LXI thru the years

[davidbrady]

Johnny Sloan had the first slide equipped LXi. His was a 1998 41' and it had two slides. So I'd put the production years at 1998 thru 2003, with slideout rooms from the very beginning.

As you know in 2003 Wanderlodge was gearing up for the release of the M380 so LXi production numbers dropped. The bulk of the LXi's are in the 1999 thru 2001 year range. Bennie Collier told me that there were approximately 350 built in total, only Parliament Coach knows for sure (or maybe Blue Bird Corp if they haven't destroyed all their records). (For those who don't know, Parliament Coach bought the Wanderlodge factory records and Wanderlodge name at the bankruptcy auction for something like $50K).

As far as changes, it's fuzzy. Again without access to the records we can only piece together snippets gleaned from owners' reports over the years. What we do know is that the early LXi's were heavy and there were a sequence of recalls [see addendum below] to upgrade steer axle Gross Axle Weight Ratings. Initially LXi's were equipped with 14600 lb GAWR steer axles. These axles were then swapped for 15500 pounders and finally 16000 lb capacity. At this point I believe all LXi's should be running the 16000 lb axle, whether by build sheet or by recall. (Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong).

With the buses still gaining weight and with the axle upgrade choice exploited Wanderlodge had no choice but to put the LXi on a diet - this came in 2002 and possibly in late 2001. The obvious changes were the elimination of the extra fresh water tank in the first basement bay which reduced water capacity to 120 gallons, the fuel tank also shrank from 300 to 260 gallons. They also stopped using tile flooring in favor of wood and resilient vinyl flooring. I'm certain there were many other less obvious changes, things like aluminum bracketry, panels, and cabinets here-and-there replacing steel. I can say that the results were good for the case of my LXi which comes in at 47500 lb, full fuel and water and packed with personal belongings to travel. My GVWR is 52,200 lb and I'm at about 14250 lb on my steer axle.

Scattered throughout the model range is the use of thermopane Peninsula windows, some buses have them some don't, later models typically have them.

The early buses, 2000 and earlier, shipped with Gel batteries. They also used the Xantrex RV3000 series of inverters but these inverters only support Gel or FLA. As far as I know they don't support AGM. Also, around the same time frame, post 2000, Wanderlodge started to use the Xantrex built-in transfer switch feature. This eliminated the 120VAC relays that are scattered around the earlier bus. Often folks have questions about where these relays are located and I believe they're predominantly under the bed but they may also be elsewhere; I always scratch my head because my bus doesn't use them.

The later buses, post 2000, have done away with the bulk oil fill. This may have been part of the weight reduction diet. Getting rid of the bulk oil fill frees up a lot of space in the engine compartment area which allowed Wanderlodge to more thoughtfully place the 6 4D AGM batteries.

Of course over the years Wanderlodge took advantage of the latest GPS, Audio and Visual systems with the later buses having Alpine 7" flip up screen dash mounted navigation systems and flat panel TV's. My 2002 was equipped from the factory with a bedroom flat panel but a CRT in the living room. The '03's had flat-panels everywhere.

Lastly, speaking with Ridewell engineers I learned that at around 2000 Ridewell performed Finite Element Analysis on all of their suspension systems. At some point, 1999 or 2000 or 2001, the FEA style RAS227/RDT246 suspension assemblies were used. I've crawled under early LXi's and I've identified older assemblies, but I don't know the exact date of the transition.

Addendum (5/31/13): Turns out there weren't any official NHTSA Recalls for the LXi steer axle. Blue Bird uprated axles as part of a Field Service Campaign. Not all coaches were uprated. We're not quite sure what BB did to uprate a 14600 lb axle to 15500 lb, but we know that they retained the 14600 lb Dana I-beam. It could be that hub units, or tie rod ends, or spindles were changed; this needs more investigation. Some LXi's did have the 14600 lb Dana I-beam axle replaced with a 16000 lb I-beam. Sometime around 2001 build orders were modified to require the 16000 lb axle.