Easy air drain lanyard

bobofthenorth · May 22, 2009, 05:33:22 PM

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.

Van · May 22, 2009, 05:57:02 PM

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

John316 · May 22, 2009, 07:31:44 PM

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

Damn Yankee · May 23, 2009, 06:40:52 AM

Bob...Where did you get them and how much $$$

bobofthenorth · May 23, 2009, 07:23:59 AM

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.

DaveG · 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.

John316 · May 23, 2009, 11:32:23 AM

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

DaveG · May 23, 2009, 07:09:11 PM

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.

John316 · May 24, 2009, 05:13:56 AM

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

JackConrad · May 24, 2009, 05:32:51 AM

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

prevost82 · 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.

John316 · May 24, 2009, 09:32:58 AM

Thanks a lot Jack. That helps explain the difference in the definitions.

God bless,

John

bobofthenorth · May 24, 2009, 11:12:58 AM

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.

Van · May 24, 2009, 11:36:25 AM

So how often do they need to be drained with an air dryer in the system?

JackConrad · May 24, 2009, 12:07:48 PM

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