Re: What Would Be Your Second Choice?
Reply #36 –
Years ago I went on the factory Monaco tour in Oregon. The owners of Monaco were friends of mine and would have given me a private tour but I snuck in like the normal tourista's.
I flinched enough at different stations of the tour that several fellow tour people caught on.
When asked about what I had seen my comment was "I sure would look at all the other brands before making my decision". Word for word.
an easy way to start looking at any coaches build quality is to sight down the side of any prospective coach at the floor line. How straight is it?
In construction the Monaco products were not jig built. Roughly cut to size metal bars and measured with tape measure to a 1/16 of an inch were welded together.
If you looked down the the assembled chassis you would see dips and high points as it went along. And bulges in and out.
If you were at country coach you would notice that they laser aligned the chassis
At every construction station before touching it. 1/100 of an inch tolerance. Looked like NASA made it.
Why is that important? It isn't as important if you don't mount your sidewalls on top of the floor.
Monaco used to mount the sidewalls on the side of the frame where the dimensional tolerances of the chassis could be up to an inch or more off. Smaller screws held the sidewall to the side of the frame temporarily then a massive arc welder bead was hand apllied. welded the lower side wall to the side of the chassis. The sidewalls lower bar was dimensionally bigger to handle the weld as was pretty straight so the floor line visible externally looks ok. Not up and down too much but some and in and out of course.
Country coach and Foretravel and Pre Monaco Beavers mounted the sidewalls on top of the floor so the dimensions had to be nearly perfect. Look down the sidewalls at the floor line and realize its on top of the chassis not next to it.
Most sob's look like the waves in the ocean.
Secondly all the Monaco products bundled all their air lines and hydraulic hoses tightly in a bundle against one frame rail with heavy duty plastic Ty wraps. Non accessible ever again IMO.
Beaver when they used gillig chassis had the chassis bundle against the rail with non fail steel straps with padded inners. Huckbolted to the side rail.
Foretravel, country coach, prevost had a tray on top of the chassis under the floor that all the front to rear lines run in. If you lay in the storage bay of the cc and Foretravel you can look up and see the removeable cover that can be dropped down to access any cracked from age or use line or wire.
Commercial bus construction as the shell and components are long lived components but hoses some day will need replacing.
Running the defroster copper line in the tray adds to the amount of hot water reaching the dash area versus exposed in unheated un insulated bays.
Most sobs have a boost pump to increase the flow of antifreeze to the dash for this reason.
Most Monaco products were built over carpeting. Cabinets placed on top of the carpets so as the carpets compress the coach could squeak. Plus you cannot replace the carpeting as easily as you have to leave the under cabinet stuff there.
Sorry not a rear radiator fan in a big coach. The cooling air has to pass over the hot drivetrain parts before cooling the antifreeze and charge air and a/c radiators.
Runs hotter. Stay out of the southwest in the summer months if driving at full gvw up hill.
New multi slide coaches have gone back to the rear radiators to my old time service buddies dismay to sell the floor plan the customers want.
The floor was not insulated if memory serves me correctly in Monaco stuff. Two pieces of 5/8 plywood bolted to the top of the frame?
Last stage of the Monaco tour was where the roof was mounted to the sidewalls.
Giant clamps and spreaders were used to align the sidewalls for the roof install. Then welded again.
Foretravel and country coach normally did not need to winch the walls straight to attach the roof.
If you damaged the floor of a unihome or unicoach somehow the floor I suppose could be unbolted and replaced. Major project but its not welded.
The subframe structures that hold the axles and stuff in the Foretravel both front and rear are hinged on the front side and after passing over a bump swing up in an arc.
If memory serves me correctly the Monaco rear parts arms face forward into the thrust loads. In other words the Foretravels both face the rear. The Monaco rear faced forward.
No bushings in there suspension arms as I remember and when I asked Enoch Hutchcraft their engineering vp and an old drag racing buddy about this he laughed. Who cared?
Did not need to last that long. Customer needed to trade it in and buy a new one anyways.
First used coach we looked at was in Reno and a country coach intrigue. Tiara floor plan.
Total roach for external and internal condition but it drove perfectly and had no noises in the body on a 18 year old full timers coach.
Sikkens paint was bad and furniture worn through the paint on the utraleather furniture but the big parts were 100%.
The seller tried to alibi around all the non op and worn out stuff. I laughed and finally told him I was the sales manager that had ordered that coach new and had delivered it myself to Vegas. Same coach. Small world. My handwriting was on the original papers in the coach.....
I almost wish I did not know most of these differences and my product knowledge stopped about 1996 so if any later design changes occurred I may need to amend this post but this is what I remember personally.
The sobs work ok but if you particular and look very close and study enough and ask questions the differences are fairly major.
Non insulated compartment doors or metal on most sobs.
Looked at an older allure the other day and the non painted tan areas gel coat had really gone away. The graphics were painted and the lower compartments looked ok but the roof and non painted looked pretty bad. Not sure if it would buff out and most companies did not use as thick of gelcoat as the Foretravel I think.
You guys jog my memory about "why a Foretravel". Fun to think back. Even more fun to see all the old coaches being used and enjoyed still. They really were better made as I told customers. Makes my day.
Foretravel weigh closer to the same on both sides. Some other coaches floor plans have heavier sides on one side than the other so in a dip one side drops more than the other and may be noticeable in the coaches driving straight.
My 97 has unadjusted original Koni's that I am going to have readjusted to compensate for the wear but in severe repetitious dips with the soft shocks the coach dropped and rebounded identically on both sides. Less scary. Versus one side drop more than the other. Now that I mention it all of you will start noticing this I bet.
My shocks are I am sure set on #1 out of five settings. Going to set them at three and see. May need to exchange front to rear as the higher rear bag pressure means they may have not been as heavily worn as the fronts. They are good for around 250k miles and rebuildable after that. Commercial bus grade components and design. Or better.
Sorry for the long post and any errors are purely based on old age. Haha.
The other coaches are ok just not for the detail orientated old guys like me.
If I said anything libelous please delete this thread as it was not my intention to knock anyone's products. Just discussing how I remember they were made long ago.
I assume everyone else's sobs got better just when is unknown after I left the biz.
Bob
Topic: What Would Be Your Second Choice?