Get er home. DIY out on the road repairs

[artvonne]

  Having watched Marc's Bus adventure and seeing there have been others that ran into big engine repairs and overhauls out on the road, I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of knowledge exists in performing bandaid repairs to keep an old Detroit hummin down the highway after experiencing a major failure.

  The impetus here, is that I believe most would much rather have the luxury of someone near home involved with it or do the work themselves, have time to contemplate the needed funds and direction they wish to take, etc., rather than an expensive knee jerk fix to have the problem dealt with in the hear and now far from home. Not many have the luxury of hanging out somewhere for over a week staying in a motel. Some of us may have time constraints, and we just have get home. And as most Bus owners seem to have rigs that arent worth a great deal more than the cost of an overhaul to begin with, I believe many (raising my hand) would rather just pop a good used motor in it when we get home and try it again. Who really wants to dump $4500 into an old worn out engine just to fix one cylinder?

  In Marcs case, cutting off fuel to that cylinder and making sure there was no loose bits that could fowl anything, etc., would have allowed Marc to make it home where he could have weighed other options. And in their defense, perhaps thats what the first shop was trying to accomplish, just a bandaid to get him home. Even if it means destroying the engine, in many cases that may actually be more cost effective. For example, in Marcs case he was looking at a $13K overhaul. At home, he could either have found a used motor for $1000, or got an overhaul for maybe $10K, and less if he DIY.

  So perhaps some of you could weigh in with other problems that would sidline us, and fixes that would allow us to drive it home.

 

 

[chart1]

The key to not breaking down on the road is preventive maintenance. If you start your motor at home and it is putting out a little smoke this is the beginning of something. Yes you may drive it for 2-3 years but there are warning signs and noises that you should start diagnosing right away as to weather they are serious or not. Even the not so serious problems could lead to major problems and major expences on the road. I carry extra starter, alternator, fuel pump, waterpump, and filters with me. This doesn't apply to Marc as he just bought his bus and picked it up.

[artvonne]

  Maintenence is not the issue here. I wanted to specifically look at engine failures and fixes. Even a brand new engine can fail, all maintenence does is reduce the chance of failure. Nothing on Gods green earth will ever prevent failure with 100% probablity.

  But Marcs event is a very good example. You go to buy an old Bus and it has an old engine with unknown or dubious history (they all were rebuilt 20K ago, but sorry, no paperwork...). It pops something on the way home and there you are, 500 miles to go, sitting by the side of the road. You wanna do the $4500 fix plus a $1000 tow, to an old worn out engine, or just Golberg it with some bail wire and Duck tape and plow on?

[bevans6]

I had the pulley fall off the alternator a half day into a two week trip.  I just took the belts off, put the pulley in a luggage bay, thought about it for a second and realized that they only thing my bus uses electricity for is starter motor and lights.  I drove the next three days to Nova Scotia during the day, and plugged in the charger at night.  I got a new pulley shipped to me from Luke (thanks again!), put  it on and went home.  On the way home the starter solenoid froze up but I had a spare starter motor and two nice chaps at a truck stop shop changed it for me.  That was my most fraught trip so far.

Brian