Wish us luck.
We have our rig at a Spartan Service Center in Las Vegas (Herderson) today. The folks there worked with Spartan who sent the full new upgrade kit to be installed. We even got a call from Spartan telling us about the new recall and that a full replacement was being done consisting of the fan clutch, belts, guards, motor spacers, fan driveline, fan hub and fan gearbox. 5 boxes of parts were sent.

The technicians have already done a couple of rigs with these new parts so we are not their first install. Hopefully all will work well as we have a schedule to maintain over the next few weeks. We must be in Palm Springs Wednesday for several weeks and then onto Apache Junction by the 27th.

I will let you know how it went and some feedback after we get some miles on the new set-up.

Good luck to you Ken...

I'm hoping that as every day goes by,the folks in Charlotte,MI are one day closer to getting this thing figured out...

As my belt and bottom pulley are still finding a way to get out of alignment and loosen,they're not there yet and I have all five of those same boxes worth of stuff on mine...

Bob,
Do you have all the updates? When I compared your parts to the parts in the Mountain Aire delivered the day before the rally, the MADP parts looked like they could go into battle. The parts in your coach looked like they were from ToysRus. We forgot to compare the coaches before the rally ended. I am refering to the shaft to the fan clutch and the clutch itself.

Bob,
Thanks for sharing the fan belt issues on the other threads. I have been watching this very closely and hoping to get out of this without a breakdown.

I will be watching for problems and sharing what I find. And please keep up the great work letting us know what to look for.

I am heading back to the shop in a little bit to see how they are doing. I just found out my heating convector arrived today (in my other thread) and hopefully I can get that installed today.

Gary, I do recall you saying the MADP's shaft was much larger and I intend to address this issue with the folks in Tampa...

I'm beginning to feel like Spartan Custom Chassis is in fact a subsidiary of Toys-R-Us..

With all of the disparity between Essex models and the corresponding chassis parts it's difficult anymore to determine what is right and what is wrong....

There has to be a price placed on what sanity I have left, as well as a price placed on my ability to ENJOY the fruits of my investment as a Newmar Owner...

Sorry folks, but right about now I am NOT feeling a warm and fuzzy feeling,especially given the fact my belt was AGAIN loose and out of alignment.

I wish you could've been on the phone when I got the chance to call my wife and tell her the belt was loose again....As a matter of fact,I wish those nice folks at Newmar could've been on the phone when I called her and she abruptly told me what she thought of the big brown turd's cooling system...

Having to drive home TWICE from a break-down with my daughter in the toad with her has not exactly left her with the warm fuzzy feeling of wanting to jump in the Essex and travel...

Sorry this was a rant,but at least it's on topic...

GaryKD,

My replacement fan differnetial and drive shaft assembly are, as I said in an earlier post, built like a MAC truck. I'm impressed with that engineering.

Having said that, I notice about 1/32 off the fan belt where it obviously is hitting the chassis. I may have used high Jake once. The good news is I bought a grinder and will go after the offending chassis part shortly.

It really is too bad that Spartan can't seem to get their hands around trhese issues. I suspect tney don't feel the same urgency we feel when we're tooling down the highway in strange parts with wives, daughters etc.

When I was at Cummins Tampa, they had a firetruck chained to the dyno machine. If Spartan would only borrow that dyno and put a high speed camera on the cooling system they could definitize the issues with it real quick. Can't they afford a dyno??

quote:

Originally posted by Road Pilot:
When I was at Cummins Tampa, they had a firetruck chained to the dyno machine. If Spartan would only borrow that dyno and put a high speed camera on the cooling system they could definitize the issues with it real quick. Can't they afford a dyno??

If my fan belt breaks again,I'm going to suggest they chain the Spartan ENGINEER to the dyno!!

Being disabled on many roads we travel on is not only an inconvience but can be a major safety issue.

Peter

What a day.

The installation of all the parts was going very well until the shop tried to install the new fan drive shaft. Apparently Spartan sent the wrong fan clutch and the drive shaft U joint would not fit. Luckily the shop, Specialty Vehicles in Henderson, took the driveline to a local business where the proper plate was found and installed on the driveline. The Specialty Vehicle guys went above and beyond to get us on the road today. Three guys stayed late in order to complete the install.

The parts look robust. I am praying that things stay aligned and the belt not hitting the new black frame guard too often.

We have a 6 hour drive tomorrow. I hope we can report "no problems".

MBnKen - in your original post you referenced a new

quote:

recall and that a full replacement was being done consisting of the fan clutch, belts, guards, motor spacers, fan driveline, fan hub and fan gearbox.

Do you by chance have the recall number or whatever so that I can reference it when I call to get my rig fixed?

Thanks.

Mark