December issue Rustless money Pit part 1

[B_K]

I read the article last night and had to laugh (with you, not at you) when you tell the story of the engine coming out of the bus in front of your friends van.

Honestly I have heard of the engines falling out of buses and even have a friend who is an ex-driver of ours and is retired from Greyhound (many many years ago) that actually was driving an MCI across the Cimarron Turnpike in OK when he heard a loud bang, crunch, bang, bang, crunch bang and the bus lost power, the lights went out and he slowly steered it off the highway in the dark with only the moonlight to see by.
When he and some of the horrified passengers got out to see what happened they were shocked to find the back of the bus wide open with a big empty hole in the engine compartment. Then about that same time a car locked up it's brakes after almost hitting the engine and transmission still laying in the middle of the highway.

And as you well know I had the MCI that had the bulkhead and engine rails that were breaking up so bad I immediately retired it when I found all the cracks during a routine oil change and service.
We had recently thrown a fan belt on a trip and replaced it with a new one an threw it again before getting home so I was just double checking and looking for anything out of the ordinary when I looked up and saw the engine frame busted loose from the main bulkhead and about an inch gap between them. I called dad down to the shop and told him well this bus is out of service.
He asked for how long and I told him probably forever from what I see!
Dad looked at me like what? He asked why what's wrong now, we just put an engine in it a little over a year ago.
When I showed him what I saw he was as shocked as I was.
He asked can it be repaired?
I told him Yeah, but at what cost and showed him more of the bulkhead breaking away from the rest of the coach.
I had already called my welding and fabrication guy who is an excellent welder with all kinds of certifications for who knows what. When he showed up he got in the pit w/me an dad and took one look at it and said Yes I can fix it, but how much time, and how much $ I can't tell you w/o a whole lot more inspection and for me to do it, we're gonna have to remove the eng/trans, the floor above this area, CLEAN IT SUPER CLEAN, and get it over to my shop. Where I have the proper equipment to do the work.
But I also want to tell you both that I am very uncomfortable even starting on this because it's my license, reputation and livelihood on the line if I repair it and sometime later something breaks and someone gets hurt or killed. This ain't no little repair job THIS IS THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BUS AND THIS REPAIR IS CRITICAL in how it gets done and I won't do it unless everything I find gets fixed the right way ALL THE WAY! 


Well dad an I were 100% onboard with removing the eng/trans and getting it cleaned up super clean with our high pressure steam cleaner. We were even in agreement that it needed to be done 100% right for not only Mark's liability but ours as well! 
The part we weren't sure about was having to remove all the seats and flooring and having it towed across the county to his shop only to find out after all that he either didn't feel comfortable doing the repair or it was going to cost way more than the bus was worth.
So we all agreed I'd get the eng/trans out and get things @$# clean as I could and we'd "re-look" at it before taking the seats out and the floor up.

Well when I got the eng/trans out and steam cleaned everything we saw lots and lots more cracking that had been hid by the grease and called Mark over to more or less confirm our suspicion that it was not going to be cost effective to fix it.

Mark got out his flash light and a couple picks and whatever else he brought with him and spent about 15 mins un the pit by himself going over it thoroughly before he came out and asked "Alright say I agree to do this, how serious are you about getting it done and done right and is it going to be when I have the time, or top priority put everything else on hold?"

Dad an I told him well yes were serious about getting it done right, and we'd like it to be done ASAP, but that also depends on the cost.
That's when he said "Well to start with you'll still need to pull the floor up because there is still damage up there I gotta repair, so I have no clue what were talking there. But to put everything on hold and move everything around in my shop where I can get this in and still have room to work 9which will take me close to a week alone) for say 3 weeks of solid working on the bus alone I'll need a weeks notice and $5000 to start with and $3-4000 more per week depending on how much material it requires.
But I honestly see it going over $20,000 to do it my way."

Dad an I told him thanks but that's exactly what we were afraid of. And offered to pay him for his time and trouble for his two trips out to our shop. Which he refused, and said I'm sorry to bear bad news, but I'm honestly afraid if I tried to do it for less it would come back to bit us all!
We agreed with him again, an d thanked him again because we wouldn't have had anyone else do the work and if he didn't think it could be done right for less it just wasn't worth it to us.

But back to what made me laugh the hardest Gary is that all the mechanics who never learned two stroke Detroits have always said they were nothing but boat anchors! I just never knew any of the engines heard this and took it seriously! 
  BK 

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

Hummm.  Makes me think that perhaps I should add a new line item to my Pre-Flight Checklist "Checks for cracks in the frame".    Or at least look around more when I grease all of the fittings on my bus.  Wish I had a pit so I could check things out down under a bit easier.

Makes you wonder how much of a problem this is because this is the first I have heard about this happening, but I am sure if it happens to commercial operators, they keep it hush-hush, so it may be more common than we think.

Has anyone else had any experience with engines falling out of buses while on the road or badly cracked frames like the one in the Rustless Money Pit article?

I did discover last month that one of my screws that hold my U-Joints in was missing on each end of the joint and it had no locking plate on either one. Makes me wonder what else was serviced improperly on that bus now.  Thanks to Gary Bennett at B&B Coachworks in Las Vegas, I made it home from the Dam rally last month.

He said it would have been iffy if I made it home as it was only a matter of time before the driveshaft was going to come falling out and it could have taken out a very expensive dropbox at the same time and maybe even more.  Of course, it would have happened in the middle of BFE with my luck.

[B_K]

Gary this is not to say ALL buses have these problems!
And I assure you that even Gary L an I both personally know of someone who had it happen to them (or witnessed it very closely) it's not a common occurrence for them to actually fall out.

And while I used to pride myself and our companies reputation as keeping a vigil eye on all parts of the coaches during maintenance. It was a huge surprise to find ours in that bad of shape as we'd had the engine out about 14 months earlier and didn't see these huge cracks when cleaning things up before re-installing the re-manufactured engine we'd bought in it.

But it was plain as day the day I looked up and saw the cracks that it wasn't no "quick fix patch job."

I really suspect that the reason we got such a deal on it when we purchased it was that it had been noticed by the previous owners who sold it off in a "lot" of buses even though it was a vintage they were still operating quite regularly at the time.
It came from a company headquartered in New Orleans, LA (after its days with Greyhound) an I highly suspect those rough LA roads had done a number on it as it had been welded here an there.
But by the time I discovered it the areas they had patched just tore off with the rest of it making it look that much worse.

Also when I found the damage the bus had just come home from 2 back to back "New England Fall Foliage" Trips and was fixing to leave for a N. MI Fall Foliage trip the following week. (I suspect the hard miles up in the NE on some of those roads is what finally caused it to give it up)

But yes buyers do need to beware as many sellers would have just jammed everything back as tight as possible, welded the heck out of what could be seen, got it nice and greasy nasty and sold it off on the next guy!
  BK 

[daveola]

I'm curious about how hard it was to spot these cracks on your bus.

I had a mechanic look at my bus once and tell me the engine frame was cracked and it was going to be a big deal (I think he was mostly using it as an excuse not to work on the bus).

I drove the bus for a couple years anyways, knowing that I should get the alleged cracks fixed.

Now that the engine and tranny are out of my bus, I want to get a welder in there to fix the cracks I was told about, but when I went in to try to find them myself I couldn't see anything.  How much of a crack does it have to be to be a concern, and how hard are they to find?

[Fredward]

Both times I had the engine out of my MC-5A I had to weld up some cracks on the left rail where it joins the bulkhead. We welded plates in there for extra strength too. Not sure if that cracking would have been visible with the engine in place. (Now that I know where to look it would be visible) The right side was OK it was just the left side. This is also why I never built a serious trailer hitch for the bus. It seemed like any way of doing it still tied in to the motor mount rails which, in turn attach to the bulkhead and that's where the cracking was!

I wasn't even close to losing the engine, but there was some cracking.

Fred

[Tikvah]

BK,  What vintage was that bus?  And how old was the bus when it happened?

[chessie4905]

Several years ago there was a big blowup over faulty city buses with cracking and faulty frames. Feds got into it at the time. About 20 miles from where I live there is a facility that was used and still is, I think,to test new and current bus designs for durability. Has bumps rough sections comparable to what may be expected driving in city streets. Drivers in shifts, ran the buses 24/7/365, watching for issues and failures.

http://www.larson.psu.edu/about/test-track.aspx

http://altoonabustest.psu.edu/bus-tests.htm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flxible_Metro

[Oonrahnjay]

...  About 20 miles from where I live there is a facility that was used and still is, I think,to test new and current bus designs ... 

     The "Altoona tests" were one of the things that encouraged me about buying a Gillig as the "donor" bus for my Cummins/Allison drivetrain.

[B_K]

I'm curious about how hard it was to spot these cracks on your bus.

I had a mechanic look at my bus once and tell me the engine frame was cracked and it was going to be a big deal (I think he was mostly using it as an excuse not to work on the bus).

I drove the bus for a couple years anyways, knowing that I should get the alleged cracks fixed.

Now that the engine and tranny are out of my bus, I want to get a welder in there to fix the cracks I was told about, but when I went in to try to find them myself I couldn't see anything.  How much of a crack does it have to be to be a concern, and how hard are they to find?

Dave in my case the cracks were plainly visible from standing under the bus in our pit. (w/flashlight)
I know everybody don't have a pit, but those would have been visible with the bus on ramps an me on my back on a creeper.
Now not to scare you. Because it ain't the same bus, but I once drove a bus all the way from FL to CA for a guy that buys an sells buses that kept throwing the belt.
But that bus had serious problems the floor was buckling right over the bulk head and had to use a pry bar to get the belt back on. When prying you could feel things that shouldn't flexing.  
When I discovered how bad it was in FL I called the buyer an told him. His response was "Keep driving it this way, if it breaks down leave it where it sits and be sure to get all of your belongings out of it, and don't leave any paperwork behind. We'll find you a way home"  
Very comforting thought!    Well after about a dozen times putting the belt back on, having a tag wheel seal repaired in AZ (got chewed out for having that done, but it was either fix it or let it lock up and catch on fire)
I finally made it to Anaheim and was never so glad to be out of a bus and heading to get on a plane! (btw have I ever mentioned I HATE flying) Several months later saw that same bus listed on Ebay as a rust free CA bus in great condition.  

BK,  What vintage was that bus?  And how old was the bus when it happened?

Dave that was an '86 102A3 and it was 24-25 yrs old when we retired it. (I can't remember the build date or exactly when we parked it)

Chessie interesting read! I thought they were going to say the PA Turnpike was the testing track!
 BK  

[Oonrahnjay]

...  Several months later saw that same bus listed on Ebay as a rust free CA bus in great condition.    ...

      As we say in Narff Kahlyenah "justifiable homicide -- some people juss need shootin".