Desiccant: Replacing/Reconditioning the Desiccant

by Phil Blackburn – Foretravel Motorcader

You may have a desiccant container on your coach in the auxiliary air system if you have a slide or a Zip Dee air Awning? The bowl on the container is clear revealing the color of its contents, which should be blue! If your container of desiccant has turned pink, the desiccant has done its job and collected moisture from your system and needs to be serviced or maintained. The only servicing required for silica gel units is when the desiccant color has changed from Blue (meaning dry) to pink (meaning wet). Should this color change occur, you can do one of three things to service your desiccant container.

1. You can take your coach into a Foretravel Service Center or one of the recommended Foretravel Service Centers for service.

2. You can purchase new desiccant from the parts department at Nacogdoches (part #5Z613) and replace the pink desiccant with new Blue desiccant yourself

3. Remove12 vdc power at the breaker panel and 5amp fuse at the compressor. Loosen the clamp ring and remove the bowl from the top housing (Fig. 1).

A. Desiccant replacement:

Pour out used desiccant.

Open a new container and refill bowl (Fig. 2).

Pull down on the black tab on the metal outer casing and it will unlatch and you will be able to remove it. Then SLOWLY twist the glass bowl while pulling down and it will come off.

Shake or tap the bowl to settle desiccant. Add or remove sufficient quantity to fill the bowl to within 1/2″ of the top.

B. Desiccant regeneration:

For silica gel (“000”) units (Foretravel uses Model X06 containing silica gel “000”) pour out used pink Desiccant onto the flat pan. Place pink desiccant in a 350-degree(176C.) oven for approximately three hours or until the desiccant color has changed back to Blue OR put them in the microwave for 2-3 minutes on the high setting.

Remove desiccant from oven and allow to cool down to ambient temperature.

Clean out the bowl and pour desiccant back into the unit bowl, periodically shaking and tapping to settle the desiccant. and reinstall in the reverse order.

Replace bowl and bowl guard and clamp ring onto the unit. Be sure clamp ring is securely locked in place before re-pressurizing the unit. It is important to keep the desiccant in the container Blue so it can remove the moisture from your air system. We hope this article will make you aware of a maintenance procedure, which is very important to your air system, which you may not have been aware of.

You shouldn’t need to bleed off the air if the compressor won’t run.