I'm probably the last guy in North America to learn about these things but on the off chance that there is one other individual who doesn't know about them I thought I would post a picture.
I put a couple of them on two weeks ago when we had the bus in Darrel's shop. Today I discovered another tank that I had missed so I put another one on. The one in the picture is the front tank which is located behind the spare tire rack. Its a genuine PITA to get at and the lanyard was tricky to run for it. For the two tanks in the back I just ran the lanyard to the side and left it accessible by the levelling valves. For this front tank I have the lanyard tied off where it is accessible with my awning hook. (did I mention - we now have a wonderful ZipDee awning thanks to Clifford aka luvrbus). These little valves just require that you deflect the stem slightly in order for them to vent so now rather than draining my hard to access tanks on those rare occasions when I get over a pit I can dump them whenever I want to.
Bob ,I know you might not have been able to swing this one LOL ,had you not stopped at Clifford's ,gotta make shure you stay longer next time A,no telling what you'll be able to do next time.
Sorry we didn't meet on your last trip down yonder,hopefully next time.Van
Thanks Bob. I have needed to add something. Right now I just crawl under to drain them, but I very rarely get anything out. I should do it more often though, and I like your method.
God bless,
John
Bob...Where did you get them and how much $$$
Sorry - I meant to include that in the original post.
NAPA - just over 10 canuck bux. They have a 1/4" NPTM thread so they will thread directly into your air tanks.
The first two I got were free because Darrel wouldn't let me pay him anything but the one I got yesterday wasn't. NAPA didn't mind me paying them.
Just a heads up regarding draining air tanks....the very first tank from the compressor (wet tank) is the one that needs draining the most. If bus is equipped with an air dryer, this almost becomes unneccessary...almost! Still, a good idea to drain all tanks periodically and the drain valves shown are very common, cheap, easy to install and can be had from almost any truck parts dealer.
Quote from: DaveG on May 23, 2009, 11:14:10 AM
Just a heads up regarding draining air tanks....the very first tank from the compressor (wet tank) is the one that needs draining the most. If bus is equipped with an air dryer, this almost becomes unneccessary...almost! Still, a good idea to drain all tanks periodically and the drain valves shown are very common, cheap, easy to install and can be had from almost any truck parts dealer.
I drain our ping every day. That is obviously before the dryer, and I usually get a lot of crude out of it.
God bless,
John
Uh, maybe something's wrong here, but I thought the air dryer comes before the "wet" or "ping" tank. If your wet/ping tank is after the dryer and you continue to get crud out of it, check the dryer purge valve.
I guess on our DL3 things might be a little different. The air goes up, through the "ping" or "wet" tank, up to the air dryer, then immediately after splits out into different air lines to different tanks. It sounds like ours might be a little different than yours (yours is probably a better design). But it is nice that we don't get any moisture out of our tanks either way (other than the ping tank). The only crude we get out of any tank is the "ping" tank before the dryer. I think that they did it that way, so the dryer would have less crude to deal with.
Thanks a lot.
God bless,
John
The ping tank and the wet tank are not the same tank. The ping tank is very small and usually close to the compressor. This is the first tank the air passes through, Hopefully, this tank catches any oil residue that was in the air. From here the air heads to the other tanks (and dryer if so equipped). Jack
Bob ... I have them on all my tanks ... they work great and no leaking (3 yrs) so far.
Thanks a lot Jack. That helps explain the difference in the definitions.
God bless,
John
Quote from: prevost82 on May 24, 2009, 09:04:21 AM
Bob ... I have them on all my tanks ... they work great and no leaking (3 yrs) so far.
Thanks for that info - I wondered about the leaking thing but went ahead and installed them anyway. I figured if they were good enough for Darrel's oilfield trucks then they should be OK on the frenchybus. What was most important to me was that they were dead simple to install. I had been dreaming up all sorts of Rube Goldberg solutions involving hoses and drain valves but always got overwhelmed by the complexity. Putting these little devils in it took longer to drive to NAPA than it did to thread them in and tie off the lanyard. Three of my tanks already had remote drains but the other three simply didn't get drained very often.
So how often do they need to be drained with an air dryer in the system?
Ping tanks should be drained daily since they are before the air dryer. Not sure about the others, but daily, while draining the ping tank, couldn't hurt. Jack
They are nice to have on your air commpressors in your shop too!
Jack
If it matters to some readers, MCI's correct term for this "ping tank" we speak of is "discharge muffler".
The discharge muffler is mounted shortly after the compressor and gathers some of the moisture and oil blow-by from the compressor before it goes any deeper into the air system.
Since it is mounted quite close, it does not catch all of the moisture, since it gets warmed up and condensation does not occur as readily.
It's main claim to fame is to muffle the impulses of the compressor that might otherwise be transmitted and amplified by the long run of pipe under the floor from back to front, making that noise noticeable to the occupants of the vehicle.
happy coaching!
buswarrior
BW, thanks for the info. That helps.
God bless,
John
Thanks BW, I have never noticed one on by coach , was it standard equipment on all MCI's?
Grant
The discharge muffler is mounted on or about the back side of the tag axle inner fender inside the side engine access door, curb side.
Look at Jack's picture up a few posts to align these words with some hardware.
I have seen all manner of drain plumbing for these, as it appears many fleet owners made modifications, or their mechanics did, at various points, some mangling or re-alignment of the mounting done no doubt at compressor or compressor outlet hose change time. Also, the large outhouse air-powered drain was mounted fairly close, the regular drop through drain was there, so maintenance space wasn't great.
It may have been removed by some previous owner, who may have been more concerned with the financial end of coach repairs, rather than the function. If the commercial life of the coach is measured in months, as they are at the third tier, pretty much anything goes for minimum maintenance outlay...
Popularly, some method of airing the coach up by way of a shop air fitting is tee'd in, some have the copper drain piping extended through the floor so the oily drain mess goes only on the toes of your shoes, instead of spraying on the shins of your pants.
The muffler itself may have slight variations in proportion, but you can see in execution, it is just a fatter place on the line to interrupt the flow, for any noise and debris to swirl a little and the debris to fall out into the bottom.
happy coaching!
buswarrior
I retrofitted the three main tanks on my -5 with the lanyard style because unless its over a pit, you can't reach any of the water drains on those tanks. I get quite a bit of moisture out of the wet tank (ahead of the rear axle) and some moisture periodically out of the next tank in line, I forget what its called, up behind the front axle and no moisture from the other front tank. Then there is an auxiliary tank I think for the air horns and door latch thats located under the driver's left foot. Thats easy to get at but always dry.
My only complaint on the lanyard style is after three years the one on the wet tank started to hang open a little bit and so I replaced it.
Fred