02-26-2017, 05:33 AM
Well good afternoon to anyone who is interested in the journey of my coach.
I purchased 1218 back in December last year near Salt Lake City with the intention of bringing her back to the UK.
The purchase went smoothly and i flew back home to plan the trip.
I had a agent drive the coach the 2300 miles to Baltimore for shipping which also went ok. It had to come through some nasty weather and snow but made it to the docks. Once in the docks the power steering failed as the drive cog on the power steering shaft sheered off but at least she had made the big trip ok!
Fortunately the driver who took it to Baltimore managed to arrange a replacement pump and a mechanic to replace it so finally it could drive onto the ship.
I have to say though a fee of $50 per day to allow the Mechanic into the port to replace the part was a little harsh!
She arrived into Southampton Three weeks later having visited Jacksonville before the trip across the pond, The ship then passed through the English channel and went into Zeebrugge in the Netherlands first and then on to Bremerhaven in Germany before finally coming back through the English channel and into Southampton. All the way through this trip i was tracking the ship in anticipation of its arrival. You can imagine the frustration watching the ship pass through the English channel and past Southampton on its way to Zeebrugge and Bremerhaven knowing it would be another week before it docked in the UK.
But the day arrived in late January and the call came that she was on the dock and had cleared customs, At last!!
I went down to collect her and found her looking rather sad on the dock, she obviously has a air leak as she's was sat down on one side with a fairly decent list to the port side! either that or she was getting her land legs back after Three weeks at sea, Im guessing its a air leak!
With the duties paid and a slip of paper in my hand that released her from customs i went to fire her up with a fair degree of excitement and nerves! will she start?
Well i turned on all the batteries and she fired up straight away, hit the travel button on the jacks and she soon levelled up and off we went.
Well i can tell you a 47foot Newell on UK roads is a big bit of kit and she draws a lot of attention and i have to say the price of fuel over here makes it a scary trip to the pumps! its £1200 to fill her up or just under $1500!
But all that said she is now back home and undergoing a electrical conversion to 240volts on the ring mains and hook up through a transformer so she can be used over here.
Part of this job is easy due to the very good labelling on the fuse boxes and the fact that some 110v items which have to remain 110v like the fridge, A/C, water pump, microwave etc are on separate rings to the plug sockets,
So we can bring in 240v through a step down transformer to 110v then use a step up transformer on the power socket ring mains, a fairly straight forward job to be honest.
A difficulty has occurred though in that in the States the electric supply is at 60hz and in the UK and Europe we operate at 50hz and the Silverleaf system has identified that the power is at the wrong cycles so won't allow it to enter, very clever! So now i am having a 20kva transformer built with a frequency converter built in, (this is normally used for marine or aviation purposes) and we will be installing this in the next couple of weeks.
So there we are, 1218 is in the UK and will be visiting the race tracks of Europe in the not to distant future. With this coach spending its life in the USA traveling around in the Nascar Championship with Jimmie Johnson and now over here about to visit the race tracks of Europe it could end up visiting most of the race tracks in the world! She just needs a trip to the Middle East to make up a full set!
Anyway, happy travels and i will update how things go over here and I'm sure as before i will be asking for advise with little problems along the way!
cheers
Rob
I purchased 1218 back in December last year near Salt Lake City with the intention of bringing her back to the UK.
The purchase went smoothly and i flew back home to plan the trip.
I had a agent drive the coach the 2300 miles to Baltimore for shipping which also went ok. It had to come through some nasty weather and snow but made it to the docks. Once in the docks the power steering failed as the drive cog on the power steering shaft sheered off but at least she had made the big trip ok!
Fortunately the driver who took it to Baltimore managed to arrange a replacement pump and a mechanic to replace it so finally it could drive onto the ship.
I have to say though a fee of $50 per day to allow the Mechanic into the port to replace the part was a little harsh!
She arrived into Southampton Three weeks later having visited Jacksonville before the trip across the pond, The ship then passed through the English channel and went into Zeebrugge in the Netherlands first and then on to Bremerhaven in Germany before finally coming back through the English channel and into Southampton. All the way through this trip i was tracking the ship in anticipation of its arrival. You can imagine the frustration watching the ship pass through the English channel and past Southampton on its way to Zeebrugge and Bremerhaven knowing it would be another week before it docked in the UK.
But the day arrived in late January and the call came that she was on the dock and had cleared customs, At last!!
I went down to collect her and found her looking rather sad on the dock, she obviously has a air leak as she's was sat down on one side with a fairly decent list to the port side! either that or she was getting her land legs back after Three weeks at sea, Im guessing its a air leak!
With the duties paid and a slip of paper in my hand that released her from customs i went to fire her up with a fair degree of excitement and nerves! will she start?
Well i turned on all the batteries and she fired up straight away, hit the travel button on the jacks and she soon levelled up and off we went.
Well i can tell you a 47foot Newell on UK roads is a big bit of kit and she draws a lot of attention and i have to say the price of fuel over here makes it a scary trip to the pumps! its £1200 to fill her up or just under $1500!
But all that said she is now back home and undergoing a electrical conversion to 240volts on the ring mains and hook up through a transformer so she can be used over here.
Part of this job is easy due to the very good labelling on the fuse boxes and the fact that some 110v items which have to remain 110v like the fridge, A/C, water pump, microwave etc are on separate rings to the plug sockets,
So we can bring in 240v through a step down transformer to 110v then use a step up transformer on the power socket ring mains, a fairly straight forward job to be honest.
A difficulty has occurred though in that in the States the electric supply is at 60hz and in the UK and Europe we operate at 50hz and the Silverleaf system has identified that the power is at the wrong cycles so won't allow it to enter, very clever! So now i am having a 20kva transformer built with a frequency converter built in, (this is normally used for marine or aviation purposes) and we will be installing this in the next couple of weeks.
So there we are, 1218 is in the UK and will be visiting the race tracks of Europe in the not to distant future. With this coach spending its life in the USA traveling around in the Nascar Championship with Jimmie Johnson and now over here about to visit the race tracks of Europe it could end up visiting most of the race tracks in the world! She just needs a trip to the Middle East to make up a full set!
Anyway, happy travels and i will update how things go over here and I'm sure as before i will be asking for advise with little problems along the way!
cheers
Rob
2008 NEWELL C-15 ZF 1218
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