Kenworth leveling Valve stud broke - Sometimes you just need to leave things alone til you get home.

Mike

Well-Known Member
So, over the past few weeks I have been working through my suspension and upgrading things.

Started with an small, very small, air leak. Sometimes the suspension would bleed down, sometimes it wouldn't. I finally caught it, pinpointed it to an air bag.

So, replaced the leaking air bag, and it's three identical twins on the tractor. I didn't replace them, I let a shop do it.

Just so we are clear, a shop has done everything else I am about to mention.

After air bag replacement, a brake can went stupid on me, locked up the brakes on the right rear. Quickly FUBAR'd a couple tires. Tires were still over 50%, so I went cheap and just had four put on after getting the can replaced.

Couldn't leave things alone at that point, decided to replace steer tires and all the tractor shocks. Shocks were 30 months old at this point, very much neglected due to failed plans of trading the truck off.

Today, carried the maintenance on back to the trailer, and replaced the trailer shocks as well. Those were original since buying the trailer new in Septermber, 2017.

Only thing left was the leveling valve on the tractor, and getting my APU lowered.

Yeah, Fitzgerald hung it on the frame, and not that I have an air ride trailer, the trailer likes to make contact with the APU in any sort of unlevel maneuver.

Decided I was going to get the APU lowered next time I am home, but since I have the suspension raised up higher than it should be, I decided I would lower it back down close to specs to the ride would be better.

Remove one nut, no problem.

Start to remove 2nd nut, the freaking stud just snaps right off...... 😡

Should have left it alone til I got home.

Now, hoping the one nut keeps it in place til I get back home.
 
For the record.

When I first got the truck, this wasn't a problem. I was leased to Schneider, pulling spring ride trailers.

When I got my own authority, I bought a new air ride trailer. Not long into the journey, I noticed a couple nasty scrapes on top of the APU. I honestly had no clue where they came from.

Then, I pulled off the road one day into a truck stop in East Texas. I call it a truck stop, pretty sure you could stick about 5 trucks over on the side if everyone was using their heads and parking like truckers.

As I pulled in, the lot going to the fuel pumps was on a bit of an incline. Didn't seem like much..... Then....... CRUNCH!

I parked, looked to see what the noise was, and the entire top of my APU was destroyed. I hammered it back into place we well as possible, but it stuck up just enough that the next little eneven maneuver..... CRUNCH!, and I was out hammering it back into original form again.

Then, I had to jump a curb with the tractor. Absolute FUBAR at that point. We are talkng bungee cords to just keep the top on to protect the APU from the elements as much as possible.

Went to ThermoKing in Jopin, they said they deal with this all the time. Fixe me up for just over $100 bucks with a new top, and some rivets to resecure the fan, and gave me an estimate to drop the APU down. Gonna have to drill into the frame, and get some hoses replaced during the process because sizes will be different, and hoses are over 5 years old anyway. So, now, as long as I can get back home without the leveling valve giving me grief, gonna get the APU relocated, and get a new leveling valve put on the truck.

This trucking hobby is freaking expensive!
 
Remove one nut, no problem.

Start to remove 2nd nut, the freaking stud just snaps right off...... 😡

Should have left it alone til I got home.

Now, hoping the one nut keeps it in place til I get back home.
get some red or blue loctite and put on it
 
It snapped off basically even with the valve. Nothing to work with on that stud. Livin' on a prayer til I get back home.
You can always zip tie the rod up for support. Our cheap Intertrashionals have a leveling rod that snaps at the bottom because of a crappy cantilever design. Mine broke about 250 miles from the yard in BFE Alabama. Couple zip ties later and I was back rolling.
 
You can always zip tie the rod up for support. Our cheap Intertrashionals have a leveling rod that snaps at the bottom because of a crappy cantilever design. Mine broke about 250 miles from the yard in BFE Alabama. Couple zip ties later and I was back rolling.
Duct tape and a stick got me home from Iowa one night it worked so good I kept it under the bunk for a spare.
 
So, over the past few weeks I have been working through my suspension and upgrading things.

Started with an small, very small, air leak. Sometimes the suspension would bleed down, sometimes it wouldn't. I finally caught it, pinpointed it to an air bag.

So, replaced the leaking air bag, and it's three identical twins on the tractor. I didn't replace them, I let a shop do it.

Just so we are clear, a shop has done everything else I am about to mention.

After air bag replacement, a brake can went stupid on me, locked up the brakes on the right rear. Quickly FUBAR'd a couple tires. Tires were still over 50%, so I went cheap and just had four put on after getting the can replaced.

Couldn't leave things alone at that point, decided to replace steer tires and all the tractor shocks. Shocks were 30 months old at this point, very much neglected due to failed plans of trading the truck off.

Today, carried the maintenance on back to the trailer, and replaced the trailer shocks as well. Those were original since buying the trailer new in Septermber, 2017.

Only thing left was the leveling valve on the tractor, and getting my APU lowered.

Yeah, Fitzgerald hung it on the frame, and not that I have an air ride trailer, the trailer likes to make contact with the APU in any sort of unlevel maneuver.

Decided I was going to get the APU lowered next time I am home, but since I have the suspension raised up higher than it should be, I decided I would lower it back down close to specs to the ride would be better.

Remove one nut, no problem.

Start to remove 2nd nut, the freaking stud just snaps right off...... 😡

Should have left it alone til I got home.

Now, hoping the one nut keeps it in place til I get back home.
One less APU to keep me up half the night and belch smoke up my sides..

I even try to look before I take spot but if somebody pulls off and another pulls in..

Stay away from Lessors Transport they got the Double Whammy that's APU and a Reefer Box I avoid those guys like the "plague"
 
Adapt, improvise and overcome. Sat on the shoulder of I-94 coming out of Chicago one afternoon in rush hour traffic under the back of my truck improvising a fix for a leveling valve that came apart.
Used the zip tie fix on the cab air ride leveling valve (plastic piece of junk) on the company Kenworth I used to drive.
 
Linkage rod


20160530_192901-jpg.34826


That was plastic spoons, duct tape and zip ties. 😁
 

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