Technical advice needed for reprogramming B500

[luvrbus]

The standard pre select values on a B500 are 2nd gear and 4th gear,you probably will need to go the pre select 4th gear in the mountains,they have a special and standard value setting depending on the stages of Jake.I have mine programed for 1st stage in 5th, 2nd stage in 4th and 3rd stage in 3rd down to 1st,I did it that way because I have a retarder pre select at 65% the combo seems to work better at 65% in all 6 gears, no joy stick control     

[bigred]

Cliff can give you his thought's on this ,but on my bus the po had a by pass switch installed on the Jake's .This way the Jake will  engage only when the switch is manually turned on.Only draw back I have found so far is that if you for get to turn the switch off when you get to the bottom of the hill ,it will choke when you press the accelerator !!

[luvrbus]

Red the module probably went bad on your 8v92 DDEC they are separate from the ECM and they hooked it up direct by passing the module,it is common practice because the module is unobtainable any longer if you do find one people ask a 1000 bucks for a used one.You can add pressure switches to the Allison to stop it but a takes a lot of wiring and time not worth it IMO     

[joel_newton]

Clifford - you have taken the B500 programming to another level!  Sounds really slick!  Looks like you have both Jakes and a retarder? Maybe, one of these days, we can sit down and you can explain your programming to me.
   
Although my S60/DDEC III is capable of three stage Jakes,  in tracing most of my wiring, it appears to be set up for only two stages.  The Jake control switch is wired for Hi-Off-Lo.  This bus had been totally rewired for 12v.

At this point I am happy having "eliminated" the preselect (now set the fifth).  That was the most annoying function ever!  When I need 4th for the mountains, I just hit the downshift button. That makes 4th the highest obtainable gear.  I always leave the Jake on in the "Hi" position now.  Works great.

After a career driving truck, I love this automatic transmission setup (now).

No more "improvements" until I get an Allison programming manual.  Suspect they are probably only available to certified Allison techs. 

[buswarrior]

Excellent report!

Glad to know there's a way to return the CHOICE to the driver.

I wish more busnuts would give their threads closure, when a solution is finally found.

happy coaching!
buswarrior