HWH active air ride install

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rhmahoney

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Joined
Feb 9, 2005
Posts
1,405
HWH in motion air ride upgrade.

Day 1.
Arrived before 8 am and was met in parking lot by the tech who drove my rig onto an overhead set of rails so they could read off all the numbers on the transmission.

The unseen engineers then consulted their tables and issued me a cryptic 2 lines of text and I was sent off 27 miles to the east to an Alison transmission dealer ( 2 blocks west of Quad Cities FlyingJ).

The instructions were poorly thought out. They used Google Mapquest search results that had me go out of my way along 2 sides of a triangle rather than the shorter one side route that started with a left turn at a stoplight!


(proceed past a traffic light left turn onto 83rd st to turn left at fairmount st (no traffic light, small hard to read street sign, busy street). This led me back south to 83rd street where i found the business to be on the SW corner of the intersection (half a block south of the end of trip pointer on the Mapquest map). Such errors are typical of these search results, unfortunately.)

Once there, the reprogramming was done promptly and easily as the transmission data plug is barely in plain sight at junction of dash and side console where trans control panel is mounted.

By 10:30 am, I am back at HWH and am directed to a bay in the blue building to west of the one with the other customer service bays and the waiting room. Again the tech drove my rig onto the rails, this time with me inside... I found it again disquieting!

2 techs worked steadily  till 5 pm. At the end of day  there was a air manifold mounted on the floor of the small compartment in front of left front tire. They had every compartment door open in a search for a place to put the other air manifold and an air tank. A hole has been drilled through the floor under the steering wheel for the cable to the control panel.

I did find that the new system will control both the in motion and campground leveling functions.

Day 2, 3. Much work going on underneath. They re-plumbed the air system with new hoses and all new valves. The air tank ( now I have 7) fits in the 2nd bay on the street side. There is an angled brace that makes some wasted space on that end. They also put the manual bag fill valves here for use in case of system failure.

The dash control panel installer was dismayed to find no place to put the 6 x 7 inch panel. He ended up having to surface mount it over the short left side dash panel where the analog fuel and air pressure gauges were. I will have Davis Cabinet cut away the wood dash surround and build in the HWH panel.

Unfortunately, he cut the wires to the fuel gauge (at my OK) which turned out to be a very bad thing to do! Thereafter, my nagging 'lady' would periodically tell me my diesel fuel level was low. As I was driving to Des Moines, I tried to run the generator for roof A/C usage... No go, the 'lady' again told me fuel was low and promptly shut off the generator.

After I got to the CG, I called CC and they found the wires I need to pull from a 'small' circuit board in the overhead dash. There are 3 small ones over on the far right where I have a inspection door. CC will send me a pdf detailing the layout of the board. Should be something even I can do.

Day 4. They almost got finished today. Much testing with coach jiggling and bouncing about.

Day 5. Final tweaks. Test drive and instructions from the main engineer. The system does not lean into curves, but rather is prevented from leaning out. Feels ever so much more stable on curves, ramps, lane changes. Haven't found any high crowned roads to test yet. The ride has softened. You can also adjust ride ht in motion; up for soft, down for firm. Only at very low speed, you can raise ride to max with one button push to negotiate steep ramps, gutters.

I am pleased with the system. The coach had a comfortable and stable ride before. Now it is even better.
 
rhmahoney said:
HWH in motion air ride upgrade.
I am pleased with the system. The coach had a comfortable and stable ride before. Now it is even better.

Now Russ,

I thought I told you not to tell Terry anything about this!!! ;)

Enjoy the ride.
Betty
 
Sounds like quite the system Russ.  Thanks for the detailed report.  How will Terry ever catch up to claim his title of the toy man. ;D ;D
 

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