Clarke
It was great to read about your baptism into fulltiming. Since we have recently, as of May 1st, finished various
commitments we were involved in over the last 3-5 years, we are just now getting our act together to start
touring again. I will try to bring you and the board up to speed with us, and I will do it in several installs instead of all at once.
As you know, Wyn and I got our '81 Newell at Phoenix in '97, do to our work schedules we stored the coach at
a friend's in Phoenix and traveled back home to Fremont, CA. In late '98 our friend advised us that they were
selling their home. We flew down and drove the coach back to Fremont.
Since we wanted to get the coach checked mechanically from front to rear, and get some upgrades done, we took the coach to the best ranked DD/Allison shop in northern California. We had an in-frame overhaul of the 6V92TA engine, an overhaul of the MT654CR 5-speed auto transmission and the turbo, and a drain, flush, and refill of the Rockwell 3.70:1 differential. We then had them do a 'mated' dyno. We became good friends with the shop owner and he let us store the coach at his 2-acre shop and plug into to keep the batteries charged.
For Wyn's feeling of safety and convenience we made quite a few upgrades and modifications to our coach.
We upgraded all the sinks and faucets, replaced all the AGC fuse panels w/ATO fuse panels. replaced all the
copper plumbing lines with PEX. Replaced the 1kW inverter with a ProSine 2500 inverter/charger. After 11
years of use the ProSine gave up the ghost and I recently replaced it with a 2800 Magnum inverter/charger.
Replaced the pneumatic wipers with electric, add a CHMSL and DLR modules, and added additional marker
and turn signal to the side of the coach.
Between '98 and '03, Wyn retired and completed transfering our paperwork to digital and setting our
communications to cell phone and online access. I was tied up with back to back projects until early '03. We
decided on what to keep in storage, put as much of the take along stuff into the coach, what we were not taking
went to salvation army (a large panel truck) or trash (serveral pickup loads to the dump). We sold the
townhouse and in August of '03, over 3 days we moved what was left into the coach and headed down the
road.
Wyn & Ki Punilei
"Have Newell Will Travel"
'81 40' Newell Coach
'86 Honda Accord
"Squeak" the Feline Princess
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