[Fred F.]

Excuse me Mr. Featherlite, but my sewer does does not spring out for the owner convenience, mine has to be hookep up manually with caution taken not to scratch the gold plating.

[Fred F.]

Joe, how did you know it was dragging? Noise?

Thanks,

Mark

[Fred F.]

We leave for western NY on the 8th, and when we return by 9/15 we will be in the middle of a total makeover of our landscaping. I won’t be doing much if any of the physical work, but the landscape designer and the crew of landscapers will need my help moving plants, accessing some parts of the property and maybe getting some soils up to parts of the property. You have to see the slope to understand.

But…….Any time after the 15th if it makes sense and you want to see first hand what I did to my coach come on over. We are about 50 minutes from Jeff’s.

[Fred F.]

There is no doubt this is a puzzle. What we don’t know is under what conditions the air leak noise went away when the tag was lifted.

Was the aux compressor running? Was only the engine compressor running? Was the leak at the tag chamber so bad the pressure drop up front was so great there was no longer enough pressure to make it leak in the front.

The reason the front rises after the leak in the front was fixed was the aux system finally was able to hold sufficient pressure to lift the front to the ride height.

FWIW without putting a gauge on the air bags I believe the front air bags require about 100 PSI to come to ride height, and the rears a little over 70 PSI. Some time I will put a gauge on things just out of curiosity, but those pressures will be coach specific due to various axle weights.

[Fred F.]

Problem Solved!! As previously posted – I could not get front suspension to raise over 8.5 inches.
Once I got home, I could hear a “leak” in the steering bay. After several hours of searching (lots of
soap/water), could not find the leak.
Wanted very badly to get under the front of the bus to continue search,
but I could not do so safely. So, I made
a trip to see Jeff – I am soooo glad I did.

ETLC found and fixed the leak,
and by “helping”, I increased my Prevost wisdom. The leak was actually in the driver’s side
tag axle lift chamber. The “leak” sound
I was hearing in the steering was not a leak, but rather the sound of air
shooting through air valves and lines. My dash gauges did not show a leak (steady 120
psi), but the engine compressor was working as hard as it could to keep up with
the leak. Once we fixed the leak, drained between 1 – 2 gallons of water from the air tanks.

Thank you Jeff and company, and the Prevost Community.

[Fred F.]

On the big industrial, and when I say big I mean larger than your living room and some larger than your house, we used a pre-lube pump. Some large prime movers required a 5 minute pre-start lube and other smaller ones a minute or less. This would be a cheap and easy install for coaches that sit for extended time. They make 12 and 24 volt heavy liquid pumps that could be plumbed in very easily with stainless flex hoses. Open the back, check your oil level, start the pre-lube pump, do your tire kicking walk around, shut off the pump, close the back and crank. All bearings, wrist pins and other moving parts would be all slick and slimey and ready to move.

[Fred F.]

The key to this change is previously 10W-30 was temperature limited to 95 degrees. I have no clue how oil previously limited to that temperature is all of a sudden acceptable for operation in 104 degrees plus, but it is. Mark confirmed that with the dealer that showed Mobil and Detroit both agree to its use at higher temps.

I am not a chemist (maybe Ken B. can help here) but my concern would be dry starts because over time oils will drain away from metal to metal surfaces, and I would hope a 10W-30 would offer the same protection as 15W-40. Unlike most commercial vehicles a lot of our coaches sit for extended periods and the greatest wear occurs during starts.

[Fred F.]

Per said….

“Thanks, Mark! I looked to see if there was any switches on them in the coaches we looked at, and couldn’t find any. Oh well, when we get our coach I’ll make sure the seller tell me how to turn them on!

Our condolences on your dad, I just lost my dad in April–he was 101.”

Thank you Per, wow, your Dad had a good long life. Also sending condolences.

Mark

Note edit on my previous post above.

[Fred F.]

Those have been an issue and Prevost has a drop in replacement. The wiring has a small modification and I believe you will have to calibrate it but the instructions are excellent and it is not a difficult fix. You are not going to be able to set the odometer to the current reading so you just have to make a note of it with the coach records.

[Fred F.]

Thanks Al. The one thing I was lied to about was retirement. Since I retired, I have not received a single week end off, no vacation, no holidays off, no overtime pay…NOTHING. Retirement ain’t what it is cracked up to be. I seem to have lost all of my benifits and still wake up between 5:30 and 6 every morning. Like my old buddy John Wayne said..”Life is tough, and it is even tougher when you are stupid.” And that ‘splains why my life is so very tuff.

Wishing you Smooth Sailing and a wind at your back.

3-F

[Fred F.]

I’m guessing you have an Amana or similar in your Liberty. We pulled ours from our coach and replaced it with an “apartment depth” Bosch.

I never compared current draw, but without having data to compare it seemed to be considerably more efficient. What was significant was its sound level. We could not hear it run, and no we both have good hearing.

I have since learned that its design apparently used an always running compressor and as the temperatures varied the compressor would run at variable speeds to meet the temperature requirements. I think with little incentive we would toss the current Sub Zero in our present coach and replace it with the Bosch. The Sub Zero has been unreliable and it is loud.

So I cannot help you regarding energy efficiency other than a guess, but the Bosch has proven to be the best refrigerator we ever owned, house or bus.

[Fred F.]

The heater can’t be for microbrobial reduction. Anyone who’s ever cooked a turkey knows you need to get at least 170 degrees to kill off bacteria. If bacteria and food are present between 100 and 170 degrees you probably encourage bacterial growth rather than retard it.

My office is in a 35 story building in LA that has a gigantic Cat generator for emergency backup and a smaller one to run exhaust fans in the underground parking. Where they are housed I doubt they ever get below 60 degrees. The building engineer told me that the block heaters run constantly because instant startup is critical.

[Fred F.]

Wet and AGM settings are very close. Many inverters without an AGM setting use the wet setting. Float for Lifeline should be about 13.4 at 70 degree’s and lead acid would be 13.6.

[Fred F.]

I didn’t read it correctly the first time and thought it was only one liner, which would make buying a liner kit a no brainer and it would come with a new rod. Now, I am as curious as you are Jon about why….

Please try to find out exactly what happened and why, and what the deal is with the rod. We would all like to know.

[Fred F.]

Don makes an excellent point and in addition to knowing if something is right or wrong, he found when it was right he has plenty of room to spare. One item overlooked when a coach is out of balance is that his braking is compromised. a lightly loaded axle that is way underweight is going to have brake lock up, while an excessively loaded axle is not going to have the brake effectiveness that is needed.