ride leveling issue

[Jeff Wheless]

I am having a couple of issues on my rear ride height.     

The RV was raising significantly higher on the driver side in the rear when turning on the RV.  I could use the panel to level it and seemed to be fine when driving.   Before I made a trip, I took it into the shop fro repair and when adjusting the read levelers, the passenger side leveler sensor broke and it was replaced with a new one.     It seemed fine on the next trip.   

As I powerered up for my most recent trip, the driver side raising significantly higher after starting issue reappeared (manually adjusted to level) and the passenger side bottomed out (after 30m driving) causing the leveler down alarm to go off when driving.   I limped back home.   Any ideas on where to start to get this resolved?

I can raise and lower front/rear, side/side using the panel.   

Thanks for your insight!

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Jeff,
First thing I'd check is the leveling adjusters. I think there are 2 in the rear and 1 in front on your coach. Verify that they are not broken and that the clamp that holds the arm to the shaft is tight. However, DO NOT attempt any adjustment without having the coach supported by wooden blocks or other suitable means as a mistake can cause the coach body to drop almost instantly. They should be adjusted for about 10" between the top and bottom plates that support the air bags. You can verify this in your owner's manual
Steve

[Jeff Wheless]

That is what they were adjusted (exact per manual, but around 10" if I recall correctly)  to when I had it in and the one leveler replaced.  So in theory, the leveling adjusters should all be functioning.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

I'd recheck them. They may not have tightened the clamps sufficiently. Also look for an air leak in the passenger side rear bag or line that feeds it. (use soapy water). If everything checks out it could be the controller.
Steve

[Joel Ashley]

Linkage clamp that can break or as Steve suggests, can loosen if they didn’t clamp well:
https://www.amazon.com/Haldex-Midland-RN10JC-Linkage-Repair/dp/B0046NW0DW

[Jeff Wheless]

I'll get those rechecked and start troubleshooting the controller as well.   Thanks for the fast replies!

[Gerald Farris]

Jeff,
It sounds like you are confusing the two systems. The leveling system (the panel) is designed to level the coach when you are parked, and it has nothing to do with the ride height when you are traveling with the leveling system turned off. The coach ride height when the leveling system is off and you are driving is controlled by the three ride height sensors only.

Gerald

[Jeff Wheless]

So to get my head wrapped around this, the ride leveler is the leveler control valves only (e.g. analog) with no controller interaction, while the controller is solely for leveling when not traveling.    I had thought the controller had some interaction in travel mode, but different from when stationary.

[Eric Maclean]

Hi Jeff
your coach has three ride height valves two for the rear right and left and one for the front it sounds to me like you have a leak in one of the rear systems.
each of the rear ride height valves are responsible for the two air bags on it's respected side of the rear axle either one of the ride height valves is not adjusted properly as has been mentioned.
how ever it appears that your problem occurs after the coach has been sitting and the air has leaked out of the air bags.
on a coach of this age this leak down over several day is common and not a large issue but an issue can arise when airing back up as you have stated.
I had much the same type of problem with a front ride height ( the system was very slow to return to ride height and in fact never achieved the proper 10 inch ride height) after replacing the valve and not fixing the problem  I discovered that the air pressure coming to the valve was not high enough to raise the coach to proper height and very slow to provide.
i actually ended up feeding the valve a known good air supply (shop air) to confirm my diagnoses.
after a long search I discovered that there are two  air pressure regulators mounted on the cross member above the transmission
these are for the ride height system the one on the drivers side feeds air to the rear ride height valves and the one on the passenger side feeds air to the front ride height valve these are Haldex air regulator and from the best of my memory should be set at approx 65 PSI on my coach the one regulator (front) was sticking and would not allow air to move through it  hence slow and not enough pressure
I removed the valve took it apart cleaned and bench tested and set the pressure to 70 PSI and every think returned to normal
In your case you may have one side loosing air and the other remaining at ride height when the air comes back if the reg doesn't pass air the low side wont return to ride height .
the air leveling system although it uses the same air bags uses a different air supply and will raise and lower properly.
Hope this helps
Eric
 

[Jeff Wheless]

Thanks for the insight.   I'll bring this up when I take to the shop today.   I'll document the outcome so that others can search and find possible resolutions to their issues.     An invaluable resource of this forum!

[Jerry Emert]

I had a very similar issue and wound up driving with a severe list to Port!  I assisted the guy who fixed it and another thing to note that in addition to the ride height sensors there is also a valve (or valves) that shifts the system into travel mode.  That was my problem.  One of the valves was not working (broken wire) so the coach was only partially going into travel mode.  Replaced valve and off we went.  Good luck.

[Jeff Wheless]

So far it looks like we have a combination of things. One of the travel mode solenoids was bad. One went bad when it was being worked on, wires came off due to corrosion when wiggled. The controller is not outputting a voltage on the travel circuit. So the solenoids have all been replaced and we are sending in the controller unit to HWH.  Stay tuned...

[Jeff Wheless]

Wow.   Finally got to done.    2 bad solenoids, mismatched levelers and a bad controller.     Now all is good.     How it was even working before was beyond me, I guess it held air well enough that it masked the ride height issue, which had been getting progressively worse.     Kudos to the tech who resolved everything.     

In the end, two travel circuit solenoids needed replacing due to the wiring corroded and broke from internal terminal.    That got us to be able to at least go into travel mode with power to those solenoids.   The controller was not outputting a travel mode signals (HWH repaired the controller very reasonably) and repairing that got us to the controller able to invoke travel mode.    The RV was STILL leaning though and the root cause to that aspect was that the the rear replacement leveler the other shop had put in (sourced from Beaver Coach Sales) was not optimal since the geometry was mismatched to tothe opposite original leveler, so we replaced the other rear leveler to match.   Voila, everything works.   

I now know far more that I ever wanted to about the electrical and air circuits on the RV leveling system.    It was great to have the reference manuals and such from the Beaver site to fill in the gaps since even HWH did not have the combo air/hydraulic info on their site.

I also picked up a spare controller off ebay and had it tested to function.     Not bad insurance given the age of the electronics and non-op status without a controller.