Community Forums

hillboy · 03-05-2013, 05:38 PM

Going through new to me 2001 MountainAire DP 3763 on Spartan Chassis. Changing filters etc.
Maintainance list recommends draining air tanks, and chassis diagram shows location as near front of rig, but "location may vary". I know where the air pump(compressor) is but have not been able to locate the tank or tanks, or the lanyard that can be pulled to drain.
My yard is snow covered an MH has snow around it that limits how far I can get under so that might be my problem. Seems like they should be readily visable but...........

Any advice from owners of similar rig would be appreciated, as would warm weather and sunshine.

GaryKD · 03-05-2013, 05:52 PM

Hi hillboy,
Turn the front tires all the way to the right. By reaching in past the front of the right front tire (it is a long reach) there may be 3 lanyards exiting the frame rail. They are color coded and should be pulled in a specific order. Your manual should tell you what the order is. Pull and hold the lanyard until no air can be heard coming out of the tank. Patience will be needed. It is important to hold the valve open until all the air is out of the tank because water is the last thing to leave the tank (after all the air is gone).

Romeo · 03-05-2013, 06:03 PM

The 2001 MA may be the same as my 2000 DS with the Spartan chassis and not have lanyards. Mine has auto draining air valves (per Spartan).

Rotten-Red · 03-05-2013, 07:22 PM

The air tanks are between the frame rails above the front axle. Chances are there are no lanyards to pull. Like Romeo said his has automatic drain valves installed and so has my 2000 DSDP on Spartan chassis. So you probably have auto. drain valves also. You can still manually drain the tanks with the auto. valves. There is a stem that sticks out of the bottom of the air valve with a small hole in it where the lanyard cable would be put through. If there is no cable hooked to it you can just push the stem sideways to drain the tank. I've drained mine several time and not once gotten any water out. If you keep your air dryer serviced you'll probably never have water in the tanks.
If the weather is below freezing you can forget about draining the tanks. If there is water in them it will be ice.

Route 66 · 03-06-2013, 04:42 AM

I believe all recent air tanks have automatic moisture ejectors.

The lanyards make it convenient to manually drain the tanks.

I had the lanyards installed on my air tanks and whenever I pulled the lanyards I never had any moisture come out as the automatic moisture ejectors worked perfectly.

hillboy · 03-06-2013, 06:36 AM

Thanks folks. good info. Great point Red, ice it would be.....

michelb · 03-06-2013, 08:40 AM

Even with automatic moisture ejectors, it's not a bad idea to manually drain them every once in a while (Do you know for sure that your automatic moisture ejectors are working?) but for what it's worth, I recently pulled them on our 2003 (new-to-us) DP and they had never been pulled (they were still covered and stuck in the foam that Tiffin spray on the bottom of their motorhome (probably cut some noise or something)) and there was no moisture after 10 years and 4xxxx miles so I wouldn't be too worried about it.

For what it's worth in Ontario, you need get an air brake endorsement to drive vehicles with air brakes and they tell you that you need to pull the lanyards every day the vehicle is driven (I think you fail if you don't do it during the test)