for rushed installs, in fact we all wanted to make the change over ASAP.