Red Bay Update

For the readers who have a Tiffin motorhome and have been to Red Bay for repairs and other work, this post will make more sense than for others.

This has been our most successful visit to Red Bay from the timely repairs and lack of frustrating events.  As posted previously, our appointment wasn’t until Monday, but they got a little head start on Friday with the ‘short side’ rails. 

We were scheduled to be in the mechanical shop first thing on Monday to get the attwood  jacks replaced/upgraded to the new system.  This meant replacing all four jacks, new computer and control pad as well as additional wiring.  We were in the bay at 7:00AM when they opened, and we were out by 11:30AM.  I went back to the rail area, and managed to get us in to finish the rails at 12:00noon.  Except for one piece of trim, our rails were finished at 4:00PM……… and since they have pre-painted black rail material, and our rails are all black, no painting was necessary.

Here’s the Bus up in the air for the jacks installation……

At 7:00AM Tuesday, we were back in the rail bay to finish the trim work, and I talked to the supervisor in charge of that area, and I got him to agree to pick up the rest of our list of work.  They replaced two fogging windows, (upper door and the passenger side window) checked my DS slide floor for rotting and sealed it (no rotting found), and repaired the chain drive cover on the rear of the PS slide.   With that, we were finished up…….. and it was only 11:00AM. 

Here’s pictures in the bay with the window installation in progress…..

After parking the bus back in our site, I returned to settle our account, and found that the windows, which are out of warranty, were quite expensive.  My bill was $595, and the two windows was all that was billable.  I rationalized that since I got the $2700 jack upgrade for free, there was not  problem.

While watching the windows being replaced, I got a chance to see them set up a new coil of aluminum material for the curved side rails.  It is much like the gutter machines except it is set up to make the semi-circular shape:

We had previously made an appointment to get some dents and scratches repaired on the passenger side of the Bus that I got when I lost a fight with a six-pack of baskets in a Wal-Mart parking lot in El Paso.  My preference was Bruce Deaton’s Paint and Body shop located just outside the factory gate here in Red Bay. 

We were getting tired from getting up early enough to be at the bay doors at 7:00AM here at Tiffin.  I assumed that Bruce’s shop would be better, like starting at 8:00AM.  When I checked yesterday for our appointed on Wednesday, I found out that they start at 6:00AM. So, this morning, we got up even earlier!!

The good news was that Bruce and his crew was ready to work on it, and we were in the bay and they were removing dented panels and doors by 6:30AM.

Here are pictures of Burce’s shop and the work…..

The Tiffin factory tour now includes the Power Glide chassis plant and the carpenter shop.  As soon as I post this, we are headed over to take the tour.

We may even be on the road by Thursday evening!!