First Major Chassis Service

[Craig P.]

I'm due (in some areas overdue) for my first major chassis service, since buying my coach used two years ago. It currently has 22K on the odometer.

After looking over FL's "Know your Chassis" flyer, it looks like the following items needs servicing, in addition to the normal annual oil & lube job:

"¢ Front Wheel Bearings
"¢ Rotate tires
"¢ Change Differential Fluid
"¢ Replace Air Dryer & Desiccant Filters
"¢ Front End Alignment
"¢ Power Steering system flush

Am I missing anything?

Craig

[Craig P.]

I'm due (in some areas overdue) for my first major chassis service, since buying my coach used two years ago. It currently has 22K on the odometer.

After looking over FL's "Know your Chassis" flyer, it looks like the following items needs servicing, in addition to the normal annual oil & lube job:

"¢ Front Wheel Bearings
"¢ Rotate tires
"¢ Change Differential Fluid
"¢ Replace Air Dryer & Desiccant Filters
"¢ Front End Alignment
"¢ Power Steering system flush

Am I missing anything?

Craig

[Gary RVRoamer]

Go to the Freightliner Custom Chassis website and look under FCCC Service Online and you will find a number of maintenance documents, including the forms for M1, M2 and M3 service.
See Service Center Online

You owner manual should have the same info but specific to your year of chassis.

At 22k miles and two years, you are due for M2 (24 month service). Some items on the form may not apply if you have already done them or perhaps are using long life synthetic fluids. For example, the Allison transmission service schedule supersedes the info in the FL document and will yield different dates if you have Transynd tranny fluid (and your two year old chassis does have it).

[Craig P.]

Thanks Gary. That will be handy for me to give to the FL service writer.

Oddly enough though, the "Know Your Chassis"� and "M3" service documents aren't in total harmony with each other. For instance, the Scheduled Maintenance section of "Know your Chassis"� says that I am also due for a new air filter, a power steering system flush and replacement of my air & desiccant filters. The "M3" service list makes no mention of any of these items. I think I'll print out the M3 list and add the missing items at the bottom.

Thanks again.

Craig

[Carnles]

Craig--

I noticed there were some differences between the book and the service lists also, but I just went with the list they provided in Gaffney. I figured they are the experts so they could decide what needed to be done. Also they looked at the mileage on my coach (11,000 miles at the time) and they kind of mixed and matched to make sure everything was covered. Too bad you aren't just 3 hours away from the FCCC Service Center...it's very convenient!

[chasfm11]

Craig, in cruising past your post a couple of times, I'd missed a couple of the items on your list that I find somewhat puzzling.

First, let me say that I'm a preventive maintenance nut. I go to great lengths to understand and follow manufacturers' recommendations for maintenance whether they make a lot of sense to me personally or not. If I'm going to error, I'd prefer to error on the side of too much rather than too little.

That said, I've found nowhere in my manuals nor in anything that I've recently read about periodic front end alignments on RVs. While I think that I understand the logic, the general wisdom on most vehicles is to address alignments on an "as needs" basis, where there are specific symptoms, rather than periodic exams. Let me be clear, I see no problem with simply looking but worry that once the vehicle is set up on an alignment machine to do an examination, the temptation to tinker with it might be more financially motivated than anything else. Am I wrong? Do owners manual's actually require calendar based alignment checks? I sure cannot find that in my manuals.

Tire rotation. This one just about made my jaw drop. Perhaps I've been misled but the typical recommendation is to balance only the steer axle tires on MHs. That's what I've done and without problems that I've been able to detect. I just replaced all 6 tires at 5 years (let's not go into the reasons for that here) and only had the front two balanced again. First, there was no discernible wear pattern on any of my 6 tires after the time and 30K miles (and I frankly didn't expect any) and I don't have ride problems that I could attribute to tires. That leaves me wondering if tire rotation is or should be part of RV maintenance procedures. I've re-read my chassis owner's manual again and find nothing about this. Rotating the tires for me would mean at least additional balancing.

As to the rest of the list, I work hard to distribute the routines across the year, rather than bunching them up at one service point because I'm doing the work myself. I like being able to take a weekend and concentrating on the air brake system, for example, where I carefully examine everything at the same time that I'm replacing the desiccant and coelessing filters. One of my major concerns about having this kind of work done professionally any place but Gaffney is the tendency to do the least to get by rather than really looking to prevent future issues. Perhaps that is just me again. The more stuff that gets piled together in the same period, the more likely it is that too much of it will be "hurry up" to meet the time window. Again, maybe I'm totally wrong.

Charlie

[Craig P.]

Hi Charlie,

Your are correct on your comments about the front end alignment and tire rotation. I should have explained that these are two items which I have discovered that I need to have done, aside from any maintenance schedule. My front tires are starting to cup and I've noticed some pulling to the right while cruising. I plan on rotating them with the rear inner duals. Unfortunately unlike my old rig with all steel wheels and wheel liners, I will have to have the wheels broken off of the rim before they are rotated, since the front wheels are aluminum and the rear inners are steel.

Charlie, since you labeled yourself a "Preventative Maintenance Nut", what's your feeling on flushing the power steering system every 36 months?

Craig

[chasfm11]

I've done the power steering fluid flush twice now. Is it necessary? Perhaps not but I've done it anyway. It isn't easy single handled but I built a couple of vinyl tube/brass fitting adapters to help me do it alone.

I'm also one of the few who flushes passenger car brake fluid periodically and for the same reason - contamination. You cannot always see with the naked eye that the fluid has been compromised. It is a cheap enough fix (about 3 gallons of AFT). I do it more because the RV sits than I might be inclined to do if I drove it more frequently. BTW, I found a kinked power steering hose that as a part of one of my inspections and put a new one on with the last fluid change. The inner part of the kink was cracked almost all the way through the hose. I think it was a breakdown waiting to happen.

I hate breakdowns and will go out of my way to try to avoid them. In 30 years of working on passenger vehicles, I don't need more than one hand to count the number of breakdowns that we've had and we currently don't have a passenger vehicle that has less than 160K miles on it. I'm trying to extend that streak to the RV. I just replaced all 6 tires last week after 5 years when I discovered cracking on the passenger front sidewall. Others might have driven those same tires another 2 years without problems but I was unwilling to take that chance. I AM really serious about avoiding breakdowns. You should probably take my comments with that as a consideration.

Charlie

[Craig P.]

Update:

I've started gathering the materials and parts I need to complete my chassis service. I've found some interesting information and facts along the way. Since I have conflicting information from FL on exactly what needs to be completed, here's what I've decided I'm going to do:

"¢ Oil Change
"¢ Get Oil Sample for Analysis
"¢ Calibrate Oil Dipstick
"¢ Replace Fuel filter
"¢ Replace Air Filter
"¢ Chassis lube
"¢ Check Front Wheel Bearings
"¢ Drain & Refill Front Hubs
"¢ Rotate Tires
"¢ Check Ride Height
"¢ Check Drive Belt
"¢ Change Differential Fluid
"¢ Replace Air Desiccant Filter
"¢ Change Power Steering Reservoir Fluid
"¢ Front End Alignment

The "Know Your Chassis"� handout from FL says to flush the power steering system. On another line on the same page, it says to replace the hydraulic fluid and filter. This was confusing so I called FL. As I suspected, the two systems are one in the same. According to FL there is no filter. I was also told that the service center in Gaffney never flushes the entire power steering system, they only change the fluid in the reservoir. This seemed odd to me. When I asked why, the FL service rep. said it would be very expensive and that a complete flush is not necessary. So why then put it in writing??

After confirming part numbers and fluid capacities with FL, I headed off to my local FL dealer, some 10 miles away. As my luck would have it, they only had one of the parts that I asked for. I also asked for spare radiator hoses to keep on-board the rig in case of an emergency hose failure. They didn't have those either. All said and done, 99% of the parts had to be ordered, and the total cost was about $50 more than what I was quoted from Gaffney's parts department. Even with shipping, the parts would have been less and would have been delivered to my door, instead of making two trips to a crowded FL parts department. Lesson learned...

Craig

[chasfm11]

Craig, several of us have learned the lesson about parts costs at our local Freightliner dealer versus Gaffney. I, too, won't make that mistake again if I can avoid it.

It is interesting to find out that Gaffney does not do the power steering flush recommended in their manuals. I'm sorry but this is just plain stupid. Some people have aftermarket extended warranties and those extended warranty companies are just looking for excuses not to cover items. A situation like this could be used against an owner for "failing to perform proper maintenance." Personally, I still like the idea of purging the power steering fluid. To Gaffney's point about "too expensive", it costs 3 gallons of AFT at whatever price you buy that for locally. In the grander scheme of maintenance costs, it hardly registers on the scale. It is probably overkill, especially on RVs. I remain concerned about contamination due to inactivity more than anything else. The reservoir holds about 1 gallon so 2/3 of my system is unaffected by the change the way they are doing it.

I didn't notice a coelessing filter on your list. When you change out the dessicant filter, I'd recommend changing the coelessing filter, too, if your type of filter is the same as mine. I found moisture under my coellessing filter and since the purpose of the filter setup is to keep moisture out of the system, it is worthy of consideration.

Two additional comments: Replacing the air filter on mine took a lot longer than it would have seemed from the appearance. While doing it, I added some strain relief for the input hose. Putting fluid back into the differential can be a challenge, particularly in cold weather. The fluid is like molasses. I recommend keeping the fluid inside until the moment that you use it.

Please take the time afterwards to post your experiences. I, for one, can often learn something from someone else's successes or challenges.

Thanks,

Charlie

[Craig P.]

Thanks for the reply Charlie. I too was confused by the comments of the Gaffney service rep.

I have heard that idle systems can gather moisture. I flushed the system on my old Winnebago gasser once during the 9 years that I owned it....it could be the dry climate I live in, or maybe I was just lucky.

Unlike your coach, my reservoir only holds 3 quarts, so the amount being exchanged is even less than your's. I was also told by FL that my chassis does not have a coalescing filter, only a desiccant.

Thanks for the info on replacing the air filter....I'll keep that in mind.

Craig

[chasfm11]

Craig, my comment about 3 gallons was relative to the whole power steering system, not just the reservoir. FCC verified the system capacity for me. I purged the entire system, not just the reservoir. I was replacing the hose from the reservoir to the pump at the same time. The hose had been kinked at the factory during assembly (along with a number of other chassis) and the kink had cracked nearly all the way through.

Charlie