HELP, Phil Lyons stuck on the road

[Dallas]

I agree with what Tom said.
We have a small truck driving school just up the road from us and they will make you a "Qualified Truck Driver" in 3 weeks.
I spoke with the master instructor at the school and found out that he has a grand total of 8 months Experience as an over the road driver.

When We had our trucking company, we would have school drivers come in that knew nothing about maps, routes, logging, loading, unloading, strapping, tyeing down or chaining. But they were "Qualified Truck Drivers." Most of them couldn't be depended on to shift the transmission the same way twice.

As an example, I took a new driver for his road test in Spokane, Wa. There is a main road, I believe is Division Ave that runs north toward northern Idaho.
In the middle of this test, we came to a very short, very steep hill, and the new driver screwed up the down shift so badly I had to have him set the brakes and then swap places with him.
When we got back to the yard I asked if if he knew how to double clutch and his answer was, "You can't fool me, I know that other pedal is the brake!"

Obviously, I didn't hire him.

Most of the time, we call these drivers, "Warm Bodies" because that is exactly what they are behind the wheel.

Dallas

[Rich (Prevost)]

Hey Phil,

I'm glad you got to where you were going....The guys at The Vehicle Clinic are great (Amos Slater) spends most of his time at his FL branch, but he has a great core of guys. If you come to Nashville a couple of my good friends are (20+) yr Covington Detroit Diesel mechanics...........man they are good.

Rich

[plyonsMC9]

HAY Phil,

This may be too late, but before you go to the expense of taking it to DD or anywhere, (mainly because having someone find an intermittent problem can be very expensive and a lot unsatisfying in the results department.), try the ASE suggested test to find the problem.

It's called the wiggle test.

With the engine running, and all parameters as close to the same as when you had the problem earlier, grab a hand full of wires and wiggle, bend, jerk, pull and push on them. If the engine doesn't die, go on to a different bunch of wires and repeat. Do this until you eliminate all the wires. Now go back and do it again, trying smaller bunches of wires, especially close to any sending units or sensors.

You can also do this test at the drivers seat area.

Good Luck,
Dallas

Hi all,

I did the wiggle test, bend, pull, push, from the 3 (?) temp sensors which lead to the wiring block between the engine/transmission mounted on the frame.  I didn't bother with the wire leading to the mechanical guage in the engine compartment.  Not sure about that one.

Could not get the engine to cut out. 

The bus goes to Amos' shop in Detroit - Vehicle clinic -  this Monday for its rebuild, along with the seals on the transmission.  Also going to have them try to coax a few more horses out of this engine setup.  I've been planning this for a while, but along with the rebuild, I will mention that we do have a problem with the engine cutting out once in a while. 

Was there another test I could try for the oil sending unit?  I foggily remember something about that.

Thanks again - Phil

[plyonsMC9]

And, here are the pix of what I believe to be my temp sensors - - I'm including them as I've only been able to find these so far, and don't want to be missing anything.  I don't have an exact match yet either for the manuals ( da book ) for my bus yet, so it gets a little more challenging along these lines.

Thanks again - Phil

[Stan]

The second pictuture shows the sender for the rear mecahanical temperature guage in the botton of the housing. Of the two senders on the top of the housing, one is the sender for the front eletrical temperature guage and one is a high temperature switch which either turns on the high temp light at the dash and/or shuts down the engine. The sender circled in the top picture should be the high termperature switch on the other head with the same functions as the first one.

To find out which is which, take the wire off the sender and use an ohmeter to ground (the brass part of the sender). On a cold engine the high temperature switches shoud be open (infinite resistance) and the gusge sender should have a relatively low resistance but not zero resistance to ground.

Before you put the wires back on, turn on your switch (don't start engine) and one at a time  connect the wires to ground. You should get the high temperature alarm light with one or both of the high temp senders and one or both should make the shutdown solenoid click. The guage sender will make the guage hit the pin at 0 or full scale (opposite to where it is when the wire is not connected.

[plyonsMC9]

Stan, that is fascinating information.  Thank you for sharing your knowledge.  I will do some more checking to find out which is which.

Kind Regards, Phil