Prevost Coaches and Crickets

PREVOST COACHES AND CRICKETS
Not the kind you are thinking of. The Cricket I am talking about is a neat little 4 wheel
battery powered cart that is like a miniature version of a golf cart. It holds two people,
seems like it will run forever on a single charge and is small enough to easily fit into
the bay of any bus, including one with slides and joey beds. Maybe not easily but it
will fit with some planning.
And if that driveway looks long and steep, it is. But the Cricket goes up and down it
with ease making the Cricket ESV a very capable and versatile cart to have in the bay
of a bus.
This is the Cricket ESV, a two seat model. The cart is shown with the rear basket and side rails
removed to allow it to fit in a Liberty XLII, two slide bay on the slide side which has restricted height
due to the slide room opening reinforcement.
This is a link to a web site that shows the specific model I have and which will fit into
my XLII bay, even though it has slides. http://www.ricksesv.com/cricket-esv
This article has specific information for owners of Liberty conversions with slides and
joey beds in the front bay. Until we bought our 2 slide XLII we thought we had all
kinds of bay space in our coaches, and in fact we did. We could carry all the normal
stuff like extra chairs, stuff for cleaning the coach like towels, a pail, extra hoses and
power cords, a table and miscellaneous stuff we never use plus a pair of full size
bicycles..
But the XLII was our wake up call. The joey bed combined with the reinforcements for
the slide ate up so much height we have to carry our bicycles on a carrier mounted
on our toad. But we did get most of the other stuff mentioned above in the bay. We
wanted a small cart like the Cricket so we bought one from Parliament Coach (a
dealer) because its small size allows it to fit in the rear of an SUV, or our pickup, and
maybe even the bay. Getting it into a space and height restricted bay was going to be
a challenge.
I can fast forward to the bottom line and say it fits in the bay, but not without some
effort. What I have gone through to fit it in the bay of our coach will apply directly to
anyone that has an XLII Liberty conversion with slides and two joey beds. Some of
what I have done may be of interest to others because the Cricket is such a neat little
cart others may want to have one with them. Those without slides and H model
coaches will easily accommodate the Cricket.
The issue of getting the Cricket into the driver’s side bay was important for two
reasons. First, my passenger side bay has all the things I want the easiest access to.
On the passenger side front bay I have my ladder, tools, spares, entry step platform,
tool kits like screw drivers, electric drill, and even my DDEC reader. One pair of my
ZipDee chairs are in the bay. I also have a relatively large fire extinguisher in the bay.
In other words, stuff I am most apt to want to access often or quickly or easily are
going to remain in the bay whose opening is not compromised with a slide room
reinforcing structure. The second reason is I literally cannot relocate the items in my
passenger side first bay onto the driver’s side because I need every inch of the
height. I could not begin to fit the items on the other side. The reinforcements for the
slide really have a large impact on the coach bays and influence accessibility and
utility of the bays that are affected.
The Cricket is made for storage in confined spaces. Both the seat and backrest lift
from their position without tools. The side rails remove easily by unscrewing two
knobs on each. The rear basket was removed because of both height and width
issues so we give up the ability to carry some things, but that is OK.
We are going to just have to get along without the rear basket because it does not
lend itself to fast removal and replacement.
This photo shows the cart set up to load into the bay. The seat back and the seat bottom lift out with
no tools and the steering tiller folds down. The height is greater than the bay opening height, but I will
use a trick to get the cart in the bay. The seat back is shown under the tiller because it saves bay
space by storing it there.
So the project of making a parking garage for a Cricket on the driver’s side begins
with stripping the bay. I emptied it out, removed the joey bed, and began trying to fit
the Cricket. Removing the joey bed gained me a couple of inches of height, but it still
left the opening about an inch short of the needed height. The space beneath the
slide room opening reinforcements is not tall enough for the Cricket, but one thing
was noticed immediately. The fold down tiller handle height was still greater than the
opening size, but if the ramps (also sold by Parliament) are at a steep slope, the
handle will fit under the reinforcement because the front wheels are lower than the
bay floor when the handle passes beneath the reinforcement.
This is a photo of the bay stripped and the joey bed tray removed. The joey bed support structure was
retained so the bay could be restored and because it is a structural part of the passenger side joey
bed which is seen from the back side.
This shows how the highest point on the ESV clears beneath the slide room opening reinforcement
because the slope of the ramps puts the front wheels lower than the floor while the handle just clears
the reinforcement on its way into the bay.
Another view just as the tiller handle high point enters the bay.
That was a “eureka” moment because it seemed the problem was solved. But when
the Cricket was all the way back into the bay, it was too long to close the doors with
the inner door liner and the chair pockets in place. The rear wheels of the Cricket
were up against the passenger side joey bed. The Cricket had to go up and over the
joey bed so it could go back far enough to allow the bay door with chair pockets to
close.
To test the theory a set of temporary ramps was made and placed at the rear of the
bay to bring the rear of the Cricket high enough to clear the passenger side joey bed
and move it back away from its bay door. The ramps were set at the height of the
rear of the joey bed. That allowed the rear wheels to rise on the ramps so half of the
rear tires were over the rear of the joey bed.
These are my final ramps made from some scrap steel. They could have easily been made of 2 X 10
lumber or angle iron or a 4 X 6 cut to the slope.
The ramps and Cricket tires clear the rear of the joey bed by about 1/8” but it gets
the Cricket back far enough to allow the bay door to close, and the passenger side
joey bed can slide in and out as necessary.
The photo above shows that even with the ESV in the bay, space was needed in front of the wheels
because of the thickness of the door itself, combined with the pockets for the chairs.
That introduced another problem to be checked. The rear of the Cricket could be
raised to clear the joey bed, but it couldn’t go so high that it interfered with the
Liberty leveling system sensor or the Cruiseair control boxes. With the rear basket
gone the Cricket was able to go back just far enough to allow room for the door to
close, but still allow a fraction of an inch clearance between the rear fenders or
frame and the devices mounted on and hanging from the ceiling of the bay. The
handle on the Cricket almost touches the pipe chase structure of the Prevost chassis
but it does allow the Cricket to go back far enough to close the bay door.
This view from the passenger side bay shows the Cricket up on the ramps which raise the rear wheels
up the ramps high enough so the Cricket can go further back to get clearance in the front of the
Cricket to allow the door to close. The box on the left clears the Cricket fender by about ¼”.
This view is with the passenger side joey bed pulled out a little to show the tires are supported by the
ramps and when the joey bed is pushed back in place it looks like everything touches, but there is
actually a fraction of an inch clearance behind and over the joey bed rear panel.
Another view of the clearance between the ceiling mounted box that houses the Liberty automatic
leveling controls from the driver’s side.
With the Cricket up on the ramps it can go back until the tiller is at the center pipe chase on the
Prevost chassis. The Cricket rearward travel is limited because of this.
The Cricket has to be secured because with the limited clearances a lot of damage
can occur if it can start shifting around. It’s forward and backward motion is limited
to an extent, but nothing but gravity keeps it from bouncing around. Eye bolts and
ratcheting straps secure the Cricket.
With the Cricket in place storage space is available but limited for some of the items
that were stored in the bay. The items that fit were placed based on their importance.
The ramps are critical so they became the first priority.
The ramps were placed on some homemade aluminum angle supports so they would not interfere with
the passenger side joey bed slide. They are secured with angles and a bungee cord.
The next step was to start filling remaining space. The side rails are the black items in front of the
ramps. Under the ramps in the center between the two supports are the electrical adapters so I can
hook up to 30 or 20 amp service.
In this view you can see I have stored a cord reel, extra hose for water, a hose for the macerator, CAC
flex hoses, safety reflectors, and some small items not visible. I have since put my wash pail between
the ladder and the plastic towel contaIner. In between my green macerator hose and the ramps I now
store a pair of small folding tables.
The next step is to load the Cricket, secure it (notice the eye bolt in the joey bed rail)
and see if I can fit any more in the remaining space.
For the most part the project is done. I am apt to play around with the various items
to see if I can do a better job of access but my Cricket garage project is complete.
There it is, all loaded with almost all of the stuff we carried before starting the project. It is strapped
down, the door will close, and now regardless of what we tow, or even if we tow we can always have
our Cricket with us.
Jon W. Wehrenberg
11/27/2015