Pulled out of the RV Park and noticed that as I was leaving the coach was not level and the travel light was not on. Made it to the Walmart a mile away and I'm trying to get the system to work but will not. Yes I've tried everything that I can think of. The HWH panel is working as far as the lights so that's not it. I checked the fuses in the HWH computer and they all seem to be okay although it's a little hard to tell laying on my back with blurry eyes cuz I can't see that close lol. Even with my glasses on the left driver side airbags are fully deflated and the right are inflated and will not deflate when I hit the dump switch.
I've read instructions from somebody where they tell you how to bypass the system but it didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Any ideas?
I'm sure I'm going to have to send the computer back to HWH but right now I need to get a hundred miles south to quartzsite.
If you have your HWH wiring schematic try jumping 12 V straight to the travel solenoid wires unplug them from the control board first and go straight 12 V and see what happens. You can do that right at the control box. Get your 12 volts from the power wire in the box. If the travel solenoids are working that will make it go to ride height, as long as the power is on them
Where are you? Havasu?
Make sure the ground wires on the HWH panel are properly secured. There's a stud on the outside of the HWH box with two white wires going to it. I've seen similar issues to yours when the nut holding those two grounds on backs off
I have had a lot of trouble with the travel fuse blowing but I could always get it to manually
set. If you have a test light that I find the easiest way to check fuses or could use a volt meter.
Hopefully it is just a bad ground.
Does going into raise selection do anything? Can you operate in manual to correct height and pull fuse? Bruce is spot on with powering up ride height circuit
Just to cover the basics, the salesman switch is on, right? One guy just ran into that on the FT FB page with his HWH not working.
Thanks currently in buckeye at the Walmart. The ground wire seem to be intact on the side of the computer case. All lights at the control panel working,
Salesman switches on I tried to cycle that no change. As far as I can tell all the fuses are good. I've got a lot of traffic around me and I really don't want to pull everything out and start going at it with a multimeter here unless I absolutely have to. I seem to not be able to deflate the passenger front airbag. Trying to inflate the driver's front airbag I do not hear the compressor coming on. Lately the compressor has been making a weird sound so I wonder if I have a bad compressor now?
Bruce can you be a little more specific ?
Can you talk me through the steps? Thanks
The engine compressor should provide air when the engine is on. With ignition on, you should be able to press the "travel" mode button on the HWH control panel and the corresponding green light on the control panel should light up. If that's not happening, your problem is in the brains somewhere (either the control box or perhaps the control panel). You shouldn't need your aux compressor for this.
If the green travel light is turning on, then you might have a problem with your travel solenoids.
I don't think a bad compressor is your problem as you are too high. If no one can figure out
how to fix it and as you want to go a hundred miles I would get some fittings and values and
disconnect the air lines going to the air bags and fill them manually to the proper ride height
and shut off the valves and that should keep you going. Hopefully someone can come up with
a simpler temporally fix.
Again, the engine driven compressor is the one that provides air while driving/with engine on. You could drive cross country with no auxiliary compressor and the coach suspension would be just fine.
The HWH system diagrams are available online here: Foretravel Motorcoach System Diagrams – HWH® Corporation (http://server51.hwhcorp.com/?page_id=57195)
I have proven this to be correct.
Bob you will have to get in your manual and find the wire number associated with the ride or raise circuit to workaround it. I dont have access to manuals since im at work. I can look them up for you after 4pm if you dont get them before. Does the manual work at all to get height close? Adjust and pull fuse
Bruce's solve is the probably the simplest. You ultimately just need to get 12v power to the two travel solenoids on each six pack and make sure there isn't any power going to the other 4 on each sixpack. You could literally hotwire 12v from anywhere you want. After that, the ride height control valves will take care of everything else.
4. If the control box is removed, +12 ignition power must be
applied to the travel solenoid wires (GRAY) 1700 in the front
and (GRAY) 3700 in the rear air harnesses. This will allow the
height control valve to function. See MP85451F of section (3)
This the 2 wires you need to put 12 volts to. This would be a lot simpler.
So I've been able to get the front passenger side airbag to go down some but the rears are now not inflating. I found that the right adjustment bracket was loose on the passenger rear. I tightened that up and still no go. I went in and pulled the 7.5 amp fuse on the travel solenoid and saw no change there I'm going to go into Walmart and buy some fuses and see if that makes any difference.
Unfortunately it didn't.
Hey Elliott! Just our of curiosity, what's the return path for the electricity from the solenoids? Is it through the chassis or individual ground wires back to the HWH box?
Art I'm 90% sure it's individual grounds back to the HWH box based on what I've seen at the 6 packs and when diagnosing the control box. I'm not sure where I found this but it's from HWH 625 series installation instructions that I have saved in my foretravel folder. For that system at least, the diagram seems to indicate ground wires to the box. These HWH levelling systems are not custom to FT and I assume are made to operate independently of the chassis.
Is there a separate plug back at the box for each six pack?
Do you know which of these systems you have in your coach?
I have a different series HWH system than Bob but yes, in my case it's one plug for the rear six pack and one plug for the front six pack I believe.
Yes all the grounds return back to box with ground lug externally. Easy to separate front from rear. I texted Bob and he said he was underway on i10
Can you safely check the dump ports on the front 6-pack?
If it won't dump/lower on one side, it's possible the exhaust/dump port is blocked with a mud dauber nest. Over-inflation on one side might make the other side appear underinflated.
Appreciate all the help. As you all know when you're on the road and things break is very frustrating. With you guys help as well as twig via phone and his friend Scott I think his name was who basically reinforced earlier suggestions about jumping from 12 volts to the gray wires and that did the trick. I am now at quartzsite foretravel site. A little shooken up from the day but I knew at some point my leveling system was going to go out. It's been kind of funky for the last couple years but it's always done what it needed to do until today. So the next thing to do would be to rebuild a six packs which I have the kits for and see if that fixes it or if not I'll have to send my board to HWH.
Again I appreciate all the help. Below is a picture of what my bypass/jumper looks like.
You know how it is if things don't break you don't learn how to fix them...
Oh and in case anybody starts to mention it yes that was before I taped it all together.
Glad you made it now you have time to sort things out.
I have to say watching this thread today is WOW. Everyone on this forum jumping in to help is great. I hope someday I will have the knowledge on my new coach to help out as well. Really nice job guys.
Bruce Beane hit it. Here at Quartzsite it was Francis Fritch that told Bob over the phone to get 12Vs to the grey wires. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times.......FRANCIS CAN FIX ANYTHING!. 5 coaches here now. Get your reservations in quick. It's getting crowded.
Sorry I got involved in something else, couldn't get back to form. Glad Frances helped him out.
The dog can't walk itself?
Welcome to Foreforums! That's the way we roll here ^.^d
We are over a month out and it is crowed now?
Thank's Elliott for the help, but so much for the Socratic method.
Power to the gray wires shoots down my supposition that the grounds are faulty.
Power to the solenoid shows that the coil and solenoid are fine.
And then logic sees a squirrel: So while you're at Quartzsite have a technician conform that your HWH board is toast and not just some bad plug in connections.
But overall, Nice Work Bob!
Art& Lynn
5 rigs Chuck. Tongue in cheek.
.
I'm glad you were able to get back on the road in relatively short order.
Regarding HWH, I got this voicemail this morning...
"Hi Chris, this is Caitlin with HWH. I'm returning your parts call from back in the end of August. If you are still needing help, please feel free to reach out at 800-321-3494. Thank you."
Sounds like there's going to be a "Christmas in Quartzsite" gathering. Has that happened before ?
Have you called back? I missed a call and I was told they would take a message and call me back. Don't remember how long but it was a while.
Thanks Art! I was just going to send it in but you know HWH may have a tent here but that won't be for a little while. It's a good idea though
Just called HWH was on hold for 10 minutes and then I got a live person to talk to they already knew who I was and a service technician is expected to call me back within about a week which is fine with me cuz I'm not going anywhere right now anyway.
The lady I spoke to did tell me that if I was stuck at Walmart still they would have got somebody on the phone quicker although she didn't really specify how quick. I told her I had something better. The fore forums...
Maybe I just called at the right time.... Somebody will call me back next week and I'm pretty sure that if they're going to have a technician at quartzite he'll know hopefully. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to send the board in for repair though.
Francis Fritch was a big help though and talked me through the jumper process for the travel solenoids.
I think I may make a permanent jumper for it and store it on the computer so it's right there.
No, I didn't call them back, I replaced a broken spring on one of my levelers back in August and was able to get the part number from Foretravel. I just thought it was strange that HWH was that far behind.
More than likely you will need to send the control box in for a rebuild. Might as well send the touch pad as well. Try calling HWH and ask for Ashley in service she gave me the return authorization. It took about a month or so.
That's exactly what I did.
It'd be pretty easy to just build your own control box that allows you to manually level and go in and out of travel mode. That'd hold you over until yours is rebuilt. I'm thinking about doing it so I (and the forum) have a backup after seeing enough of these control box issues.
When I called them in the summer about a bad slide synchronization cylinder, it was about three months before I got a call back. Then I was told it would be an unspecified number of months before it would be returned if I sent it to them. Luckily I had already found someone else to repair the cylinder. The person at HWH told me that they were just that far behind with the employees they have.
I have a back up system for travel height. And I have a back up system for a raise. I never built on the lower it. Takes me a few seconds to hook up the connections and it's good to go. It's tied into all the travel height solenoids and raise solenoids. Also have a manual setup to raise or lower as needed using the manual settings for over the road
Bob, I was thinking more of a generic technician, someone comfortable with solid state electronics who knows the names of the connectors and what page they're on in the Newark catalog. Although if you want to go down that rabbit hole, you could duplicate the HWH controller using software in a PLC and some relays.
Well I'm on the queue for a call back from technical service. They could not tell me when that would be, but indicated that it could be next week. They did say that if I was in an emergency situation they could expedite things but since I'm here at q now I guess I'll be all right.
Francis here also did the same thing did away with the HWH leveling system and set up switches to do it. And if worse comes to worse then that is what I will do. I already know how to activate the travel solenoids with the jumper wire.
The next question is though if I apply power to the raise solenoids can I get the stands in place so I don't get squashed when I rebuild the front six pack?
And I would imagine that applying power to the lower ones will then release air? And lower it back down?
And twig and Francis and I already discussed it would be better to raise all corners at the same time to lessen tweaking on the frame.
Inputs on that would be appreciated
Thanks
Bob
Yes. Turn engine on and let pressure build until you hear the blow-off at the air dryer, then apply power to both front raise solenoids until you have enough room to install stands
Yep - engine can be off for this. Remove power from the raise solenoids and apply to both dump (lower) solenoids. It is basically just opening an exhaust port for the air in the bags.
Whether or not you put safety stands in up front and in back, or just one end at a time is up to you. I've done it both ways but never just left or right... always with four stands on at least one end.
I searched and maybe missed it. Has anyone diagramed this out for the forum or a "I'm stuck cheatsheet"? I see things like this and first thing I think is this is going to me. I am gathering everything I can in a digital format so maybe I can figure it out. This seems to be a pretty important one.
In a roundabout way Yes. I believe there is an HWH 600 series troubleshooting guide in the wiki section of the Forum.wiki.foreforums.com If someone don't beat me to it I will post a direct link for you tomorrow. This has a step-by-step ladder system as to how to check the system. There is also wiring and air diagrams that are helpful. Chuck has posted several links to it in various threads.
Mike
Thanks, I have been looking through that as well. I am still familiarizing myself with all this. After more study I am sure I will understand more.
Hope this is it.
Larry,
That is the one I was referencing, that along with the help of this group is the best source for troubleshooting. Now this isn't for all Foretravel coaches but if you have a different system HWH has a great site that has all the different systems that have been used on our coaches. Thanks for rounding that up Larry.
Mike
Yesterday we blocked the coach up and I started rebuilding the front six pack insitu. I started with the front three and quickly got the hang of it. The top one though I had to remove the back nut to get it off since the bracket that goes around the solenoid would not turn it was hitting the top of the metal frame of the coach. But I got all three done before I was freezing and had to go inside. One was definitely a little loose and the o-ring a little dirty and I think that's where my leak is. Today I did the other three. I had marked everything with colored zip ties but I tried to use my memory for which three went in order. Yeah no surprise to me I transpose the black and the blue zip ties but it was easily fixed when I tried to raise the coach and it wouldn't raise switch those two around and now everything works. However stands are still in because I have some other work I want to do but at some point I need to hook up the HWH computer again and see if things are any different which I don't think they will be. I'm still waiting on a call back from them and don't really expect anything before the last week of the year if not the first week of next year. I'm thinking in the meantime about just making a box to control it from the cockpit two switches for the front raise and lower two switches for the rear and two switches for the travel mode I have a Bluetooth level that I can reinstall. If HWH is not able to help me in any reasonable time frame then that's plan b. I don't have any problems with the rear six pack so I'm not going to rebuild that at this point and just save the kit for that later. Two of my solenoids were not original. The whole thing had been replaced as an entire part so I'm just thinking somebody went to the factory rather than just rebuilding it.
But I really appreciate the rebuild kits for these things and the little wrench came in handy. The toilet paper though had started to disintegrate.
Make sure you lubricate the o-rings I was going to use some silicone lubricant that I use on my water filtration system but couldn't find it so I used petroleum jelly instead. Either way I think that will give me a leak free seal knock on wood.
Hats off to twig for helping me not only get the thing up on the jack stands but also for checking the solenoids today. Couldn't have done it without you buddy.