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Old 04-18-2001, 12:19 AM   #1
doug nichols
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Default Tag Axle

The tag axle on my 93 44.5 does not seem to move when I flip the switch. The tag axle tires seem to be compressed more than the drivers. My question is, should the tag air gauge in the rear engine compartment change it's reading when the tag switch is activated? Mine doesn't change but the tires do not appear to be decompressing either. Maybe it's broken.

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Old 04-19-2001, 08:42 PM   #2
TechTalk
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Tag axle - Confirm that the air pressure regulator for the tag axle is set at 25 PSI. The regulator is located on the forward, curb side wall of the engine compartment. Next, operate the three-position tag axle switch on the instrument panel. The center position is normal travel, pushing on the up side adds air to the tag, taking weight off of the drive axle, and pushing on the down side exhausts air from the tag axle to increase traction or shorten the turning radius. If operating correctly, you will hear air exhausting at the regulator when you push the switch on the down side. You may need to replace one or more of the valves. We recommend these valves be replaced every three years.
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Old 04-29-2009, 02:24 AM   #3
doonich
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I just had my coach out for the first time in 2 years and I seem to have the same tag axle situation I had posted about in 2001. I had forgotten about my post from 8 years ago but it popped up on a tag axle search, very strange to see it was one of my few posts. Anyway, 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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Old 04-29-2009, 03:40 AM   #4
Richard and Rhonda
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When you say the tag does not lift, exactly what do you mean? The tags on our vintage Newells don't actually lift off the ground. The release switch on lets the pressure out of the tag air bags, which just reduces the weight on the tag wheels. When I play with the switch, I don't really see the back end move up or down. I think when you release air from the tag air bags the height leveling valve simply compensates for it and adds air to the rear wheels to keep the coach level.


I'm in Fort Worth if you want me to look at it sometime. PM me with contact info.
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Old 04-29-2009, 05:33 PM   #5
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My coach 303 seems to only have an up or a down on the dash instrument panel for the tag. I have found the valve with the air pressure set on the curb side of the engine compartment. When I had it weighed at the Newell Rally in Anacortes, the weight distribution had the Newell folks set my psi at 50. So, I'm guessing, that the best way to determine what the psi should be is based on weight of all the axles? I have to leave the tag switch on my dash in the down position otherwise the red tag light comes on and chimes. This seems to be a warning system that I should not drive without correcting the tag switch position back to the bottom.
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Old 04-30-2009, 05:58 AM   #6
doonich
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Default tag axle

my dash switch also chimes in the upper position. The tag switch upper position raises the tag axles ever so slightly, you can see the tag tires "unloading". it would be great to hook up but beware there would be other issues presented upon your arrival, you might get trapped. I also have a 1928 pullman which has some similar issues only bigger. doug nichols 214 7079700
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Old 04-30-2009, 06:05 PM   #7
fulltiming
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Doug, there were two arrangement for the tag axle switching. On the earlier models, typically, there is a two position toggle switch on the dash near the leveling switches. In the down or normal position, air is sent to the tag axle so it shares the load on the drive axle. The air pressure is adjustable by a valve near a pressure gauge in the engine compartment. As you increase the pressure on the tag axle, the tag removes weight from the drive axle and increases the weight on the tag with a smaller increase in weight on the steering axle. As Tech Talk reported, typically 25 psi is a good setting for the tag. However, you can not determine the correct tag axle pressure without weighing your rig on each axle. In the up position a warning bell goes off and the pressure in the tag slowly goes to 0. This is for low speed tight turns or situations where you might be on wet grass and the drive axles are slipping. This switch MUST be returned to the normal position for driving at speeds above 15-20 miles per hour as the rear tires and axle are not designed to carry the entire weight of the rear of the coach as speed increases.

On most of the newer coaches, the two position switch is replaced by a three position switch. This switch has a normal position in the center. Pressing the switch into the up or down position with either dump the tag for us as stated above or increase the pressure on the tag to take additional load off the drive axle temporarily. This was done to allow coaches that normally had more than 20,000 pounds on the drive axle to reduce that load below 20,000 pounds as they crossed the scales on certain toll roads that have inline scales and will not allow you on the toll road if any axle is over 20,000 pounds. A fully loaded early 90's Newell can have 22-23,000 pounds on the drive axle as the drive axle is rated for that load. By activating the tag axle pressure increase switch, several thousand pounds is transferred to the tag axle from the drive axle and several hundred pounds are transferred to the steer axle. Use of this setting on the tag axle switch for extended periods could result in the tag axle being overloaded.

When I bought the coach, someone had set the pressure on the tag to 120 (obviously didn't know what they were doing), the weight on the tag axle (empty coach) was 15,220 pounds while the drive axle was only carrying 10,540 pounds. After loading the coach with about 3,700 pounds of 'stuff' and reducing the tag pressure to 30 psi, the tag was down to 6,480 pounds and the drive was up to 22,020 pounds. I checked by tag axle pressure versus weight in Kerrville, Texas a couple of years ago. There is a gentleman named Gill that will come to your site with portable scales. You drive up on the scales and it gives you readings by wheel position (right tag, left tag, right drive, left drive, right steer, left steer). I changed the pressure from 20 psi to 55 psi in several stages. The weight on the tag axle increased by 3,620 pounds. I need to run at 40 psi to keep my drive axle under 20,000 pounds. This keeps the tag axle still under it's rated 10,000 pounds but does add about 330 pounds to the steer axle also.

It sounds as if you have the two position switch which I also have in my 1992. The tag doesn't have springs on it to physically lift it off the ground like say a Prevost but as you pointed out, with the air dumped, the tag tires are "unloaded". After the air is released (slowly) from the tag, you will find that you can turn corners noticeably tighter (designed for use in tight campgrounds) than with the tag inflated. You effectively reduce your wheelbase by over 2 feet when you dump the tag.

When you are leveling the coach where the rear must be dropped to level, you should also dump the rear tag pressure. Otherwise, there will a significant load placed on the tag axle while you are parked which is not good for the tag tires as they will likely be overloaded.

Just remember to ALWAYS return the tag to the normal position when traveling. The dump (or dump and temporary increase positions with the three position switches) are meant to be used on limited occasions only.

If you keep the solenoids in good condition (or carry a spare and know how to change them) you should not be afraid to use the tag dump. Be aware that those solenoids are about $90 each and you have a tag pressurized and a tag dump solenoid.
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Old 04-30-2009, 06:38 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by doonich View Post
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.
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.
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Old 05-02-2009, 02:06 AM   #9
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Michael, thank you very much for this most informative posting. It is a keeper in my files. I appreciate such detail and to grow in my understanding of my coach thanks to your time and energy in providing this to us. Thank you and hello to Georgia.
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Old 05-02-2009, 11:30 AM   #10
Richard and Rhonda
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Thanks Michael. An excellent post, with the kind of detail that helps one figure out what is going on. I spoke with Doug Nichols yesterday. He had not had time to read the post, yet.

The pressures he quoted were the max number on the guage, not the actual pressures on the gauge, so that clears up that confusion.
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Old 05-03-2009, 06:50 PM   #11
doonich
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Default tag axle

Thanks to fulltiming and Richard and Rhonda for the help. After going thru fulltiming's description it was apparent I had the gauges mixed up. After setting them to their proper ranges the tag axle unloaded some weight to the other axles and my transmission will downshift automatically once again. Everything is working well but the owner/operator. I was lucky not to blow a tag axle tire but fortunately is was not too hot and I was going pretty slow on back roads.
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Old 05-03-2009, 10:05 PM   #12
Richard and Rhonda
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Doug,

When we spoke, you talked about tire pressures that were way different than what I run. They were so different that I am concerned you may have yet another problem. I also thought I heard you mention you were running two tires on your drive axle at different pressures cause they were different brands. Perhaps I imagined all that, and got it all jumbled up in my head.

You might want to post the tire pressures you are running and see how they compare with others with your sister coaches.

Glad you got the gauges figured out. Out of curiosity, could you tell any difference in the handling when you drove it?
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Old 05-03-2009, 10:17 PM   #13
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Doug, for your information, the VIN plate on my coach recommends the following pressures: steer 120 psi, drive 110 psi and tag 100 psi. Those are the pressures that I run. If you are very lightly loaded and know your actual weight by tire position, you might be able to run a somewhat different pressure but without knowing your exact weights I would suggest running the about pressures.
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Old 05-03-2009, 10:43 PM   #14
Wally Arntzen
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I have a 40' with tag and when at Newell a couple of years ago they informed me to run 120 on front tires, 100 and drive and 85 on the tag. They also told me to run 40 pounds of air preasure for the tag air bags. Thats what I've be running since and things seem to be fine. Thanks for all the info from everybody on the subject.

Wally
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Old 05-03-2009, 10:49 PM   #15
Wally Arntzen
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At the bus service garage that I have work done my friend noticed that the lateral arm shock above the tag axel was damaged from improper use of the tag when backing up and sharp turning in tight areas. I kept my coach in a building and when backing it out I had to turn is several times while in reverse and after doing this for a couple of years I damaged the shock because I should have dropped the air in the tag every time I was doing this.
He informed me that this shock when damaged could cause swaying of the coach especially in windy conditions. We had to have a new one at Catco truck supplies which is working fine.
I now always drop the air when backing up if any turning is involved.

This shock is installed horizontally above the tag axel.

Wally
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Old 05-04-2009, 01:32 AM   #16
Richard and Rhonda
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Well Wally that is very interesting. Is your tag axle a solid axle all the way across?

Mine is not. It is an independent on both sides.
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Old 05-04-2009, 02:21 AM   #17
Wally Arntzen
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Hi Richard,
Mine does go all the way accross with a dip down in the center area. Yours is a newer coach and probably much inproved than the older ones like mine. It sounds like you have a totaly different system than what I have. My tag switch is on or off. If I lift it, it lets out the air and has a bell ringing to let you know that you have deflated the bags. When you drop it down it fills the bags back to normal.
You can really tell the difference when backing up if the bags are out of air and it makes the entire experience quite easy.

Typical Newell with many different systems from year to year which make them better as time goes on.
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Old 05-04-2009, 04:32 AM   #18
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I suspect that the change occurred with the change to the Series 2000 as the 1990 models. All the Series 2000's I have seen had independent tag axle suspension.
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Old 05-05-2009, 12:28 AM   #19
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I believe Fulltiming is correct, when i back my coach up anytime, my air automatically dumps to relieve pressuure off turning.
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