[Jack Houpe]

Our coach has driven miserably since the day we purchased it, I've flown airplanes for many years and would say it's like flying in foul weather the entire time you're driving it. This is our first motor coach and our first Newell never have driven anything other than a class b van so it was a new experience which I was not happy with. Thank God for this forum and the people with knowledge who have helped us along the way, we have now a coach which is drivable and I would like to explain what happened to make it this way.

Being somewhat mechanical I realized that it had something to do with the suspension but everything underneath the front had been replaced including steering box tie rod ends and sway bar bushings on the sway bar. We had worked very hard for several months trying to get this thing ready to go on a road trip for the winter from Northwest Arkansas to Florida and we accomplished that after discussing this with Richard I had mentioned that my tag axle had a negative camber which in the car world is great on the track but in the coach world it is a miserable condition I know now. After many failed attempts due to my illness while on vacation Richard and I met, he immediately stuck his head between the drive and tag axle and said your bushings are shot. I of course crawled under and looked at the same thing and sure enough it's very visible when they are, it's a good idea for anybody who has this vintage coach and a tag axle to make sure to check and see if the bushing and the axles are symmetrical. What I mean to say is look at the bushings and the bolts that hold them in place if you have one that is closer to the top on one side and one that is closer to the bottom on the other they are shot. Make sure that the bolts in the washers and the housing are the same distance all the way around mine one side was higher and the other side was lower meaning that the rubber had deteriorated as the tag axle is independent on each side and carries a great amount of weight. What would happen is that as you're driving down the road and you had uneven road conditions or a truck were to pass you the tag axle would waller around in its bushings causing the front end to turn thus the tail that wags the dog. Driving this thing was unimaginable and only part one of this story due to the bushings, part two will come along in a minute. After his suggestion and of course I was honored by meeting Steve and Bill at different occasions with all their input I ordered all new bushings for tag axle and drive axle plus a new panhard bar, made an appointment with a company in Orlando called Josam and got on the list to have the bushings and the panhard bar replaced. I had an earlier times before leaving Arkansas inspected the panhard bar and it looked like it had been replaced which I was correct but whomever replaced it failed to see the simplest thing which was the tag axle bushings. The second part of this is when Richard crawled underneath the front of the coach and said your pitman arm is half the size of a normal coach of this vintage. I have never driven a bus or anything like this in my past so I have no experience in knowing what is good or what is bad I did know that this thing turned terribly when it hit the locks on either left or right side and it gave me great anxiety to stop at a stoplight and turn to the left or right, well the pitman arm on my coach is half size because the steering box had been replaced by the prior owner and I had no idea was not the original type steering box I do not have an adjustment to take up the slack and the pitman arm is half size so if you can relate this to your steering as you're driving down the road I had to turn my steering wheel twice as far as a normal person would because the pitman arm was half the size and I do not have the turning radius as a normal newell coach. While at Josam's I encountered a beeping noise from the dash which I had never heard before, went inside and ask the chief service manager Barry to come out and check the coach which he did then we proceeded to drive out of the yard and back in but he had to stop prior to making the corner back up to make the corner coming back in the entrance because he ran out of steering wheel it had stopped then he had to back up and go at it again after that I said did you check the pitman arm because it is half the size is the other and he said well that's the problem! So on my return to Arkansas it's on my list to either replace the entire box with the original box or find a pitman arm of the same length as the original that came with the coach.

I know this is lengthy and probably some of you won't understand my translation from thought to paper but I highly recommend anybody with this vintage of coach to check the tag axle bushings, it will make your life much easier and they are NOT inexpensive. The bushings themselves can be had for less than $30 there are four of them on the tag axle to have them changed out what's a tad less than $2,500 which included a 3 point alignment which is tag axle drive axle and front end alignment. Today driving from Orlando in
traffic and back to Cedar Key for a day or two was Joy!

Thank you Steve for solving the beeping noise! They had left the tag axle switch in the up position, one more thing to learn about a Newell.