Being new to DP's, we were in Gaffney earlier this month for the Camp Freightliner class. At one point early on there was a schematic of the air system and I was puzzled by a note about air lanyards. What are air lanyards I'm thinking? Everyone else must know except me, so I quietly asked a classmate and was told. I later asked a friend at the Freightliner campground where the lanyards actually were. Anyway, a few weeks later I'm at a campground and decide now's a good time to see what pulling them sounds like without any water build-up. I pull the first one and it sounds about what I expected, but wouldn't re-seat without some effort. I'm thinking it must be lack of use, or a bit of dirt. No problem. Pull the second one, and a little more difficult to re-seat, in fact I can still hear air whistling. Something should have told me to stop. Pulled the third one, and no way would it re-seat in the least. I'm certainly not driving again until that gets fixed! I crawl under the coach, and with some effort get that one to re-seat partially.
I call Freightliner, who says it depends how the coach manufacturer runs the lanyards, but can't recommend I fix it myself. Came out of the Freightliner shop today with them saying the lanyards were ran poorly, and they re-ran all of them. My cautionary note...pull your lanyards, but perhaps when you're at your first 6 month or 1 year service. Wish I'd done that earlier this month in Gaffney.
By the way, Camp Freightliner is very useful, especially for those of us new to diesel coaches. But sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous.
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Ron & Mary
2019 Newmar London Aire 4543
2014 Honda CR-V
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Ok I'll bite what are air lanyards? I am new to this game having recently bought a new to me coach w/freight liner chassis.
They are small cable lanyards that attach to small air "valves" on the bottom of the compressed air reservoirs. The idea is that when the air dryers are saturated, the way to find out is pull the lanyards and see if any water comes out with the air. They can be in various locations because it depends on how the coach manufacturer routes the cables. On Newmar they're in the front wheel wells, at least on newer models. The story at Freightliner is that for many years Freightliner left them coiled on top of the air reservoirs and expected the coach manufacturers to route them where they wanted. Freightliner found out most of the manufacturers just left them coiled up underneath.
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Ron & Mary
2019 Newmar London Aire 4543
2014 Honda CR-V
Well I'm really confused.
Took ours to Freightliner in Kalamazoo, MI last week. Asked them to purge tanks during our 1st service since new (has 6500 miles). Service tech's response was it is not needed because they purge automatically???
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Greg & Ronda
2015 DSDP 4369 Freightliner ISL--all electric
Yep- I had the same thing happen the first time I pulled the lanyards. I had to crawl underneath to get them to reseal. The lanyards were hung up on other wiring and stuff on the chassis. Very poor job was done by either Freightliner or Newmar in routing the cables.
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2013 DS 4338
2015 F-150 toad with kayaks,bicycles and a Harley in the back
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gjbeels
Well I'm really confused.
Took ours to Freightliner in Kalamazoo, MI last week. Asked them to purge tanks during our 1st service since new (has 6500 miles). Service tech's response was it is not needed because they purge automatically???
They are auto purge, but you should still check them for water when purging them.
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2009 45' Magna 630 w/Cummins ISX 650 HP/1950 Lbs Ft, HWH Active Air
Charter Good Sam Lifetime Member, FMCA,
RV'ing since 1957, NRA Benefactor Life, towing '21 Jeep JLU Rubicon Ecodiesel
Ok, so now I'm really confused. Which do we have with a 2015 Ventana?
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I'm certainly no expert, but my understanding from Freightliner class in Gaffney is that we have the first (non-automatic) type Twinboat shows, which is consistent with what I saw in terms of lanyard and valve underneath my coach. There could be, and probably is, some difference in model years, and certainly Freightliner vs Spartan.
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Ron & Mary
2019 Newmar London Aire 4543
2014 Honda CR-V
Ok, so now I'm really confused. Which do we have with a 2015 Ventana?
You have an air dryer that has an automatic purge valve so that moisture trapped by the dryer is ejected. But the tanks have a manual drain valve operated by the lanyard. As long as the air dryer is maintained correctly you should never see moisture from the tank drains.
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John and Mary Knight
2015 Newmar Ventana 4311 - wheelchair accessible
2015 Cadillac SRX Luxury AWD
I sat down the row from you at the Freightliner class and agree with what you said we were told but I have not pulled the cables from the purge valve yet so I don't know if I will have a re-seating problem. However, did you have Freightliner take a look at yours and if so, what did they do to re-seat the valves?
Sometimes I wonder if there is a communication issue between what the customer is told in these classes and what the techs do. The instructor also said to always remove the fuel cap before removing the fuel filter or fuel will run out. I asked the tech who was servicing our coach and he said to never remove the cap as it will cause a siphon and fuel will go everywhere.
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Steve and Liz
2016 Ventana 4041, All Electric