I'm not skidding but the Anti Skid light is on

[rbeecher]

Well, I have been forced to come off lurk mode and tap into the Braintrust.

Let me introduce myself as I have not previously posted. My name is Richard Beecher and I and the lovely Mrs. Beecher, or Barbara if you prefer, have been enjoying a 1996 Vogue XL 40 since Sept. of 2006. We live in Ft. Lauderdale.

The coach is quite clean with 85k miles. It was purchased after we quickly tired of the infinite number of rattles in a 2004 Newmar Mountainaire 43 footer we had since May of '06. Nice coach with the greatest steering I've witnessed in a coach but too many rattles and no Cult status like the Prevost.

So far we have used both Prevost in Jacksonville and Featherlite in Sanford, Fl for service. Both have been a pleasure to work with and we have been working hard to bring the bus up to standards.

After taking delivery to our home on a Friday afternoon, we promptly took off for Topeka, KS the next morning. The trip was excellent including the visit by the Featherlite tech out of Oklahoma to Heartland Park race track in Topeka to service generator and Aqua Hot issues at no charge. (I managed to figure out how to make the toilet flush correctly all by myself by reading the manual)

So now to the real question; does anyone have any experience or thoughts on why the Anti Skid light might have come on during a short trip yesterday even though there was nothing done in the driving to cause it to come on? I'm told it is probably a loose or broken or something sensor but hopefully not the one inside the differential which apparently requires the diff to be removed. Any suggestions on where to look or what to try that might avoid another trip north to Sanford or Jax. are welcome. Liberty Coach in Stuart, Fl is much closer but they were too busy to talk to me a couple of months ago given I don't own one of their own.

I really enjoy reading all the posts and all the great people on this forum. Barbara and I are looking forward to meeting many of you in Kerrville.

Thanks,

Richard Beecher

[Toy Box]

Give me a call. I can't help you with the light issue, probably a sender for one of the wheels, but almost anything else you are welcome to call. I also live in lauderdale... thought I knew everyone in town with a bus...guess not. I think there are six of us with toy boxes in the same block. 954-646-4490

[Jerry Winchester]

Richard,

Welcome to the forum and I am sure one of the brake gurus will chime in on the light issue. All my experience was pre-ABS, so I can only echo what you think it is.

We chose the Prevost for the same reason. We used several new SOB coaches and could never pass a hardware store without having to get screws for this or bolts for that or a clip or a nut or some kind of part that rattled loose. So our first and only coach to own has been the Prevost which was either a stoke of genius or a dumbass mistake - depending on your point of view.

JDUB

[truk4u]

Richard,

Glad your out of lurk mode, someone will get you some help here, so hang in there.;) If the Liberty croud is still together in Stuart holding hands and looking for more glitz, maybe they can ask the question about your light coming on.:D

[rbeecher]

Tom,

Thanks for the note, hopefully someone "has been there and done that" and can shed some light on the situation.

Richard

[Kevin Erion]

Richard,
I have a 99XL and my ABS light is on, I was told that for my year the sensor inside the dif housing is very pron to have this problem. To much to fix and I will let it burn the light out, that will be the cheap fix.
Kevin

[garyde]

Way to jump in Richard. Welcome. I have no idea but its good to hear from a Lurker. Did you try calling Prevost Service? Gary

[Just Plain Jeff]

Good move from Lurking to Active Duty status, asking a question that no one seems to be able to answer.

You are going to do well here, welcome!

We've had 2 ABS campers, the current being a Liberty. In both cases the light goes on whence starting the camper and intermittently during operations. I asked Troy Moody, who lo and behold is the service manager at Liberty about it and he said, "The computer is thinking when the light is on."

Works for me.

If it were on all the time it might mean something else, then worthy of further investigation.

Oh, hey the 'Other Lurkers," c'mon aboard it isn't as bad as it seems!

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Way to jump in Richard. Welcome. I have no idea but its good to hear from a Lurker. Did you try calling Prevost Service? Gary
HI there. Lurker, Richard, I agree with Gary in that it is probably a Prevost issue.
I had a similar experience with a Chevy 3500 PU truck. The light came on after 170,000 mi. and stayed on until I took it into the dealer. Never came on before that time and never since. (Now at 180,000 mi..) With the snap of the money clip and the releasing of a few LEW bucks,(very few) the -dirty- wheel sensor problem was cured.
Be sure to report back with the real answer when you have it!!:) :) JIM

[Ben]

I has a similar thing happen on my BMW X5... the light would come on when it was obvious that I was not sliding. It turned out that a rodent of some sort had eaten though a wiring harness and it was causing the system to think that a wheel was slipping when it wasn't. In my case, it actually was trying to compensate, which made the driving feel unusual.

I'd have Prevost check it out.

[rbeecher]

HI there. Lurker, Richard, I agree with Gary in that it is probably a Prevost issue.
I had a similar experience with a Chevy 3500 PU truck. The light came on after 170,000 mi. and stayed on until I took it into the dealer. Never came on before that time and never since. (Now at 180,000 mi..) With the snap of the money clip and the releasing of a few LEW bucks,(very few) the -dirty- wheel sensor problem was cured.
Be sure to report back with the real answer when you have it!!:) :) JIM
I have been given the secret procedure to run the checks on the ABS System by Prevost Jacksonville. Assuming I wrote the directions down correctly and can read them, I will report back on the findings to the group.

Richard

[Just Plain Jeff]

Nice work.

I like the idea of keeping the solution secret until you have tried it out.

If it does work, make 'em beg for the answer.

Good POGer!

[MangoMike]

Or be like JDUB and trade the solution for Tacos.

It took about 48 to get him to figure out my heat situation on the H3.

mm

[Just Plain Jeff]

Poor baby.....

[rbeecher]

Jeff, you are looking good there in those posts, something has definitely changed.

The reason the procedure is being kept secret is because if you all knew how easy it is and then for some reason I can't carry it out, I will have saved a small portion of embarrassment.

I'm going out to do it now, stay tuned...

Richard
'97 Vogue XL 40

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

"I'm going out to do it now, stay tuned..."

I hope you don't charge by the hour.:D
Did you mean that literally or figuratively:confused:
It's 5:23
:D :D JIM

[Larry W]

Another lurker comes out. I have a 00 Royale and have had the ABS light stay on when I start the engine if I turn the sitch and and go right to start.
Have found if I pause 5 to 10 seconds the ABS light will always work correctly
Larry W

[Just Plain Jeff]

Larry W:

Glad to see you have come out of 'lurking' status and on to the board. We have others from Colorado. Where y'all at in Colorado?

Hope to see you at POG III! They say there are plans for open houses in each other's coaches during the event. It'll be fun to go through all the stuff in your coach. :D

It's especially good to see a new poster who actually knows things!

Welcome to the 'organization.'

[Jerry Winchester]

Those tacos were for reading that worthless Marathon manual to you while you were driving. Tacos for Info; I kinda like it.

JDUB

[jello_jeep]

Those tacos were for reading that worthless Marathon manual to you while you were driving. Tacos for Info; I kinda like it.

JDUB

Marathon manual, come on, you know it was a Danielle Steele novel !! ;)

[rbeecher]

Jim,

I took a little detour after running the ABS test procedure, if I remember rightly, it was to the couch. The 60 mile bicycle ride early Sat. morning finally caught up with me.

Here is everything I know so far, well, almost everything anyway.

In the steering compartment, near the ABS ECU there is an ABS Blinker Switch on a small black box with a three position toggle switch marked MPSI, Normal, and Blink. In order to determine which sensor is faulty, first turn the ignition to the ON position and then go out and flip the toggle switch to the upper or Blink position. This activates a light on the box which has a lens the same size as the Anti Skid lens on the dash. Once the switch is activated a light begins to blink in a pattern and you count the number of blinks in between pauses somewhat like a Morse Code. The sequence I have is 2681-2681 and so on. So there are 2 blinks, a pause, 6 blinks, a pause, etc. This sequence continues to repeat until the switch is moved back to the Normal position.

The test is complete at this point. The next step is to call your friendly traveling regional Prevost Tech, in this case, Robert Hitt. Tomorrow he will let me know what my readout sequence means as to which sensor in the system is faulty. There are the four wheel sensors plus one in the differential. The ones at the wheels are an easy fix. If the fault is with the sensor in the diff, there is a four hour job to r & r the diff, and replace the sensor. Not as bad as I expected but I hope that isn't the case here.

Robert noted in our conversation that the brake system operates normally but that there is no ABS function until the fault is repaired. For those who drive their bus over 62 mph and occasionally get into a four wheel slide and panic mode, this is an important note. (insert big grin here if you know how)

I tried Larry's idea of waiting 5-10 seconds to start the bus without any change. (Welcome and thanks Larry!)

More tomorrow.

Richard

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Jim,

I took a little detour after running the ABS test procedure, if I remember rightly, it was to the couch. The 60 mile bicycle ride early Sat. morning finally caught up with me.
More tomorrow.

Richard

WOW RICHARD, I am impresses 60mi.. What are you some sort of fittness adict or did you run out of fuel somewhere and have to pump back?? I'm tired just reading about that! Reminds me of myself cutting 8 ac,s of grass with a 4' walk behind mower for exercise. Now I know I'm tired :D:D

FOR THE SMILES ETC.:

Click; FAQ in the border at the page top.
Look for READING and POSTING MESSAGES and click on it:
SEE three topics:
USER MAINTENANCE
GENERAL FORUM USAGE
READING AND POSTING MESSAGES
From the topics in the list choose the one/s you want to know about such as, SMILIES and their usage and try it. You'll like it.
You can't make any mistakes. Nobody cares. http://www.prevostownersgroup.com/forum/
I'll be looking for your conclusion. Now I have to take a nap. JIMhttp://www.prevostownersgroup.com/forum/

[Larry W]

Guess I don’t know as much as Jeff thinks. Was traveling across the south when mine stayed on. Had an appointment at Prevost in Texas so guess it scared the light into acting correctly. Jeff we are in western Colorado only 65 miles from Utah in one of the airplanes that get mentioned here. Oh Jeff did you mean that some here don’t know, well I won’t go there.

Larry W
00 Royale

[rbeecher]

Sorry to be so late with the rest of the story on the ABS light saga.

Robert from Prevost and I got our schedules together yesterday afternoon to discuss the blink code sequence I left on his voice mail Sat. At first he questioned the four digit blinker switch code I gave him and then we realized the one blink in the sequence of 1 2 6 8 wasn't part of the code which left 2 6 8 which corresponds to a fault at the right front wheel ABS sensor. While on the phone with him, I went out and started the bus and turned the wheels all the way to the right and turned the bus off. He asked me to check for wheel bearing grease on the inside of the wheel, none. He suggested pulling the ABS line fitting out of the back of the wheel hub and then reseat it. I removed the fitting, cleaned the sensor and reinserted it. The next step was to drive the coach at 3-5 mph and check the dash light - success, no more ABS light!

Richard

[Just Plain Jeff]

Nice work Richard! This is great news to be able to diagnose and fix a bugger problem and get it done yourself. If you are able to get your hands on all the codes for debugging the ABS, you should send them to Jim Skiff and they could be posted for all to use for reference.

Thanks much for giving us all some great, useful information...and most importantly, that 'stopping thing' is something I think about as being, well pretty important.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

FWIW,

I urge owners to get the Prevost Maintenance manual for their coach. All the information about these ABS systems and the codes are contained in the manual. In fact the Lewbucks spent for the manual is less than an hour's worth of a Prevost mechanic's time, and all of the questions on this thread are 100% covered along with many, many more tidbits that an owner might be tempted to have Prevost repair, even thought the owner could make the same repair with simple tools and a few minutes.

This manual is not to be confused with the CDs JDUB provided us with for parts or diagrams.

[rbeecher]

Jon,

I went into the manual pretty deep, I thought, now I'll have to go back and look to see if I missed the section on the codes. I spent a great deal of time reading manuals while restoring mostly older Mercedes in my life so I lost what some refer to as the intimidation factor that is perceived when diving in to figure out how something works or why it doesn't. I am glad I have this experience to use with the bus. I'll be the first to admit I sometimes don't read far enough though.

Of course, I don't want to screw anything up on the bus since I have only had it since Sept. I think the Prevost techies like talking to some of us who "get into" these things just like computer help desk geek types would prefer to help someone who has half an idea of what is going on.

Thanks for the added information, I'll check my Prevost Bible tonight.

Richard

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Rich,

In mine it is a Rockwell braking system manual. It is part of the Prevost manual section on brakes.

If they did not include it then I am certain you can access it online. My manual (the Rockwell one) goes into considerable detail about testing and codes. I have several manufacturer's manuals included with the Prevost manual ranging from a detailed Carrier manual on the AC compressor to Meritor for the axles, to Bendix and all of them are also accessible on line.

[Gary & Peggy Stevens]

Richard, be sure and add your Bus type, & Toad Vehicle info to your signature file, so everyone knows what you tool around in, and the rest of us (me) can dream about driving someday.

[truk4u]

What year did they start the ABS? I have not seen any indication of having ABS and there is no warning/check light on startup. Mine is a 96 chassis.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Tom, my bus is also a 96 chassis ("T5811") and it has ABS and if I am not mistaken yours should have it. The clue is a black small diameter plastic line going to your hub area. That is for the sensor to detect wheel rotation.

The ABS red light should come on when you turn on the key, and should remain lit until you roll a little. It should be adjacent to or near the red light to display when you are braking. Could you have a burned out bulb?

[rbeecher]

truk4u,

I was under the impression the ABS began with the '96 chassis but mine is a
'95 chassis so I don't know what to say on that one.

I think I have the Rockwell brake system and a supplement to the manual on that, I'll have a look Jon, thanks.

Richard
'96 Vogue XL 40
'07 Suburban and sometimes a racecar in a trailer

Off to Sebring in the morning!

[Petervs]

There are some differences between the 40 foot and 45 foot coaches in the first few years the 45s were built. Prevost seems to have updated the designs on the 45s first, then later on most of those changes were adapted to the 40s.

As examples, the Series 60 was installed in my 94 45 footer, but they did not put them in 40s until a year or two later. Same on the air dryer, mine has the newer AD9 while Brian's 94 40 footer has the older AD2. The same is probably true of the ABS brake system. Mine has it for what it is worth.

Peter vS
94 Marathon XLV

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Peter, I would guess you have the five speed transmission.

When the Series 60 was first installed it could only be installed on 45 foot coaches because the Allison 5 speed and the Series 60 combined length was too long to be installed with the 40 foot shell. When the 6 speed transmission became available the shorter length made it possible for installation in the 40 foot coach with the Series 60. There was a lot of re-engineering to get the series 60 into the 40 footer and the 45 was engineered with that engine in mind.

As far as other changes I have no clue why they would not make them across the board unless they were using up inventory.

[truk4u]

Jon,

I checked and don't have it. No light, nothing in the Marathon manual concerning ABS. Mine is T1025830 and Peter may be right, the 45's might have got it first. Either way, I'm happy, one less problem area. ;)