Air ride with 8 bagz

I had a Beaver with 8 airbags for ten years. I traded it a few years ago for an Entegra on a 4 airbag Spartan chassis. The Spartan chassis rides far better, and handles just as well or better, so I don't miss the extra airbags at all. To be fair, the Beaver was 40 feet with no tag, and the Entegra is 45 feet with a tag, so the comparison is not a direct one. But my point is that eight airbags are not needed to make an outstanding chassis. Witness all the high end Newmars, Entegras, American coaches and others on four airbags.

bluwtr49 wrote:

DSDP Don wrote:

There has been a report that the Beaver line of coaches, bought up by Monaco many years ago, is going to reopen in Oregon. It will be interesting to see what chassis they use. Even though the Roadmaster chassis was a good chassis, it was long in the tooth and ready for some revamping.

It looks like the leading contender is the Spartan K3 Chassis. Still away off so that may change.

I believe ReV (Fleetwood/Monaco) may have sold the Beaver name , but still own the name Roadmaster or sold it to Freightliner as The new Monaco branded coaches have "Roadmaster" chassis by Freightliner. They are a Roadmaster only in name as they aren't anything like the old outboard air bag chassis.

crasster wrote:

dougrainer wrote:
Most RVer's that had the Monaco Roadmaster 4 bag system hated it. It rode rougher than the 8 bag and handles worse. The 4 bag was used on their entry level Diesels (Knight). WE had a lot of customers 15 years ago that moved up to the higher Monaco lines just to get the 8 bag system. Doug

Exactly. You'll hear a ton of complaints about 4 bag systems from the owners. 8 bag = way better ride.

I should have stated that we had one customer that went to the Elkhart, Indiana repair facility and while there asked how much to upgrade to the 8 bag system. Monaco explained that the 4 bag system could not be upgraded to the 8 Bag system. Doug

dougrainer wrote:
Most RVer's that had the Monaco Roadmaster 4 bag system hated it. It rode rougher than the 8 bag and handles worse. The 4 bag was used on their entry level Diesels (Knight). WE had a lot of customers 15 years ago that moved up to the higher Monaco lines just to get the 8 bag system. Doug

Exactly. You'll hear a ton of complaints about 4 bag systems from the owners. 8 bag = way better ride.

DSDP Don wrote:

There has been a report that the Beaver line of coaches, bought up by Monaco many years ago, is going to reopen in Oregon. It will be interesting to see what chassis they use. Even though the Roadmaster chassis was a good chassis, it was long in the tooth and ready for some revamping.

It looks like the leading contender is the Spartan K3 Chassis. Still away off so that may change.

I did a over one year advanced search of RR8R and came up with over 600 posts on here but this dumb site will not post anything with the percent sign in it :M so you will have to do your own search.

I did a search for you on RR8R and only came up with 600+. (should have been able to click 600+ to see them) DSP Don sums up the history and by having outboard air bags you do not need 3" diameter sway bars and their bushing problems. The RR10S is a 8 plus a tag axle with the more normal 2 airbags/axle as there is not room to put four on the tag and it does not have a sway bar nor need one.

Better handling... less leaning in turns and on curvy roads is the result and for what it's worth, Prevost, Newell, & Foretravel all use the 8 plus 2 airbags chassis.

The arms that hold the axles in place have bushings on each end and after 20 years I would check that they are still in good shape.

*I would probably buy a spare airbag and from the Yahoo Monacoers site I found this info:
95 Dynasty front air bag is a Goodyear 2B9-206
96 Dynasty is a double bag is Goodyear Super Cushion 2B9-206


If it looks like this then it can be bought on Ebay for $109.

Most RVer's that had the Monaco Roadmaster 4 bag system hated it. It rode rougher than the 8 bag and handles worse. The 4 bag was used on their entry level Diesels (Knight). WE had a lot of customers 15 years ago that moved up to the higher Monaco lines just to get the 8 bag system. Doug

Your chassis, built by Monaco, was called the Roadmaster Chassis. It was Monaco's proprietary chassis. The handling was improved by moving the air bags outside of the frame, versus on the frame. One bag in front and behind each tire. They also had a shock absorber associated with each airbag. They handled well, but were a little stiffer riding than other coaches. Their main chassis was called the RR8R. They used the 10R chassis when the coach had a tag axle. They also produced an R4R chassis that was pretty similar to those on other brands. It came with their entry level DP, but had issues with the trailering arms breaking (arms that hold axle in place) over a few model years.

When Monaco went out of business in 2009-2010, the company was sold to Navsitar who kept the chassis, but started substituting their motors. When they sold the company for a second time, the Fleetwood parent company bought them and ended the Roadmaster chassis. They built a new line, still calling it Monaco, but on a Freightliner chassis. In my opinion, that was the end of Monaco. The only good news is that through both new companies, Monaco parts stayed open.

There has been a report that the Beaver line of coaches, bought up by Monaco many years ago, is going to reopen in Oregon. It will be interesting to see what chassis they use. Even though the Roadmaster chassis was a good chassis, it was long in the tooth and ready for some revamping.

Older Kenworth HDT T600, T800 and W900 semi tractors used this. I think their claim was better ride because you had airbags in front and behind the axle supporting the frame, whereas in a four bag setup, the bags were only on the back side and the front was anchored solid to the frame. I had one with a grainbox and it made for whitenuckle driving as it was not meant for high center of gravity loading, so I had to run with a lot of air pressure in the bags to make them stiffer, which obviously raised the rear, thus I had to recurve the front springs to bring the front up so it rode level. Yes, more maintenance because of more fittings and potential air leaks and eventually the rubber ages and leak and bags need to be replaced, adding to the cost, but this does not happen often.

You will want to inspect the air bags about once per year for sun and debris damage. Also make sure the rear fender liners and front "eyebrows" are all in place - they protect the air bags from flying road debris.

We had one of our fender liners come loose while driving. It sounded like driving over a metal political campaign sign.

We have a 1998 Monaco Windsor, approximately 100K miles. Several of the air bags were badly cracked from sun damage. I decided to replace them all as preventative maintenance. During the job, I discovered that three of the four passenger-side shocks were worn to the point of doing nothing.

Matt B