HWH Active Air issue - left front cycling up and down while air leveled

[Neal]

I asked Joe about using WD40 and this was his reply:

Good morning Neal

You can certainly try it but I do not think it is gummed up. I suspect something got between the needle and seat and it is either still there or the seat is damaged and it will never seal no matter what you do.

If you want to try to get rid of it start the coach and build it up on air, then go to manual leveling and raise the front bags as far as they will go then lower the front bags all the way down. Do that a couple of times and see if it works. If it does great you are home free, if not you have a valve coming you will just need to replace it. Personally I think you will end up having to replace it, but you have nothing to loose by doing the raising and lowering except a little bit of time.

Looking at the pictures it looks to me like the manifold is not to bad to get to so changing the valve will be easy.

Thanks

Joe

I told him you reached out to him Jerry and that you have the same problem. Not sure if you two connected yet.

I replied to Joe asking if any thread sealant is needed with the valve replacement and if so what do we use.

 

[Neal]

Joe replied:

You will not need any sealant. The valve is an O ring seal and the new valve comes with the O rings already on it, so just remove the old solenoid screw the new one back in, plug it in and go.

 

[J&JD]

Joe called today and after much discussion and looking at my diagram he realized that he sent you the wrong solenoid. We both need the hi flow RAP25428 solenoid for your left & my right which are probably leaking back thru the mufflers which is why no one can find the leak. He laughed and said he would be contacting you. BTW, he is off on Fridays. Mine is on the way ($270+ I believe).
Are we having fun yet?

 

[Neal]

Yes, thanks, he called me after speaking with you and has the correct one on the way.

Fun yet? Let's wait for the installation, and tag you're it, you go first

If this is a simple fix as it seems I'm going to be very happy. I'll take it!

I do want to try the full air up and dump a few times to see if I can get the gunk to clear but I think my carnival ride Monday night was enough of the up and downs. But I'm still going to explore that theory before I start the joy of getting behind the manifold blindly. Not too worried about it, another thing to learn and put in the bag of tricks though.

 

[Neal]

I had to go to the coach yesterday so I figured I'd try the up/down cycle which I did 5 times, no change. I then put it back in travel mode (ride height) and turned off the key and went up front to spray the manifold with soapy water and also listen. I saw no bubbling on lines or even mufflers which is good in that there seems to be no external leaks as discussed. I could swear putting my ear near the manifold I could hear a constant hiss of air but I could be imagining. I put my phone in video mode to record and put it near the back, again I think I hear the same thing but not sure. So I think it's a leak out the back side that I can't see or as I suspected it's just leaking air back into the system and not holding the air level.

I don't have a shipment notification yet of the correct solenoid so in hold mode. I'm going to need a mirror wand thing to see behind the manifold for when it's time to figure out how to get channel pliers on the right part and get it unscrewed. Going to order this set:

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[J&JD]

Consider the smallest of the mirrors as size doesn’t matter as much for the view but small is better for tight areas. As for hearing the leak, the muffler would do exactly what it is supposed to do, muffle the sound of the air leaking back thru the solenoid from the air bag.
I have also not heard any shipping info on my solenoid. Will let you know my progress. Sorry the up/down test didn’t help but it was a long shot.

 

[Neal]

Joe emailed me this morning, our parts should be shipping UPS today or tomorrow.

 

[J&JD]

Well, unfortunately, I installed the new solenoid yesterday and there was no change as the right front dropped within an hour. Very disappointed. I had such high hopes. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Neal]

Devastating news. Let me know what Joe says.

 

[redbaron]

Well, unfortunately, I installed the new solenoid yesterday and there was no change as the right front dropped within an hour. Very disappointed. I had such high hopes. Back to the drawing board.View attachment 27131View attachment 27132View attachment 27133

If you manually air the bags using the valves in the driver side front bay, and hit "stop" on the HWH Active Air, does it hold? I would do that experment and let Joe know the results, as that will narrow down the issue.

 

[Neal]

Dare I ask “did you replace the right one?”

 

[J&JD]

Dare I ask “did you replace the right one?”

The one just below and right of the one I replaced is marked “left”. The labels for the right side are hidden against the mounting. The one I replaced is the one Joe for sure marked for me as the “right”.

 

[J&JD]

If you manually air the bags using the valves in the driver side front bay, and hit "stop" on the HWH Active Air, does it hold? I would do that experment and let Joe know the results, as that will narrow down the issue.

I actually had to do this on my 2k mile trip back to HWH last year to make the coach drivable. The bags stayed inflated for each day of travel. Each morning I topped them off as needed which required surprising little air most of the mornings. Did this for 6 days. I’ll try it again here. What I never tried was to air level and push stop. I’ll give that a try tomorrow. Thanks.

Edit:
Air leveled and pressed “stop”. Front is raised 4” to level. 45 minutes later right side totally aired down. Checked front schrader valves for bag pressure, left 93psi, right 35psi. Both should be above 85 as the front is parked low and raised 4” if level. Filled right bag thru schrader to level coach (88psi) with system still off. 45 minutes later right side totally aired down. Many times right front has been checked for leaks by techs with none found. A real conundrum.

 

[lostinfla]

I feel your pain. I'm dealing with an AA issue via emails with Joe and it seems as if I'm going to have to make the trip to Moscow this year. My normal pressures (at install) were LF 90, RF 90, LR 98, RR 90. (no tag) While traveling last year, I happened to check the pressures and they showed the two rears at LR 70, RR 110. I was at Moscow last July for replacement of the two slide solenoids in the second bay and have them check for air leaks. They did find two leaks at the rear brake R14 valve, but would not touch it because "it isn't part of their system". (had Gaffney repair that) Don't know how long this has been happening as I rarely checked the pressures, but didn't notice it until after I left Gaffney. Now, while traveling, I have been dropping the right rear pressure via the suspension screen which brings the pressures back to "close to normal" for about 10 or 15 min before the pressures go slightly the opposite way. I then go back to standard suspension setting and the pressure in the right rear climbs back up. Frustrating to say the least, but at least the coach is drivable, (for now).

 

[Neal]

Finally the opportunity came for me to head to the RV in storage and tackle this dreaded job of changing the solenoid. Thanks to @J&JD for some offline discussions and sadly no success on his but he broke the ice on how to do this nasty task. I'm glad I was able to do this on my own vs. paying someone but as expected, far from fun.

My manifold which has the air hoses coming in and the mufflers, solenoids on the back side was NOT accessible by reaching around the back or from below. Hmmm, how am I going to do this? So I studied how they mounted the manifold by welding a bar on to a part behind the left headlight area and I see two bolts on the top that hold the manifold in place. It took a 9/16 socket, I use a ratchet crescent wrench and removed the inside bolt and loosened the outside bolt, of the two, so I could pivot the manifold. This would have been far easier if I removed the 3 air lines but I didn't want to risk breaking that seal so I just pushed on the air lines, pulled on the manifold, really could have used a 3rd hand but it is what it is. As Jerry did you have to disassemble the solenoid as the metal bracket that has the label on it will not clear the adjacent solenoid. I wish I would have done that before loosening the solenoid but I got it apart and off, then through all the zip ties to get the darned thing out.

I should have taken a picture of the new one as I disassembled it and had an uh oh, which was does the motor go on? I looked at the other one still mounted and oriented the writing the same and thankfully it worked.

I aired up and thankfully that worked and then shut off the engine and started a timer on my phone. I did a "rough" measure with my thumb to pinky distance from the fender to a line on the tire and monitored that for 20 minutes. It seems like this worked but I'm not signing off a woohoo until I have this out on the next trip. It seems like it may have dropped a half inch or so but far from the noticeable drop prior to this. I then put the key to the accessory position to energize the HWH system and in the past the left front would air up a good 5+ seconds or so and this time is was just a quick burst which both left and right front did and then an exhaust on both as they were finding ride height. Pressures looked good.

So again, it seems this is fixed but time will tell. As I got home I examined the old solenoid to see if I could find anything obvious which I couldn't but I did notice the o-ring did have o-ring lube on it. Darn, no one told us to do that so I hope that won't be an issue but I'm not taking it off to lube it. But for anyone installing one of these you may want to lube the o-ring first.

Glad that's done. I'll report back in the future to sign and seal the repair or scream I'm headed to HWH in lovely Moscow, IA.