RE: Coleman Replacement Roof

[tlhdoc]

 I had a new roof put on my Nevada this week.  If anyone else has had an ABS roof replaced with the AlumiTite roof, I would like to know of any problems or positive things you have found with the new roof.  Some of the things I am questioning are how the door latches to at the top of the door frame, the valances and where the AC is located if you have AC on your trailer.  The last thing is can you keep as much stuff on the bed when it is popped down.  With the ABS roof I was able to keep eggcrate mattresses, sheets, blanket, sleeping bag opened up and the pillows at the edge near the box of the trailer.
 
 I like having the newer style lights (although my 1987 Coleman had the same idea) where you can have one or both bulbs on in the fixture.  I am also happy that this roof seals to the box and will not let any rain in.
 
 Thanks for all of your help.

[jstaddwtr]

 tlhdoc
So far we have noticed that the left door latch at the top has to be placed in an awkward middle position in order to keep it sealed.  This is somewhat precarious becasue it appears to be balancing in the center, rather than having a positive lock.  It also feels considerably heavier when cranking.   We are going out tomorrow night so we will advise if we find anything else.  Thanks for asking a very good question.[][]

[springer02]

 tlhdoc
So far, so good for our new roof, although it already has led to a minor mod of sorts.
 
 We also notice that the door seems less likely to go right into position and latch easily, but it eventually does.
 
 If this were brain surgery and not camping, I d probably worry more about how the tracks and valance connectors no longer exactly line up. But it is camping, so we can live with that.
 
 For us there s not noticable change in where the AC is located.
 
 The one mod that I m doing (actually redoing) today concerns the drop-down vanity. Dealer reinstalled our vanity in a different location, and I ve moved it back, but didn t fasten it well enough. In the original ABS setup, the vanity was over the sink to the right of where the door stows. Unfortunately, with the new roof the new wider light conflicts with this location. Of all the silly things, he installed it instead right over the forward of the two dinnette seats. My answer for moving it back was to move the front light off center by three inches or so, making room for the vanity to return to its rightful home.
 
 The forward two of the holes he made now have eyelets for hanging our wire baskets. The rearward one I ll have to patch.
 
 As for today s redo of it: I learned that rivets don t hold really well in this roof and the ones I put in came out. (Might be my technique, or lack thereof.) I m going to use hollow wall anchors instead when I rehang it today.
 
 As for the bed, no change for us, but we just keep our comforters there, so we probably weren t using every inch.
 Dave

[Red neff Barchetta]

 tlhdoc
Tracy -
 I hope you get things ironed out soon.  I saw your post in Bill s thread (approaching 10,000 hits!) and among other things it makes you wonder how they thought anyone could snap the privacy curtain in place with it being so extremely close to the nylon strap for the shower curtain.  They obviously don t physically check these things when installing them.
 That is also ridiculous that the door jiggles loose after opening and closing the door a few times!
 Is there a noticable inside height difference?  I heard the AlumiTite ceiling is 3-4 inches lower than the ABS ceiling (81 inches).
 Good luck and we are all interested in how these things get taken care of.
 
 Oh yeah, I also can t believe the a/c is now behind the axle!

[Red neff Barchetta]

 tlhdoc
springer02 -
 It makes you wonder if any dealers out there use common sense when installing things.  That is classic that someone actually thought the Vanity Mate would work over one of the dinette seats!  That makes absolutely no sense.  And now you have at least one hole in your new ceiling that you have to patch.  Ridiculous!
 Sorry to hear about that.

[tlhdoc]

 springer02

 I had several issues when I went to pick up the PU Tuesday night that were explained away when the owner talked to the service manager on Wednesday morning.  One was that Fleetwood/Coleman installed the hardware in the ceiling for the shower, the location and missing hardware are not my dealers fault.  My vanity mate was located on the roadside of the trailer all the way to the back.  When I got it back the vanity mate was right behind the sink, and I wasn t too happy about it.  I found out that it wouldn t fit in the original location because of the new lights.  I guess I am not the only one that the lights were in the way.
 
 

ORIGINAL:  springer02
 
 In the original ABS setup, the vanity was over the sink to the right of where the door stows. Unfortunately, with the new roof the new wider light conflicts with this location.
 

 The door problem is one that Fleetwood/Coleman is going to have to fix.  It is not something I can live with!
 

[LKaskel]

 tlhdoc
I d give almost anything to get my sagging roof replaced but if Coleman-Fleetwood can t figure out ahead of time that there are obvious problems like the door I m not sure my confidance in them would improve even with a new roof.  Hopefully they will make this a positive experience for every one in the end!
 
 Larry

[missteri]

 tlhdoc
Tracy,
 We have the regular aluminum roof on our camper and we can fit tons of stuff on the bunks before closing.  DH even left a box fan on the bed once, which I thought was way too much!  I usually just leave blankets and pillows, that type of thing.

[tlhdoc]

 tlhdoc
Shirleyb where have you been?  I haven t seen you post in a long time.  Thanks for the info.  Are you still coming to Hickory Run in Sept?[]

[PI]

 tlhdoc
Since the new roof, we also have the door problem, but not too much of an issue. The biggest problem is that we have trouble getting the roof to latch down even when we are careful stuffing in the canvas. It takes 2 of us --one to push down hard and one to latch...neither DH nor I could do this ourselves. Anyone else have this problem? That is with nothing on the beds. I don t think we could latch it if there was anything on the beds. Our vanity got put over the toilet....yuck. We called our dealer friend and he came up and moved it. I had him put it over the stove...he didn t want to but he was ready to move the light. I m all set with that. Had to clean up plastic and metal chips that fell all over the camper beds and all. Some of the valence clips disappeared.  Well, at least it doesn t leak anymore. I wish they could have found a way to fix the ABS roof --we really liked it better. PI

[mike4947]

 tlhdoc
J&R, a couple of things. First try having someone go inside the PU when it s partial down to " rearrange: the canvas. We found that helps a lot. You can see some of theplaces it s binding up.
 We ve also put empty tissue boxes around the PU and closed it just to see where there is room and where it binds.