News & True RV Stories

Ride Height Valve Failure

Published October 07, 2007

Category: Tech

It's a great idea for customers that own a coach equipped with HWH air leveling to
know how to disable the HWH system in case of a ride height valve failure.  Prior to
a failure, park the coach at "ride height" on fairly level ground.  Measure from the
ground up to the top of each wheel well, this will give you a basic idea of where
"ride height is".  Keep this info in your coach and if you ever have a ride height
valve failure, you will have the information to be able to manually raise or lower
your coach to ride height using this measurement.

Ride height valve failure:
First use your HWH leveling pad to level your coach manually with your engine running.  This is achieved by pushing the level button once to get a solid red light then using the arrows to
raise and lower your coach.  This is where the measurements you took will be very
valuable. Play with you leveling until you get it close to your measurements. Once you obtain that ride height your coach will maintain that position until you can disable power as it is in a manual leveling mode with a solid red light on. 

Second remove power from the HWH leveling system to keep the coach manually leveled.
If not, as soon as you push your park brake down the HWH leveling will try to go
into "Ride Height" mode which will not happen if you have a defective ride height
valve.

Powering down the HWH system can be done a couple of different ways.   In the
attached picture (image 2) there is a stack of three CAN boxes; the rear and center
CANs are for the HWH slides, do not touch them. Referencing image 1, you
will see 4 plugs on the top of the front CAN box. If a connector is unplugged and
all of the lights do not go out, simply plug it back in and go to the next one.
When all of the lights are out, the system is disabled!  


On certain pre-2005 models disabling the HWH involves a bit more work.  A 7.5 amp fuse must be removed. The  fuse is located in the aluminum control box, position #12. On Allures and Intrigues the aluminum box isin front of the passenger seat behind the dash access cover. When the access panel is removed, the aluminum box will be visible under the dash on the passenger's side. On Magna and Affinity models it is located in the inverter compartment/bay.  On Lexa models it is located in the same bay as your power cord reel.