New to the forum, introduction and some questions! (warning: lots of pictures)

[Sean]

OK, forgive all the late posts here, but I am just now catching up on this thread (a six page thread is a bit daunting).

btw, when I took this picture, absolutely nothing happened. I flipped the switch and heard a little "click" from a relay or something, and then... nothing! After hooking up the other bus to mine, I got the radio to play, though! Hoorah!

Umm, OK, I am going to venture a guess here that the "other bus" is the PD4106 shown in photos elsewhere in the thread.  And I did see in that photo a set of jumper cables between the buses.

I'm no GMC expert, but I thought the 4106 was a 12-volt bus.  If so, and considering your Prevost is a 24-volt coach, I would not expect much of anything to work when connecting the two together.

The radio is one of the few 12-volt items on your bus, so if you happened to jump the 4106 to the "lower" battery on the Prevost, yes, the radio would work.

If I am wrong about the 4106, please ignore the foregoing.

Also, I would strongly advise you to disconnect any DDEC ECM or ATEC ECU you have on board completely before doing more troubleshooting on the electrical system.  These devices are very sensitive to bad voltage, reverse polarity, etc. and are expensive to repair or replace.  Get the basic electrical system working first before reconnecting the computers (if any).  You won't need the computers until your crank is replaced anyway.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[OneLapper]

Hi Sean,

The 4106 in the picture is mine, and you're correct, it's 12vdc.  

What we were trying to do was charge the batteries on Anja's bus.  We disconnected the some of the cables on her batteries to make two 12vdc batteries in parallel.  We did this with all four to create two separate 12dvc groups, then used jumper cables from each 8D on the 4106 to each series on the Prevost. After an hour, we disconnected and rehooked everything up.  We got about 2 minutes of the radio and one warning light on the dash.

In short the batteries are too far gone.

I'm heading to her place tomorrow to help out with sealing and painting the roof on her bus.  We're going to install a new fridge in mine!

(Edit! Thanks Sean! Too many "Beverages and Buses"!)

I'm going to see if we can remove my house batteries and use those to get some power into her electrical system.  That should be easy, they're 6vdc T305 deepcycles.

[Sean]

...  We did this with all four to create two separate 12dvc groups, then used jumper cables from each 8D on the 4106 to each series on the Prevost. After an hour, we disconnected and rehooked everything up.  We got about 2 minutes of the radio and one warning light on the dash. ...

So was that an hour of running the main engine on the 4106 to charge the depleted batteries, or just an hour of hooking them together?  If it was the former, then, yes, they would charge (all else being good), but not if the latter.

I recommend you remove all the batteries, make sure they are properly watered, then charge them individually with a standard 12-volt battery charger such as you can find in any auto parts store.  Then check the specific gravity with a hydrometer, a couple bucks at any parts store.  You might find a bad cell or two in the group, or you might not.

In any case, for the troubleshooting that needs to be done between now and getting the crank done, pretty much any pair of standard 12-volt auto batteries will suffice -- no need to spend big bucks replacing the batteries with what is already there.  That Prevost would have been factory-equipped with a pair of 8D starting batteries.  Even after the engine is repaired, unless the OEM road A/C is staying in the bus, there is no need for such large batteries; we start our bus with a pair of group-65 batteries from Wal-Mart.

With no running engine with which to charge the batteries, they will need to be removed almost daily and connected to a charger (or purchase a 24-volt charger so they can be charged in place).  Otherwise they, too, will suffer an early death.

This coach was likely equipped with a Vanner 50-60 battery equalizer, and it is important that the equalizer is working properly, otherwise the lower battery will over-discharge and the upper one will over-charge.  I would test the Vanner shortly after getting working batteries in place.

Lastly, I would make certain to disconnect the batteries at the end of each work session, at least until a permanent charge source is installed.  There are several phantom loads that will eat the batteries in fairly short order.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[robertglines1]

I have a 89 and it has 4 ea 31 serries.fyi

[Sam 4106]

Hi folks,

The '84 Prevost Le Mirage XL we had also had 4 group 31 batteries. The battery compartment was behind the rear baggage compartment, accessed from the baggage compartment, and was configured for 4 group 31 threaded post batteries. Any batteries larger than group 31 would not have fit. The radio in our Prevost was a 24 volt REI with PA and audio connections for a video system. Our bus was a seated coach when we bought it. I have seen Prevost buses that were manufactured as conversion shells that do have 8D starting batteries but those buses have both start and house batteries in the area where the axillary restroom holding tank was on our bus. I am adding this information only for the sake of discussion. YMMV

Thanks, Sam MC8

[JohnEd]

DRT,

John, are you referring to Nate from EnvioFuel?

Yes!  Per your suggestion I called them. Nice folks and very helpful. Nina(?) also called me back.

Thanks for the steer


John

[Busted Knuckle]

All of the older XL series Prevost of that vintage I have ever worked on have had the 4 group 31 batteries located in the back wall of the rear luggage bays. Some of the "newer" ones have 8D's.
FWIW
  BK 

And yes like Sean said just get a couple junk yard batteries to use until it is road worthy.

[divinerightstrip]

I recommend you remove all the batteries, make sure they are properly watered, then charge them individually with a standard 12-volt battery charger such as you can find in any auto parts store.  Then check the specific gravity with a hydrometer, a couple bucks at any parts store.  You might find a bad cell or two in the group, or you might not.

Hmm. Interesting idea. I'll try this at some point!

With no running engine with which to charge the batteries, they will need to be removed almost daily and connected to a charger (or purchase a 24-volt charger so they can be charged in place).  Otherwise they, too, will suffer an early death.

Lastly, I would make certain to disconnect the batteries at the end of each work session, at least until a permanent charge source is installed.  There are several phantom loads that will eat the batteries in fairly short order.

Oh yes. I noticed this. After charging them, hooking them up, and then coming back less than a week later, they were dead.
Good to know. I'll add a good charger to my wish list!

DRT,

John, are you referring to Nate from EnvioFuel?

Yes!  Per your suggestion I called them. Nice folks and very helpful. Nina(?) also called me back.

Thanks for the steer

John

John, no problem! Glad that you got a chance to meet them. They are incredible people. I miss them! Did you happen to mention that I sent you? If you pronounce my name correctly, and mention that I have a little white VW rabbit, I bet they'd still remember me 2 years later!

All of the older XL series Prevost of that vintage I have ever worked on have had the 4 group 31 batteries located in the back wall of the rear luggage bays. Some of the "newer" ones have 8D's.
FWIW
  BK 

And yes like Sean said just get a couple junk yard batteries to use until it is road worthy.

Indeed. junk yard batteries = *thumbs up*
And yes, the 4 batteries in the luggage compartment.



FWIW?
-A

[Sean]

...
And yes, the 4 batteries in the luggage compartment.

So are those 6v or 12v batteries?  The factory batteries would have been 12v group-31's, but an earlier post suggested you had 6v batteries in there now.  The photo is too small for me to tell.

FWIW?

= For What It's Worth
(if the "?" was a request for translation)

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[divinerightstrip]

Yes, that was what the "?" was about, thanks.

And the batteries are 12v. Pay no mind to OneLapper, he sniffed too much seam sealer this weekend. 

I also wanted to share a few pics from this weekend, but it's time for me to get out of the office and head home. Be watching, I'll post some up later this week.
Thanks to everyone who gave me some excellent suggestions for my leaky roof! It rained again today, and no leaks yet - AWESOME!

[Busted Knuckle]

For What It's Worth

[divinerightstrip]

So, it is raining pretty hard here in New England right now. In fact, this would be a perfect example of a day when I would be sitting inside at work, worrying about how many 5-gallon buckets of water I'll have to dump out when I get down to my bus this evening.
Such is not the case today.
Why?
Well.
Last week, the Northeast was blessed with a warm spell. I was lucky enough to have my "spring break" from school, though I ended up taking on even more assignments at work. However, I took Thursday off and spent the entire day down at the bus, pressure washing the roof of ol' Urge.

Well... let me correct that. I tried to pressure wash... and I did well for the first, oh, 5 feet of roof or so until the pressure washer ran out of fuel and sucked some old fuel tank chunks into the pump and stalled, and wouldn't start up again. I ended up doing the rest by hand!!


(The washer is better now, though. I used it to wash the undercarriage and rails the next day!)

Then I used some 3M scour pads, and went over the entire roof of the bus, and also removed a bunch of old, chipping, gummy sealer from eons ago that wasn't serving any purpose.

Saturday, bus buddy OneLapper and I had a bus and BBQ weekend. Saturday, we sealed the roof of my bus with 3M Auto seam sealer. Note to self (and others): "brushable" seam sealer... LIES! No way can you brush that stuff on and have it look nice and also form an effective bond to your roof. We ended up applying it with our gloves and went through about a box and a half of gloves between our two buses.



As we waited for the sealer to dry, we had some beverages, BBQ'ed, and built a bonfire. Then we watched a really weird movie and fell asleep in the bus.

The next day, we gathered some painting supplies and rolled on coat #1 of the white elastomeric coating onto the roof of Urge. Amazingly, this completely hid the ugly gray, lumpy lines of seam sealer.



Wow, look how great this looks, and its only coat #1!!!




I can see how someone else might be a little envious....



We got the job done so quick, that we still had plenty of time and sunlight to do bus #2!



I sanded while he sealed. Luckily, I had bought two cans (I think I had a hunch that both buses needed roof love!).



And by the end of the day on Sunday, both of our buses looked better than ever!



TA-DA!

[bryanhes]

Anja,

Looking good! mine next 
Did you get started on your sketchup yet?

Bryan

[dkbiggs]

Looking good nice job.

[HighTechRedneck]

Those roofs look great.  Sure makes a difference.  I'll bet the bright white surface will make a big difference in how much the sun heats the inside up in a month or two.