Scott and Cyndie, The Comic Geniuses are getting ready to operate ! Keep your cell phone handy.
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Scott and Cyndie, The Comic Geniuses are getting ready to operate ! Keep your cell phone handy.
On standby...................
How is it going? :rolleyes:
We are thirsty for updates...........
Jamie
We are still eating. Can't work till we are full.
Will keep you posted. Conditions also have to be right. As in air temp.
What's going on in Masaryktown? Are you still drinking wine or replacing seals?
Well we had to take a little time out to ride down to Parliament to check on Cousin Tony and Cousin Rick's bus.
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"COUSIN TONY'
He takea carea stuff.
Well then we found this guys bus
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A POG Guy?
Well Cousin Tony say he takea good carea of Rickys bus
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Rick: Cousin Tony said not to worry - he will have all fixed up as soon as his brother (I can't remember his name, but it ended in a vowel) gets back from procratinating or incubating or some kind of baiting, maybe fish baiting - no that's not it.
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We drunk a lot of wine too. I will post the activities as soon as we eat more, or when we are not eating.
Its comforting to know that my POG brothers are watching out for me as I am up north freezing trying to make a living. Now that you are overseeing the upgrade process and appears you are in control, I guess Cousin Tony won't need the Horses head.:)
I am back home after being worked like a borrowed mule by the King. I believe tool man Jim Keller, King Roger and I can say slide seals can be easily replaced by two men and I will be drafting a how-to article.
I should note that despite my position against slides, anyone looking at or considering a slide coach should not be afraid of one because from what we three saw and experienced. They are not so complex that the average person cannot work on them. We needed help from Scott to get us out of trouble (due to poor Prevost maintenance manual information), but apart from that the entire project went very well.
I don't want to minimize the learning process. The things we found troublesome were not covered in the shop manual or told to Roger in advance despite the fact he spoke to a lot of people about how to prepare.
Also there are some tools not readily available to most people such as a port-a-power that made part of the job incredibly simple. Without Jim Keller's vast tool collection we would have had a more difficult job.
Beyond that by making some errors we learned how to do it in a trouble free manner and the article will cover in detail what not to do as well as what to do.
Editorial comment: Slide seals, air bags, hub seals etc. are all routine maintenance items and having now done every one of them I can say the only reason those of us who do our own maintenance do projects such as these is because Prevost has gotten way beyond unreasonable in their pricing. I learned recently that Prevost now charges $4400 to replace all air bags. To put that in perspective they have $1200 (approx.) in material costs allowing them $3200 for about 10 hours labor. For slide seals they charge around $4500 to $4800 for the small rear seal, of which $2095 is the cost of the seal allowing about $2400 to $2700 for about 10 man hours of labor.
Even if you do not want to repair your own slides for example at the very least shop around for a facility that will do the work for a reasonable fee.
Hi Jon. Ive watched mine replaced so many times now, I would be very interested in a step by step article on the replacement of a seal. Also, where to purchase the correct seal for my Coach.
Gary,
We three have saved sections of the seal. I intend to send sections out to seal manufacturers to get quotes. The seal consists of 2 extrusions, the inflatable portion and the wiper. They interlock and there is also an adhesive bond making the seal a single unit.
The quest for pricing is to find a more reasonable price for such a simple product, and to perhaps set up a way to supply seals to POG members. I don't think any of us three want to be in the business of selling and installing seals, but we do recognize that as coach prices continue to fall on used coaches the Prevost costs begin to represent a huge percentage of the coach value just for slide seals. That is what we want to address.
I spent a couple of days at Prevost FW last month with my bus. One of the projects they had going at the time was a slide top re-built. The techs showed me the upgrade plans and what they were doing. Quite an extensive (and expensive) project.
On one hand, I was very impressed with a number of the techs they had working there. The night crew foreman was particularly helpful in showing me things on coaches they had in the air. The main guy on my job was responsive to my concerns and understood cost was an issue. He was also willing to help me understand things under the coach. They did become nervous with me constantly under the bus poking around and asked that I limit my time under there to necessary review of work. That is fair given the potential liability.
On the other hand, I could see work languishing if it wasn't being bird dogged. Not necessarily as part of a scheme, rather because they have so much going on in there. Hours here and there deciding on the need for a part, finding the part, getting back to that particular task, being one example. Some of the guys were also less efficient than others.
Overall I was impressed with the facility and the work product. Would never just leave my bus there though for work on my dime. Just too many ways for that to become very costly. They were very good though since I was on site at informing me of the estimated cost of things on my list, and suggesting I might be better served to do it myself if that was what I wanted to do. Very courteous and straightforward about how much things would cost to do which allowed me to make informed decisions about what I did and didn't want them to work on.
The problem with the previous seals in my coach seem to be with the manufacturer.
The seals were too thin. I hope the new seals are thicker and less vulnerable to breaking.
Gary,
My original thought (and Roger's) was the inflatiable portion was little more than a thin bicycle tube cross section. That is probably a good analogy, but after seeing the failure on Roger's seal and the fact the inflatible portion is not in contact with the slide room until it is inflated I am not so sure having a robust design is important.
Roger's seal failed at the point where it flattens. The flexing due to inflation and then being under a vacuum causes the flexing to occur at a single point along its length and that is where it failed. The failure could have been caused by over inflation due to a poor pressure regulator, but the real culprit is the seal (like our air bags) is only flexing at one point and that is where it split. The split was about 15" long.
I saw no indication the inflatiable section had ever been pinched or physically damaged and my guess is age got to it just like all other rubber components like tires, air bags, brake diaphragms, etc. We all agreed however the Prevost system and seal may be needlessly complex, but short of re-engineering the entire system that is not going to change.
I have HWH slides in my bus..they were installed by HWH and so far have been pretty much trouble free. There is no inflatable seal on my slides, they fit flush to the bus..I added a thin weather stripping to eliminate some minor wind noise. I guess my question is are the inflatable seals necessary?
Granvil,
I too have HWH slides on my coach. I have inflatable seals, and I feel that without them I would get water inside my coach when it rains. Regardless if I was in motion or parked. I have a gap when my seals are deflated (when the room extends or retracts) to where you can see daylight. I haven't had any leaks during rainy periods. And I too am very satisfied with my slides and the seals.
I would like to see how your slides functions without seals. That must be a neat installation.:D
I am not sure an inflatible seal is necessary if the seal (like our car door seals) keeps out water. The consequences of water entering the coach can be measured in hundreds of thousands of interior work if moisture creates mold and mildew.
Parliament Coach is repairing a Marathon that had slide seal leaks and the entire interior had to be gutted.
With an inflatible seal the slide retraction and extension is a complex series of events including seal deflation, seal vacuum, pin retraction, slide room motion, pin extension, seal inflation, etc. To do that cycle there are numerous valves and controls as well as a control system that senses completion of the various portions of the cycle.
With a non-inflatible seal it is a much simpler control system and in fact we three looked at a plastic coach with non-inflatible seals and the set up looked very good. We aren't the engineers so these thoughts are nothing more than me shooting from the lip.
The seals keep the Coach pressurized inside. Not like an airplane but pretty tight. It is recommended that the toll window be opened prior to opening the slide beause of the suction and you can actually feel the air coming in the window when the slide is opening.
When driving with a broken seal, i will ge a fine residue of dust in the Coach so it is definately needed.
There are a gazillion plastic slides out there and they don't use air seals. I had an 02 and 04 Country Coach and they never leaked. They were a PIA with hydraulic problems on the 02 and electric motor problems on the 04, but they were dry in rainy weather.
Gary De: Curiosity is getting me- What life expectancy has Prevost indicated on the seals they have replaced for you?. And is there another way or means of measuring the life expectancy of an inflatable seal. My slide has no obvious counter although there may be one as part of the logic controllers.
I will assume that my coach went into service in 2003 and has 7 years of wear & tear on it although it would seem cycles would play a part in the life due to the design.
Many and Much thanks to Jim Keller and Jon W. for their assistance and help in the replacement of my rear slide seal. And thanks to Scott and Cyndie Parks for their help via the phone. Scott sure came in handy and at the right time!!
Plus the seal has 750 plus miles and and number of in and outs and is performing spot on.
I have never been told the expected life of a seal. From past experience, its not long. However, Prevost keeps changing vendors and the design from its original ( Scott has said the original seals had to be glued together)
My living room slide lasted until 2008 which puts it at 6 years, but I'm not the first owner so it may have been replaced one or more times prior to me owning the Coach. I am on the 3rd seal for the bedroom, and it has lasted about 3 years so far.
It seems to me, they should have a method of repairing these seals instead of replacing them, it certainly seems like it could be accomplished with the right glue and tools.
The other thing that bothers me is the original engineering of these inflatable seals, if your putting air into them and drawing air out of them , how does that effect their long term viability. Its not like a bicycle tube which you keep inflated all the time.
Roger,
My front seal is the original; it has never been changed. It does not leak air and it keeps water and dust out. I spoke to a tech at Seal Master Corp., Kent, Ohio (manufacturer of my seals) and he said that 12 years old was a long time for a seal to last. He of course touted the quality of their seals. I changed my bedroom slide seal (painter knicked it with a grinding wheel) in Feb. 2006, so it has lasted 4 years so far.
It seems odd that Prevost and Newell engineers would build a slide out using air seals if it could be done like the plastic coaches not using an air seals. Could they be doing it only to generate revenue? I really don't think that they would build a slide designed to give their customers trouble! So that leads me to believe that the seals are a very necessary part of the slide room concept.
Just my .02
Your welcome for the help/phone conversation/coaching. My pleasure. I think it's great you guys did this repair. I'm just sorry I missed the party. The drinking, the eating, the field trip etc. It sounded like you had a whole lot more fun than I do at work doing repairs. I've been at the Nashville branch for the last three days of the week and am just now seeing your posts. Glad to see it worked out.
I did not want to post how important Scott was to us in this process, but since he has posted I suppose Prevost is OK with him providing help.
He helped us at a critical moment.
We followed the Prevost shop manual for slides that Roger had. We were attempting to prevent the pins from engaging. Roger was in the bedroom operating the slide. Jim was standing outside relaying the messages and I was laying on my back in the second bay pushing on the button clearly shown in the shop manual to prevent the pins from extending. Unfortunately the button I pushed caused the pins to extend and the slide room was partially extended. The pins had extended against the glass. Roger could see the glass flex.
In case anyone is unaware, the technical terms expressed when stuff like that happens is "oh shit!"
Roger called Scott, and after some confusion between Roger, Scott and me we got the information we required to retract the pins from Scott and the rest of the project went very well. In the article that will be posted we explain how not to get in the mess we got ourselves into. Without Scott's help Roger would not be happy with us.
I NOW feel a little better about all the trips up to Prevost Ft. Worth, to let them work on my slide issues. If they break it ( Prevost ) they pay for the fix. Luckily nothing ever was actually broken, it just took a number of tries to get the problems solved. And believe me, they bent over backwards fixing my issues, more than several times.
Everything looks good and fixed now, and Peg and I are happy campers. :)
Gary S.
Many thanks to Roger, Jim and Jon for this contribution!
Click here to read the article.
Great article Jon, Jim, & Roger thanks for all of your efforts. I know that this will be a great help to slide owners in the future.
Jon, Jim, & Roger,
Great article. Once all the prep was done, how difficult was it to actually install the air seal? Did you have excess material that needed to be evenly distributed? Did you need to stretch the material at the corners? Did you partially inflate the seal to check for kinks before completing the install? Did you temporarily adhere/clip the seal as you maneuvered and distributed it over the entire opening? Anything else about this step that we need to know?
David: The seal is actually "preformed" to fit the slide opening. I assume part of the high cost of the replacements seal is because of the fitted radius corners that appear to be pieced (spliced) into the seal. The new seal has a pressure sensitive adhesive inplace with premask tape. We positioned the top two corners first ( scoring and peeling away enough of the premask to make it easy once in position to remove the premask tape completely in the top corners only. Then once positioned - making contact with adhesive in the top center and then halfing that again for the top. Then installing the air filler hose thru the side of the coach and continuing on to the bottom of slide deals - same drill -corners first then the center and then the sides. It was a simple take your time procedure. Just make sure the air fill hose lays in good and flat. After just hand pressure to set the seal to the frame we used a small wallpaper seam roller to mash it to the frame opening as uniformly as possible.
No streching required. I doubt that a fellow could strech this seal if he wanted to.
So far it is working great!, and I see no reason to expect it to change
Thanks Roger,
I appreciate the info. I can see how the preformed/radius corners would make the job easier. Was there a manufacturers name on the seal?
Great Article. What was the amount of time spent from bginning to end, the man hours. Also, my coach has a control box next to the valves. I believe the Prevost guys used the contol box to retract the pins and deflate the seal. Any info on that?
Gary,
All told we probably had 20 man hours, but you have to understand we were not looking for efficiency and for us it was more important to look at the best way to get the job done. It sounds silly but at least half the man hours spent related to getting the top angles off, something we now know can be done in an hour or less. I won't try to explain how three reasonably smart, sober guys could make such a project out of that, but we did.
Rogers coach also has a control box located next to the Norgrens, but sitting here thinking about how close we came to sending the pins through the glass let me assure you the method described in the article is foolproof. If you retract the pins as described from the room closed position with the aux air at zero nothing can accidently get damaged. We literally had the Prevost shop manual in hand, had all read it, verified the valves were as shown, and did what it said and still had the pins extend instead of retract. We did not want anyone else getting in trouble like that, hence the way we described to retract the pins.
Retracting the pins as described is a 5 minute procedure. If Prevost does it differently I'm sure that is OK, but with all the various slide designs our proposed method works for all and is foolproof.
We spent a lot of time talking and analyzing the steps we took and I think we all agree that the next time two of us do one we could have the time reduced to 12 man hours and eventually to 8 man hours. It is a far simpler job than originally expected. Our next step is to find a supplier for the seals.
No manufactuer name on the seal or packaging. It came in a clear garbage bag all wadded up - just what you would expect a $2100.00 seal to come in.
We did inflate the seal for 24 hours prior to installation to ensure that it held air and did not leak down. That would be a big disappointment to find a new seal leaking air from a manufacturing defect.
We had a hard time staying focused on the seal replacement at the time because Jim Keller was taking us to a Mermaid Show the next day and Jon was getting all excited. Anyone every heard of WeekiWachi. It is a fresh water spring were Mermaids live -- some of them have lived there a long, long, time.
Poor Jim. He picked the Mermaid Show for entertainment but unbeknown to him the mermaids were mostly Medicare recipients. (No joke...one gal was 71 and she had one of the better bodies. The 79 year old mermaid had the day off).
The high spot of the process for me was it gave me an opportunity to kill a lot of dirt and grass (the kind you mow). During lulls in the excitement of removing and installing the seal we three took advantage of the Keller compound by exercising our firearms. I shot more bullets during my time at Jim's than I ever shot in my life, combined. We sampled Jim's big guns, saw how a 12 ga shotgun may be excessive for defending a coach, and we saw grass and paper fly as we blasted away at the target options Jim scattered around.
I think it is safe to say that if you need a slide seal replaced you will not lack for volunteer helpers if you provide entertainment and activities comparable to those provided by Jim. I think a slide seal replacement should be a part of the next POG rally and I am sure we three would be very happy to supervise and provide advice if there were sufficient incentives. I just don't think we are cut out for manual labor however.
Great job on an excellent article!
At first glance, it sure looked to me to be an intimidating task, (and I'm still not sure I would attempt it) but you have clearly demonstrated that taking your time, following step-by-step instructions, paying close attention to detail and having the necessary confidence can produce big dividends.
I would imagine having an even better understanding now of how the slide works is another benefit gained.
Congratulations on the success of your project! :)
We have the HWH slides on our H3-45 and they're working very well.. we also had them on our 2 plastic coaches without any problems. HWH seems to do a good job.. Our seals are not inflated either.. We are thinking of replacing the seals and have been referred to www.cleanseal.com for replacement seals as ours are no longer available so they say. Cleanseal claim to have it all now for RV seals.. I don't know if they have the inflatable ones or not.
Look at the thousands of plastic coaches out there with HWH slides.. It appears to me they're doing a good job!!
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