[pairodice]

I have a leak under my coach and turned off all four spigot valves in the engine bay to get the coach back home (thank you Newell After-Hours Service!). Luckily I was very close to home and had the SilverLeaf engine management running so saw the temps going up and only got up to 200f but shut down the engine when the dash lights came on… I removed the dash cover piece and I can see the hoses and heat exchanger under the dash - what controls the valve that connects the hoses to the heat exchanger under the dash?  How do I remove the dash to check the hoses?  It looks like the floor under the hoses is dry… Since I lost most of my coolant when the valves were open how can I test the system? I guess it’s a good time to put in new coolant (after the leaks are fixed). Do the coolant lines run under the coach?

[RobSC]

Is it possible that the leaks are in the engine preheat coolant lines?  These two lines run from the Aqua-Hot to the engine and have shut-offs next to the engine.

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It is my understanding that the engine coolant lines run to the aqua hot. The lines that go to your dash heat come from the aqua hot, not the engine. So as Rob said sounds like a leak in the lines gong to the aqua hot possibly.

[RussWhite]

Jeff - I may be full of hot water on this one and if I am I will delete this opinion.
It was my understanding the the valves the OP turned off were a supply and return for one circuit to the AH and the other circuit to the dash heat. I used to turn of the two to the dash in an effort to not leak any heat into the dash when I was using the dash A/C. There certainly is a circuit from an Aqua Hot zone that can be selected to heat the engine but I though that was separate from the manifold valves Newell had them close.
Maybe someone else can weight in on this. Russ

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Russ, you may be correct. I cannot say for sure how mine are run, I have never chased these lines down. Maybe someone who has will chime in. My dash heat does not seem to get that hot, I had been meaning to figure out why that is. Since I am Florida though I do not use the heat very often.

[Richard]

At least on the two Newells I owned there were two loops that came off the engine. One to the AH, and one to the dash heat. On the 95, the dash heat would cook you in the dead of winter. On the 99, you could freeze to death with only the dash heat. What was the difference, the 95 had a 12V pump that force circulated hot coolant to the dash and AH.

So back to the original post. It’s hard to make heads or tails of what happened. Where was the leak? You are looking at the heater core for the dash heat if you are looking underneath the dash. Good wishes on getting that out.

I don’t understand the VMSPC only indicated 200 but the Stop engine light came on. But maybe the low coolant sensor tripped the warning light.

The coolant lines run in the ceiling of the basement.

Obviously you will have to open the valves to test the system.

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Thanks Richard for your knowledge! I might take a look and see where I can add a pump to the dash heat, because like your 99 my 98 the dash heat is lukewarm at best. Guess you were right Russ, and I got some more learning to do!

[Keith Jordan]

Just buy Richard's old 95 cream puff. Problem solved

[HoosierDaddy]

   
The pump on 316 is on driver side. Very similar to what is used on school bus heaters.
It appears there are two loops. One circulates through water heater and two heater cores in the water bay and the other goes directly to dash heat via the circulation pump.
I don’t have aquahot.

[pairodice]

Thank you for the responses! Keith I have to stick with this one until we downsize (soon)…

“The coolant lines run in the ceiling of the basement” - since these lines go up into the dash this makes sense but the antifreeze came pouring out from what looked like the pan that is below the generator (as I recall), I was kind of freaking out at the time and didn’t video record it like I normally would… I didn’t even think to check the front bays… Everything looked pretty dry under the dash - I will take my moisture meter today to check it again.

It looked like the antifreeze was pouring out the generator at first and then after a call to Newell (awesome support) we figured out that in order to stop the leak we had to turn off the antifreeze from the engine.

“ I don’t understand the VMSPC only indicated 200 but the Stop engine light came on. But maybe the low coolant sensor tripped the warning light.” - I think you are correct that the Low Coolant Sensor came on. Luckily this was not in the middle of a long trip at 70 mph - I was just going on a short test drive so was only a couple miles from the barn…

I will plan to turn the spigots back on today - I never saw any labels near or on the spigots
BTW, any ideas how much coolant the loops to the front dash hold?
I need to get how the lines run straight in my brain…