Long yarn day 2 and 3

[maria-n-skip]

Thanks for the responses and additions from your own experiences. They were a good read and sometimes
very sobering.

DAY 2

   Day two dawns with frost on the windows and a sense that this is going to be a long day. It is my daughters birthday and
   we call home to let everyone know our plans for the day. We won't be home in time for the birthday party.

Rule 5: Try to be as courteous and responsible as possible.
   I look under the bus and my oil slick has grown. I go to the counter to see if they have floor dry. The NAPA store down
   the street does and won't open for another two hours. In the daylight I open the engine doors. The right side has oil
   all over it. The turbo on the left side has oil drips at the exhaust joints. I have a sinking feeling. My daughter
   grabs me to go eat breakfast. NAPA is now open and we go buy 6 bags of floor dry, broom, and shovel. We get back to the
   bus and check oil and coolant levels one more time. The plan is to start the bus move forward enough to clean
   the mess I have created. After about the third try the engine finally starts. The smoke coming out of the
   exhaust is worse than any worn out DD and the Cummins is only hitting on about 4 cylinders. Let it warm up where
   it is hitting on all cylinders, move forward about 20 feet and shut it down. Time to clean the mess. Once clean it is
   now decision time.....tow or limp home. I decide to limp as far as I can go. I have the tow companies phone number so  when it dies they can just come and get me. I am a stubborn curmudgeon at times. Start the bus, check all levels and I opened  the oil filler spout. I am getting way too much blow by but I don't hear that popping noise of busted rings. It now only smokes badly when I throttle up and the blow by throws oil out the filler spout. I pull up to fuel and an elderly
   truck driver comes up to me and asks to see the engine. Turns out he used to drive buses and has had several L10s in
   his trucks over the years. I open up the back he listen intently and say drive it but watch the gauges closely. I should
   be ok to get it home. Off we go on the interstate again. The truck stop is at the base of a mountain pass. We are heading up and about 5 minutes into it the temp gauge is rising. We pull off the Interstate at a spot that is close to the creek. I
   open up the coolant fill spout only to see nothing. I shut it down and we get water from the creek to fill the coolant back up.  Creek water is not good for engines, the silica levels are way to high. Back when I was fulltime wrenching a local logger
   always used creek water for his D6. Eventually he had an over heating problem. He had the radiator cleaned but still had
   overheating problems. He finally brought the engine in for use to rebuild. When we pulled the liners there was mud caked
   on the bottom couple of inches. The coolant galleys all had mud that was a pain to clean out. We only put in 3 gallons
   of water and figured I would need to do a cleanout when I got home.

Rule 6: When you know the bus isn't at its optimum Due diligence.
   One last check of all the levels shows that the oil is down a quart. This is not a good feeling; luckily I have lots of oil.
   The bus now ready to role again I made the decision to pull over and check every 100 mile. On the road again. We finally make it a 100 mile time to pull over and check. I am down a full gallon. The side of the engine around the fill spout is soaked
   in oil. I take a bunch of paper shop towels and wad them up into a plug, to stop the oil from leaking out the filler cap.
   On this goes 100 miles then oil until almost 5:00. Time to stop for dinner. We have a another pass in front of us. This one
   is a lot steeper than the first one. We head up the pass and the engine is lugged down my speed is slowing way down and I can't get the tranny to shift down. Pull over place it into second and start going again. So frustrated I don't register this
   event as a warning. The sun is starting to set and I might make it home by 11:00 pm. We come down off the pass with no
   incidents. I am starting to feel good I am back in Montana. The head lights go out. Superior is only 20 minutes away.
   Movem out times a wasting. We pull into a truck stop and buy wires and connectors. If need be I'll hard wire the lights.

Rule 7: Pay heed to(learn) all the little tags in the drivers area.
Rule 8: When your tired the brain doesn't work very well.
   In the small bay under the drivers seat I find the wires to the headlights, Some wires are cut off just hanging and a small buss bar with some open slots. I check for power and one post seem to be connected to the highbeam switch. I rewire the headlights to this post. Start the bus and hit the high beam switch. My lord the two lights are so bright you could light up a football field then blink no more lights. It then dawns on me again too late the headlights are 12 volt and the little tag is
   right there stating it. Second night in the bus We will make the last leg tommorrow during the daylight.

  Day 3 starts the same as day two.

  Check all levels. The coolant level is fine and the oil is down less than a quart.
  Maybe finally things will go well today. At this point I am 160 miles from home in territory I know like the back of my hand.
  No problems that can't be handled by a phone call. We run solid until we get to the last pass. At the base of the pass I pull over and check the oil. Still just fine. Select 2 gear and off we go. We are running up the hill absolutely no problems. Finally
  we crest the divide and it is time to head down. I am in second and there should be no problems.

Rule 9: When thing go bad in a dangerous way stop. (if you can)
   Half way down the hill the tranny cuts loose and feels like there is nothing there. I frantically start hitting buttons
    and of coarse nothing happens. I hit the brakes to slow down. The first time I slowed down quit a bit the second
    and third but I have a 45mph curve coming up. 500 yards before the curve I hit the brakes hard and long. I start to feel
    the brakes fade and my air pressure is getting low. I check my mirrors and both lanes are empty. I use just what I need
    to make it around the corner. All I have left is a 55mph curve. After that there is no worries except
    maybe a ticket. First order of business is to get the air pressure back up. I hit the neutral button and floor the excelerator.
    As I get to 90 lbs of air I hit the brakes as hard as I can. They still feel mushy but I get to the 55mph curve at
    a speed I feel I can handle. Only a slight apprehension as I make it around(really understated). Now it is just a coast the
    rest of the way. I check my mirrors for cars and I see smoke coming out by the tires. At the bottom on an up hill I get the
    bus stopped. Checked to make sure the tires weren't on fire hop back in and on we go. (there are times when brakes are
    over heated that if you stop they can lock everything up). By the time I get to town the brakes are feeling better.

  Honey I'm home. No dear no real problems. Just had some minor set back.

  I have traveled on this pass several times in my grain truck running anywhere between 20k to 30k lbs. That probably helped
  but then maybe not.
  Yes I do qualify for the short bus sometimes and hopefully my kids will take care of me when I am really really old.
  A bus ride on weekends would be nice


  Skip

[Busted Knuckle]

Hey Skip,
At least ya made it in one piece! Now about that week end bus ride should it be a short bus, or a short ride? LOL!
  BK 

By the way what was the final diagnosis on the cummins?

[maria-n-skip]

I got the bus home May of 2006. I spent the whole summer running it under light loads. Up and down the frontage
road adjusting the throttle sensor adding a regulator on the air throttle. The thing had full pressure and I had no
control it was ether all on or idle. In a over a hundred hours of messing around with the engine running I have used
2 quarts. The blow by is a little more than I like but within reason. I also found hoses with oil leaks that I tightened
and double clamped.

That's why I got a spare L10 to build. I'll run the engine until the other engine is ready.

  Sometimes it is more than fate that shines on you. In this case I would say a herd of angels
  Is a herd PC?

Skip

[Brian Diehl]

Wow Skip ... makes that sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach very bad ...  took a lot of fortitude to press on. 

So, sounds like the motor may be a little "weak", but running good now?  How's the tranny doing? 

Did you check your brakes for air leaks?  I'm curious why you ended up low on air pressure as I've never seen a low air pressure condition with my bus.  I'm hoping to learn something from you experience.

[maria-n-skip]

Brian,

   My take on the low air.
When the tranny upshifted (rpm safety thing) the engine was now idling. Everytime I stepped on the
brakes my air pressure would drop 5 to 10 pounds. At idle the rebuild time was too slow. Diminishing return.
That is why I put it in neutral and mashed the accelerator to the floor.

The first thing I checked after I got home was air leaks. The emergency break valve leaks when on.
I can hear nothing on the brake cans. The air compressor seems to be worn out. I put a gauge on near
the air compressor. As the pressure builds the poppits seem not to be sealing as supposed to.
The gauge shows a too wide of a swing on each stroke and as it gets over 90 pounds the build up
pressure gets real slow to move. A good air compressor (if memory serves) shouldn't have over a
10 pound swing per stroke. Air pressure build up should be steady and not slow down as much as it is
showing now. Second possible sign is the amount of oil in the air lines. I don't know if this is from
not properly draining the lines for a long period of time or I am getting oil loss through the compressor.
Being I am still learning the quirks of the bus I will have to watch for oil in the air lines closely.

  The air bags take about 2 days to deflate.

  Last winter when I would start it up ,no either or plugged in, at 20 deg F. it would start within 5 sec.
I only do 20 sec max turn over times on diesels. I have decent compression to start that easily. I think
my biggest issues are going to be oil usage. I will find out when I start doing some decent traveling.

  FWIW
Skip

[Brian Diehl]

If it is starting in 20 degree weather then it must be doing pretty good on compression.  So, it may be in better condition than you originally thought.  Do you have a good air compressor on the "spare" L10 you could swap over to this?

[maria-n-skip]

Brian,

There is one on it but I don't know how good it is. Like anything mechanical when you tear something
apart you find more wrong than expected. If I used the other compressor I think I would at least
change the poppits. I probably will save up my money and buy a reman.

Skip

[Tim Strommen]

Hey Skip,

   Sounds like the torque-converter came out of lock-up on the down-hill. You said "frantically hitting buttons" sounds like an electronic shifter on a newer Allison (or something like that I'll bet) - electronic transmissions to the best of my memory will not allow a down shift if the road speed and next gear ratio will exceed the rev-limitter on the engine.  Torque converter lock-up is something that happens high in the ranges when in the "D" mode on the trannys.  My 740HT (mechanical) will come out of lock-up when I coast down hill (like on the down-hill side of Grant's Pass).  I'm used to driving a stick in a pickup, so I had a fairly steep learning curve required of me (fortunately the friend that worked at Gillig who was with me, knew a bit about the transmissions and was fairly interested in not dying right then, so he was a real good coach ).

I had to use the brakes to get down into a road speed that was okay for the "3" gear range  under the rev-limit and then click out of the "D" mode on the tranny to keep it in lock-up and ride the engine compression down the grade.  You may have a similar situation... or YMMV

Unlike the electronic shifters, the air shift is about like a mechanical linkage which by rotating the selector shaft on the tranny, opens ports in the selector valve inside the tranny (we just get a toggle or push-button that gives us a "next" or "previous" range selection, with a multi-lamp position indicator at the dash) - I think the E-shift trannys have solenoid valves instead which are opened/closed by the shift computer so the mechanical linkage/shaft rotation is not needed.

If you have an Allison, with E-shift, you might want to see if there is a way to hold the torque converter lock-up "on" when you are doing a grade descent (I'm looking into this for the 740HT, but it may be a bit easier with my tranny - someone wrote an article on this which I can refer to).

Cheers!

-Tim

[maria-n-skip]

Tim,

   I have some sketch schematics on the ZF in my bus. Very hard to read. It is an electric shift. I have hooked up
the retarder wires. I am a little reluctant to trailblaze on the lock up. There have been some offers to help Identify some
of the fittings on the tranny that have nothing on them. Still waiting probably got ate by my spam box.

  Your trip sounded in the same vain as mine. Hopefully when others are faced with similar situations they remember
what worked for us and what didn't.

Still think it is easier to tear a hard disk apart and put it back together than fight the laws of physics and electricity

Thanks
Skip

[bubbaqgal]

Hopefully when others are faced with similar situations they remember
what worked for us and what didn't.

Skip, most people are probably gonna be thinking a few (quite a few) words that can't be printed here rather than saying "let's try this...it worked for Skip".  LOL

[maria-n-skip]

Bubbuqgal,

    Very true! In the face of adversity rational thinking isn't always there and reactionary corrections
come at lightening speed (Well for the youngers as I get older lightening speed is replaced by molasses
speed).
   If I were to summerize I would say:
  When in doubt STOP (pull over) and give yourself time to rationally think it through. (When appropriate)
  Most of my mistakes were caused by being in a rush and fatigue. Bad combination in any book.

Thanks
Skip