Mr.Wizard
Rider
For those of us that have a MT conversion and suffer the air loss of the air ride suspension and have the on board air compressor with safety switch, this topic is for you. MT says the air suspension system will NOT loose air unless there is a leak. That's in their manual.
How often do you need to hit the button to refill or pressurize your air shocks? Do you lose pressure every few days, once a month, every day? I do. From the first day I seem to lose pressure. At first only a few pounds a week. I keep it set at 40 psi which is the recommended setting for a MT Harley.
With time this has gotten worse. It now loses a few pounds an hour. Last week it lost all 40 psi in one hour.
I've pulled everything apart trying to find this leak. I've used 50/50 soap and water to florescent leak detector on every joint and device from the trunk to the inner fairing but no joy. I had thought it was a bad check valve but after removing it while pressure was in the line it doesn't leak back. I had considered putting Freon in it and using an electronic sniffer but do you guys know how hard that would be? Trust me... not an easy task but I may at a later date.
What I did was to run up the pressure to 50 and test again, no joy, then to 70 and the leak seemed to be smaller but still no joy so I ran it up to 90 lbs and it didn't leak down. It has been two days now an the needle is still sitting on 90 lbs. I lowered to 40 last night and just looked at it this morning. The pressure is still holding at 38 lbs 14 hours later.Here's my thinking.
Additional pressure has caused the leak to get smaller but how? My theory is the leak is in a slip joint connection somewhere in a device. Either the gauge, air reduction tip, safety switch, shock or Tee body. This leak gets worse over time and the extra pressure applies force to the slip joint and tightens up the connection.
Anyone else have/had this problem?
-wiz
How often do you need to hit the button to refill or pressurize your air shocks? Do you lose pressure every few days, once a month, every day? I do. From the first day I seem to lose pressure. At first only a few pounds a week. I keep it set at 40 psi which is the recommended setting for a MT Harley.
With time this has gotten worse. It now loses a few pounds an hour. Last week it lost all 40 psi in one hour.
I've pulled everything apart trying to find this leak. I've used 50/50 soap and water to florescent leak detector on every joint and device from the trunk to the inner fairing but no joy. I had thought it was a bad check valve but after removing it while pressure was in the line it doesn't leak back. I had considered putting Freon in it and using an electronic sniffer but do you guys know how hard that would be? Trust me... not an easy task but I may at a later date.
What I did was to run up the pressure to 50 and test again, no joy, then to 70 and the leak seemed to be smaller but still no joy so I ran it up to 90 lbs and it didn't leak down. It has been two days now an the needle is still sitting on 90 lbs. I lowered to 40 last night and just looked at it this morning. The pressure is still holding at 38 lbs 14 hours later.Here's my thinking.
Additional pressure has caused the leak to get smaller but how? My theory is the leak is in a slip joint connection somewhere in a device. Either the gauge, air reduction tip, safety switch, shock or Tee body. This leak gets worse over time and the extra pressure applies force to the slip joint and tightens up the connection.
Anyone else have/had this problem?
-wiz
