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BEWARE..YOUR AIR SUSPENSION MAY BE WET !!
I want to share some info you may or may not be aware of in regards to the maintenance on your coach.
We assumed the maintenance was always done on our coach when we bought it because it belonged to the owner of a Nascar race team… we were told that the service records had been misplaced and if they ever surfaced we would have them, which was probably true as far as routine maintenance goes…. such as oil changes etc.
Our coach is a 1998 H3-45 Vantare Conversion with two slides and we fell in love with everything about it… nobody could believe it was a ’98 model as it was in such great shape… and had been stored inside in the Ft Lauderdale area where the owner kept his 100+’ yacht…. all these things assure you that the maintenance would have been done as it should have been…. especially if you are a little green behind the ears… we previously owned Bluebirds and Newell Coaches back in the late ’70s early ’80s… and the systems were very different from that of the ’98 Prevost and newer models. Frankly, I had never thought about it.
In the first year of learning, learning and more learning… we replaced the batteries, tires, refrigerator, 2 AC compressors, upgraded the TVs, added internet… you name it… we did it …or put it on our list. I spent hours and hours reading about our inverters until I finally learned how to set them the way they should be and adjust the settings according to our needs at that particular time.
We never left our driveway without checking our fluids and tires and pressure gauges on the dash…at last… good to go or so we thought…. then one night as I was laying in bed I heard the auxilliary compressor cut on and run for 4-5 mins. then cut off for 30-35 mins. and back on again… it was like counting sheep… I never went to sleep… on and off all night long…. next morning I walked around the coach trying to hear the hissing of an air leak… couldn’t hear a thing… but the compressor was working its heart out…. I prayed it would keep running until we got home… I thought about cutting it off and dumping the air while we were parked… but worried about that something might be affected by that if I did.
I kept telling myself how much I wished I had done Hector’s seminar earlier this year… I might have had a clue as to what might have been going on here.
We made it home that evening…and took the bus to the shop next morning for our tech guy (Bernd) to check out…. Bernd is very smart and he scouted around and very quickly told us we had a leaking airbag on the driver’s tag and the tag lift brake chamber was also leaking… now that explains the spray of water I got on my hand when I released the lift tag lever after making a tight turn !! Hmmm not good. Bernd removed the airbag and it was half full of dirty rusty water… so he proceeded to check the other side and it had about a cup of rusty water in it. All airbags were removed and all were wet. The dryer was checked and was totally clogged and non functional…the filter must have weighed a ton… the tag lift brake chambers were also removed and one was leaking.
I called Charlie at Prevost and ordered all new airbags, 2 new tag lift brake chambers, new dryer filter, and new brake pads (was time for those too)..Charlie emailed me a chassis schematic specific to our coach and I took it to Office Depot and had it blown up to 24X36 and plastic coated.. it is awesome.. everything is numbered and referenced to the Prevost part number on the bottom of the page… all I have to do now is learn to read French !!
So now what to do and how??? damn… damn… call Jon he’ll know… right? Right !! yeah… so I call Jon on Sunday night looking for a miracle cure…knowing he has nothing better to do than talk to me about my ailing bus ! Well… being the gentleman that he is and being as smart as he is…. he first tells me DON’T drive the bus like that… I didn’t dare tell him we had just returned from a 700 mile trip!!
Jon proceeded to explain that the entire air suspension was probably wet which could be deadly serious for the coach… and to begin the drying out process… all the lines… norgrens… dryers.. valves.. replace airbags since they are due anyway etc etc.
Over the course of the last two weeks we have dried out the entire system and replaced everything… in the order Jon suggested. The generator airbags were dry luckily.
Jon believes the problem may started with the relocation of the auxilliary air compressor and the failure of the never serviced dryer. We located the Norgren water separator for the aux compressor in the steer compartment… it had a drain on the bottom of it that you couldn’t see and it was full of water and I’m sure never been drained… I knew about the two others and drained those regularly.
We have serviced the levelling valves and done the soapy bubble test on everything … so far so good :-)) no bubbles right now.
I am feeling very fortunate to be writing this and just want everyone to take this seriously… your suspension is CRUCIAL… I can’t stress this enough… assuming it’s done or okay is a joke and could be a very expensive one if not taken care of… we have just spent a fortune on our coach and would do it again in a heartbeat… but much of that expense could have been avoided had things been done in a timely manner… total ignorance on our part… it won’t happen again !!
The more I learn… the less I know I know !!
Jon…
Wow… what can I say… there are NO words to thank you for ALL your help through this ordeal… the countless emails back and forth the phone calls… thank you from the bottom of my heart…Larry’s too, I could not have done this without your guidance.
Diane
Isn’t Prevost Community just awesome !!
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8 Replies
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Air is very important on our coaches. It stops us. It keeps our suspension working. Air does so much more that we tend to take it for granted. Because it is important we have to recognize the air system has to be maintained just like we maintain the engine by keeping the oil and filters clean, we have to keep our air system dry and clean.
Diane has made it very clear if it is not maintained there can be serious, expensive problems. Apart from keeping the air systems leak free maintennce just calls for replacing the air dryer element periodically, draining the air tanks often, and especially if the aux compressor is used we havre to drain the water trap or separator because the aux compressor will introduce moisture into the system as much as the engine driven compressor dryer will if the air dryer is not serviced. We don’t have to drain that because at the end of each cycle it automatically purges moisture.
Thanks for the compliments Diane. Di now thinks my head has swelled two hat sizes.
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Great post Diane, water is the enemy of our air systems. I keep yaking about the aux compressor making lots of water and the need to drain often. Mine just made about a 1/4 inch of water in the Norgren filter in just two days.
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Thanks Tom… I am hoping it will keep anyone else from going throught same thing !!
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Jon IA the best. He tries to act mean, but just can’t pull it off! 😉
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Oh… yes Karl, you are sooo right !!
Diane
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Is there a petcock that you can turn to test the air system for water. It is part of my daily pretrip inspection on my Foretravel. It is plumbed into the air system in the back and if moisture come out there is an issue. IS there something similar on a Prevost?
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Unless Foretravel has a rather unique air system I would expect you have a lot of air system drains you are not using on a routine basis John.
You should have a wet tank, primary, secondary, and likely an auxiliary tank, all of which should have petcocks for routine draining. But air system maintenance goes way beyond that because the air dryer also needs to be serviced.
We also have a system petcock in the rear at the bottom of the RH rear tail light stack inside the engine door, but it is not used for daily system draining, but for an occasional draining. I don’t know of anything we need to drain daily, especially if the dryer has been maintained because it traps and purges moisture at each cycle automatically.
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Yes John (Sichenze)…
There are several we check but the auxilliary air compressor had one I couldn’t see the bottom of and I didn’t ever check it and we believe that’s where the problem may have started… plus the fact that dryer was non-functional and never serviced… Live and learn… the filter had never been changed !!!
Diane
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