| [GMCnet] Wireless air controller [message #160776] |
Sat, 18 February 2012 09:42  |
Gerald Work
Messages: 102
Registered: June 2010
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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hi Rob,
I think we are in significant agreement, but may be drawing somewhat different conclusions. Likely the original engineers felt it necessary to add the auto ride height leveling because rear ride height influences front ride height so much and front ride height effects every thing about how well/safely the coach drives. They would not have wanted someone to jump into a coach that had been sitting for months (leaking air from all those fittings, valves, bags, etc.), or which had been leveled at a camp site and take off down the road without reestablishing proper rear ride height. They took several bites at the apple trying to come up with a system that would work well and automatically. The early versions had problems from the get go. The final version which did away with air line valves, air tanks, air pressure controlled compressors, used electro-mechanical ride height sensors instead of the initial mechanical RHSs, and controlled everything with solenoids and much short
er air line runs apparently worked far better.
Now index forward 40 years of banging down the road, components failing, fittings/bags leaking, countless hands "adjusting" and "fixing" things, multiple kinds of rear air bag systems being installed on different coaches and the world of auto ride height gets a bit more problematic. Yes, one can make the original systems work properly with enough smart restoration, but I simply suggest each owner assess for themselves whether it is better/easier/more reliable to replace all those problematic components with something much simpler which works really well and puts their normally loaded coach at the proper ride height with the push of one button no matter where it started out or why and no matter what kinds of air bags are now fitted.
Radically alter the weight balance in the coach and, obviously it makes sense to check to make sure the bag pressure is still correct to establish proper ride height. But, for the vast majority of owners and the vast majority of driving/loading situations I think you can set the required air bag pressure once and enjoy the ease and simplicity of pushing one button to go down the road, another to automatically drop down to dump and a third to raise the rear end while in slow city driving to keep the rear end from dragging. It sure is compelling for me.
Cheers. See you at GMCWS
Jerry
Jerry Work
The Dovetail Joint
Fine furniture designed & hand crafted
in the 1907 former Masonic Temple building
in historic Kerby, OR
Http://jerrywork.com
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Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:19:42 -0600
From: "Rob Mueller" <robmueller@iinet.net.au>
Subject: Re: [GMCnet] Wireless air system
To: <gmclist@temp.gmcnet.org>
Message-ID: <CEB24310880E49259DC11358B89F0BCD@AcerLaptop>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Oops,
Somehow the message below got sent before I was finished.
I'll try again.
Jerry,
I am not questioning what you have stated regarding YOUR coach.
However, there are a couple of things that people should consider regarding
your recommendations.
The ride height valve arm is the mechanism that is adjusted to set the ride
height (Note the slot in the arm as seen in MM X-7525 Pg. 4-22 Figure 49 -
Height Control Valve - Item 23 Arm). If you remove it you will mess up the
setting when you reinstall it. I can tell you it is a PITA to get it right
again (which is why Dave Lenzi and Ken Henderson make adjustable links). I
would suggest to those of you who want to try Jerry's method that don't have
shut off valves on the bags. Remove the end of the link that connects the
ride height valve levers to the bogie arms.
This paragraph relates to the PowerLevel system. The system pump is set to
shut off at 140 psi and come on at around 100 psi (those numbers are from
memory and may not be quite right). The pressure in Double Trouble's bags
runs around 90 psi. The pressure in the tank will feed the bags and the pump
will not come on until the pressure in the tank drops below 100 psi. I have
no idea how much weight one would have to add to reduce the air pressure in
the tank to 100 psi.
The rear suspension has been bouncing around in my mind today and I realized
something. I think one of the reasons GMC installed the automatic ride
height system was because telling prospective customers that they had to
check and adjust how high the rear end was and adjust the amount of air
pressure to the air bags would have gone over like a lead balloon!
Regards,
Rob M.
.................
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