Air Bag fill or Jacks up First

[SGTJOE]

Do I fill my Air Bags before I bring the jacks up or do I bring the jacks up first before I fill the air bags?

It's class A Tradewinds motorhome

[SuperBus]

Typically, your air gauges are monitoring pressure in your main (drive axle) and secondary (front/tag axle) air tanks. If your tanks are reading the same and your air bags seem to be losing height at the same rate, I would think the leak is upstream of the tanks. I had an issue where the brake protection valve was leaking on my front tank which was had a symptom like leaky airbags.

The best suggestion I could offer is get it aired up and block the frame so you can get under it safely. Once under the coach start spraying all fittings with soapy water and see where the leak(s) are. I had an issue where the brake protection valve was leaking on one of my front tanks which was had a symptom like leaky airbags. I could have spent a lot of time and money trying to fix that through different troubleshooting methods, but the old soapy water trick revealed the problem quickly. Good luck!

[SGTJOE]

I was keeping track of the air bags losing air over night and when I went to start the MH both the front and rear air bag gages were showing the same air loss.

Question==Does this mean that my air leak is somewhere else other than one of the air bags??????????????????????

[wallynm]

RTFM as read the factory manual!

SGTJOE wrote:
Do I fill my Air Bags before I bring the jacks up or do I bring the jacks up first before I fill the air bags?

It's class A Tradewinds motorhome

[JRscooby]

I don't know snot about MH, but logic tells me leveling with air bags inflated would mean your floor would be higher than needed.
If the rear is above ride height, on a truck, the leveling valve would just dump air if tried to air up. Does MH act different?
If rear is low, would it put side pressure on the jacks before lifted off ground?

[SuperBus]

When we first started out in our coach I would bring the jacks up then let the bags fill. However, HWH recommends allowing the bags to fill prior to lifting the jacks. I've been doing this the last few years and the only issue I noticed is that, depending on the grade, I'll sometimes get a good "pop" once enough weight is removed from the jacks and the coach can "slide" on the pads a few fractions of an inch as the suspension moves through it's arch. The only times I don't do air bags first is if we are on a terribly unlevel site and one or more wheels are off the ground.

I'd have to go back and check my manual, but I don't recall Newmar saying to do it one way or another.

[dougrainer]

MOST Diesel air bag systems will have a hard time fully inflating when you have your jacks extended. The reason is the ride height arms for the Air bags. So, retract the jacks first then air bags. BUT, you can accomplish BOTH by starting the engine, hitting the Jack retract and let the system retract AND air up the bags. UNLESS, you have the chrome air bag lever on your console for the air bags. If so, put the lever in fill and not exhaust. Also, IF you do NOT exhaust the air bags when setting up at campsite and you extend the Hydraulic levelors, once the jacks hit the ground, the air bag ride height arms will be tripped and after a few minutes the air bags will then exhaust. BUT, doing this will cause your RV to sit HIGHER. LESS stroke raise on the Hydraulic jacks. That is why you dump the air before leveling jacks are deployed. Doug

[chindog]

If you fill your airbags first, you coach doesn't have as far to settle when you pull up your jacks.