Good Trip Reports

[Brian Diehl]

In light of some recent negative trip experiences for some on here I wanted to share my wonderful trip experiences this summer.  My wife and I took a 3 week trip from June 27th - July 19th.  We drove from MN out through SD into WY stopping at Devils' tower and Thunder Basin National Grass Land in WY.  We then me up with Sean and Louise in Gillette, WY.  We spent a couple of hours getting to know each other and then we headed on out to the southern end of the Big Horn NF.  We spent a couple days hiking up near the Powder River Pass.  Excellent country and LOTS of wild life.  It rained and hailed all 3 nights we were there.  I enjoyed a wonderful bike ride up to the top of the Pass (9600 ft) and loved the ride back down!

From there we headed on through Yellowstone and on into ID.  We stayed at a WalMart in Idaho Falls and then drove on to Craters of the Moon National Monument.  We enjoyed an excellent afternoon biking around the park seeing all the sites.  A definite highlight was our time in the ice cave, a collapsed lava tube cold enough to still have ice on the floor.   It was over 97 degrees on the surface!

We then drove on to Boise where we spent 10 days helping my brother work on getting his new house ready to move into.  We enjoyed a train ride in Horseshoe Bend, ID.  After working our butts off and enjoying quality time together we drove out of Boise up through Stanley and Salmon into MT where we went east on hwy 43.  We stayed the night up on the continental diviide.  After a wonderful night's rest we headed on down to Big Hole National Battlefield Monument.  That was an interesting drive down the mountain.  Since the engine was cold I had no jake brakes!  The computer will not allow the jake brakes to run if the oil is too cold.  I think I came down 2 gears lower than I would have with them.

The battlefield was very well presented and it really makes you wonder: "what were our predecessors thinking"!  We drove on from there over to the Pryor Mountains.  We enjoyed the BIG ICE CAVE and the wild horse preserve.  The ice cave had over 2 feet of ice still on the cave floor.  There was lots of snow still in the mountains and the wild horses were not afraid of vehicles at all.

All too soon we had to head for home.  We drove on out to Billings and then east on I94 until we hit US HWY 12.  While in Billings we filled up at an Exxon and dumped at a Flying J.  While at the Flying J a gentleman waiting to dump came over to chat to me about the bus.  He seemed very interested in what I had done and was surprised to hear the fuel mileage I was getting.  He had just "downsized" to a 36' motor home with a Cummins 400hp ISL.  He was towing a 16' enclosed trailer with a GCVW similar to what I have.  He stated he gets 7.5 mpg on average.  I was surprised as I expected he would get a little better mileage.  I bet if he had a bigger displacement motor he might get better mileage if he also ran less rpms.  We the drove HWY 12 all the way home staying overnight in the middle of SD at a really nice wayside stop.

Of course, as is our tradition, we drove into 25+ mph head winds through SD and 15+ mph head winds in WY on the way west.  Then, to top it off, we fought head/cross winds all the way across eastern MT and south western ND into SD!  It almost never fails that we don't get to enjoy the tail wind effect of those winds when we are out driving!  Oh well, we enjoyed the drive and spent less than 500 miles on the interstate. 

We put over 3400 miles on the bus.  We had absolutely no problems and even improved one item on the trip.  I discovered I needed a "turbo cut off valve", or E-Con valve in Cummins parlance.  I've been having what I thought was a leak in my intercooler system, but couldn't find it.  Well, while going up to the parking area at Devil's tower the air system called for air and when it reached the purge cycle I heard the loud sound of air escaping come back.  Unlike the normal purge cycle that should quickly end, this did not and of course my air was not leaking down.  Later on it happened again and I noticed when the purge cycle started it felt like I lost some power.  So, I called my friend at Cummins with my motor serial number and he told me I had a Holset Type-E air compressor.  This air compressor needs some back pressure on the exhaust line at all times even when not compressing air.  Cummins makes the E-Con valve for this purpose.  I bought one out in Boise and installed it.  I enjoyed the rest of the trip back without the sound of escaping air and better throttle response.  :-)  I even think I had a little bit more power!  My wife even commented on how she noticed a difference.

My overall mileage for the trip was 8.5 mpg.  I got one tank at 7.6 when we drove west into a 20 - 25 mph head wind and one tank at 9.0 mpg!  We towed our Jeep Grand Cherokee as well as hauling our bikes along.  I estimated we were around 35,000 - 35,500 lbs GCVW based upon my last weight slip.

The bus ran awesome and I REALLY enjoyed having the jake brakes in the mountains!  I did the run down the eastern side of the continental divide east of Butte on I-94 on the jake brakes at 60mph the whole way down and still had COLD brakes at the bottom!  FUN!!  I would have been in 3rd gear at around 40 with the old system.  I didn't burn/leak a single drop of oil and the whole system performed flawlessly.



This past weekend we drove out to Sibley State Park about 100 miles west of here.  We had a lovely wind free drive out and most of the way back.  We ran about 60mph in 10th gear at about 1200 rpms.  We filled up the tank for about 10.0 mpg.  This is the best yet and I was extremely surprised since this tank also had 200 miles of the end of our vacation trip on it.  However, the end of the vacation trip had a slight tail wind/cross wind component and we were running 60 as well.  I think if I can keep the speed around 60mph I can continue to get 9+ mpg barring any fun head winds. 

[Paladin]

Brian,

With that new engine that you shoved in there I'm still drooling but not surprised at your lack of misfortune but it's good to hear of trips with smooth sailing. Keep up the work and I'd like to see more updates if you have any. Maybe someday I'll get rich and ambitious and try one myself.

By the way, do we have a section for pictures from the road? Maybe we could have just a small one? I for one would like to see pics from people travels. Not so much all of our ugly mugs maybe but pictures of the scenery and places visited to give others an idea of what these places are like? Some of these places sound really cool!

-Dave

[Dreamscape]

Hi Brian,

Nice to hear of some great road experiences finally. The Bus Gods must be smiling on you!

Sounds like you had some fun, and your coach performed flawlessly. That is great news!

Glad you HAD FUN!

Do you have a website to show off your trip?

Say HI to the Misses for me.

Paul

[steve5B]

  Brian,

  Great post, I always enjoy reading about your trips.  Sounds like all the hard work that you put in for the re-power has paid off.

9-10 MPG wish everyone could get this!

  Thanks for sharing.

  Steve 5B..

[HighTechRedneck]

By the way, do we have a section for pictures from the road? Maybe we could have just a small one? I for one would like to see pics from people travels. Not so much all of our ugly mugs maybe but pictures of the scenery and places visited to give others an idea of what these places are like? Some of these places sound really cool!

I am planning a section in the Bus Conversion Wiki titled "Showcase" that will let folks show off their conversions, post pics of the process and tell the story of it.  But this thread gives me an idea for another similar section to serve as a Travelogue where folks can post the pics and stories of their trips. 

As Brian started off with, we need to be able to see encouraging pics and stories to help us remember the good while dealing with the bad.

[Brian Diehl]

Hi Brian,


Do you have a website to show off your trip?


Paul

I don't have this trip up on my website yet.  I probably won't get it up until this winter when I find myself inside more.  This time of year I just want to be outside doing projects and enjoying the daylight!  Man, we've lost over 1/2 hour of daylight already since the beginning of summer! 

[Brian Diehl]

Brian,

With that new engine that you shoved in there I'm still drooling but not surprised at your lack of misfortune but it's good to hear of trips with smooth sailing.

-Dave

You may have not been surprised, but as the installer I wondered if I was going to encounter some sort of time related issue.  Since I don't do this kind of work for a living I have those little nagging doubts that tickle the back of mind every so often!  I now have over 8000 miles on the repower and have gained more confidence in the longevity based reliability of my job.  I still wonder though what I missed in my garage engineering and if that will come to haunt me some time at o'dark 30.