How to rust-proof your entire engine room in 12 seconds

[Iceni John]

Some weekends are fun, some are memorable for reasons good and bad, and some are just plain weird.   This Memorial Day weekend was all those, and some.

A few weeks ago another Crownaholic (we don't call ourselves Crown Coach Junkies for nothing) thought it would be a good idea to have a get-together of us afflicted ones, so on Saturday I drove my Super II from Orange County CA up to the high desert where he lives.   He has a tandem Gillig with a 855 Cummins (I love the sound of 14 liters burbling away in the morning), another attendee had a sort-of-converted twinkie Crown that is his primary residence on the mean streets of LA, and we were visited yesterday by a gentleman from Mojave with a rare Atomic Crown (he also has five other Crowns and Gilligs!).   So, only four buses there, but all of them unusual in their own ways.   Much good food was consumed, good conversation was enjoyed, and a good time was had by all, including three other folk who joined us yesterday evening.   Not to be outdone by the Luxor, I set up my quintillion-candlepower Costco HID spotlight so it shone a Star Wars light saber up into the night sky one vertical mile, then we zapped the inevitable moths attracted to its death ray with $2.99 hand-held bug zappers from Harbor Freight that gave us hours of cheap mindless fun.   OK, I know that PETA wouldn't approve, but those bugs probably wouldn't have died from natural causes anyway.

Anyway, today the fun (sic) really began.   My Crown had run like a top all the way out and most of the way back home, until Corona on the 91 freeway (where else could a Crown break down?).   Suddenly I saw passing cars' passengers covering their noses, a Harley dude gesticulating at me when he went by, my interior suddenly filled up with military-grade grey smoke, and my rear-view window became completely opaque.   Hmm, this is weird, especially when all this happens simultaneously.   Oops, engine temp also rising, got to get off the freeway NOW.   Fortunately there were two gas stations by the off-ramp, and as I turned into them my steering lost all it power-assistance.   Oh-oh, this is really not good.   Stop, run back, open the engine room door, smoke everywhere, some indeterminate liquid squirting onto the 6V92's hot exhaust manifold and everywhere else, run back up front, turn off engine, grab extinguisher, run back, almost slip over on biblical flood of said liquid quickly spreading itself over Shell's asphalt, said something very non-biblical.

Bollocks, what do I do now, especially that every mechanic in Corona is out of town for the weekend?   The hydraulic hose for the radiator fan's motor had a quarter-inch split in it just above its ferrule, so 1500 PSI of recently-filled Dexron II was now turning into smog or flood (sounds like typical Southern California, except for the fires).   Bollocks again.   On a nearby wall there was a business card for a towing company:  We Buy Cars, Mobile Service Mechanic, 22 Hour Service with Flat Bed  -  that sounds more like a call girl rather than a mechanic.   (22 hours?   What's so important for the other two hours each day?   Curious.)   Half an hour later this almost-24-hour mechanic showed up, tried in vain to find any hose shop open in North America on Memorial Day, then proudly pronounced he could repair it himself.   We agreed on an exhorbitant amount of money, for which he would take the hose to his 22-hour flat bed and fix it enough to get me home.   OK, now I'm really in the hands of the Crown gods;  let's hope they forgive me for my merciless bugicide antics last night.   Oh yes, a brief description of Mister 22-Hours.   He was from Jordan, had absolutely no front teeth and few anywhere else, spoke in a Monty Python-esque accent such that I could sometimes recognize odd occasional words (sort of like digital sampling gone very wrong), and he knew he was the only person in Corona who could fix my ailing bus, hence his rip-off price.   Don't you just love it when someone gets you by your short-and-curlies, and you both know it.   "OK Meester John, I weel make thees hose goood for you, don't worry, I have do lots like this all the times, no problem, you trust me OK, you are my friend, now give me your wrench to take off it now, hurry hurry, I am busy today, I am back in a half hour."   Heck, how many Crowns burst their hoses in Corona on Memorial Day?   Whatever.

So, an hour or two later he comes back with my hose, now several inches shorter and festooned with a cornucopia of hoseclamps near the leaking end's fitting.   "Are you sure this will hold under the pressure?"   "Trust me, I do thees all the times, I am expert in thees."   Much to my amazement his hoseclamp fix seemed to hold as I ran the engine up to governor, so I paid him his exhorbitant rip-off fee (did I mention that before?), cursed my fortune to have this happen today of all days, thanked my lucky gods that it did not happen in the high desert, and gingerly went down the 91 at 45 MPH.

AAARRGH.   Deja-vue all over again, this time in Orange.   Smokescreen, smell, coolant temp rising, my freshly-cleaned back window suddenly opaque again, work-out time as my PS became just plain steering, drip drip drip everywhere.   Mr 22-Hours' hoseclamp fix had not prevented the hose now bursting off altogether.   Called my angel of a girlfriend who took me to a nearby Kragens which sold 49-cent cheapo hoseclamps (two for $2.99, what a deal), pour in another two gallons of fluid, tighten the living snot out of the hoseclamps, back onto the freeway at 45 MPH with her behind me.   For those of you who live in more sedate parts of this great country, let me explain  -  driving at that speed here is about the same as lying down in the #1 lane and expecting to live.   At 45 MPH most cars and non-squirting school buses pass you like you're standing still.   Keep to 1500 RPM, watch the coolant temp, keep to 1500 RPM, $#!% that car was close, I have never driven this slow in my life, sorry dude I'm preventing you from getting home 3 nanoseconds sooner, keep to 1500 RPM, almost there, Hail Mary cubed, just another mile, turn in to the RV yard, BOLLOCKS.   The chain's across the road.   They should be open until 8 PM on weekdays, and it's now just after 5.   Hrumph.   The Not-A-Mental-Giant security wonk had already gone home, so I "made my own arrangements" to get past this slight hindrance by means of wrenches and grim resolve in equal amounts.   Yeah!   Back at last.   My Orange fix lasted better than Mr 22-Hours' Corona fix, and cost me much less.   Just as my partner in crime and I had rebolted the chain across the road another security wonk, also a Not-A-Mental-Giant, quizzed us about our perceived invasion of the promised land beyond the chain, but his neurons couldn't understand how we could have unlocked the still-untouched padlocks on the center post.   I'm glad folk like that dont think much outside the box.

All in all, a good weekend, even though it ended up making a gap-tooth Jordanian way too rich and me poorer but wiser.   Morale of this whole mess:  replace your hoses, especially the critical high-pressure ones, before they give you pain and grief.   At this point my learning curve is as vertical as my Luxor spotlight beam, but I will try to live and learn from these situations.   And I still love driving my bus, even at 45 MPH.

Iceni John, now smelling less of ATF.

       

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hi John,

Great Story! Love it...

Now, check the rest of your hoses before you run outa cash on the freeway.

Nick-

[buswarrior]

Excellent report!

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[JohnEd]

Enjoyed it all!   Especially the part about it happening to someone other than myself.


John

[zubzub]

Hi, I really enjoyed your road fix tale as that is one of the reasons I love old vehicles...the haywire improvising and drama.   I read this last week when I was in the middle of sourcing some power steering lines for a GMC Safari (poorly designed PO...) They were return lines to the pump so were lower pressure (not that low).  The dealer parts counter said that even though the original lines had crimped  hydraulic fittings the spec was just rubber tubing with regular hose clamps.  I had trouble believing this would work but like a good little idiot I went home with some jobber power steering tubing and a handful of hose clamps.  Cobbled up some lines , installed them (very cramped space) and guess what?   They leaked at the hose ends!  At this point I was a little miffed so I went to an aftermarket place and got some fuel injection hose clamps  like these
 http://www.delcity.net/store/Hose-Clamps-!-Fuel-Injection/p_202.a_1

and had to install 2 at each hose end to stop the leaks.
With this in mind I'm pretty sure that given the right sized clamps i might be able to control hydraulic pressure for a bit.   There are larger clamps for high pressure plumbing in sizes from 3/4" up.  I couldn't easily find them online but I know I have seen them at speciality plumbing suppliers.  So for all those in a jam maybe some threaded steel pipe (plumbing supply) and some high end pressure clamps  and you might make it home or at least drive around till you found someone to make you some new lines.
Oh yeah these look good as well...http://www.delcity.net/store/Constant-Torque-Clamp/p_556668.a_1

[Iceni John]

I finished cleaning my engine room last night, so everything is now cleaner than it's ever been (and ever likely to be!).   No more tropical-rain-forest drips of oil down my neck when I am at the back of the bus.   Incidentally, oil makes a great polish on the paintwork  -  now some of my bus is really shiny, while the rest is really unshiny.

Grainger has a hose which looks like it may work:  http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/2F679.   As far as I can tell, the threaded ends on my hose are just over 1" OD, so with luck it should fit.   I'll try to check the thread pitch  -  if mine is 12 TPI then I'll assume its the JIC 37-degree seat.   I think other seat angles have different thread pitches.   For about $50 it may be cheaper than having my local hose hombre make me a custom hose.

Do you think this Grainger hose will work, based on whatever is prevalent in the industry and whatever a small-scale manufacturer like Crown would have used in 1990?   Another question  -  do all hydraulic hoses last the same time, or do the higher-pressure ones last longer at any given pressure?   My burst hose does not have any year written on it that I can find, so I do not know if they last 10 years, 20 years, until they burst, or until the Second Coming.   In other words, is it worth spending more on some fancy expensive hose, or will a 2250 PSI Dash-12 hose be just fine?   I really really really don't ever want another episode like last Monday's.   I am also thinking I should also replace not only the other short hoses to/from the fan and transmission, but also the 80 feet of hose running up front to the steering box and back.

Before last Monday I knew tiddly-squat about hydraulic hoses, now I am beginning to learn way more than I ever thought possible.   As someone else at the RV yard last night said to me, it will probably take two or more years to work out all the bugs and possibly deferred maintenance issues until my bus is as reliable as possible.   I hope that the Placer school district (its previous owner) didn't cheap out on too much on the essential maintenance  -  hopefully the rigorous annual CHP school bus inspections kept them on their toes.

John, now completely free of ATF in my hair

[DSweet]

  Must be wonderful to have something to get ATF in!  There is nothing
like rolling down the freeway and leaving oil behind so that the people following
can tell where you have been.  Our towed is white and when our 4104 decides to
leave its mark, we have a Dalmatian decorated towed.  Hmmmmmmmmm, part of the
fun I guess.  We don't worry about rust, GMC's are all aluminum, which shines up really
well when oily.
Blessings,
David

[JohnEd]

ZubZub,

The return line should dump directly into the reservoir where it sits awhile to cool before taking another pass through the system.  That line should have absolutely no pressure in it.   Unless it passes thru a clogged filter before entering the reservoir.  I recently found the source of a persistant drip from my PS pump.  Turned out to be the return line hose fitting to the reservoir.  It had a clamp but the hose was really hard with age so it just slipped on the fitting.  No barbs, just that little dimple.  Clearly a full blown LEAK but it only barely dripped....for a couple years.  You wouldn't believe all the crap I fixed and replaced on the way to discovering the source of that problem.  Included a $300 alternator that i got a friend to rebuild for $40.  And your "low pressure" line blows off clamps?   Keep lookin Amigo, you aren't there yet.  I don't think.

Good luck,

John

[Sojourner]

Great report and tell it like it is.

About the high pressure or hydraulic hose...there is a number on the fitting that tell what size it is. This is call "dash size". The number means in 1/16". Example 06 means 6 times 1/16 equal 6/16th or 3/8"

Groove around the nut are number of wire wrap in the hose. Example 2 groove means 2 internal wires wrap.

Hydraulic hose register builder


How to identify hydraulic hose for replacement


Incorrectly installed hose will reduce its like and risk premature failure

Sojourn for Christ, Gerald

[Tenor]

Iceni,

Just look in your phone book for hydraulic repair/parts places and find one that makes hoses.  Take your old one in and they'll make you a new one.  Depending on condition and design, you can re-use your ends.  Some are crimped on, and some use a nut and insert system.  Great story!

Glenn

[Utahclaimjumper]

If it were my bus the "80 feet or so running up front" would not be hose, it would be hard line with hose at each end.>>>Dan

[kyle4501]

We all pay for education.
I spent the minimum service call one time to have a camper tire changed because I didn't think I had a jack or lug wrench.

Turns out, the suburban's jack & lug wrench would have worked perfectly! 

Live & learn. Now you know what else will be handy to have in stock on the bus. 

[zubzub]

ZubZub,

The return line should dump directly into the reservoir where it sits awhile to cool before taking another pass through the system.  That line should have absolutely no pressure in it.   Unless it passes thru a clogged filter before entering the reservoir.  I recently found the source of a persistant drip from my PS pump.  Turned out to be the return line hose fitting to the reservoir.  It had a clamp but the hose was really hard with age so it just slipped on the fitting.  No barbs, just that little dimple.  Clearly a full blown LEAK but it only barely dripped....for a couple years.  You wouldn't believe all the crap I fixed and replaced on the way to discovering the source of that problem.  Included a $300 alternator that i got a friend to rebuild for $40.  And your "low pressure" line blows off clamps?   Keep lookin Amigo, you aren't there yet.  I don't think.

Good luck,

John

I agree there should be no/little pressure in the return line.  To be precise the line goes from the steering gear through 50 inches or so of cooling line then back to the pump.  This is a GMC VAN  so it has hydra boost brakes which complicates things (uses power steering fluid to assist brakes instead of vacuum).  There are 2 set of lines from pump to steering gear, these are the returns but they return to the pump not the reservoir, I think there is another line that goes to the master cyl and from there back to the reservoir.  Didn't study up much on this as I already know more about this ride than I want to.  FWIW I have stopped the leak and and it's all back together and working........so I figure it's a high pressure (but lower than power steering?) line.  WHo knows it works again.