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Topic: Demco Air Force 1 (Read 2548 times) previous topic - next topic

Demco Air Force 1

I am installing a Demco Airforce One system on my 2006 Nimbus 336.

I found the earlier post from when SMI produced Airforce One on an older Motorhome.

My Toad is a 2002 Jeep Wrangler Sport.  I have that half of the system installed.  It was a bit challenging to fit the control box on that thing because of the size.  I ended fabricating a mounting plate and mounting it where the factory Cruise control would have been installed.  Mine has an aftermarket cruise control that is installed in a different location.

I have checked everything I can without plugging it into the Motor Home.  That is next.

I am trying to locate the two required connections.  The Air Force one needs two connections to the coach Air Supply.

1. Supply Air
2. Metered Air connection.

A reserve air tank must be mounted to the coach to supply the braking air for the towed vehicle.

The way I understand the operation the air reserve tank is filled from the  motorhomes air supply.  The Metered air is the air from the brake petal. This signal is routed to the valves that apply the service brakes.  The reserve air tank has another valve to provide the air to the toad from the reserve tank proportional to the metered air signal..  There is a safety valve on the input of the reserve air tank that will shut off if there is a failure in the Demco system.  This allows the brakes to stay functional on the motor home if the Demco braking system fails. Or if the toad breaks away.

There is no guidance in the Manual on connecting to a Fortravel chassis.

Has anyone installed this system on a Chassis similar to mine. I am going to try to reverse engineer the connections. Any guidance from someone knowledgeable would be appreciated. I know I am not the first one to self install one of these systems on a ForeTravel. 

I will be taking photos as I proceed and post them to the forum when finished.

Thank You All.

tmehrkam near Houston Tx.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #1 –
I installed it on my 99 U 320 and I had installed it on my Monaco Dynasty. The metered line I installed it on the quick release
valve. The other one I will have to look at where I  found supply air. I didn't like the way they said to cut into the line to tee in so
I took the fitting out of the valve and hard teed in. I will try and send some pictures but I first need to be able to get the pictures
onto the computer. I have a different camera and I try an hour ago to upload some pictures and no luck. I will have to wait for my son
to show me how.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #2 –
Quote from: tmehrkam –
A reserve air tank must be mounted to the coach to supply the braking air for the towed vehicle. 
tmehrkam near Houston Tx.
The reserve tank is mounted on the coach, not the towed?

Tim

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #3 –
Quote from: TGordon –
The reserve tank is mounted on the coach, not the towed?

The AirForce1 is similar to Spartan's Safe Tow in that there is a ping tank mounted in the coach.

The box in the towed for the AF1 is a control box.

For non-airbrake coaches, the Stay n' Play Duo is the unit (formerly from SMI and now Demco who bought them in 2017) that has a small compressor in the control box that goes in the towed.  The box is quite a bit larger as a result.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #4 –
I am trying to mount the air tank on the Foretravel coach.  All I need to do is locate the correct airlines to tap into on the coach and I can finish my install.  The Jeep is done.  I will be looking at the coach in detail next week.

I have limited experience with air brakes from 40 years ago.  I helped with a Design for a Seismic Viberator truck. We used a MAC truck chassis.  Later Vibs were installed on custom Chassis of our design. They were implemented with Hydrostatic drives.

I am an Engineer and have worked in the Seismic Exploration field for 40 years.  We designed land and sea based systems to look for oil using sound.  Kind of like an ultrasound of the earth.  Started using Dynamite for the sound source and graduated to Air Guns for Marine Exploration and Viberator Trucks for Land.  Started with 256 sensors and the last system I worked on supported 40,000 sensors.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #5 –
One more question.

I will be working on the air supply while working under the motor home.  I suspect I need to block it up to keep from getting injured.  I see some people have made support jacks to place between the frame members to support the  coach if the air bags deflate.

I do not currently have access to a welder to fabricate something.  What about wood blocks.  I have some 4x4 and 6x6 wood posts I could cut to block up the air bags. 

What do you think?

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #6 –
Search the forum for safety block options. No welding needed.

Rich

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #7 –
I mounted my Airforce 1 equipment near the start battery area.  I made a new backing plate which fit on the vertical support angle irons for the batteries.  (sorry for the road dirt on everything)

Richard

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #8 –
4x4s Should fit in there. Using wood may be a bit controversial but that's what we use when blocking up heavy equipment when
working on them.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #9 –
I went a took a couple pictures. I teed into the the quick release valve for the air for the Air Force one tank and I teed onto the line
for the metered air. I couldn't get at it very well so that's how I did it. If I did it again I think I would have teed into the quick release
valve on the line going to the brake pot. It would have been a lot easier. I hung my air tank an the frame, just drilled two holes and
tap them to bolt on the tank. Jan's way looks good too.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #10 –
Thank you Guys.  I ran across a course by Bendix on air brakes.  It explains all their parts and covers ABS.  I am not sure my 2006 nimbus even has ABS.  It is a basic explanation on air brake systems. There is a full fledge course you can access also. I have not done much but skim over the high lights and air schematic.  Interesting I am better understanding these systems already.

https://www.totaltruckparts.net/brake/airbrakehandbook.html 

This is the link.  You can download a pdf and read it off line. Great night time reading. Yawn.

I am gaining confidence that I can do this without taking it to fortravel.  Thank you for the photos.  That is a big help I can fabricate a metal panel to mount the air reservoir  then go from there.  Might be a little easier to drill through the battery supports than the frame.  I drilled through part of the frame on the Jeep.  One hole drilled real easy.  The second one was a bear the Metal was a whole lot harder in the second location.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #11 –
Quote from: tmehrkam –
I am gaining confidence that I can do this without taking it to fortravel. 

You definitely can.  And if you end up deciding you would rather someone else do the work, there are lots of independent shops with lower shop rates that can do it.  If you are anywhere near Denton, Texas, Danny's RV can handle it.  They did ours back in 2015 when we changed tow brakes systems.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #12 –
I installed the air Force one on my 1999 u320 and my 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee. If you do a search on the forms you will find my post on it. The hardest part was cutting into the brake line to put the t in that sends air to the tank. For one thing it's hard to reach, my abdominal muscles got a good workout that day. Also it's really dirty up there so you have to make sure everything is clean before you make your cut. As far as the tank I installed it on the passenger side engine compartment it was not difficult that thing goes down to the airline that goes over to the Jeep. I installed the air Force one controller in the Jeep's engine compartment fish the arrow hose into the driver's compartment and then installed the brake actuator on the brake pedal. E-trailer has videos on this for several different vehicles. It is not hard to do but if you cut the wrong line that would be difficult to fix. If you're good at working on anything you could do it it's not that hard. I got advice from these forums first of course. It works great I really like the system and it was well worth the money. Just do a search on the forms and you'll see different installs on that.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #14 –
Thank you all.  I need to fabricate some safety blocks and climb under the coach.  I have seen the three valves I suspected those were the correct ones.  Mine looks a lot like the older ones.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #15 –
Chassis Blocks has been discussed on forum see

air bags
Reply #17

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #16 –
I know Harbor freight 2" x 12" receiver tubes.  Some say purchase 8.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #17 –
A lot of good information on this Forum.

Re: Demco Air Force 1 "Now safety blocks and wheel chocks."

Reply #18 –
Did the grand tour of the greater Houston area running down 2x2x12 trailer tubes from Harbor Freight.

Called a few stores.  I got some one in the Katy Store.  21 miles from Waller where I live. They had 3.

Got in my pickup and dove there in about 30 minutes.  None in stock could not fine them anywhere in the store.  Strike 1.
I was able to pick up three wheel chocks to fill out a set of 4.  I had one come with the motor home.  Now I have 4.

Called the nearby stores.  The store in SugerLand says they had 3.  Ok I will drove the 30 miles to SugerLand found the store and finally located the 3 they had.

Got back into the truck and headed back to Houston.  I stopped at the store in Houston near where I lived until last year.  They had three.

Headed home on 290 Stopped at the Jersey Village store and found 2.  ALL eight.

Only 16 gallons of gas and 4 hours later I made it back to the farm.  Then had to pick up the wife and drive the Jeep to Conroe where my inlaws live. We had a date for dinner.  They are 90 years old and we are the only ones that are practicing social distancing and wearing masks and are safe to visit them.  The others in the family have not been doing doing that and four have had mild cases of Covid.

Got home a few minutes ago and the passenger front of the Motor home is down about 4 inches. I raised it to full height before I started my treck. I wanted to verify I had 12 inches height needed to insert the 12" tubes.  Guess I have a leak in that ckt.  Something else to fix. :-{

I may rest Sunday and start my work again Monday. Now I know why the pump was coming on about every 4 hours when I was Camping In San Antonio two weeks ago.

At least I have something to do during this Pandemic.

Re: Demco Air Force 1

Reply #19 –
Reply to # 4

I also worked in the Oil Industry for 40 years, and I had a a very fine career.

We both are workers like the ones 100 years ago when the internal combustion engine replaced  in the horse drawn carriages.

That hydrocarbon combustion has challenges in the world of increased CO2 emissions today makes sense to me. But we did not do anything wrong, history just evolved.

Regards

Klaus