Community Forums

olyshed · 10-27-2013, 02:27 PM

I have a 2001 Affinity with tag and the air suspension does not seem to work. Cannot raise the front suspension and while driving yesterday, the driver's side lowered. The air bags seem okay. Any ideas? We parked at Coach Care overnight with a steep slope. It seemed to correct itself but now concerned.

smlranger · 10-27-2013, 06:09 PM

Bad ride height valve?

BFlinn181 · 10-27-2013, 06:22 PM

You have 3 or 4 ride height valves that sense the coach height and add or let air out of the air bags. The rods that connect between the valve (fastened to the coach frame) and the axle usually has rubber ends that can break. You could crawl underneath with the wheels on blocks to make sure it won't drop low enough to 'pinch' you and see. Air up to full pressure, shut off and crawl under. When you find the ride height valve, push or pull on the lever the rod is hooked to to see if air inflates or releases. If the rod is connected and doesn't move, the valve could be bad. If you take the 8 mm bolt (usual) out of the end of the rod, you will be able to push and pull to inflate/deflate air bags if the valves are O.K.

olyshed · 11-01-2013, 02:12 PM

Called HWH- seems like it's the Control Box...no power to the Travel solenoids. Will keep you posted on results.

smlranger · 12-11-2013, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by olyshed

Called HWH- seems like it's the Control Box...no power to the Travel solenoids. Will keep you posted on results.

Curious what you found. My Allure is doing same thing. It will auto level fine but is reluctant to bring the front to travel height. Coach stays in a kneeling position. If I fiddle with things long enough, it will eventually raise.

I have an appointment with a suspension shop next week but I am not sure they are familiar with the rather complicated HWH system. I was hoping it was something simple like a bad front ride height valve but, the more I read the HWH manual for this thing, I can see a number of potential issues.

pumper9x9 · 12-11-2013, 09:20 AM

Been there, done that, got the T shirt. 99.999% chance it's the front ride height valve. If they start screwing around with your control box tell them in no uncertain terms to put it back together and run, don't walk from their shop.
If you need to get to a place that can fix it you can do this work around procedure.

If your coach will automatically level this should work to get you down the road.

1) Level your coach on a level surface
2) Manually eyeball what you think the correct ride height should be, move it up and down till you think it looks about right while in the leveling mode.
3) Find the fuse that controls the HWH system. It should be a 7.5 amp fuse and mine is located in the fuse box in the very LF compartment.
4) Pull the fuse put it in drive and see if it stays up. (it should)
5) Drive carefully to where someone who knows what the hell they are doing can fix it.
I drove from Hurricane Ut to Grand Junction Co where they kept trying to tell me it was the multi thousand dollar computer. I had them put it back together and drove to Denver to have it fixed. When driving in this mode just keep the speed down, 55 mph max, and keep your cornering speeds low, at or below the posted recommendation. They replaced the ride height valve and the world was running in greased grooves again.
Good Luck and be safe.

smlranger · 12-11-2013, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumper9x9

Been there, done that, got the T shirt. 99.999% chance it's the front ride height valve. If they start screwing around with your control box tell them in no uncertain terms to put it back together and run, don't walk from their shop.
If you need to get to a place that can fix it you can do this work around procedure.

If your coach will automatically level this should work to get you down the road.

1) Level your coach on a level surface
2) Manually eyeball what you think the correct ride height should be, move it up and down till you think it looks about right while in the leveling mode.
3) Find the fuse that controls the HWH system. It should be a 7.5 amp fuse and mine is located in the fuse box in the very LF compartment.
4) Pull the fuse put it in drive and see if it stays up. (it should)
5) Drive carefully to where someone who knows what the hell they are doing can fix it.
I drove from Hurricane Ut to Grand Junction Co where they kept trying to tell me it was the multi thousand dollar computer. I had them put it back together and drove to Denver to have it fixed. When driving in this mode just keep the speed down, 55 mph max, and keep your cornering speeds low, at or below the posted recommendation. They replaced the ride height valve and the world was running in greased grooves again.
Good Luck and be safe.

Thanks for the advice. Actually, I was not confident (from my conversation with them) that the guys at this big truck shop were comfortable working on the coach. So I called a local independent RV repair shop and described my issue. He told me the same thing.... likely culprit was front ride height valve. He says he gets the chance to work on a fair number of CC's when the 'high rollers' show up at a local venue that does a big horse show and several AKC dog shows. He seems comfortable with it and is familiar with HWH leveling and air systems. So will be taking it to him next Tuesday.

olyshed · 12-12-2013, 03:17 PM

SMLRANGER: We did not have any power to the travel solenoid from the control box-HWH advised us to send in control box for repair with a 3-5 day turn-around. A total of fifteen days we received the repaired control box, Reinstalled in coach and the suspension worked! Price for us was approx. $100 including shipping and warrantied for 1yr. Only way to go. You tell whether its the leveling valve or travel solenoid by checking voltage in the HWH control box at the travel solenoid- with your ignition on you should have power at the travel solenoid circuits.

smlranger · 12-12-2013, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by olyshed

SMLRANGER: We did not have any power to the travel solenoid from the control box-HWH advised us to send in control box for repair with a 3-5 day turn-around. A total of fifteen days we received the repaired control box, Reinstalled in coach and the suspension worked! Price for us was approx. $100 including shipping and warrantied for 1yr. Only way to go. You tell whether its the leveling valve or travel solenoid by checking voltage in the HWH control box at the travel solenoid- with your ignition on you should have power at the travel solenoid circuits.

If we get to that point, where is the control box? I have two stacked HWH boxes mounted to the top of the bay under the driver's window. Is that the location of the box? We have a Christmas trip to visit family planned so I am going to take my chances and try to get thru that trip before I find someone to work on it. Right now, the coach came to ride height and has been sitting for about 10 days holding that level fine.

bobioknight · 01-23-2014, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smlranger

If we get to that point, where is the control box? I have two stacked HWH boxes mounted to the top of the bay under the driver's window. Is that the location of the box? We have a Christmas trip to visit family planned so I am going to take my chances and try to get thru that trip before I find someone to work on it. Right now, the coach came to ride height and has been sitting for about 10 days holding that level fine.

Those stacked boxes in that particular compartment are your transmission computers. The hwh brains are stored underneath in your electrical compartment. You will see the silver box probably in the passenger side, it is full of boards, jumpers and fuses. I doubt anything in there is causing an issue for you. My guess is the solenoids not working and need replacing. Travel and leveling solenoids are separate. I believe you have 4 travel and 2 rear level in the passenger side in the rear, 2 level solenoids drivers side front.

It is pretty easy to determine if they're have gone bad and a pretty easy fix if they have. I believe they are $50 to $100 each and should take about 10 to 20 minutes to replace.