Kinda in a bind

[artvonne]

  I dont know where youve gotten to with this, but just to go over some of this advice...

  You need to wait til the ground freezes so when you pull away you dont re-sink. As suggested, fill the ruts. Dirt, sand, rocks, ice, dont matter as long as its incompressible. Then drive it out and go park it on something solid. Those ruts are too deep to drive out of. You will either start spinning and sink deeper, burn up your transmission, break your driveshaft of something worse.

[robertglines1]

still think it is a parking brake malfunction. some of those had electric actuators that come on when you put it in park.  Good  luck

[Lin]

I'm with Robert.  Brakes can freeze in place too.

[Seayfam]

I'll take a shot at this, since you say the tires don't spin and you are in snow and ice and the engine and trans are warm. Also it is a school bus and is lighter and geared lower than some of our highway coaches. This makes me believe you have a problem with your torque converter not locking up. Yes unfortunately the MT 643 is prone to the lock up piston cracking causing the lock up friction to fail. 2) The transmission needs to be removed and the converter can be disassembled, most often the parts needing to be replaced will be the lock up piston,the lock up friction,and you will also need to replace the pump hub gasket,the outer seal on the lock up piston,the inner seal on the lock up piston,and the 2 square cut yellow seals. "About a 500.00 repair parts and labor,not including removing the transmission".
This is just my thoughts, so don't get to worried from what I think.
Good luck

Gary

[opus]

I talked to the mechanic that maintained this bus for its life.  He said dont even try to drive it out, it wont do it.  He said its designed to keep from doing damage.  Its not the brakes.  I will get something big to pull it out.  I cant jack it high enough to get a 2 x 4 under the wheels.  Its a rear engine, and about 30,000#.

[artvonne]

  Okay, maybe I am truly Bus dumb, but I cant imagine any system that could keep a motor vehicle from trying to move, buses included. If its on level ground and the brakes are off, what on earth would make it not want to go? I could see it not wanting to spin the tires due to lack of power if its down in those ruts. Okay not really, our Fire trucks will spin with a full water tank on the back. But they are probably lower geared. Anyway....

  I realise the Bus is in ruts where the tires sank, no one here expects it to climb out of those, that would take enormous power. Were saying to jack it up, and FILL the ruts over full with rock or dirt or whatever, so when you set the Bus back down the tires are up above the ruts. Then it will just drive out, as long as the surrounding earth can support it, which is why I suggested waiting until the ground refroze.

[zubzub]

Did you notice the post saying BBs stat in 2nd unless you shift it man to 1st?  Also if you can jack it high enough to spin the wheels you can add blocking under the jack an jack it high enough to clear the holes so you can fill them.... you need 2 jacks to do this....but you need 2 jacks anyhow to lift a bus nicely, make one of them an air over from HF and you will be happy.

[jjrbus]

I don't know about others, but my bus was absolutely useless off pavement and I've been unable to move out of lots smaller holes that shown!
One time I hung it up it was a real bad spot, could not get a wrecker or tractor to it. I had to put scrap lumber (no nails ) under the tires till at ground level. then rip sheets of plywood, attach cleats to plywood, to keep it from spinning out. Then buy bags of sand (gravel would have been better)and spread on plywood, to keep tires from spinning or sliding off plywood. Then move the bus, move the plywood, move the bus, move the plywood. Took a few hours with the help of a friend.
                                                                   HTH    JIm

PS   don't plan on using plywood for another project

[Len Silva]

Ice bound can be surprisingly tough.  Some years ago I pulled a utility trailer to Maine in the winter.  When we got there, I backed into my relative's driveway and left it for the night.

The next morning it was 10 below.  I got into the truck, put it in drive and literally ripped the tread off the trailer tires.  I wouldn't have believed it possible.

[Lin]

Len,

Do you think that the tire was already bad and just weighting to fall apart on you?  If that could happen to a good tire, I would think it would happen a lot in cold neighborhoods.

[Len Silva]

Lin,

As I recall, the tires were in good shape, though I don't know how old they were..  However, the trailer was heavily loaded and I had been driving hard for many hours before parking it in the evening.

We unloaded it the next morning before I tried to move it.

I think the temperatures were fairly warm (low 30's) when I parked and very cold in the morning.  This was quite a few years ago but I do remember leaving part of the tire in the ice.  I also remember a very miserable morning for this Florida boy installing new tires on that cold morning.

[opus]

[Lin]

It's hard for me to understand why the bus would not just drive out of holes that size.  Mine goes up my 8 inch ramps so easily that I hardly feel it.

[Ace]

Yea like I said earlier, I have had my H model in deeper ruts than those and wet ones at that and my bus is probably 40,000 lbs and it comes out no problem without any spinning of the wheels. Maybe the extra weight of my bus helps but with that does come deeper ruts! 

[opus]

Like I said before, the mechanic told me that this is the way they are setup.  Remember, it was a school bus.  They are designed to not give full torque from a position like this.  I had 2 mechanics tell me this.  Most school bus drivers would just pin it until they had to go pick up the drive shaft or snap an axle.  The ruts were deeper than I thought they would be.  Being stuck in ice is totally different than mud as well.

Remembered last night that I have Coachnet.  Never used it so I thought this would be a good test.  Very good experience with them.