Rear airbags blew out?

[mackwrench]

The air system should have a pop-off valve that's pre-set at 150 psi. The air springs can hold that no sweat.

I doubt the bags are blown. My $$ is on leveling valve

[SueRVEd]

Maybe it was the valve that caused this but I'm not sure? Freightliner in my area did not have them in stock so they are going to FedEx a pair in for installation tomorrow afternoon.

Some other mobile service company is going to install them while it's in my driveway.

In talking with FL, they originally told me that there wasn't a recall on the bags or any types of known problems.
However, this morning the guy at FL said the ones I had were the wrong ones and they needed replacing.
I suppose he could tell this from the VIN?
I don't know why he said this put I didn't pursue his comment.

I sure hope it's note the valve because I don't think he's bringing those.
Again, thanks for your comments everyone and I'll report back tomorrow after it's fixed.

Do you think he'll need to remove the rear wheels to get these on?
It looks cramped under there.
When the tech in Decatur did a full chassis lube and 29 point check (cough, cough) he raised the RV fairly high on the Power Gear levelers and crawled underneath....I was kind of shocked he did that for safety reasons but he said they do it all the time.

[Dc2x4drvr]

Originally Posted by mackwrench

The air system should have a pop-off valve that's pre-set at 150 psi. The air springs can hold that no sweat.

I doubt the bags are blown. My $$ is on leveling valve

X2, checkout the leveling valves first, specifically the linkage between the axle and the valve..
just my .02

[SueRVEd]

Correct, I don't think they are physically blown (as if they have a hole in the rubber) and that may have been a poor choice for words but the rubber popped its seal and is no longer able to hold air.

[mackwrench]

Originally Posted by SueRVEd

Maybe it was the valve that caused this but I'm not sure? Freightliner in my area did not have them in stock so they are going to FedEx a pair in for installation tomorrow afternoon.

Some other mobile service company is going to install them while it's in my driveway.

In talking with FL, they originally told me that there wasn't a recall on the bags or any types of known problems.
However, this morning the guy at FL said the ones I had were the wrong ones and they needed replacing.
I suppose he could tell this from the VIN?
I don't know why he said this put I didn't pursue his comment.

I sure hope it's note the valve because I don't think he's bringing those.
Again, thanks for your comments everyone and I'll report back tomorrow after it's fixed.

Do you think he'll need to remove the rear wheels to get these on?
It looks cramped under there.
When the tech in Decatur did a full chassis lube and 29 point check (cough, cough) he raised the RV fairly high on the Power Gear levelers and crawled underneath....I was kind of shocked he did that for safety reasons but he said they do it all the time.

Rear wheels don't have to come off. It's really not a bad job to R&R drive axle air springs.

.... what is chassis warranty? I'd think FL would warranty this since is 2 years old.
May not cover the road service...I'm also curious how they know you have the wrong air bags if he ain't seen them yet?

Again just FYI, but if the leveling valve linkage is off/broken, the valve lever will drop down and start exhausting air. ...with no air in bags, when you give it throttle the rear axle tries to "rotate" as torque is applied. It will pull air springs up like in your pic

Hopefully your guy will get it handled tomorrow and all's good

Happy 4th!

[SueRVEd]

Yes, the warranty is covering this mess.

Are these the valves that everyone is referring to? The linkage looks intact if this is the right valve.
I took a picture of the driver side and the passenger side looks identical.

[mackwrench]

Yep, that's them! Looks like the linkage is still there....
Just a WAG, but I wonder if the leveling jacks system has anything to do with it...
Let us know what happens.

[Ernie.]

just logging in so i don't miss anything...

[Fiesta48]

I have the same coach, please post final disposition. I read once that extending the jacks to their limits is hard on air bags. I've had to do this several times. Couple of times I've sprayed silicone on the bottom metal cone to reduce some friction. Once heard a loud bang as air bags seated after jacks down.

[scampers227]

Originally Posted by SueRVEd

Maybe it was the valve that caused this but I'm not sure? Freightliner in my area did not have them in stock so they are going to FedEx a pair in for installation tomorrow afternoon.

Some other mobile service company is going to install them while it's in my driveway.

In talking with FL, they originally told me that there wasn't a recall on the bags or any types of known problems.
However, this morning the guy at FL said the ones I had were the wrong ones and they needed replacing.
I suppose he could tell this from the VIN?
I don't know why he said this put I didn't pursue his comment.

I sure hope it's note the valve because I don't think he's bringing those.
Again, thanks for your comments everyone and I'll report back tomorrow after it's fixed.

Do you think he'll need to remove the rear wheels to get these on?
It looks cramped under there.
When the tech in Decatur did a full chassis lube and 29 point check (cough, cough) he raised the RV fairly high on the Power Gear levelers and crawled underneath....I was kind of shocked he did that for safety reasons but he said they do it all the time.

If the levelers were fully extended with the wheels off the ground imagine the stress on the airbags. I think this may be what caused the bags to pop off the bottom flange. Just my opinion having never experienced it first hand. No other reasonable explanation comes to mind. As with any troubleshooting, always go back to last thing that was done and look for a connection.

[mackwrench]

Originally Posted by scampers227

If the levelers were fully extended with the wheels off the ground imagine the stress on the airbags. I think this may be what caused the bags to pop off the bottom flange. Just my opinion having never experienced it first hand. No other reasonable explanation comes to mind. As with any troubleshooting, always go back to last thing that was done and look for a connection.

Once the wheels are off ground, the shocks act as a limiter that stops the axle from traveling to far. I'll be many people get Coach high enough to get wheels up, even if accidentally or just for a little bit to add blocks...

What caused the bags to look all wadded up is driving them w/o air. Driveline torque will roll or twist axle assembly. Then when coach is stopped axle goes back to "normal" position.
O/P probably had a driveshaft noise/vibration as well from extreme u-joint angle.

I'm curious what caused failure.

[SueRVEd]

Still waiting for the tech to get here for the install of new bags.
I was able to pick up the new replacements but now it's becoming a waiting game. DW is furious as she wants to be on the road.....not much we can do!

I searched and read another thread in which FireGuy42 had the exact same issue with the exact same coach. He mentioned a TSB being out there but was never able to provide the number in the thread?

I didn't notice any vibration on the 1 hour trip home but I do remember saying, boy, this coach rides a lot differently when there is no weight in it and I'm not pulling my toad.....the whole time it was probably because of the bags?

These look real easy to install as there are 2 frame bolts and 1 bottom plate stud. Of course the air lines too.....

OK, who has time to swing by and get me going? (Just kidding)

Trying to joke to get my mind off the wait.....

[SueRVEd]

Well, the towing recovery outfit finally got there at just after 7pm CST. He admittedly said that he had never done an RV before but has done many rigs.
Two and half hours later with the wife and mines help and tools the new bags were in.
Once in we filled them and dumped the and filled them again just to check their operation, they were working fine.

Still not sure what caused it to happen though. He felt the tech at Decatur who extended the leveling jacks to crawl under the coach and do the full chassis lube may have contributed to the eventual failure but that's just his 2 cents.

At 9:30pm we closed the door and hit the road......while we missed going to Summerfest in Milwaukee for the 2nd straight day, we did make it to the State Fairgrounds to set up camp for Sunday.
It's always good just to get away sometimes!

The coach ran and seemed to handle fine. I'm not sure what I need to do differently in the future to prevent this from ever happening but will certainly do a visual from now on to make sure it always airs up properly before take off.

I took a picture of the "failed" airbag but not much to really see. I did notice the top plate is bent/creased from the frame(?). I was going to compare part numbers of what was on the coach to was it was replaced with too but during my hustle to leave last night but I forgot.
I will post that tomorrow to see if that correlates to what the FL phone tech said when he implied they were the wrong ones.

Anyhow, thanks everyone for making this forum what it is and providing your knowledge to help. It's greatly appreciated by myself and many others!

[Fiesta48]

Thank you for prior response.
Since you really don't know what caused the air bags to go bad, could you describe how the new ones were installed? Did they use any special equipment? I do 95% of my own repairs.
I'm guessing extending the jacks fully without releasing the air in the air bags is a major contributor.