DON
Forum Replies Created
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Ed, please excuse my comments if they offend you, but working on brakes is a serious activity, and before even considering doing the work I would presume an owner would have poked his nose under the coach to see what there is to see.
Right off the bat doing that reveals the type and size of the brake chambers. It reveals if you have spring brakes on just the drive or on the tag also.
That visual review, combined with a standard DOT brake check, and a helper to apply brakes while someone watches shows travel (assuming the slack adjusters have been adjusted) so while those of us who have done brake work can provide some information and advice none of what we say is valid unless you personally have verified it.
I have never shopped for a specific brand of brake chambers. I know Bendix disagrees, but to me they seem to be generic and as a cheapskate I am OK pulling $25 type 30’s from the big carton sitting in the middle of the floor at the truck parts store.
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I have 3 tanks, fresh, black and grey.
There was a good deal of build-up on the bottom of the black and some “crud” on the side walls. The grey tank did not have too much of anything other than sediment looking stuff on the bottom and some “crud” on the sidewalls. After the cleaning there were spotless plastic sides throughout both tanks.
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I may seem like a slacker in all this, but I did nothing with my Meritor brakes for 250,000 miles except as follows.
The pads wore unevenly with one (inner or outer getting the wear but I cannot remember which) so I initially replaced both.
From that point on I was very careful to insure the pins were not bound up by moving them slightly at each of my 5000 mile service intervals. I gave the rotating slack adjuster shaft only a single shot of grease. By that I mean using my drum of grease with its dedicated grease pump, I pulled the trigger on the grease gun, heard one pump, and stopped. There were two fittings and each got one shot.
To verify the slack adjuster setting was OK I annually had the slack adjuster travel checked (wife stepped on the brakes, I was under the coach and measured) to verify the travel was within the specified range. I think I was allowed something around an inch on tag and steers and I never saw the red ring around the brake chamber push rod. It might have been 5/8″ but I just cannot remember.
Except for pad replacement and insuring free pins and correct slack adjuster motion, I did nothing. Call me lazy or whatever, but I never had an issue.
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WOW! I cannot begin to imagine the challenges you will face not only restoring a coach to a reliable and safe running condition (challenges which include lots of $$$$), and then the effort required to prepare it for living and hauling toys.
Ask questions here. Post photos. We have a lot of folks here to answer your questions, and sometimes those answers are going to be correct.
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Yes I sell them, see my avatar below?
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You probably have the Liberty Reverse Osmosis system and it continually uses very small amounts of water. If you’re in a garage and it’s quiet, you can hear the water dripping into the holding tank.
Other than that, check valve or a leaking fitting.
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Oh my!
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That issue of transposed air bag numbers should have been resolved a long time ago and if any of those air bags are out there, installed on coaches that definitely could be an issue with slow or no front lift to or above ride height.
But those air bags are going to be old enough to vote and replacing them would not be a bad idea.
The “Mae Wests” came about because both CC and Marathon were overloading the front axles with their conversion and Prevost came up with that as a solution to raising the front. It did not increase the front axle limits, but it did get nose heavy coaches up in the air faster.
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While some coaches are slow to rise it has to be understood Norgren valves that have been impacted by moisture in the pneumatic system can be partially opening resulting in slow operation. It also needs to be understood if the coach axle weight is greater than the Prevost weight limit the coach will be slow to respond. Usually when the slow response is an issue it is in the front only because of excess weight.
If the coach comes to normal drive height relatively quickly it is bypassing the Norgren valves (to an extent) and the air is passing through the ride height valves.
Generally speaking converter supplied level low systems piggy back on the level low and only control the solenoid valves on the manifold that are also controlled via level low. Nothing past the solenoid valve manifold (except the Liberty added Norgren exhaust valves) are converter installed that I am aware of.
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I’ll piggy back on a point Dick made.
I’m a former manufacturer and I succeeded by producing what the customer wanted. The coaches we have today, and have had through the years were built because those who bought new coaches wanted what the converters are building and selling.
Those of us in the secondary market (used coach buyers) have no standing to tell converters how or what to build, or how they are supposed to support the coach.
Going even further, and likely to really piss off a lot of folks I do not think it would be wise for converters to share technical information, not only because it cost a lot of money and effort to do the design work, but a lot of owners could have just enough knowledge with that information to screw up a perfectly good coach. It is OK for owners to not know every nuance of their coach. They are complex and require a wide range of skills. If I were converting coaches, apart from not wanting to share information with my competitors I would not want some people to even touch a coach with tools, including laptops or screwdrivers.
This site has a lot of very smart and capable people and we who read the site quickly recognize these owners do a lot of independent study of their coach, they develop independently sources of information, sources of materials and parts, and they have the skills to spin a wrench.
But others (the honest ones) know enough that they need to rely on experts who are skilled at working on the chassis or the conversion. When they seek advice it is often to understand the source of an issue so they know who and where to take the coach for service.
Both extremes are owners. So are all of those in the middle who have some knowledge and understanding and who may tackle an issue, but know their limits. If you expect converters to provide technical service information then you have to explain who those instructions are going to be written for. Do technical or service manuals get written for everyone, those with a reasonable skill level or those who are highly skilled?
Nope, what is out there in the market is what we get to choose from, new or used. If we think somehow our needs aren’t being met our options are plastic RVs, boats, planes or some other activity other than travel.
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No directly related … my brother had an old log skidder sitting in the woods in Wisconsin for fifteen years. Wanted to take it to Florida. Duetz aircooled diesel. Couldn’t get it started. Then got it started, couldn’t get it running. Our BIL who just retired from his the construction biz that his Dad started had lots of experience with old diesel stuff (his Dad never bought anything new). Our BIL and another really old diesel guy said often old fuel lines get soft and collapse as stated above and/or get pin holes in them over time which allows air into the line and the engine doesn’t like that.
Both the BIL and the old guy said the same thing … being lazy … often the fuel lines are the easiest to replace. Start there after you have new fuel filters. My brother actually bypassed the fuel filter by putting a new line to fuel pump into a milk jug full of diesel fuel and it ran fine. Then he replaced the fuel line that he could, the one from the tank to the electric pump he couldn’t get at. Then it ran fine.
You’d think on a newer coach like the OP has the fuel lines has should be OK, but you never know. I’m sure the OP will let us know the solution.
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Nope, just called them……Now, right after I posted above I received a call from Steve in their service dept, he said the receiver shank was in bad shape (I kinda figured that) and needed replaced. That was going to be another $330, so instead I just traded for a new latest and greatest for $875, it’s their new non-binding model. He mentioned that they are coming out with a 15000 lb model in January.
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We are sitting in the Walmart parking lot in Springville, Al. It is a 17,000 Kubota Powertech. It is full of fuel. I am working on finding a fuel filter.
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CRS Larry, I’m right there with you…
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It seems like if he was a really good guy he would have let you disconnect the towed and drive the rest of the way as 2 legal length vehicles!