Powered day night window shade installation
We've been living fulltime in our 36' 98 U270 for 28 months and have owned it since 2016. We remodeled the interior in 2017 and installed MCD shades on every window but the windshield, copilot and pilot windows, partly because of sticker shock and partly because we thought we could live with the OEM blinds up front. The original windshield blinds have grown increasingly more troublesome, and we found that we tended to leave the copilot and pilot seat windows shuttered because they were more trouble than the MCD day/night shades.
I've been plotting for several years what to do with the windshield. I didn't want an external sunshade and couldn't figure out how the full width shades would work with the instrument panel sticking out in the way. We read posts on the Forum but never understood how they were accommodating the instrument panel. We looked at all kinds of options including touring a 2008 Nimbus with two front powered shades, the driver side was mounted at an angle to skirt the instrument panel and the passenger was parallel to the windshield with about a 10-inch overlap to create privacy. However, the instrument panel hump on the Nimbus was smaller. We checked out a U320 that had two angled shades that met in the middle with a wooden valance that had been done in the Fortravel remodel shop. It too had a different, less obtrusive instrument hump.
While at Quartzsite we looked at several coaches around the campfire, met with Shade Pro and a company called Shade Smith. MCD has been swallowed up by the big boys so my contacts in McKinney were no longer answering the phone. We had a long conversation with Shade Smith, which is a distributor for Irvine Shade and Door, an OEM supplier in Indiana, at the Big Tent. He suggested that I add about six extra inches to my shade and let it slide forward along the hump. That creates a gap at both ends of the windshield that I "filled" with a piece of Luan paneling. We ordered a powered, day and night windshield roller along with two manual dual shades for the pilot and co-pilot windows. Total show cost with shipping was $1,171.
I went to the Shade Smith booth twice and learned that Irvine Shade and Door is a family owned business and that the Shade Smith owner is actually related to the owners. Irvine Shade and Door provides replacement parts for their shades and encourages you to repair, not junk your shades and has no problem sending end users repair parts. They have several different styles of brackets, very easy to use adjustments for retraction height and speed. The powered shades use the same motor as all the other brands, a 12-volt DC motor that reverses according to direction of the current and is easily programmed for raise and lower heights. The owner of Shade Smith puts his cell phone on the sales brochures and answers promptly when called any day of the week.
The switches were not included and the recommended DPDT switches were available on Amazon for about $14 each. These are slightly smaller than the rocker switches in Foretravels, so I found an enclosed 3 switch box used for off road lights in Jeeps that was mounted underneath the dash. Power was pulled from a spare breaker in the passenger kick panel and a ground from the main ground bus in the dash. The powered roller was mounted with the motor end to the passenger side and wires run behind the trim at the edge of the windshield. The motor includes a control wire to prevent full extension of the shades via an ignition signal. I did not bother with that safety feature required on OEM installation. I Velcroed the programming buttons to the carpet on the header. I bought six feet of 1x4 fir, cut it into sections, and screwed it into the header to provide a strong mounting surface and to create a spacer so the powered shade would clear the three speakers up in the header. The maximum length of the windshield rollers sold by Irvine Shade and Door is 96", which is what I ordered. My order was 96w x 48h, 25w x 45h, and 37w x 45h. Shade Pro had measured my windshield for 97 inch shades. Irvine has four fabric colors, and a choice of 90 or 95% sunshade. I went with 90% to match my existing MCDs. Adjusting the power shades is confusing, read the instructions multiple times and watched two videos on YouTube. This would apply to any brand of motorized shade.
Perceived quality: The blackout fabric seems slightly thinner than the MCD shades. They run up and down more consistently than the MCD's which seem affected by temperature and occasionally get stuck, which requires a "sharp downward" pull to free. Irvine shades are much easier to adjust, especially after mounted. I like the mounting brackets from Irving Shade and Door much better. Lots of choices and very flexible. Customer service and parts availability a big plus.
The side panels are trapezoids of 5x10x36.75 inches and 3x10x36.75 inches. During travel they store to the side and behind the driver's seat, and then we put them up in the windows and leave them there. I'm going to paint them black on one side and off white to match the shades on the other side.
Closing thoughts: We love the new shades, and they enhance the day-to-day life in our home. Having large windows and keeping a view to the world is important to us. We are not tempted to trade our 36' non slide coach for a new one, though every time I hit my head on the storage compartment door I covet the "bus style" doors of the U320. I've even made my peace with the propane heater. It appears to me that Rec Pro might be a reseller of these shades.
Topic: Powered day night window shade installation