We just got back from a one week trip to a campground near Temecula, Ca. The area is quite beautiful and a bit cooler than the high desert where we live. Although we have had this bus for about 8 months, drove it places, and moved with it, this was our first camping trip, and I didn't even realize it until we were there. Anyway, getting to the entrance road to the campground was uneventful. That's when the fun began. We were told that they had a three mile, dirt road entrance. I was not concerned assuming that it would be reasonably well maintained. Although that was the case, we had not been told that there was a major hill also. Being a dirt road, I carefully cruised along at the top of first gear-- about 16 mph. As we chugged up the hill though, we just plain ran out of chugs and got stuck about half way up. My wife, who had suggested that we take the car off the dolly and let her drive it in, did not find the situation as amusing as I did. "Okay," I thought, "a challenge." The first step was to get the car off the dolly. One of the safety chains was too taut to remove, so I let the bus slip back a few feet, and by luck alone, the chain loosened up. Next, I wanted to lower the ramp to drive the car off, but due to the hill, there was too much weight on the bolt and I could not remove it. I decided to back the car off slowly thinking that it would be just like going down a curb. Strangely enough, this worked. Now what to do about the dolly. Remember this is a dirt (packed sand) road that a mighty 8v71 could not climb with they evil Spicer in first. The sides of the road had sand berms and did not seem to offer a place to put the dolly. I decided that I would have to walk the dolly down the hill. As you may surmise, the dolly outweighs me by quite a bit, it was on a hill, and the sand road did not give me much traction. I can up with the idea of zig zagging down by angling the dolly into the berm on one side of the road, then pivoting it and heading for the berm on the other side of the road. This method worked pretty well except that it is really meant for someone a bit younger and in better shape. I must have been showing a bit of wear from the effort, since the wife was getting pretty mad by now. Only my constant assurance that I was having a good time stopped her from going ballistic entirely. Anyway, I got the dolly down the hill and backed the Challenger down. Those new mirrors were just wonderful. I thought that being minus about 3700 pounds would do the trick. I hooked the dolly back on (definitely a mistake) and started up again. I made it more than half way before running out of chugs this time. I was not in a mood to run the dolly down the hill again, so I tried to back up. I jackknifed it rather quickly. Fortunately, I campground employee with a pickup truck was passing by. He was nice enough to take the dolly and promised to deliver it later. At this point, I did not care much if I ever saw it again. Anyway, I back down the hill and gave myself some running room. I raced up the hill and ran out of chugs a bit further than the time before. I backed down again and gave myself some more running distance. I got further this time, but not enough. I think I took at least two more tries. The last one, I backed almost all the way to the main road. "Bumps be damned (or darned)," thought I. We hit the bottom of the hill at the top of second, about 30 mph, downshifted (which I did not miss) at about 20, and chugged on. We made it to the top with at least two or three chugs to spare. I did not know what lay ahead on that road, but I got up to speed and just barreled along until the end. This was quite unnecessary since there were no more serious hills.
This is another reason that tow dollys have a disadvantage. They can be a liability in some situations. The propane injection comes in because I sure would be loved to have some boost of some sort. If I could get 10 % without a turbo, I think it would be worthwhile. All in all, everything else went okay. I raced out of the campground today to make sure there would not be any hill problems. The only thing that slowed me down was that I was getting too close to my wife who was driving the car in front. I had to stop and let her get some distance so I could hit the back end to the hill at at least 30. The incline was not quite as bad on that side though, so no problem. The bus drove reasonably well. There is still some issue with the steering that will need to be worked out. Climbing up Hwy 62 from the low desert, near Palm Springs, it was a good 100 degrees and the grade was Grapevine quality. I had to do much of it in first gear. The engine temp approached 200 while in second but dropped back to 190 when in first. I figured that that was reasonable performance. So I guess I am not feeling too bad about the little adventure. It looks like I need to replace the toilet. It's always a pleasure to see what's grown under those things, but we made it there and back. Life is good.
Sounds like quite an adventure for a first time camp out in the bus. I won't let my wife read this as every rough road could cause some lip flap before we explore it. Thanks for the information on the tow dolly, I was considering one for my toad but that is off the list. I'll stick to four wheels down, I can get into enough trouble without something adding to it. I'm sure your future adventures will be less stressful.
I had to take many, many mountains in 1st gear, WOT, (Allison 740, 8V71) in the western mountains. That convinced me of 2 things. Replace the tow dolly, and tow 4 wheels down, and get an engine with a turbo.
Your story reminded me of the trip to see Sam Caylor. I was prevented from getting to his place by a 10 ton bridge. This forced us to take car off dolly, dolly off bus, turn dolly around, turn bus around, attach dolly, put car on dolly, continue journey. I was ready for a nap.
Ed Roelle
Flint, MI
Very interesting first trip!!!! Thats why we say enjoy the journey, you may never reach your destination!
I went to Kings Canyon park a while back. I did not run out of chugs, but it was a loooooonnnng trip. I had to pull into every overlook area and let traffic by. In hindsight I would drive up there at nite or very early in the AM. Of course in hindsight I would have bought all the ATT&Standard oil I could have when I was 18.
Jim
I learned the hard way that you should never think you can back up a hill in reverse. You should have seen me trying to turn a 35' bus around in a 36' area. Not an experience I wish to repeat. Even with power steering, I was a wreck by the time I got back up the hill.
Couple of things here. First you need to consider either having an auto tranny and the second is that a small 1 axle toad trailer solves lots of problems. If it had brakes you would even be Fed legal, which is nice.
But then, if you had had a Crown Super Coach with a 10-speed Roadranger, going up that dirt road would have been no problem. You might even have had to use 1st gear. Over 20% startability/gradability. :) :) :)
I agree, don't like tow dollys. I wouldn't be able to get a manual bus to my house because of my driveway, very steep and very long (7/10ths of a mile). You might want to concider an auto; makes for easy climbing.
I have an auto but thought a standard would be beter for climing hills!
An automatic transmission has the benifit of torque multiplying:
"The torque converter portion has the ability to multiply torque from the engine. The impeller (sometimes called the pump) has specially curved vanes and is driven by the engine's crankshaft. The turbine also has specially curved vanes and is connected to the input shaft of the transmission. Adding a third element, the stator (also called the reactor), gives the assembly the capability it's named for. The stator has vanes and is mounted on a one-way clutch, to allow it to freewheel in only one direction. The stator assembly is located between the impeller and turbine and redirects oil that bounces back off the turbine. The force of the redirected oil assists in rotating the turbine, resulting in torque multiplication. When the impeller's speed is high and turbine's speed is low, torque can be multiplied by as much as 2:1. When the impeller's speed and the turbine's speed are about the same, torque can be transferred at almost 1:1."
http://www.carcare.org/Auto_Transmission/torque_converter.shtml
HTH
This site might have a better explanation:
http://www.tciauto.com/Products/TechInfo/torque_converters_explained.asp
Lin, I guarantee that propane would have made a huge difference.>>>Dan
Barn Owl
Thanks for the info on the torque converter. I once had a motorhome with automatic. We were climbing a hill to a friends driveway when the RV seemed like it would not make it. All of a sudden, it motor revved and we continued climbing with ease. I thought it felt like there was a secret lower gear that just popped in. I never figured out what had happened until reading your post.
Claimjumper,
Do you use propane without a turbo? What has your results been? I was thinking of hooking up some temporary system just to try it out. I have some gauges I could use. If you use it, what pressure do you set your gauges at?
Thanks for the infor on transmissions, very interesteing. I was under the impression that a standard was all around the better transmission.
Towing 4 down, you can start the toad put it in gear and help push the Bus. Not ideal but amazing how much this helps. Obvious do not steer just push. 06 Bill
Lin, great story. Your words produce very vivid pictures in my mind.
Now for a tip to the readers: my wide screen laptop made reading the story a bit difficult because of the very long lines of text. Both Firefox and IE have a feature where you can enlarge the text. That makes the column of text much narrower and very easy to read. Try it. In Firefox you will find it under the view tab. In IE (7 I think), it is harder to find, but you will find it under the page tab.
Jim
Quote from: rv_safetyman on July 04, 2008, 05:29:33 AM
Lin, great story. Your words produce very vivid pictures in my mind.
Now for a tip to the readers: my wide screen laptop made reading the story a bit difficult because of the very long lines of text. Both Firefox and IE have a feature where you can enlarge the text. That makes the column of text much narrower and very easy to read. Try it. In Firefox you will find it under the view tab. In IE (7 I think), it is harder to find, but you will find it under the page tab.
Jim
It would also help if there were a few breaks or paragraphs in the text.
Richard
I ran into a similar situation at Mount Madona with the '04 a few years ago. There were 8 cars behind us when I hit an unexpected steep grade. We were in second and I told my son if I couldn't get to first quick enough, we would all be backing down that hill! Luckily we made it, but I was ready for the next visit to that hill! Our Rally at Laguna Seca this year was also challenged by a steep hill going up to the RV area. But we had the '06 that has the V730 and a turbo. I also had the muffler off of it. She actually shifted into second on that hill and you couldn't get much of any run for it as there is a 110 degree turn at the bottom! We didn't have a toad, but previous toad hauling did not seem to bother this '06 at all. I have driven 871s without a turbo and with and without automatics. There is absolutely no comparison to the turbo! This '06 goes effortlessly to 70 mph which is no longer necessary as we drive below 60 mph to conserve fuel. The '04 is a lot more work to drive, but it does have the 4 valve head, N-65 injectors, dual exhaust and 5 1/4" blower inlet. It is the high block engine and still has the spicer 4 speed. But it has a two speed unit between the trans and rear end. In low range, we won't be going up anything very fast, but I don't think we have to worry about stopping or backing down unless we get caught in high range in second on a grade as mentioned above! Bill T.
Quote from: rv_safetyman on July 04, 2008, 05:29:33 AM
Now for a tip to the readers: my wide screen laptop made reading the story a bit difficult because of the very long lines of text. Both Firefox and IE have a feature where you can enlarge the text. That makes the column of text much narrower and very easy to read.
Or, just adjust the width of the window, doesn't have to be maximized. I have run into this when working with other people's wide screen laptops or desktop displays. Besides long lines of text, there are still some poorly designed websites that don't look so good when spread into a wide browser screen.
GM0406,
Mount Madonna? As I live and breath. Can there be more than one? From the hot inland valley to the Ca. coast highway? Enormous ancient Oak Trees? Nice and cool? A near U turn from the main road into the county park entrance? A truly single lane black top road?
Now why is this indeled in my mind you might ask. Obviously I have been there. The turn at the bottom of the hill is about 110 degrees and with the thick lush folage you have not a clue that there is a hill on the other side of the turn. And is that puppy steep? Well when I first got a glimpse I thought it was a black wall and the bushes were hiding the road. When they built that thing they must have called in plasterers to apply the black top to the "wall". Quick as I came to my senses, I opened up the thermo quad deep into the secondary barrels and heard the mighty 440 ROAR under my feet. I said "if ya love me Baby, please...if ya love me". Well, she loved me half way up worth and shuddered to a halt. I had a 240Z car in tow with all 4 down that I had to uncouple. Did you know that that isn't possible if you are alone and the car is dangling from the ball as if over a cliff? I had bungee cords strung to pull the tow bar up so hard that i feared it might embed the bar in my hood when it came loose. I had a 4 foot crow bar that I had wedged between the hitch and I jumped on that from the Winnie bumper without success. I even tried ramming it back and forth till I noticed that i had a 13,000 pound Winnie that was rocking and swaying over my head....litterally, and that bringing it down on me was a non solution. After an hour, and probably cause I was exhausted, it popped off. The Winnie barely crept ahead to a start on that hill without the car and finally topped the hill. What an experience...Holy crap.
Next morning I had hooked the car up and was walking around the rig checking things and when I looked under the front I saw a new wire hanging down. It was the plug wire off of # 8. Reconnecting it she ran without that almost un noticeable miss. When I stood back from her after I reconnected the wire I thought I noticed "Wendy" Winnebago smiling a little smile at me. I knew she loved me more than half way up and just needed a chance to prove it without a hand tied behind her back. I cautiously drove over to the precipice that was the top of the hill. In low and riding the brake we started down. The R's started to climb but I wasn't a'skeert cause the bulletproof 727 three speed with lockup was fully engaged. BLAM into second without an inventation and she rocketed to 35 MPH and I let out a little scream and a little pee at the same time. Duet, sorta. I learned that day that the 727 has an auto up shift that prevents engine over-reving. Wheeeeee! Remember that 110 degree turn at the bottom? Remember that the road was 8.7 feet across and you cannot pass another car unless you go over it? Yeah, I remember Mt Madonna and thanks for asking. The night we, two dogs and I, spent on the top of the mountain was an equally entertaining(?) story but in that one I look foolish. Another time.
John
Lin,
Can you stear me to some info on propane injection?
Thanks,
John
Sorry John, but I am just trying to get information myself. There are past threads on this and the BNO board. It seems that the people that have tried it are happy, but there are criticisms. Generally, the homemade systems seem to have an on/off switch. One criticism was that if one stalled and forgot to turn off the switch, he could great a loud reminder. This seems like a valid point so there were suggestions to wire it through the main switch, oil pressure circuit, and accelerator pedal. That makes it a little more complex. I guess I would want to try something simple as an experiment before installing a whole system. It seems I should be able to run a temporary line into the air intake and try a hill with and without the propane on. It would need the pressure regulated, of course.