Motor Home Air Brakes - Air Dryer?

Question

How often should the air dryer be serviced? What indications tell us when the air dryer should be serviced? Does servicing simply mean replacing the desicants or are there other things that should be cleaned or adjusted? What is the procedure to service the air dryer including replacing the desicants and any other cleaning or adjustment tasks that must be performed? Is this a difficult task and are special tools required?

We understand that three air pressure storage tanks are part of the system, one dry and two wet tanks. How are the tanks connected in the system and where do each of them receive their air pressure from and what do they supply air pressure to? We also understand that each of the storage tanks have a drain valve on the bottom to drain moisture from the tank. How often should these valves be opened to drain moisture? The motor home is primatily stored in Southern California where the humidity is usually low, sometimes less than 10%.

Answer 1

Drain air tanks for every day of use. good rule of thumb is to drain them before the first start up of the day.. I.E drain the tanks when having breakfast so when you start the engine they have time to recharge before you move to the next place of choice. Everything on these is fail safe by which I mean if you run out of air you cannot release the brakes...So when the drier fails you have big ($$) problems...

So the simple problem here is to remember to have the whole machine serviced every 12 months. So what if you spend a couple of $$ doing that but at least you'll have piece of mind