Marathon Heater Grate ....

[Ray Davis]

This probably only applies to Marathon owners, but just in case I'll post it here for anyone who wants to join in.

Marathon has a plastic grate on their front webasto heater which is unfortunately easily kicked and broken. You can purchase the part from Marathon, but it's fairly expensive because they cut a bigger sheet into a specific size for the heater vent.

Marathon was nice enough to give me their source for this part. It's actually called "Egg Crate Louver", a lighting diffuser, and is available from Outwater Plastics in New Jersey.

Kevin Erion and I was just talking about purchasing a case of this stuff. Case price is somewhere around $10.00 per sheet, and it has 15 sheets in it. Each sheet is probably capable of cutting 4-8 repair pieces, depending upon your skill with a jig saw, or tool like a dremel cutter.

Would anyone like to get in on this purchase? Kevin has indicated we could order, have it shipped to his office, and he would bring it out to OKC. I know that's still a few months off, but if you are not in a hurry to get this, it would work well.

Let me know if anyone is interested in getting in on a case purchase.

If you'd rather do your own thing, here's a link to the product:

http://www.outwatercatalogs.com/2008_master/lg_display.cfm?page_number=653

Part number: L2-BK, bottom of the page.

Ray

[Jerry Winchester]

Count me in. Just last night I went to replace the very one you are talking about. Upon placing it in the hole, Abbie says, "Hey the screw holes don't line up" So we head back to the workshop and proceed to drill new holes. As we are doing this, the mounting piece that the grate attaches to breaks off. It was not glued very well.

Now we are on hold while I get some super glue to reattach it. The point is, this is the third time I have changed it and I think I can build it easier and cheaper than Marathon. There are no less than 10 of these in the coach.

[Coloradobus]

Kevin,

For 10 bucks a sheet, count us in for one for OKC pickup

[Ray Davis]

Jerry, what I figured out, at least on this front grate is that Marathon took two flat pieces of black plastic, and that screws down into the wooden/laminated frame on each side.

The grill doesn't have anywhere to actually screw, but is super-glued to the top of these flat black pieces. With that done, you can then unscrew the new grate a whole unit.

I was concerned at first (as was Kevin), that the new grating is a different size, but it appears to be OK.

Ray

[garyde]

Hi Ray. Here is a link to the people I use. http://www.alplighting.com/
and info;
http://www.alplighting.com/pdf/Plastics_Brochure.pdf

[Jerry Winchester]

I think the real trick would be finding some of the stuff on the site Gary linked to that is aluminum and not plastic. That vent in the front is just made to kick when you walk into the coach and I have no doubt it will fail again. A metal one would be much more robust but slightly more difficult to make.

I re-glued the one I got from Marathon last night with some super magic glue stuff I bought at Oshkosh. I'm glad I had the parts alligned because it instantly stuck (I had sprayed the big plastic piece with some kind of glue primer) and it was unmovable.

I saved the big plastic pieces off of the old part so I can make a suitable replacement when we get the new stuff. Maybe I can make it till OKC without breaking this one.

[Ray Davis]

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the eggrate from the company Gary mentioned is quite the same size. The current frame depth is 3/8 inch with what Marathon has built.

I'm just gonna cut out about 10 of these suckers, and have spares! Actually, I don't even thing you need to glue the front one (assuming yours is like mine). If cut right, it wedges in nicely, and is firm in the frame.

If you break it, simply stuff another one in. Bought in the case quantity, we should be able to make these things for about $1-$2 apiece, not counting labor to cut to size.

Ray

[garyde]

Here is a metal fabricating resource: http://www.gratingpacific.com/

[MangoMike]

Satellite Boy,

I'm in for a sheet. I'll have JDUB do the fabrication. Bring your dremel.

mm

[Alan__]

Ray -

Put me down for a sheet.

Alan

[Ray Davis]

OK guys, thanks for the note. We're getting close to enough to make a full box purchase.

Ray

[Ray Davis]

So, a little bit of bad news here. Today I took the sheet I purchased from Marathon to fix the busted grate in my coach. Kevin E. had warned me that this may be the case, but the grate is a different size than in my coach.

The grate from Marathon is 5/8 squares. This is what the Outwater plastics indicated on their website and it also matches one of the offerings on the site that GaryD referenced.

However, it appears the original grating was smaller. It's not a nice decimal size, but appears actually to be a metric size. I measure my original piece, and it's exactly 1.5 cm per square. Roughly .593 in in the old, vs .64 inch in the new stuff.

So, it means that you cannot cut a perfect fit. At least in the heater grate I just replaced, length-wise came out very close (22 sq vs 24), but in the vertical, I could only get 6 squares, when the old was 7, and that left almost a 1/2 square opening left over.

So, this stuff isn't quite perfect. If we could find a source that was more closely matched that would be good. It might be worth measuring your own coaches to see if it matches my findings.

Ray