2000 DSDP Ride Height Issue

[rebelsbeach]

Something tells me one of us is having a ride height issue....

[rebelsbeach]

Something tells me one of us is having a ride height issue....

[rebelsbeach]

Jeff Regan had a ride height issue and I thought with a subtle hint he'd post his experiences here...

[Jeff Regan]

Bob,

Yeah, that's me. I drove the coach six miles with
the rear down about 2". I was going to have to
drive it 22 miles to a Spartan shop, but decided
that I've put the drivetrain through enough abuse
and slid under the coach this morning and found
the ride height adjustment rod had come adrift.
I put it back in the rubber boot and tightened
the hose clamp and all is well, I'm now in Sonoma camping at the Indy 300 race. Always
scary when an ex-RV salesman plays mechanic,
but it worked out.

The setup is pretty Mickey Mouse and I hope this
has been improved on newer Spartan chassis. I
believe those with Hendrickson suspensions have
a much better setup.

Jeff Regan
2000 Dutch Star

[tmitchell]

Did you have to use your rear jacks to raise the MH enough to get under it?
Tom

[Jeff Regan]

Hi Tom,

I used the rear jacks for safety, but I didn't
raise the rear of the coach with them. I'm a
pretty small guy. I would caution anybody to
not go under the coach without jacks down,
especially when working on the ride height rods.
If you pull down on the valve lever, the coach
will dump air--only push up on the lever.

Jeff Regan
2000 Dutch Star

[rebelsbeach]

Jeff, I would SECOND your advice not to use the coach leveling jacks to raise the coach for maintenance purposes...
While in Gillette at the International I pushed the "level" button and the coach started to level itself...All of a sudden, WHILE leveling, there was this BOOM and the coach went straight down to the axles....
Turns out a hydraulic line had been chaffing on the coach frame and just decided "that was the time" to rupture.

Needless to say, the folks at HWH reminded me NEVER to use those jacks for that purpose....

As an aside, I did at least get to see the nice HWH facilities in Moscow,IA and even got a free lunch!!

[PairoDocs]

See my recent posts. Finally discovered that the rubber boot was getting trapped in electrical wiring running the length of the coach and it would hang up when we dumped air. Then the rod would pull loose when we raised (leveled) the coach with the jacks. Next AM, ride height all messed up!

[Jeff Regan]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by PairoDocs:
See my recent posts. Finally discovered that the rubber boot was getting trapped in electrical wiring running the length of the coach and it would hang up when we dumped air. Then the rod would pull loose when we raised (leveled) the coach with the jacks. Next AM, ride height all messed up! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I believe my ride height valve lever got hung up with a hose and this may have caused the rod to
pull away from the rubber boot. I cleared the
hose out of the way, but I should have it tied
off at some point.

Jeff Regan
2000 Dutch Star