Prevost Mira Loma did me right this time!

[MangoMike]

Mike & Dee,

You know I like the idea of combing both first names to create a unique screen name. I'm thinking of making the change.

MikeBattleaxe

[jello_jeep]

MikeBattleaxe

Wow mango, either your wife never reads this forum, or you have BIG ONES indeed !! LOL

[MangoMike]

Warren,

No LEW ONES here. Mrs. Mango just looked over my shoulder.

New name:

PainintheassDonna

[rfoster]

MM: Your but is going to be smokin instead of the turkey!

[Ray Davis]

Spend 20 grand and accomplish nothing and then they give you approx a 5-10% forgiveness and we are all happy. BULL !!!

Lew, I wont dispute you that the leger heavily leans to the left side, as you indicated. I'm just really happy in this case, nothing extra was added to that side. From what was comped from the bill, it could have been much, much worse. In the past, I always got charged full boat. All I'm saying is THIS time, I'm happy. This Christmas I get to keep several thousand dollars in my pocket, and that's good.

[merle&louise]

Welcome Mike & Dee. How about some pictures of your bus?

You will be glad that you joined this group, they are the most helpful and knowledgeable guys around when it comes to Prevosts. This forum is a 10!

Ray,

Is it your OTR air system that might need revamping or the cruise airs?

I hope that your last repair will do the trick. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

It's nice when a facility cuts you a little slack. We all need a break every once in a while.

Good post!

[Ray Davis]

Is it your OTR air system that might need revamping or the cruise airs?

Hey Tuga,

It's been the Country Coach variation on OTR that has been the problem. I did have work done on the Cruise Airs, but they seem to be doing fine. One thing I leared about Cruise Airs though is that they are really not designed to be used when you are in motion, and it's like 120 degrees outside.

The CA's pull there air from under the bus. If your moving and it's extraordinarily hot outside, the asphault is even hotter, and they are sucking real hot air, and will thermally overload.

They are better when still, even when hot, because the bus tends to shadow the pavement below, and the air via the intakes is overall cooler.

[merle&louise]

Ray,

If at some point in the future you elect to re-vamp the OTR I saw something on Peter Vs Marathon that was pretty cool. Instead of having OTR which I would think could be expensive to maintain; he had 3 automotive type dash AC units throughout his coach (front, middle, & rear). He said that the three units running off of the engine did a very good job cooling the coach. It seems to me that it would be less expensive to install 3 of these.

Just a thought, Peter could tell you more about it, but I thought that it was a good concept. The redundancy was also a nice feature; if one fails, the other two help out.

[Petervs]

Hi all, just a minor clarification. My 94 Marathon XLV has the standard Marathon answer to the air conditioning problem of that vintage.

I have 3 cruise airs that run from the generator or Shore Power. While driving, we have a standard Prevost dash air and a Marathon added unit that adds a second dash air type compressor driven by a belt from the engine, a condenser with electric fan mounted to the right side engine compartment door, and 2 evaporator units. One of those is in the bedroom, the other is in the kitchen.

Each of these 3 have their own thermostat and fan speed control panels mounted near the cool air outlets, but you can turn the system on or off from the dashboard while driving.

Overall the system works real well, it is well designed, has been trouble free, and we are cool inside while driving in 105 degree heat. And when you stop driving the back of the coach is cool too. If you are starting out with a heat soaked coach it takes quite a while to get cooled down, but if you begin before it is real hot inside the system keeps up with no problem. Our personal approach is to avoid hot places in general; a kind of natural air conditioning.

Marathon does not do it this way any longer. They now install 4 rooftop air units, and with today's huge inverters, you can run two of those and your dash air when the engine is running. The engine alternator powers the inverters which make 110 volt AC to run the AC's. This is simpler and cheaper, although not necessarily better in all regards. I do like the redundency in my system. And I do not like rooftop AC because they are louder inside when running.

I think the Marathon ,method is a good system for a motorhome. On a tour or Charter bus, the Over the Road Air is designed to keep the interior cool when driving through Phoenix in the summer with 45 people on board. This is a much larger heat load than we will see with a well insulated motorhome conversion and typically 2-4 people. So, the OTR is overkill.

On a related note, do any of you have any problems with holding tank odors when driving with the front sliding driver and passenger windows open? We seem to get a little vacuum effect that seems to pull tank vent air inside, perhaps coming from an empty P trap somewhere. I like to drive with the windows open but the smell in not nice.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I think coach design is regressing to some extent. Peter, I think you are correct about setting up a small vacuum with the front slider open. We would occasionally get a whiff and I think the dry trap was the one for the washer.

The reason I mention regressing is our old coach had a skylight in the living room, powered vents in the dining/kitchen and bedroom and a fantastic fan in the bath. With the right combination of those fans or open vents we could stay comfortable under most circumstances without any open windows or AC.

Now we have mirrors in the ceiling that show up streaks so they not only don't do anything, but they add to the work load.