Community Forums

lclwood · 05-06-2021, 06:12 PM

I own a 1999 Fleetwood American Eagle and have a leak in one of the heater hoses that run inside the driver side frame rail that supply heat to the front heater / windsheild defroster. It seems to me the only option I have would be to run two new heater hoses (two beacuse I don't know if it is the supply or return line) inside the basement. There seems to be enough room on one side of the frame rail, I would have to run the lines behind the wet bay panel, into the basement, then into the LP bay.

Anyone ever have this problem? If so, how did you handle it?

Skip426 · 05-06-2021, 06:33 PM

Freightliner chassis ??

I've got 100' of 5/8" heater hose sitting in my garage waiting to be installed .

The hoses run in a 3"x 5" plastic box that runs from the side of the fuel tank to the back of the water bay inside the frame channel . I'm still trying to figure out if the hoses are zip tied to any of the wiring harness inside the box . I can get the lid snapped off the box but can't get my hand in , so I have to feed my flex camera trough .
Weather permitting it's on my to do list next week . I'll report back .

Note . There are shut off valves beside the transmission to isolate the hoses and stop the leak if you need to drive , and on my Cat , the heater hoses from the valves to the engine are 3/4" ; so 10' of 3/4" required too.

LETMGROW · 05-06-2021, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lclwood

I own a 1999 Fleetwood American Eagle and have a leak in one of the heater hoses that run inside the driver side frame rail that supply heat to the front heater / windsheild defroster. It seems to me the only option I have would be to run two new heater hoses (two beacuse I don't know if it is the supply or return line) inside the basement. There seems to be enough room on one side of the frame rail, I would have to run the lines behind the wet bay panel, into the basement, then into the LP bay.

Anyone ever have this problem? If so, how did you handle it?

Why not replace the line(s) and route them as they originally were.
Remove the line where it terminates, connect the new line to the old line with a barbed connector and pull it through the frame like it was.

lclwood · 05-06-2021, 06:42 PM

I feel pretty certain that many of those lines in the frame rail are zip tied together. I wonder if anyone at Fleetwood could answer that question?

veraken · 05-07-2021, 04:19 AM

Found a leak in my dash heater core. I installed 2 ball valves as described in post #1 & 2 in this thread. Got all the parts from HD. Did the repair at our campground and continued on our trip.

https://www.irv2.com/forums/f104/maki...er-152494.html

Since we don't travel in the winter, don't know if I'll ever invest the time & $ to repair. If I do, it will be easy to just open the valves.

lclwood · 05-07-2021, 08:10 AM

My 99 American Eagle is on a Spartan Chassis. The frame rail must be sealed up fairly well seeing as the antifreeze is leaking out of the front of the framerail and not in the basement. Actually, the antifreeze is coming out of the flex tubing that some of the wiring running in the frame rail is in. This kinda tells me that a lot of these hoses and wiring is bundled together in the rail, and I would assume that in the building process that the wiring and hoses are bundled together to speed along construction of the coach, plus holding those things together when they seal the rail up.

rssnape · 05-07-2021, 08:32 PM

You could purchase enough hose to make the straight shot and enough extra to route across the ground instead of directly. Disconnect the supply and return one at a time using the new hose on the ground. When the leak stops, you’ve figured it out, and then the fun of routing it either down the chassis or pulling through the frame rail.