Author Topic: Front door seal ....  (Read 6419 times)

Tom Rogers

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Front door seal ....
« on: March 08, 2010, 04:27:24 PM »
Our 06 Monterey has an inflatable seal around the entrance door which prohibits wind noise when driving. Well ... we've been hearing wind noise (very obvious) as well as I used to hear the seal expand/contract. Inspecting the rubber seal I can't see any specific tears/rips or where the air supply line is located. Anyone had any exposure/knowledge for this seal? Thanks folks. Tom

Joel Ashley

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Re: Front door seal ....
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2010, 10:45:09 PM »
Supposedly the seal should inflate only when the engine is running and the transmission in Drive.  This does not eliminate the possibility of the door being open at the time (if the brake is on), so the inflated seal can be damaged when the door is then closed.  This could occur during coach in-shop service tests or other scenarios where the door seal is inflated and the door open.  Or a passenger may open and slam closed an incompletely shut door with the RV in gear, obviously an unsafe act, as well as ill-advised for the seal's sake.  Obvious rule:  don't open or leave open the door with the tranny in Drive.  Make sure the door is firmly shut before driving, precluding any temptation to open and reshut it after the fact;  but don't "slam" it either, potentially throwing it out of alignment or loosening connections and fasteners.

The regulator for the door seal is curb side of the generator compartment, behind the front cap.  It should be adjusted to 3-4 psi, and no more than 5 psi.  I've never messed with our regulator, so cannot advise on precisely how it adjusts.  You could have a microleak anywhere in the system, and 3-4 psi wouldn't take much of a leak to keep deflated.  Locate and check the air line to the seal(s) by tracing from the regulator.  Others here may know for sure, but it's possible there is more than one seal involved in the door, and perhaps only one has failed.

All that said, my wife was not used to the wind noise on her side when our coach was new, because our previous rig had a mid-entry door.  Inquiries to other owners and Bend Service Center resulted in some tweaking of the door alignment, but in general the concensus was that the doors are inherently noisy, and the seals can only quell so much of it.  Be sure the door is fully closing in the first place - alignment may be the issue rather than the air seal, which won't properly seal an out-of-whack or incompletely closed door.  Our rig needed a latch tweak when new, as I recall, to help its wind noise problem - the seals were fine.

But since you no longer hear the seals activate, your first bet is to backtrack the regulator line(s) and check regulator output (safely) somehow.
Joel and Lee Rae Ashley
Clackamas, Oregon
36.9 ft. 2006 Monterey Ventura IV, aka"Monty Rae"
C9 400HP Cat

Tom Rogers

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Re: Front door seal ....
« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2010, 11:05:20 PM »
The regulator for the door seal is curb side of the generator compartment, behind the front cap.  It should be adjusted to 3-4 psi, and no more than 5 psi.  I've never messed with our regulator, so cannot advise on precisely how it adjusts.  You could have a microleak anywhere in the system, and 3-4 psi wouldn't take much of a leak to keep deflated.

What does it look like? Similar to the vac pump I just replaced?

Joel Ashley

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Re: Front door seal ....
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2010, 10:48:53 PM »
Tom-

Sorry to take awhile getting back to you.  

If you stick your head under the right front "fender" (in front of the entry door), straight above you is the regulator setup, bracket-mounted to the horizontal frame component.  It is a two-component fixture and not very big.  I will attach herein (I hope) a graphic of it out of my owner's manual.  In the following, when I say "right" or "left" I refer to the coach with driver's side being "left".  The left component as you gaze up under the front cap is black with what appears to be a large knob on the bottom, which may be the means of pressure adjustment - my book doesn't explain that, unfortunately.  The second and smaller diameter component is brass, and the black hose to the door comes out of it on the right.  

That approx. 3/8" hose on my rig splices to a 1/4" hose mid-loop, and that goes up to the door and seal via a hole in the stepwell.  A brown plastic? hose feeds unregulated air into the black component and routes in from a bundle of wires and hoses above the horizontal frame.  You could have a leak anywhere, from wherever that brown hose comes from to the door seal itself.  I'd start by checking the easy stuff - the hose fittings on either side of the regulator including the splice between the 3/8 and 1/4 " hoses.  They are the most in harm's way;  a road hazard/rock/stick could have dislodged or loosened a hose.

I'd do that before messing with the regulator adjustment, but if necessary, I spose one could disconnect the 3/8" hose at the union/splice and adapt a pressure guage to it (preferrably via a long hose so you aren't under the coach while testing).  Your guage will have to be able to clearly distinquish between 3-5 psi, though.  Hope you don't have to disassemble the door to check the hose fitting in there.  My book says the air seal is one piece on the '06 Monterey, so a micro tear anywhere could be the culprit.  But as I recall you've been working on the auxilliary compressor or vacuum pump lately?  I'd check that out first, though I'm sure the door seal air comes from the main tanks, not the little compressor.  You may have inadvertantly snagged and loosened a hose.

In the diagram below (shown as if looking toward the coach from the front), the brown hose is on the right, enters the larger component which is actually black and has the large knurled knob on the bottom, then that connects to the brass component with the two wires, and the 3/8" hose comes out of that on the left and ultimately to the door seal.  My guess is that the black knob is the pressure adjustor, and the two wires turn the valve inside on or off as determined by engine/tranny activity.
(Note the frame-mounting bracket is actually configured above the black component, not to the side as illustrated.)

Hope this is of some help.

Joel

« Last Edit: March 10, 2010, 11:05:40 PM by 77 »
Joel and Lee Rae Ashley
Clackamas, Oregon
36.9 ft. 2006 Monterey Ventura IV, aka"Monty Rae"
C9 400HP Cat

Tom Rogers

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Re: Front door seal ....
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2010, 05:44:15 AM »
WOW .... thanx so much !! I will jump (well, crawl under) on this tomorrow. Just pulled into Tracy, Ca ... left Palm Desert this morning.