65mph drone + loud banging in cabover curved panel

[alazear]

For me, removing the whole panel, the curved one down low was not going to work without breaking it and thus needing to replace it. The crux of the difficulty in removing it was that it was trapped in there too well by the side panels on both sides. So that's where I came up with the work around. Don't get me wrong, I really wanted to remove the panel and take a good look at what's really going on in there. I was bummed I couldn't.

Also, my overhead cab banging was definitely coming from an aluminum bar that was hitting the interior panel. That was confirmed by hitting it with the Slim Jim and discovering a steel to aluminum feel to the contact. At least, that's my best guess, not being able to see it at all.

However, like MB56, I also found a loose [it can wiggle somewhat between two bars] piece of foam in there that was also moving around. My main noise from the offending bar was beyond that foam piece - lower down. Part of my #2 work around uses that Slim Jim to get beyond that loose piece of foam and allow me to encase the loose bar in spray foam lower down. I also used some spray foam as I retracted the Slim Jim thus locking the loose foam down too just for kicks.

I'm happy with my fix, but have yet to do a long trip that will really test it.

[alazear]

I do think MB56's solution would work equally well; just using another type of foam to lock things down.

[MB56]

I too will be truly finding out if my fix did work. Local trips so far 50mil. to 70mil have had no issue. Getting ready to head out from S.F. bay area to Cottonwood AZ. for Thanksgiving week this will be the true test. Enjoy all your adventures.

[alazear]

Holidays MB56. I’m headed to AZ as well, but on a jet plane... Hope to get out sometime soon after and test out these fixes too. If it holds, I think we’ll be very happy with this rig.

I recently did the Helwig sway bars front and back and also the Roadmaster steering stabilizer as well as replaced the front door speakers and dialed in a few other things too. So we have a few things to test out on our next outing. I’m hoping for a smoother more enjoyable ride. I did test drives after each thing I’ve done so I can see whether each was worth it or not individually.

[RetiredOne]

Originally Posted by alazear

I recently did the Helwig sway bars front and back and also the Roadmaster steering stabilizer as well as replaced the front door speakers and dialed in a few other things too. So we have a few things to test out on our next outing. I’m hoping for a smoother more enjoyable ride. I did test drives after each thing I’ve done so I can see whether each was worth it or not individually.

So far, I'm one of the lucky ones, I haven't experienced the banging in the overhead. Hopefully, the installer used more or the correct adhesive on my rig. Crossing my fingers...


I also did both sway bars and the Roadmaster, it made a really BIG difference, and made driving not a white knuckle experience.


I also replaced the front door speakers and the ceiling speakers in the rear. Probably need to also replace the POS Soundstream for it really to pay off. I don't use the Soundstream for nothing but Sirius, I installed a separate Garmin RV770 for navigation.

[alazear]

To Retired One,
Good to hear you've missed the banging issue - a real PITA.

The sway bars seemed to be a bit more noticeable difference than the steering stabilizer, but I think the 3 will make a nice driving package change. I'm curious to see on our next sizable road trip.

The front speakers were easy enough and quick to do. I opted to keep the rears as there were already 3 way speakers, but still el cheepos for sure.

The Soundstream head unit I've decided to put up with for now. I did research on it and it puts out 17watts RMS, which is fine for me, but the user interface is pretty bad. But to replace it might be $500-600 for something else with equivalent features, which I don't want to do now anyway.

[drmike961]

I am going to wait until after Christmas, maybe spring time to tackle my cab banging. I am hoping to receive a cheapo inspection camera and I want to see if any long term failures occur between the 2 methods of repair.

alazear if you don't mind can you tell me what you replaced those garbage front speakers with?? Also if anyone knows how to shut that soundstream woman up who keeps telling me when I speed by 1 mph over that would be fantastic...and no I am not referring to my wife.

[RetiredOne]

Originally Posted by alazear

The sway bars seemed to be a bit more noticeable difference than the steering stabilizer, but I think the 3 will make a nice driving package change. I'm curious to see on our next sizable road trip.

I noticed they fix two different issues, so combined, it made a big difference. The sway bars took care of the yaw, and the irregular rolling of the box on cornering. The steering stabilizer took care of the chattering over rough patches and the jerking of the wheel when going over them.

[RetiredOne]

Originally Posted by drmike961

Also if anyone knows how to shut that soundstream woman up who keeps telling me when I speed by 1 mph over that would be fantastic...and no I am not referring to my wife.

My suggestion, don't use the Soundstream GPS. I ran that GPS along with my Garmin in the beginning, and the routes that the Soundstream came up with were really "weird", to put it mildly. So, I only used the Garmin from my truck after that, and then bought the designated Garmin RV770, which I really like.


I would dump the Soundstream completely, but I bought the Sirius module for it, so that's the only thing I use it for. Or, I plug in a flash drive of downloaded songs, and play them.

[RetiredOne]

Originally Posted by alazear

The Soundstream head unit I've decided to put up with for now. I did research on it and it puts out 17watts RMS, which is fine for me, but the user interface is pretty bad. But to replace it might be $500-600 for something else with equivalent features, which I don't want to do now anyway.

I bought a second remote, because trying to get to the small touch controls while bouncing down the road was a joke. I keep this remote in the cup holder, makes it a lot easier to adjust settings, volumes, change channels with it in my hand.

[WeRJuliian]

Am I the only one who looked at the headline and thought, "Damn, how did he get a drone to fly at 65mph? " ?

[alazear]

Funny Stuff WeRJullian! I never considered that take on the title.

Radio Conclusions I came to:

The speakers I bought for the front door replacements are below. I like them. Any 6x8 speakers should work as direct bolt on replacements, smaller sizes can work too with spacers I'm sure as well. The hardest part was getting the Crutchfield kit to work with the new speakers. It plugs in nicely to the Ford wiring with no wire cutting, but those Ford conversion pigtails supplied by Crutchfield did not fit the new speakers I bought - weird, but do come with additional crimp fittings you need to complete the install, minor cutting and crimping. Once I figured that out, the whole job was done in about 1-2 hours. There is a Youtube video about removing the door panels to access the speakers that is better than the Crutchfield directions, but both will work - it's below too.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_575P16...ate-P1683.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gn6yHlX4Gs

As for making my peace, for now, with the Soundstream head unit I found the following helpful once I sussed it out:

1) 17 x4 watts RMS and about 50 x4 watts peak as I remember researching. Good enough for us. The unit does put out good sound if you play with the EQ settings and put in decent speakers, at least up front. Sounds way better. I'm no audiophile though, more of a classic rock guy, so your taste may vary considerably from mine.

2) Setting the radio clock to match with the internal GPS clock is key. I found doing that made the GPS times given for how long trips take much more reliable and the time of day since is always correct for both the radio and GPS. This was initially very frustrating. In short, both now work. However, when you first fire up the head unit it takes a minute or two for the GPS to catch up find a satellite and sync the radio clock, so be a bit patient for it to catch up. Initially, I was trying to do things too fast and messing it up in the process.

To accomplish this sync properly you must also manually set your distance from the GMT time. There is an auto function to choose your distance away from GMT time, but I found on my unit the auto setting just doesn't work even though it knew where I was - weird. Once, I manually set my time away from GMT, it now works smoothly. If you don't do this, it seems to mess up other things and frustrate you to no end - the result being for me - you want to throw the unit in the trash.

3) I played with the settings to turn off the voice telling you you are driving over the speed limit. There are various choices in the menus depending on what you want to see and hear. There are two menus, one for the radio controlled items and a second menu for the GPS controlled stuff.

4) I made a 16 gig music flash drive /w 1' extension USB cord on it so it has less chance of getting broken off if bumped. It has all my music on it. It took a few test tries to get the folder system right to match with viewing on the Soundstream, but eventually I did it. It works. It's nice to have to my whole collection always there - already plugged in, no plugging/unplugging each time I get in to drive. Then I just got a double USB 12v. charger plug in charger to charge the phones separately when driving. It's not going through the head unit at all.

Problems that still bug me and I've been unable to solve are below. If I find a Black Friday sale on a good head unit, I still may rip the Soundstream out for the following reasons...

a. Volume control when driving is hard to adjust, rather have a knob to grab. [The remote is a good idea, but I still want a knob on the head unit.]

b. The backup camera is way too bright and has crappy color and contrast - not sure if this is a camera problem or a head unit problem. There is no way to change the backup camera settings in the head unit I've been able to find. It seems to have just one setting - too bright.

c. Screen is difficult to see in daylight - No way way I've found to change the background to a more solid color so the icons show up better. This is a silly feature to have been omitted.

[drmike961]

Full disclosure I have no interest in learning to use the GPS because I know what race tracks or campgrounds that I am headed too. I never turn the GPS on except on accident a handful of times while trying to mute the stereo or turn on the camera. I immediately turned it back off in those cases. So if I have not turned the GPS system on why am I getting the warnings from the on board traffic cop?? Does the system automatically come on when powered up? It does not appear to be on as there is no map or directions on the screen, just the crappy radio station display.

[RetiredOne]

I think the Soundstream GPS is designed to be on all the time, since it needs to be available at any moment, just by switching over on the screen. It's always running/updating in the background.


That said, there has to be a setting to turn off the "traffic cop" voice. I don't hear that on mine, and I know I'm guilty of that infraction all the time. I'd have to go inside my rig and play with the settings, to see if there is a volume control for that voice.

[RetiredOne]

Originally Posted by alazear

The speakers I bought for the front door replacements are below. I like them. Any 6x8 speakers should work as direct bolt on replacements, smaller sizes can work too with spacers I'm sure as well. The hardest part was getting the Crutchfield kit to work with the new speakers. It plugs in nicely to the Ford wiring with no wire cutting, but those Ford conversion pigtails supplied by Crutchfield did not fit the new speakers I bought - weird, but do come with additional crimp fittings you need to complete the install, minor cutting and crimping. Once I figured that out, the whole job was done in about 1-2 hours. There is a Youtube video about removing the door panels to access the speakers that is better than the Crutchfield directions, but both will work - it's below too.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_575P16...ate-P1683.html

Now, this is really scary.... I too, replaced my front speakers (and the rears). Guess which ones I selected (got them on Amazon):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Rockford Fosgate P1683 Punch 6"x8" 3-Way Full Range Speaker (Pair)

What are the odds, we picked the SAME ones????

Also, I ordered the Ford pigtails at the same time, it was just a easy "plug and play", I didn't need to cut and crimp anything:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I searched for a video tutorial too, and it was an easy swap out.

[Johnynorthland]

Dido on the soundscape unit. To me the GPS is useless! The unit does seem to go on all the time I’m constantly shutting it off or muting it.

There are tons of double din units out that can replace it, I just got to find one that matches the Ford wiring harness Or whatever wiring Jayco used to put in the head unit. like this one below for $80!

Podofo Android Auto Radio 2Din GPS Navigation Car Radio Car Stereo 7"Universal Car Multimedia Player Wifi Bluetooth Audio Stereo

[alazear]

RetiredOne: That is funny we chose the same speakers. Glad your pigtails were plug + play right out of the box. Mine were not that way, but got me 1/2 the way there. I agree that the GPS is designed to be running in the background all the time for things to work right. That's what I was trying to say before in my too long post...

I'm not happy with the head unit either, just decided to make my piece with it for now. There is a way to turn off the traffic cop voice, and maybe adjust it's volume too? I turned it off after it came defaulted to me set to on. Can't remember for sure where, but it was either in the settings tabs for the radio or GPS, which are two separate sets of settings. Dive around in there, it's there. I chose the option to leave it show on screen, but kill the voice.

[alazear]

Originally Posted by Johnynorthland

Dido on the soundscape unit. To me the GPS is useless! The unit does seem to go on all the time I’m constantly shutting it off or muting it.

There are tons of double din units out that can replace it, I just got to find one that matches the Ford wiring harness Or whatever wiring Jayco used to put in the head unit. like this one below for $80!

Podofo Android Auto Radio 2Din GPS Navigation Car Radio Car Stereo 7"Universal Car Multimedia Player Wifi Bluetooth Audio Stereo

This radio you listed above might be a good choice, but I'd need one with built in GPS or a separate GPS stand alone unit, as we go many places where phone reception is lost for using the phone GPS and I do like to have it sometimes. I've toyed with the idea of using the rear view mirror mount to attach a stand alone GPS unit to since you can't see anything anyway in the mirror. Then maybe getting a nice head unit without GPS for a couple hundred bucks.

[Johnynorthland]

There’s plenty of units out there but you have to look at the reviews.

Here’s another one with a lot of features;

Podofo Car Multimedia Player 2 Din Car DVD Car GPS Bluetooth Radio Stereo Player Touch Screen USB AVX Rear View Camera Autoradio

[RetiredOne]

Originally Posted by alazear

This radio you listed above might be a good choice, but I'd need one with built in GPS or a separate GPS stand alone unit, as we go many places where phone reception is lost for using the phone GPS and I do like to have it sometimes. I've toyed with the idea of using the rear view mirror mount to attach a stand alone GPS unit to since you can't see anything anyway in the mirror. Then maybe getting a nice head unit without GPS for a couple hundred bucks.

Here's what I did for GPS, since I wasn't going to use the Soundstream. I mounted a Garmin ball mount at the coin holder location, and bought a Garmin RV770 unit. I sits just above the radio, and has all the RV related features and warnings.

I know pward was interested in this type of a setup too.

I'm not a big fan of sharing my phone for navigation (or other functions) and rather choose stand alone items.

Like I said before, I'd dump the Soundstream if it wasn't for adding the Sirius module. I like being able to bounce between music, news, financial, and sports during the course of the day.