125 Gallons

[Eagle Andy]

Hi Guys , Made it to Moab from Showlow I did not realize how steep the pull from Bluff to Moab or maybe Iam a little jumpy . I used 125 gallons of water thru my misters lol I think I need to put some nozzles in the pvc pipe. Well at least the temp never got over 190 . Tomorrow we head norththru rife and craig colorado. next stop riverton wyo . The Bus is running great , Talk to you soon Andy

[skihor]

The pass from Rifle is not for the faint of heart. Or a bus with heating issues.
Good Luck.

Don & Sheila

[JohnEd]

Andy,

I see a lot of buses with misters.  MCI never put them on stock that I know of and that means nothing.  I see you have an 8V92 and I envy you that.  Did you upgrade to that engine and not get large enuff rads?  I read a post about Detroit Rad having the biggest rad ever put in a mci9 and I think he paid $1,300 plus freight for the pair and that was a super deal.  I read posts by others that paid closer to $2,000.  What are you running?

Thanks,

John

[DrivingMissLazy]

Holes drilled into PVC pipe are waaaaay too big! You need a very, very fine mist. I tried that with #80 drill bit and that was too big.
Richard

[Eagle Andy]

Hey John , This bus is came the way it is , The owner put the 92 in it and after he burned up his 6 ,The misters on this are way to big am trying to ween myself of them just because I don't think they cam stock on this bus . I found if I use my tranny and rpm's I can keep her cool It took some getting used to it.

[TomC]

I used a mister system from Home Depot.  Am using 15 nozzles that I figured flows one gallon every 8 minutes.  Just for a bit a trivia- one gallon of water evaporated equals 8,000 btu's of heat rejection.  When I use mine I find it is better to turn it on before it starts to heat-like before you get to the hill.  After my very hot drive to and from Mammoth Lakes, Ca at 8300ft, and over 100 degree weather (107 coming back), I used the misters on most long hills. On the flat everything was fine.  But had a bit of calcium built up.  Yesterday used CLR in a spray bottle, and that seemed to take care of the calcium build up. Currently have the misters tied into the water system of the bus.  Probably eventually will get a 10 or 20 gallon tank that I can use distilled water and avoid the calcium build up. Good Luck, TomC

[Cary and Don]

There was a great article in one of the back magazines on the use of little sprinkler heads.  We switched from misters to that system and it works so much better.  In hot weather a lot of the mister water evaporates before it ever gets to the radiator. The sprinker heads actually used less water and cooled faster.

Don and Cary
GMC4107

[JohnEd]

Don,
I read that post and he got satisfactory cooling ONLY when he started squirting(not misting) 10 gal per hour on the rad.  Was an 8V92 I think but who knows what rads.

John

[skihor]

Just to clarify on the 10 GPH system I made. It's in a '67 MCI 5A w/ a 6V92 @350 HP. Allison 5 spd auto w/ a seperate trans cooler. It has stock size rads w/ large blowers, (12" X 12"), and small pulley. I had new cores made using the stock tanks. I believe they are 5 core w/ serpentine fins. On paper the rads can only get rid of 7,000 BTU. I believe the 6V92 can produce in excess of 12,000 BTU. Bottom line need more rads.
On the subject of misting or outright water on the rads. I could see little benefit from misting, GREAT benefit from water.

Don & Sheila

[TomC]

That's 7,000btu per minute!  Good Luck, TomC

[RJ]

All -

I find all this chatter about misters and misting systems somewhat amusing.

Why?

Because when I worked in the charter industry, I drove 80K/yr with absolutely stock cooling systems in MCIs, GMCs and Prevosts.  Never once did I have a coach shut down on me for overheating, even running in the hot Mojave Desert in July.

All it took was paying attention to what you were doing, which mostly consisted of watching your instruments and not being afraid to SLOW DOWN and drop a gear to keep the engine in the most efficient RPM range for cooling (partial throttle, 1700 - 1900 for most two-strokes).

(It also helped, of course, that the company I worked for had an excellent PM program.)

Bottom Line:

For a STOCK system, if your cooling system is up to specs, and you drive your coach appropriately, you shouldn't need misters.

For a NON-STOCK, hot-rodded, application, you need all the help you can get.

FWIW & HTH. . .

[JohnEd]

Russ,

Thank you! 

John