Tip Newmar Academy and Spartan Recommended Motorhome Start Up Procedure

[MarkMaxPayne]

One of the great things about the traveling Newmar Academy was that both Freightliner and Spartan chassis specialists were on site to present and answer questions one of the days. Matthew Munson, Technician Trainer for Spartan RV Chassis, has full on practical hands-on knowledge from being a certified mechanic and service technician for Spartan for years before becoming one of their trainers.

A summary of the steps for the very first start up of the day (not all starts):

• Put foot on the brake pedal and hold it there while putting the ignition into ON, but DO NOT start. If a push button ignition do a quick press and release, not holding it long enough to start the engine.
• Continue to hold your foot on the brake and listen for pops of air to come from around the vehicle. You should hear 2 per axle (i.e. 4 on a coach without tag axles and 6 with tags).
• Once you hear the ABS air modulators purge with those pops, then the test of the ABS modulators is completed and you can go on to start the vehicle.
• Hearing all the pops means that the air modulators for the ABS are functioning properly.

Now you may start the coach knowing the ABS checks out:

• Start the coach.
• Watch the air pressure gauges come up to full (~125 psi front and ~135psi rear).
• Listen for the air dryer purge
• Once the air dryer purges you should observe a a slight drop in pressure on one of the gauges, which is normal.
• If you have drum brakes vs. disk brakes release the park brake and perform 2 or 3 full service brake applications to allow the rear drum slack adjusters to automatically adjust for proper brake force application.

None of the attendees of the class with Spartan chassis were informed of these steps by their dealer when purchasing their coach (or we all forgot about it since then). Attached are pictures of the training slide and handout the instructor reviewed in detail with us during the class as he went through all the steps and why we need to do them. Short answer on the why is we want to make sure all of these are in working order before we need the ABS to assist us if/when called upon.

Best,
-Mark

 

[SteveMA]

Thanks Mark for sharing. Great explanation Of process and reasoning for doing it!!