Looking at an XLII -- need advice

[davidbrady]

Cool! The H is a fantastic bus, but I may be slightly biased.

Back in chassis year 2001 Vantare started making their own slide out actuator systems. These chassis show up as 2002 or even 2003 registration dates. Up until 2001 Vantare used HWH rams and HWH hydraulic actuators including hydraulic locking pins on a room that Vantare built. After 2001 they still used the HWH rams but Vantare developed their own twin electric motor drive system controlled by a PLC. The PLC drives and synchronizes the motors by sensing sensors placed along each ram. You can tell which Vantare's have the electric drive motors because they also added the skirts along the exterior sides of the slideout which hide the rams:

The other thing that Vantare did at around 2001 chassis year was to eliminate as many air driven systems as possible. For instance, on my coach the dump valves and interior pocket doors are motor driven. Vantare's philosophy was always to use d-bulb compression style seals around the slide body for weather protection. They never used a compressed air driven pneumatic seal. The Vantare approach requires an inner and outer flange on the slide body which then compresses against a d-bulb seal mounted on the bus chassis, one on the inside of the bus body cutout and one on the outside. (Over here I talk about the massive beams Vantare engineered to add strength back into the bus chassis). I had my seals replaced at DMRV (Donny Myers in Sanford Fl) for a whopping cost of $300 for the seal. You'll never hear of a Vantare owner stranded due to a punctured slide seal.

An item to check out on the 2001 and earlier coaches is the RVAC HVAC unit. At around this time Vantare switched to 4 CruiseAirs which is what my 2004 has. Prior to this Vantare installed 2 CruiseAirs and 1 RVAC. The RVAC was a two stage compressor split unit that provided around 30,000 BTU. The compressor allowed wiring to both of the 50A legs. The problem is that the RVAC is no longer available or supported. They do tend to have problems with their control boards and folks have had local shops rework the control boards with success. Others have swapped out the RVAC for a Coleman unit which happens to have basically the same footprint, but it does require extensive rework to the ducting which significantly adds to the upgrade cost.

The 365's on the steer and tag became standard on chassis year 2003 for the H and 2004 for the XLII. In 2003 the H also got dual pane windows, and 18000 lb steer axle with a dual power steering cylinder, and hub centered wheels on all axles. You'll notice that the Vantare H's have 8 Alcoa aluminum wheels. This was also special ordered by Vantare. Prevosts typically ship from the factory with an inner steel wheel on the drive axle.