2008 Tiffin Allegro FRED 32LA

Ron said:

Just a reminder that the break away torque when attempting to remove the lug nuts will be greater than the tightening torque and could very likely be much more.

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I pretty sure I have enough in the tank to get the job done. I weigh about 220 pounds, over a 42 inch torque wrench that translates to 770 Ft/Lbs of loosening power - "Bring It On!"

BNTorsney said:

.......................a couple of weeks, at our next winter camping outing,  he is going to bring his so I will not have to wait till December 20th to try it out; a report with photos will following that outing.

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There will be a delay in any replies to this thread concerning this wrench by me. My friend just emailed me that his son-in-law lost his torque wrench, therefore, he will not be able to bring it to our next winter camp-out. With mine on back order till 12/20/2008, it looks like the new year before I will be able to post any information or photos on the subject.

MOTORHOME RECLINER

One of the features we sacrificed with this 32 foot motorhome, was a recliner. In the coaches we looked at, it had to be 35 foot or larger to incorporate room for a chair.
We have been looking for the past year, for a recliner small enough to fit and store in the motorhome, with no success. Finally yesterday, at Kane's Furniture we found just what we have been searching for. It just large enough to be comfortable and its small size is just right for the 32 foot Tiffin coach; it also stores easily in the living/kitchen side-out while traveling.

The Full discussion on the motorhome recliner can be found at http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php?topic=19749.0.

IMPROVING XM RADIO RECEPTION

This motorhome came with a good stereo, but it had no XM radio. I removed the Pioneer, AirWare, "XM2Go" radio receiver from the GMC truck and installed it the Tiffin. I installed the magnetic antenna for the XM radio, inside the main TV cabinet of the motorhome. I had glued a fender washer to inside the cabinet and stuck the antenna to it. The satellite reception was never good, the signal would fade in and out. After a year of this poor reception, I decided moving the antenna higher to the underside of the Tiffin roof, might improve the reception.
I removed the main TV from its cabinet again. On end of a 1x2 piece of wood, seven inches long, I screwed a metal strap to act as a base for the magnetic antenna. I then removed a small portion of the foil-faced insulation from the roof's underside, where the antenna would go. I glued and screwed this 1x2 inside the TV cabinet. This positioned the magnetic antenna, right at the underside of the fiberglass roof, where I had removed the foil insulation.
This closer to the underside of the roof position, minus the foil insulation did the trick. Our satellite signal is now very strong, with no more fading in and out.

MOTORHOME'S FIRST SCHEDULED SERVICE, continued.

Rear axle gear gear oil change

Changing the SAE 80/90 gear oil in the motorhome was a snap with the aid of the "electrical" leveling system. This system allowed me to get all four wheels of the motorhome off the ground. This extra clearance made crawling under the coach with my new, large oil drain pan fairly painless. I also wore a heavy trucking hat on my head, with the bill facing the rear; this hat saved my head from a similar fate, shown in the 3rd photo!!   ;D
In photo 4 you will see a sharp, pointed "scribe" in front of the gear oil container. I figured by punching a hole in the container, while I had it into the axle's fill hole, would allow the oil to empty more quickly. Unfortunately, even in Florida's mild climate, the thickness of this gear oil prevented this from happening. After the first two quarts, I did it the old fashioned way, by just squeezing the oil out.
I did this maintenance on a Sunday. In photo 1, AFTER the oil was draining, I realized I forgot one important item; the oil drain plug "thread sealant," shown in photo 2! Luckily for me, there was an open auto parts store not too far away.

I wonder how wb6anp's mileage compares to Bruce's? Wb6anp had the 32LA gas configuration, this would give us a GAS versus FRED mileage compare....

I have a 32BA, it is hard to figure actual gas milage due to genny use but I think it is around 8 to 9 as close as I can figure right now, What I will need to do is fill it up and drive it a while without and fill it again and not use the genny at any time.

wb6anp,

If you have the manual for the generator, it may tell you how much fuel is consumed with different levels of use; ours does.  You can do the calculations and see what effect the generator has on your mileage.  We have set up a spread sheet to add in the use of the generator and it gives us a pretty good picture. 

Don't hold me to these facts  :, but I think our diesel generator uses 1/4 gallon per hour of use with a light load; and 3/4 gallon per hour with a full load usage (both A/C, microwave etc).

Marsha~

Just filled up: 9.21 MPG. Our 6 KW diesel generator uses .4 gallon at 50 percent power and .8 gallon at full power per hour.

BNTorsney said:

Just filled up: 9.21 MPG. Our 6 KW diesel generator uses .4 gallon at 50 percent power and .8 gallon at full power per hour.

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I should have stated that this 9.21 MPG number, was achieved with a lot of starts and stops, on short trips. Biased on this fact, I am confident and expect to average over 10 MPG during the RV 2009 season. With 7200 miles on the coach, the transmission's 6 th gear seems to be holding at lower speeds, down to 56 MPH.
I would imagine there is a break-in period programmed into the Engine Control Unit and TCU; where the RPMs are held higher than normal in each gear.
I have done the oil and grease already; Unfortunately, the batteries in my reliable digital camera were low. I'm sure everyone has witnessed oil dripping into a container, although probably not one as nice as mine. :  What I want everyone to see, and will take photos on our next Winter outing (01/08-11/2009), is the tight space the oil filter is located. I found a very nice filter wrench, when combined with my 24 inch 3/8 drive extension, made getting this filter off easy; I will post a Internet link where I purchased it.
In the photo, at the top/left corner of the drain pan, notice my 33mm socket and adapter. I ordered the 42 inch, 3/4 drive, 100-600 Ft-Lb torque wrench in October 2008 and still haven't receive it! Harbor Freight assures my it will be here in the next twenty days.

STORAGE BAYS LEAK DISCOVERED, 2 of 3 repaired

Ever since this coach was new, the twin storage compartments on the passenger side were always damp. I always attributed this to no air circulation in a damp environment, Florida. Luckily for me, while I was under the coach greasing the U-joints, I just happened to notice light shinning through a crack in the tire side of the bays. Further inspection revealed the same opening on the door side of the twin storage compartment.
After corking these two cracks, I took photos of the repairs; I have a dear friend with the same motorhome and I wanted him to see it so he could check his. Before sending the photos, I discovered additional light shinning through a crack in the middle of the two bays. This defect will be corked this "winter" camping week-end.  At that time I will photos of the oil changing equipment, I mentioned in another reply to this thread.

OIL FILTER WRENCH FOR "TIGHT" SPOTS

Attached are two photos showing the location of the oil filter, for the Cummins 6.7 L diesel engine in our Tiffin 32LA. Without the aid of this wrench I found on the Internet, it would have been quite a job to get that filter off. I used a 3/8 inch drive, 24 inch long extentsion, with my 3/8 drive ratchet.

"Tight-spots" Oil Filter Wrench

If your wondering what this Tiffin owner does in the winter, in between winter camping trips, while waiting for the next year's RV season to begin, check out: Keeping Busy in Winter

WHAT 450 FtLb torque rating?

I had emailed the "tech" line at Motorhome magazine, inquiring about the proper tire-rotation pattern for a 6 wheel motorhome and the time interval.
It was never published, but I did get an email reply from one of the experts. He basically told me, "blah, blah, blah it would be too expensive."
After waiting almost 4 months for my motorhome torque wrench, it finally arrived today. I wish I had saved that reply, I would have written back, "blah, blah, blah, it's only too expensive if you pay someone to do it!"

Bruce

What do you gain by rotating the tires ???  In most cases, any additional tread life gained will be past the age out point so you haven't gained any "real" benefit other than the exercise of lugging those tires around. Tires should be periodically inspected and when abnormal tread wear is noted, the cause should be corrected, not rotated away.

Lets see we had 95k + miles on the Eagle when we replaced all tires because of age guess maybe I could have gotten some excercise and rotated them at least once. ;D ;D  Like Bernie said no real benefit from rotating tires anyway.

GOD HELPS TH.................

I didn't purchase this torque-wrench to specifically rotate the tires. It is something I was considering, but after checking it out, I find it really is not necessary.
All vehicles with spring suspensions sit a little lower on the chassis after about a year; Freightliner recommends an alignment check at about 10,000 miles.  If however, when I bring the unit in for the alignment check, the front tires exhibit any abnormal wear, I will rotate them with the outer rear dual tires myself.
Our coach has supports for the front brake hydraulic line and ABS cable; this support is bolted to the top of the king-pin. One side on ours is missing a bolt, which I picked up at a Freightliner dealer. Having this torque wrench I will be able to remove that tire and install the missing bolt myself. If not for that, I would STILL be on Freightliner's waiting list for that repair. Simple warranty repairs like this, don't get much sympathy from factory dealers.
Basically what I'm saying by owning this wrench, is that in a pinch I can do a lot more with it, than without it! "God Helps Those That Help Themselves," is one of my favorite statements!! I also love to have that ability, when we travel in some desolate place during RV season.

I too, have a torque wrench.  I don't rotate the tires on the MH, but I do remove the wheels once a year and service the old troublesome brake calipers.  I turned 70 this year so I'll probably ask one of my adult sons to help with any chore that requires a tool that large in the future.

PS - I have one advantage.  The wheels on my "seasoned" Bounder are only 16".

Your the SECOND 70 year old I know of that does that kind of work on his motorhome. Just turning 60 myself, with this wrench weighing 14 pounds, I gave myself a good 5 or 6 years to get my monies worth out of it. After hearing from people like you, I now have hope of getting a little more - Thank you!
When your out in the boonies with a flat on the front, it is VERY comforting to know, you at least can swap it with one of the duals on the rear, to be able to LIMP on your way to get help. Knowing no help is coming, combined with the fact you can't do a dam thing, are feelings I will leave for less venturous souls. Forgive my redundancy, "God Helps Them Who Help Themselves!"

Hi Bruce,
It looks like you mentioned on a Jan 03 post that you thought the software was programmed for break-in behavior on the tranny and engine.  By the way, nice coach.  I worked on one of those today with 5k miles on it.  I was impressed that I had trouble finding and "factory screwups" on it when I inspected it.  Many new coaches suffer from "infant mortality" problems in their first few miles as the factory screwups and bad parts get weeded out.

The transmission has some "adapting behaviors" that it learns over some time to adapt itself to the driver.  The engine, however, is hard programmed and stays the same until acted upon by a tech with a laptop such as myself.

It might interest you and some others that our break in procedures, as recommended by experience, is to take a new engine or a newly overhauled engine, especially the latter which has no run time until we start it ourselves, and run it as hard as we can up a mountain or on the dyno right out of the chute.  When I overhaul a large boat engine such as the 14 liter N14, or the 19 liter K19, I always have the skipper run the throttle to the firewall if he's comfortable doing it for at least 15 minutes.  The belief is that there is less chance of glazing a cylinder wall and ending up with a wet stacking engine.  I've experienced several cases of a cylinder that would not seat the rings fully after idling for too many minutes after being overhauled. 

However, having said that, my personal belief is that much of the break in happens in the first 2 minutes of just sitting there idling if everything in the mettalurgy is correct, and then to a much lesser extent some shaping of the piston rings and loosening up of other bearings can happen over about the next 40 thousand miles that might result in some mileage improvement.  Break in is still a subject full of wive's tales, and every method I've come across works, which means that none of them are really the only answer. 

Cheers,
Bob