[Richard]

Woooooooooo...........do your best Ric Flair to get the sound. I never saw anything quite like this.

Outside of the forum a fellow guru directed Bob to contact me for additional and urgent assistance. The situation was the Bob was scheduled for knee replacement surgery today, the potties were inop because of no air pressure, and he lives fulltime in the coach. Yeah, that's a pretty challenging scenario. Getting in and out of the coach to travel to the outhouse was not going to work for week or two.

So Russ White and I took a little road trip up to Pensacola to see what we could contribute. Jack Houpe drove over from Gulf Shores to add his assistance.

Bob has owned the coach less than a year so he is still on the front part of the curve. The conversations and diagnostics over the phone just DID NOT make any sense to me in terms of what could be going on. In Hail Mary, we had suggested Bob buy a HF compressor and plumb it to one of the potties. He did and that got indoor plumbing restored although somewhat noisily.

Sure enough on arrival, we confirmed that the coach would not hold air for more than about a minute. Yeah, that's not a typo.

Here is what we found. First huge problem was the air line that feeds the ping tank in the passenger rear wheel well was completely severed. It looked to me like the zip ties that would secure it, had failed and the line got into the tire. Bob had a roadside service remove the tires so we could gain access. Ok one BIG leak addressed. Second leak, could now be heard where the air lines enter the wet tank. Of course it had to be the fitting on the top of the tank, hard up against the ceiling. It was obvious that the wet tank had been replaced earlier, and my guess is the fitting simply did not get tightened. I got a complete turn out of it.

We are still using an external comp to air up the coach since both the 120V and 12V compressors, although NEW, were not supplying air. Now we hear air. lots of air coming from the center of the bay that is Aquahot on one side and water bay on the other. Oh joy. A big air leak we can't reach. We discovered that are many airlines that run the center pipe chase down the basement ceiling. And they are all zip tied to the Newell standard.

The technique we used to locate the leaking air line, was to use smooth jawed pliers to pinch off, one at a time, the exiting air lines from the 12V air manifold until the hissing stopped. Once the offending air line was located, one person in the AH bay tugging and one in the storage bay looking the air line's exit of the no access area was located. It turned out to be the air line feeding the forward slide room air seal. That was a bit of luck in that there are many air lines in that are branching off to feed pocket doors and the waste tank dump valves. The old air line was not coming out because of the aforementioned zip ties, so we simply ran a new line. Bingo, we now have less than hurricane force leaks when we air up the system using an external compressor. It appeared the line had simply chafed against a sharp edge over time.

But no air from either on board compressor. Turns out that in an easy to make misunderstanding the gentlemen who replaced the 12v pump did not understand or realize Newells unique air system logic and the very specific way the system has to be plumbed at the 12v pump. No shade at all on the gentlemen who helped. I owned a Newell for a LONG time before I truly understood the logic of what happens at that air line junction. Regulator, check valve, pressure switch, and inlet air positions are all pretty specific for the 12v side to function as designed. Turns out the new JunAir ($$$$$$) had a little bit of plumbing to clean up and also needed a mechanism and checkvalve to relieve pressure upon restart.

Quote of the boys road trip adventure from Bob's partner Paula. When she tested all the potties and doors she came outside and offered a thank you hug. Those of you who have seen me in the work coveralls covered in grease and dirt know how grimey that can be. I declined saying, Honey I am nasty. Paula's reply " Not as nasty as an unflushed toilet". That was a good laugh.

Good luck to Bob today on his new knee. Thanks to Russ and Jack for helping. Bob gave me permission to post so that others may learn from the air leak hunt.

The other reason to post this yarn, is to acknowledge the steep learning curve that owning a Newell can be. It's good to acknowledge the resource that the guru crowd can be.