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Air Leak or Pandora’s Box ??
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Sounds like a project. You doing this on you’re back or lifted. Would be a pita on creepers. Good luck.
glen
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Tom,
You are clearly on the right track. Your thinking echoes mine in the respect when you have to do a lot of work just to get at something needing service, I look around to see what else makes sense to change while I am in there.
Consider shocks if they are not on your list or items. Also give thought to brake chambers because if a diaphragm fails you have to deal with that on the side of the road. Unlike air bags you can take a brake chamber out of service by blocking air lines (and caging the brake in the case of the parking brake) but the best place to do that is in your garage. I have had diaphragms fail on my first bus at 7 and 10 years and after learning my lesson I replace the brake chambers at 5 years. The parking (emergency) brake is not serviceable. Replacing the diaphragm on the service brakes is easy and cheap, but I just spend the money and replace them with all new.
One word of caution on replacing brake chambers. Shop them. They are a commodity and although some of the sizes used on our coaches are not stocked I have found a truck parts store can get every one, usually in a day or two.
Before you take the supports from beneath the coach and put the wheels back on check all of the fittings you disturbed when replacing parts. Then check them again. And then do it one more time. Trust me. Nothing is more frustrating than going through all that work, putting it all together and retuning the next morning to find it leaning. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt.
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Glen,
I don’t have a pit or a lift so I am sliding under to do all the work. I can sit up in the space between the transmission and differential to reach the valves. My wife came looking for me Saturday and I told her I was in the belly of the whale!!! Kind of what it felt like.
Jon,
I am replacing all that stuff while I am there. Where my wife works sells all the brake parts so I should come out OK with those. -
Then let me give a tip on brakes. This only applies to coaches with tag axle parking brakes and then only those that have 16/24 combos.
Those are NOT readily available. In fact most will tell you they are not available at all. Prevost will supply them, but the cost is north of $300 each. If you buy a 16/24 piggyback, and a type 16 service brake chamber, and use the parts on the type 16 to complete the piggyback truck parts stores can get you both parts and the cost last time I bought was around $130 for everything.
If anyone else is replacing brake chambers a type 30 can be as cheap as $30 if there is a sale, but $35 to $39 is normal. A 30/36 which is the combo on the drive axle is around $120 to $130 at truck parts stores. Don’t forget to try NAPA using the fleet card.
Your coach may have other size brake chambers or only a parking brake on the drive axle. Whatever you do replace the brake chambers with exactly what is on the coach. It is really tempting to replace the hard to find 30/36 with the cheap and readily available 30/30 as an example, but do not do it.
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Hey Jon,
I don’t have the combo on the tag so it is just a #16. Fleetpride also has the 30/36 for $80.31. All the parts are on the way.
I guess my old coach thought if I left it long enough with it’s leg cocked up it needed to mess on my floor. It has had the wheels off for 2 weeks now all of a sudden I have differential grease oozing out of the driver side brake drum!!! I have no grease in the wheel that was removed from that side so for some reason it just started. That side is sitting lower that the other side, but that should not be an issue. Guess I get to replace the seal now!! Oh well get to check out the bearings at the same time.
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Tom,
The fact the wheel showed no leakage, but when it showed with the axle tipped might be an indication the differential grease was not up to the proper level.
When you level out the axle check the level. We know from the unfortunate experiences of two Prevost owners that a dry set of bearings in the drive axle will get about 4 miles before they twist the end off the end stub on the axle due to seized bearings. When replacing the hub seal look real close at the bearings and if there is any sign of heating they might be in need of replacement.
It would be great news if everything was all right and you managed to catch a hub seal leak at the precise moment of failure. If that was the case, perhaps you might want to play the lottery for me?
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Hey Jon,
What makes that intersting is that I checked the grease before our trip to Hilton head. And even stranger that the wheel has no grease on it. And I always do a walk around at every stop and check the hubs.
I may just change the bearings anyway since I will have it off. You know “While we’re at it”
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