Quote:
Originally Posted by doonich
My coach #314 has 3 air gauges on the curbside of the engine compartment and two blocks of 6 valves labeled drive (upper) and tag (lower) plus one valve just below the top gauge. The gauges are 60#, 200# & 160# top to bottom. My tag cockpit switch is 2 position with the upper being the air release. The top valve and bottom valves are adjustable the middle valve attached to the drive axle is not. It seems to me the tag axle is the 60# top gauge.
What should the setting on the lower gauge be?
The air releases when the cockpit tag switch is pushed up or when I adjust the rear top gauge but the tag axle does not seem to lift which is probably caused by the same problem I had in 2001 with a sticky or faulty valve. Any insight would be helpful, thanks.
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To answer these questions specifically, while it is possible that your gauges are mounted differently, the upper gauge on my 1992 is the pressure going to the transmission air shifter. You can verify this by seeing if the line out runs down to the transmission. Newell recommends 60 psi on this but I find that my cruise control bucks unless I raise it to 80 psi and a tech for the air shifter said to run it between 80-100 psi. The center gauge shows system pressure which is available to the drive axle and is non-adjustable manually. The drive axle pressure is controlled by the ride height valves when in travel mode and the leveling solenoids in the leveling mode. My bottom gauge is the tag pressure and that should be set in the 25-40 range depending on how heavily loaded your coach is. Readings are really meaningful only in travel mode with the engine running, after the coach has leveled out. My gauges, top to bottom in travel mode, read, 80, 120, 40.
I am confused by your readings of 200# and 160# as the engine driven air compressor will only pump up to about 125-130 psi. My readings in level mode are currently 35, 95 and 10 which doesn't tell you much of anything.
Remember, your tag will likely not lift even with the tag pressure at zero. The weight of the wheels, tires, brakes and axle itself will keep the tag tires on the ground unless you are on extremely unlevel ground where the tag is much lower than the drive axle. You can verify this by looking under you coach at the front of tag axles. For them to lift, you typically would have to have a pair of large coil springs capable of lifting the weight of the axles, brakes, wheels and tires (probably about 2,000 pounds). I have never seen a Newell with those springs but Newell prides themselves in the custom modifications they make for owners so I can't positively say that none were ever made.