Our Blytheville saga

[Emcemv]

Well, we are finally back home from the trip. The rally was just great and it was wonderful to put many names from the forum with a face! We left the rally on Sunday morning and everything went downhill from there! We woke up in the Walmart parking lot in Madison GA on Monday morning calling 911 because I was trying to pass a kidney stone. We managed to make it to barnwell SC where my mother-in-law lives and then spent the next 4 days in and out of the ER trying to manage the pain as the stone worked its way down.  On the 4th day, it stopped and blocked the kidney so I went in for surgery to have it removed and yes guys.....the surgery is done up through there....and a stent is placed for 3 days.  All went well and we finally got on our way after an extra week with my MIL.!! Pretty miserable experience, especially after the fun we had in Blytheville.

We learned a lot about our bus in Blytheville, and came up with lots of projects that need doing!  The bus ran flawlessly the entire trip and used about a gallon of oil every 1200 miles and gave us a little over 6mpg.  I knew we were close to needing tires and I was checking them every evening, when we arrived in SC, there were cracks developing on the sidewall near the tread on one inside rear tire.  I decided to replace it before it blew and it was a good thing we did, when it as removed, we could see more cracks on the sidewall.  We made it home with no more tire issues but I now realize we need to make tires our #1 priority. I did not have much choice on tires where we were so I ended up with a Firestone....I just could not go Chinese.  The cost was $550 installed and included disposal of the old tire. I was not able to get it spin balanced and that was frustrating but it seems to be fine.

Our first trip with our bus ended up being 3 weeks and we had to deal with medical issues and a bad tire......we really jumped in with both feet!! We are still married and we didn't kill each other so we will call it a good trip!!!

Thanks to all we met in Blytheville, and all the great advice we received.

[OneLapper]

Oh My Goodness Bruce!!

I was wondering why you didn't reply to my email.  Good grief.  Glad your back in CT!

You need a week off after your three weeks off!!!

Mark

[Mex-Busnut]

Wow, Bruce! I was worried you were having problems with your bus! But it was just a kidney stone. For what it cost you, take the stone to a jeweller and have it mounted on a ring.


Just kidding, Bruce! Glad to hear you are O. K. for sure!

[sdc53]

Sorry to hear about your situation.

I found out tues night I have a stone too. Ended up in the ER with excruciating pain. How large was yours? They said mine is between 2-4mm in size (that's around 1/16-1/8", guys).  I'm hoping for the smaller size, of course. They gave me some good painkillers and said I should be able to pass it myself.  Needed extra painkiller tonight, I think it's on the move, somewhere between the kidney and bladder...  Rumor is the worst is yet to come, knowing what comes after the bladder.  Dr. threatened me with a stent too if I am unable to pass it.  Sure as hell don't wanna go that route!

It crossed my mind I sure hope something like this never happens when we are traveling, especially out of the country or somewhere remote, and here I see it happened to you.  Sorry to hear that.  Sounds like they released you and then you had to go back in?

[Ed Hackenbruch]

 Wow Bruce, sounds very painful. My Dad passed a kidney stone once a long time ago and i remember how he was laid up for quite a while....I thought  that a few years ago i saw something where they could set you in a tub of water and use ultrasonic waves to break up stones into smaller pieces. Well at least you have a better story to tell than, "we went to a rally and had fun, then came home".  Maybe it was all of the dancing that kicked the stone loose?   

[Emcemv]

Well Scott, this was my second stone and the experience varies, you never know how it will go. My stone was small, just 2-3mm but for the pain it caused, it could have been the size of a basketball! I sincerely hope yours passes quickly, once in the bladder, you can pass it fine, the painful part is the kidney to bladder route. The pain will come and go and all you can do is try to manage it, the ER will give you Turadol and even that didn't work for me, they had to give me IV Nucor. It is the most excruciating pain and completely debilitating. I was out of it for 4 days and ended up losing 15lbs because I wasn't eating. I ended up with 4 ER visits at 2 different hospitals. If you end up having it removed and needing the stent, take lots of pain meds before you have the stent removed!!

Please PM or email me if I can help you at all.....the experience is fresh in my mind!

I don't want to turn this post into a medical forum, one great experience we had with the bus was that we easily made it 6 days on 100 gallons of water with 2 showers per day....I bought a "Bricor" 0.5gpm shower head that actually works great and I found a 0.5gpm kitchen sink aerator at Lowes that is a little weird to use but is fine once you get used to it. I think for us, one of the most important things for comfort is having real good heat in the bathroom, doing navy showers in a cold bathroom is not my idea of fun.

One part of our bus that I learned to hate was the original air operated wipers, maybe there is something wrong with ours but when you turn them off, they don't self return to the center and at 90psi just when the air compressor kicks back in, the drivers side wiper would stop and I would have to restart it or wait for the air to build up a bit. I will probably live with this as we have many other higher priorities but any advice on which electric conversion is best would be appreciated.

Thanks for all the comments, the Blytheville part our our trip was by far the best......many new friends!!!

[BusCrazyinFL]

WOW Bruce! Sorry to hear about that Kidney stone issue. I've heard that is VERY painful! Sure thankful you and your wife are safely home now. Really glad to see your post because my wife and I were upset that we had not gotten your contact info before we all left. We enjoyed meeting you and your wife and getting to know you better as we listened to that blues band the night before we left.

As far as those air wipers - my wipers quit working the day we arrived, just as we got into Memphis at rush hour, and yes, it had started raining. We pulled off the highway into a weigh scale station so I could try to fix them, but to no avail. We almost thought about spending the night there, but decided to keep driving into Blytheville and we made it there safely. In fact about 15 minutes before we arrived the rain stopped and the sky cleared up as we drove into the Staging Lot. Now that we are home, my next project will probably be getting electric wipers.

You mentioned your tires...I found it fascinating that you had double axles instead of the tag axle. I even took pics of it (which I'll post here).
Again, glad you made it home safely. We really enjoyed meeting you both and hope to meet up with you again someday soon.

Manny (& Darlene)

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Bruce, if your wipers won't return all of the way, try bumping the knob just a little bit or turn it just a hair for a second. That is what i do, after a while it is no big deal.   

[Boomer]

Bruce I am the guy that spent an enjoyable hour chatting with your wife on the ride to Memphis in the Scenic.  Also really admired your bus, one of my favorites at the show.  I have the Greyhound Silverside.  Look into AM Equipment in Jefferson, OR for your wiper system.  I have owned two of their sets and really like them.  Great company.  Ask for Butch.  All American made.  Glad you are feeling better.
Mark

[pd4501-771]

Bruce

Gosh I feel so sorry for you. That must have really sucked big time! What a drag. I am so glad you guys came to Blytheville (and that you survived, and are still married!). That is quite a story. It was great to meet you both. Let's do it again sometime (without the stones and surgery part.... ok) Glad you are ok.

Manny, did you get warmed back up yet? You'll probably never leave Florida again huh! It was sure chilly those first fews days in Arkansas. Bruce's 7 has the heart of a Scenicruiser. About 100 cruisers gave their lives back in the late 60s so that Greyhound could convert some of the MC-7s to combo cars to haul freight. This work was done at Hausman in Chicago (if I remember right). My buddy Fred Rayman visited their place when they were scrapping those Scenics and donating their drive-trains to the MC-7 combo cars. (alxes, and all) He wrote down every serial number of Scenic parked on the lot that was slated to be scrapped. As it turns out, they did not scrap as many as they had planned, because several of the S/Ns on his list still exsist today. So Bruce has a MCI, but there is a lot of Scenicruiser under there! Take care

Tom McNally

[Emcemv]

Ed

Thanks for the advice on the wipers, that's what I ended up doing. We will probably have to live with it for a while, it's not that big a deal really and we have many higher priority projects.

Mark,
thanks   for the tip on AM for the electric wipers, I am going to get some prices so we know what to expect when we are ready to do it. My wife enjoyed chatting with you on the trip and we both agreed that you have the #1 bus at the rally, you have done a beautiful job with the silverside.

Tom

Thanks for the history of the combo! I'm learning more and more through this forum.  We had a great time and are grateful for all your hard work on the rally.

All - I'm glad that my ordeal is over and thanks for all the concerns........we just opened the mail today and got the $700 ambulance bill and the $1500 hospital copay........on top of the fuel!!!! Yikes!!.

[Iceni John]

Another cheap idea to improve air wipers  -  try using an inline fog lubricator on each wiper's air supply line.   I put a 1/4" mini air line lubricator just upstream of each wiper motor.   BIG difference.   The driver's wiper was much slower than the passenger's before I did this, but now it's almost the same speed.   It's a lot easier to introduce a fine mist of oil into the motor than taking the darn thing apart to relube it.   I used the $7.99 ones from Harbor Fright, thinking that for the price they would probably be junk.   Surprisingly they're not bad at all, with a nicely finished aluminum body and a clear acrylic plastic bowl, and I can't imagine that a $50 Norgren would work any better in this application.   I made simple aluminum mounting brackets for them so I can easily remove them to refill or adjust them, and used clear vinyl tube from them into the motors so I can see how much oil is actually going in.   The HF website doesn't show the 1/4" lubricators now, but the similar 3/8" ones are here:   http://www.harborfreight.com/air-tools/air-tool-accessories/38-oil-fog-lubricator-68233.html   I put a 1/8" cotter pin in each wiper arm's hole to keep them off the glass, then ran them for about quarter of an hour until I saw oil coming out of each wiper's exhaust tube.

Yes, I know that HF's stuff is mostly worthless junk, but these definitely exceeded my expectations.   They work well and should last a long time.   So far, so good.   I may also put some lubricators on the door's air ram, but for that I'll need two, one for each direction.

John

[Mex-Busnut]

Another cheap idea to improve air wipers  -  try using an inline fog lubricator on each wiper's air supply line.   I put a 1/4" mini air line lubricator just upstream of each wiper motor.   
John

John: How about some pictures of your installation for those of us who are mentally challenged?

[Iceni John]

Sorry, I've got no photos of anything I've done so far!   If you need any more info, PM me and I'll be happy to prattle on about what I've done.
John   

[Hi yo silver]

Two things; We can't make assumptions re. the country of origin of tires based on their name. My Kumhos, an unfamiliar name, were manufactured in Georgia, near Atlanta IIRC. The other point is related to your air wipers. On my MC9, in order to park the wipers when you turn them off, turn the control knob counter-clockwise, past the stop, and they will park.  The knob is spring loaded, and will return to the off position. Hope this helps!
Dennis