Air Bag Aging & the 10 Year Plan

[Woody]

Going to Prevost Jax for service Monday AM. Curious as to what $ I should expect for drive axle bags. My others are fairly new but the drive look like Tom's before pics.

[truk4u]

Al - You really believed that stuff!

Woody - The drive bags are 630104 and are 146.03 each.

[travelite]

Tom,

Do you have the Goodyear part number? I think 630104 is the Prevost part number, correct?

Thanks,

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Woody,

Shop prices. If the air bags cost $150 (round numbers) the drive axle uses 4 so you have $600 in parts and the labor to install should be 4 to 6 hours so on the high side you should expect to pay around $1350 total for the job. Get a firm quote.

In FL you can get a quote from Coach Worx also and my guess is the price will be very much in line with the actual cost of labor and materials. Changing air bags is something that provides a huge benefit relative to the cost. Failure to do so with the result being a blown or failed air bag results in a very expensive trailering or tow job, plus you still have the cost to replace them.

[phorner]

Woody,

Take Jon's advice to heart. It's about a days worth of work. The single decision determining the length of time is figuring out where to "stop".

When I did mine, in addition to the air bags proper, I replaced fittings, some of the air lines, and the tank reservoir drain valves too.

But, it also made sense to do all the Norgren valves and the ride height valves while we were under there.

And, of course, if I was going to all that trouble I might as well change the air dryer filter. Luckily, the shocks had already been changed!

You get the idea....

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Tom,

Do you have the Goodyear part number? I think 630104 is the Prevost part number, correct?

Thanks,

David,

I have the trade number for my steer and tag, and my drive axle (630104 is correct), but when I attempted to cross them with a generic air bag I could not. They are proprietary to Prevost unless you want to spend 50% more than what Prevost charges. For the last 15 years there has been nobody on the planet that could beat Prevost air bag prices.

[GDeen]

Good work Trukster!

[flyu2there]

Do not mean to introduce thread creep but, all this talk about air bags do not forget about the "mini bags" on the engine. I just replaced the one under the tensioner for the serpentine belt that drives the radiator cooling fan and drivers air conditioning compressor. Suffice to say if that bag is lost you can compromise your cooling, both engine and personal, as in the driver. I found the leak at the air inlet fitting portion of the bag that is perhaps the term is vulcanized into the rubber. I will not elaborate on the difficulty of the job, however if I ever find the party who last changed this bag and installed the fitting using Locktite Red............

[travelite]

David,

I have the trade number for my steer and tag, and my drive axle (630104 is correct), but when I attempted to cross them with a generic air bag I could not. They are proprietary to Prevost unless you want to spend 50% more than what Prevost charges. For the last 15 years there has been nobody on the planet that could beat Prevost air bag prices.

Thanks Jon,

I'm kind of a chassis and suspension nut. I was hoping for the Goodyear numbers so that I could look up constant pressure curves, load at design height curves, spring rates, and other engineering data. I agree, the Prevost prices look very good.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Steer and tag.........1R11-296 Prevost 630104

Drive.....................1R11-088 Prevost 630126 (I think superceded by 630259)

I tried in vain once to find a generic Firestone, BFG or Goodyear but couldn't.