2005 model year quality tracking..... - Page 12

Silvertwinkie · 07-08-2005, 04:57 PM

Congrats John! Wow, you're on an upgrade roll!

Trucks, 3rd Airstream...it's hard to keep up with ya!

Congrats again on the new coach. I do have one question, does this new 2005 have the higher rock guards I've been seeing on the later 2005s?

Pahaska · 07-08-2005, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silvertwinkie

Congrats John! Wow, you're on an upgrade roll!

Trucks, 3rd Airstream...it's hard to keep up with ya!

Congrats again on the new coach. I do have one question, does this new 2005 have the higher rock guards I've been seeing on the later 2005s?

No, just the old low kind. I haven't looked at exactly when this coach was built.

I actually think the old guards looked a bit better, but the way the diesel can throw gravel, it wouldn't hurt to have the high ones.

One thing I wish I had was the new LED taillights. I'll upgrade when I get my finances in order again. The upgrade costs $100 plus tax for the 4 LED units.

**jcanavera** · 07-08-2005, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pahaska

One thing I wish I had was the new LED taillights. I'll upgrade when I get my finances in order again. The upgrade costs $100 plus tax for the 4 LED units.

Now that means you will have to give up the backup lights, right?

Jack

Pahaska · 07-08-2005, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Now that means you will have to give up the backup lights, right?
Jack

As I remember, there are two red squares (tail & stop) that straddle the backup light. The LED units replace the red squares one to one. I had a LED set already bought for the 25, but I returned them to the Airstream store when I signed for the new trailer to ease the impact on my finances a bit.

I think I'll convert them when I go to the Homecoming next year, which we plan to do.

If the backup light does disappear, I never saw much need for it, anyway.

**jcanavera** · 07-08-2005, 06:14 PM

My SOB prior to my Airstream did not have backup lights. I missed them dearly when backing into sites at night. It allowed my wife to better see the site as she was guiding me in. As neat as the LED's are, I wouldn't give up the backups for them. Let's hope that they are there. Something rang bells that Silvertwinkie's Safari didn't have them but then again maybe I'm just in error.

Jack

Pahaska · 07-08-2005, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcanavera

My SOB prior to my Airstream did not have backup lights. I missed them dearly when backing into sites at night. It allowed my wife to better see the site as she was guiding me in. As neat as the LED's are, I wouldn't give up the backups for them. Let's hope that they are there. Something rang bells that Silvertwinkie's Safari didn't have them but then again maybe I'm just in error.

Jack

The Safari has a totally different sort of taillight with no backup lights. Just two horizontal red bars in each light.

The Classic conversion uses the current Classic castings. Each LED unit is a sealed box with a red lens and 4 wires exiting to a plug. I was instructed to cut off the plug and use crimp connectors to attach the wires following the color code.

The trailer is 9 miles from here, so I can't check it right now.

Pahaska · 07-16-2005, 02:59 PM

I spent a rainy morning putting on numbers, installing the level, and installing anti-skid in all of the drawers. After 3 weeks and lots of hours working around the trailer, I still find that the build quality is just about perfect. Compared to my nightmare International AS, this one is sheer pleasure.

Our next Airstream trip is to St Louis in early August to attend my grandson's wedding. He is the third oldest, but will be the first to marry of the five. Rumor has it that my oldest granddaughter will be also sporting a ring when we arrive in St Louis.

Spring will be expensive since there will be two new college graduates then and each of my grandkids gets $1000 from me on graduation.

sarmimi · 07-17-2005, 12:18 AM

I just found out through trial and error that my bathroom sink plumbing is connected to the black water tank, not the grey water tank as I originally assumed. Is this supposed to be correct? I always thought grey water was connected to the shower, kitchen sink, and bathroom sink. Since our bathroom sink appears to be connected to the black water, our black water tank fills fairly quickly since we always brush our teeth, wash our hands/face, etc. Please advise if this is something I need to get corrected or if it is normal for AS. Thanks!

sarmimi · 07-17-2005, 12:35 AM

According to my AS manual on page F-24, "The MAIN (BLACK) HOLDING TANK enables you to use the toilet for several days away from disposal facilities. The wastewater from the sink, shower, bath, and lavatory drains in the AUXILIARY (GRAY) HOLDING TANK".

So my lavatory sink should be connected to the gray water tank, not the black holding tank. Arrggh!

Just one more of a long list of items I need to get fixed...

redeagle313 · 07-17-2005, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarmimi

According to my AS manual on page F-24, "The MAIN (BLACK) HOLDING TANK enables you to use the toilet for several days away from disposal facilities. The wastewater from the sink, shower, bath, and lavatory drains in the AUXILIARY (GRAY) HOLDING TANK".

So my lavatory sink should be connected to the gray water tank, not the black holding tank. Arrggh!

Just one more of a long list of items I need to get fixed...

How do you know that this sink is connected to the wrong tank? I have read that the tank level monitors are notoriusly inaccurate. And we are seeing evidence of that.

AgZep · 07-17-2005, 08:39 AM

We have intimate knowledge of our black/gray plumbing due to the fact that Airstream dropped both tanks for repair when we took our 2005 28' International to JC in June. Indeed, the bathroom sink water DOES drain into the black tank (along with the toilet, of course), while galley sink and shower drain into the gray tank. It has to do with the shape of the black/gray tanks how they fit into the metal pan that holds them; I doubt it can be changed.

That said, our black tank monitor works about as well as everybody else's (i.e., it doesn't work), but I've found the "potty peek" method of checking the black tank level be satisfactory. Guess we don't use the bathroom sink for much running water activity.

In a way, it's good that the bathroom sink is plumbed into the black tank in these units, since the gray tank is apparently engineered to have one inlet for galley sink, shower AND vent. This is the reason the galley sink water in the 28' sometimes backs up in the shower. Airstream fixed this for us by adding additional inlets to the gray tank and re-plumbing the whole shebang. This was MAJOR surgery, though; I would only recommend having JC service do it, and then only if the gray water backing up is a big problem.

markdoane · 07-17-2005, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AgZep

. . . . Airstream fixed this for us by adding additional inlets to the gray tank and re-plumbing the whole shebang. This was MAJOR surgery, though; I would only recommend having JC service do it, and then only if the gray water backing up is a big problem.

AgZep,

Was this redesign done as warranty work, or did they charge you for it?

Pahaska · 07-17-2005, 10:38 AM

I have found that the trailer manuals are cut and paste jobs and do not reflect the actual trailers very faithfully. First time I encountered this was seeing the drawings of shock absorbers in the manual for my 2003 International AS. The trailer had no shock absorbers. Next thing I found was that the electrical schematics were only an approximatio of the actual wiring.

OTOH, I find that the downloadable parts catalogs pretty faithfully show the physical details of the trailers.

AgZep · 07-17-2005, 12:04 PM

Don,

Our gray tank problem was repaired at JC under warranty (we bought our unit in December 2004, manufacture date 07/04), as it seemed to be an engineering-related problem. AS service thought they could repair this problem (galley water backing up in shower) by re-routing the drain pipes in a more "downhill" fashion, but apparently that didn't work, so they decided to drop the tanks and see what was really going on. That's when they discovered three penetrations in the black tank (bath sink, toilet, vent) and just one in the gray tank (for galley, shower AND vent).

Ironically, although the sink back-up problem was on our punch list, we didn't really consider it a major problem--just attributed it to unique hydrodynamics. The JC techs thought otherwise and initiated the major repair. They brought in some of the engineers as well, so hopefully this quirk will be re-designed in the new models.