Rogue River slides

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I have to agree with Gary. For me that non-Prevost slide would be a deal breaker even though the coach is absolutely fantastic.

Prevost has worked very hard to develop slides. The fact that they have had several generations of slides indicates that even with their extensive expertise the design of slides is difficult. Until they changed the structure of the shell all the Prevost slides had locking pins to restore the integrity of the structure when the slide room opening cut the backbone of the original structure in half.

The issues I would have would be primarily the loss of the strength of the shell. I would be concerned about future support. I would be very concerned about moisture entry because there is no awning associated with the slide room and I would wonder how to get inflatable seals when they fail from the company that produced the slide. I also wonder what the procedure for seal replacement is. Replacing a Prevost seal might be expensive due to the cost of the seal, but the seals are available and easily replaced in a few hours with two people.

If any moisture gets behind the seal the resulting damage is unbelievably expensive to repair due to mold and mildew which spread out of sight until the damage is done.

[Coloradobus]

Tuga, This Marathon Coach #687. Nice coach beautiful paint. The slideroom is from Rogue, of Medford Oregion. They folded in 2003. The first Prevost slide installed Marathon Coach XLII was Coach 700, also a 2001 conversion with a "Y" or 2000 model year shell.
Note the driver side bay doors. You will see the first 3 have what looks like a silver line across the bottom. This is a Hinge. These door swing down. Luckliy the water/sewer bay is pantagraph. When you open these bay doors you then have to crawl over them to gain access to stuff in bay.
For Rogue slides, they don't use the air bladder. They used the convertional squeegee rubber strips to seal the coach slideroom from weather. Similar to what Vantare uses.
This is the first Rogue slide room Marathon XLII I have seen. If you remember Pogger 0533. That was Bruce Harris' Coach number. All the XL45 Marathons and a few 40 footers had Rogue Rooms, Steve Bennett of Ca. Coach Co has Marathon coach #409 as a 1996 Bus
I would have to call Marathon to see if this coach was originally born a slideroom coach. Marathon may have done it, but I'm not sure if it was from the begining of the coach life.

[aggies09]

Tuga, it sure is coincidental that this coach has the required LSU color scheme. I know how you and Louise love those Tigers.

Pretty bus.

[merle&louise]

Tuga, This Marathon Coach #687. Nice coach beautiful paint. The slideroom is from Rogue, of Medford Oregion. They folded in 2003. The first Prevost slide installed Marathon Coach XLII was Coach 700, also a 2001 conversion with a "Y" or 2000 model year shell.
Note the driver side bay doots. You will see the first 3 have what looks like a silver line across the bottom. This is a Hinge. These door swing down. Luckliy the water/sewer bay is pantagraph. When you open these bay doors you then have to crawl over them to gain access to stuff in bay.
For Rogue slides, they don't use the air bladder. They used the convertional squeegee rubber strips to seal the coach slideroom from weather. Similar to what Vantare uses.
This is the first Rogue slide room Marathon XLII I have seen. If you remember Pogger 0533. That was Bruce Harris' Coach number. All the XL45 Marathons and a few 40 footers had Rogue Rooms, Steve Bennett of Ca. Coach Co has Marathon coach #409 as a 1996 Bus
I would have to call Marathon to see if this coach was originally born a slideroom coach. Marathon may have done it, but I'm not sure if it was from the begining of the coach life.

Wow, what an informative post! Thanks Jim. The bay doors swinging down is a BFD. Is Bruce still a member of POG? I'd like his input on this coach. Think I'll give Marathon a call and see if they installed the Rogue slide or if it was done at birth by Prevost. As I understand, Marathon presently uses Valid slides on XL IIs and Prevost slides on H3s. Do they use an air gasket system on the Valid slides?

Jon makes some good points; having Prevost support is a big plus.

Boy, it sure is a gorgeous bus!

[Coloradobus]

Tuga,

Pat Sprenger would be the one to talk to.

What I was saying about the slideroom, is that, and I don't know this now, but this coach/shell may have been "born" slide-free, and either Marathon as an Out-sourced- Option or the original owner after purchas had Rogue install the slide. . This is what makes me suspicious the coach was built slide-free off the line. PANTERRA COACH bought the proprietary rights when ROGUE went belly-up. So they may have info on this coach that would help educate yourself more.
Another tell-tale, is the 1st Preovst installed slided Marathons like our past Caoch which was 2001 shell, 2002 XLII had Zipdee Awnings all the way around. This style of awning would help aid to keep weather out with rubber Squeegees' sealing the slideroom. Not that the Rubber Squeegee style slideroom seal is bad, we were considering a coach, its just not a Prevost factory installed item.
Another thought, is the bay doors that swing down were either electrically driven or hydraulically driven with ram pistions. Our 1999 shell called a 2001 Country Coach XL, yes an XL 45 with 2 HWH sliderooms with rubber inner tube seals had CAFE" style bay doors on the driver side including the sewer bay, similar to Fast Roger's coach #60476, and wnen one of the motors failed, you have NO access.. Something else to consider.
And finally, I see the auction has ended, no wonder, the buy it now price, is 100,000 too much IMO.

[travelite]

Jim, Thanks for the info on the bottom hinged doors. I never would have spotted that. I imagine when they're open they're suspended in a horizontal position and don't actually touch the ground. For this to work, the door support needs to be strong enough to kneel on and to take the weight of whatever you happen to be sliding across it. Hinging on a vertical edge certainly makes more sense, but for whatever reason I guess it isn't (or wasn't) feasible.

[gmcbuffalo]

actually those lower hinged bay doors may not be that bad, if you look at the Generator bay it hinges down and it looks like the other hinged doors have Joey beds in them that slide out. Based on the one bay open next to the generator bay.

[Coloradobus]

Travelite, I found my list that Steve Irvin gave me long ago Marathon Coach numbers that were NO Slide Coaches for 2001 and 2002 line up

Starting with"

Marathon Coach 663,664,665,667,668,669,670,671,672,674,675,676,68 0,681,682,683,687 (BINGO) for 687 on Ebay,, and 688,690,691,692,693,699,702,704 (Kevin E's), 705,706,711,713,718,721,724,727,729 (which is an 2002 and beyond) 737,739,755,757,758,767,770.. As best as I can find in my old info.

[merle&louise]

Jim,

Thanks for all of your efforts; especially the list of non slide "born" buses above.

[Coloradobus]

Tuga,


This list is for XLII';s' There are some non slide H3-45's but some have Girards so since they won't fit in our garage, I didn't accumulate a tally list.