Our week at MCD for new American Duo Shades

Thank you very much!

Really slick, John!!!

I'm not sure i could park next to him now.

I would be lucky to even be allowed in the same park!   Ha! Ha! 

Nah - we look almost the same on the outside 

Some people just have WAAAAAY TOO MUCH MONEY.....I'm not naming names though.  ;D

Thanks for the pics though 'nameless person'! 

Mark - some of us will have a bunch less money tomorrow afternoon  :
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The last shade was changed out today - whoopie!  Still lacking the trim valances for the dash area and still some tweaking to do, but MCD should have us finished up sometime tomorrow.  

The last window (actually three windows that had three separate pleated blinds) has had a broken shade for months and we haven't been able to look out of it - it's the one by our dining table.  Now we can open up the entire suite of windows at one time since we went with one long shade instead of three.  Yet another dramatic difference - the pictures speak for themselves.

Pictures:
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- the old set of three pleated blinds

- new MCD day shade (wow!)

- and the new MCD night shade (wow/wow!)

The guys got real, real busy and we got delayed a day, but late today our work is 99.99% completed and all that remains are a couple of trim strips that will take about ten minutes to install on the "A" pillar tomorrow morning.  The guys installed a white trim strip, and Dave (who is quite particular about the end result) thought it would look better being black.  Okay!  That's cool!

The cockpit (dash and side windows/door) trim (valances) were installed today and the look is just stunning.  The valances are wood covered in ultra-leather (or equivalent) and the color nicely matches the dash color.  I love it when a plan comes together  ;D ;D

We'll be on the road most of tomorrow headed for home, but I'll get some better pictures posted of the project as soon as possible.  My only regret at this point is not having the MCD shades installed last year.

Simply amazing, John!  Looking forward to seeing the 100% finished product!

Yea!  We're home!  Now we have about 350 miles of driving experience with the MCD shades - I was curious about how they would act in-motion since they aren't captured like the pleated blinds.  Dave told me not to worry about them swinging around, and darned if he wasn't right.  Dave tests his products on his personal Monaco, so he knows how they perform.

The shade I was most curious about was the large shade for the windshield, but even when it was lowered to its full travel (about 2/3rds down), the most movement I ever observed was maybe the bottom moved 1/4" and that was infrequently - in any case, it wasn't an issue which greatly pleased me.  The fairly large shade for the driver's side window did swing in and out some when we were not going in a straight line, but so did the factory original Winnebago pull-down shade.  I need to add a little more felt to one end of the shade, and then problem of it making a little noise when it hits the window frame is solved.

We had all of the day shades pulled down in the rest of the coach to keep the sun out and they didn't move around much either - don't know how that was, but I know what I observed.  I took some movies with Jane's digital camera which I will either upload here and/or to my web site.  I'll be doing a full write-up for the project like I have for all of the other coach mods and put it in our RV pages.

One really neat benefit of the MCD shades in the cockpit was having the ability to lower the night shade when you need even more sun blocking.  We were on the road until five PM yesterday and the sun was getting harsh since we were traveling southwest.  It dawned on me I could use the night shade to remove the glare. 

When we made our lunch/fuel stop, we were pointed into the sun and the cockpit was getting pretty warm.  Push a couple of buttons to completely lower the two large cockpit day shades and the problem was solved.  Yes!  Just a little easier than pulling drapes around the dash area  ;D

Finally I got the project write-up finished!  The video took quite a bit of time to get right - I was converting .MOV files to Flash.  Learned a bit in the process.

Here's the link to the first page.

One Day, I hope!!

Great write up John.

I now understand what the MCD tech was talking about when he mentioned trimming the pillars.
The windshield installation is going to be a bear on our motor home because the fans are going to have to be moved.
We are going to install the rest of the shades first and consider our options for the windshield.
We ordered the shades last Monday and they are supposed to be here in a couple of weeks.

Lee is finishing the reupholstering of the dinette,couch and captains chairs this week. The last item - the passenger side captains chair is almost done.
She used UltraLeather Plus which is the best grade. After that is done she will start on the window trim and valances. She wanted new fabric on them.