Idling your bus?

[tekebird]

on trucks, outside of winter for heat reasons... i think there is more running at idle to prevent non starts.

last thing a trucker that has a delivery deadline wants is a truck that won;t start because he needed to do # 1 or # 2

[HighTechRedneck]

Ahhhh. The memories.......  As a kid, there was something magic about being at a bus station at night and hearing a group Greyhounds sitting in their docking bays.... ready, at fast idle. Waiting ....patient.....crouched in the frosty air, their hot breath creating swirls of mist rising up around their running lights.  Poised, tied up, against the dirty curb like some powerful, friendly mystical giant beast, anxious to feel the touch of her masters hand on the reins and hear those magic words .... "Let's go girl"..... Waiting for her master to tell her to do what she was born to do.... what she lives to do.....what she loves to do....to strain against her traces in the biting cold wind and run all out on the dark lonely roads, carrying, protecting and keeping warm, her precious cargo, nestled deep in her belly.

Chazwood, your gift of colorful writing really came through on this one.  That is great imagery of the way it used to be at the bus depot's.  It also very well describes when I first came to love buses as a kid and how I felt about them.  We took our vacation trips on the hounds and I loved the smell and the sound of these beasts.  With the low sulfur fuels, the smell isn't quite the same, yet similar, but the sound of a DD two stroke is still something I love.

[chazwood]

 

[Dreamscape]

My bus is only happy, with the wind in her teeth, passing trucks, up against the governor.

I feel like I'm hurting her feelings when I shut her down. I'm convinced that the reason this bus didn't come with a key is because the designers never meant for her to shut down. Maybe for a little service now and then.... but that's it. Then I began to think .....wait a minute....I've been on my share of greyhound buses......I don't remember ever hearing one start up. They were always running. Fast idle.

Ahhhh. The memories.......  As a kid, there was something magic about being at a bus station at night and hearing a group Greyhounds sitting in their docking bays.... ready, at fast idle. Waiting ....patient.....crouched in the frosty air, their hot breath creating swirls of mist rising up around their running lights.  Poised, tied up, against the dirty curb like some powerful, friendly mystical giant beast, anxious to feel the touch of her masters hand on the reins and hear those magic words .... "Let's go girl"..... Waiting for her master to tell her to do what she was born to do.... what she lives to do.....what she loves to do....to strain against her traces in the biting cold wind and run all out on the dark lonely roads, carrying, protecting and keeping warm, her precious cargo, nestled deep in her belly.

Thanks

Chazwood.

I'm sure glad I read it through to the end, I wasn't sure where he was going with that one. 

[Highway Yacht]

even high idle is not really good....no load is bad......if you can afford the bus you can afford to take it on a short 30-50 mile exersice every so often.....doesn;t need to be monthy.

taxiing around the propert does not really do anything....you need to get theings warm and moving.

As I stated with my first post, the bus isn't really roadworthy at this point to be safe on the highway. I have tools, lumber, cabinets sitting in the floor and a lot of loose ends like bay doors and windows that need to be finished before tooling down the road. I just thought that driving it up and down my 1/2 mile driveway was better than nothing. I thought it would at least get the fluids moving around in the engine, transmission, rearend, etc as well as keeping the airbags from premature dry rot from being deflated for long periods of time and the tires from having all the weight in one location. I just had new tires put on the bus and later heard that if 30,000 pounds sits on the tires without moving every once in a while that the tires will ride rough when I do get it roadworthy.

[buswarrior]

Hey, back to the original poster's dilemma!

He said his bus is not yet roadworthy or licenced. He has NO CHOICE as to driving it anywhere but in the driveway.

Might as well tell a poor man his job prospects would be better if he went out and bought an expensive suit....

Sounds good, might even be true, but not possible?

Run that engine, listen to the DD roar.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[TomC]

Stan- Caterpillars have full range governors, so where ever you position the pedal, that's where the engine will stay.  This has the advantage of having to move the pedal less on rolling hills since the governor will do alot of the work.  The Caterpillar over the road full range governor is not as sensitive as say a generator governor.  Otherwise you'd be jerking  around on rough roads.  Whereas on all other engines, the governor only kicks in to idle the engine and at top end to limit the high speed rpm.  This has the advantage of feeling more like a car gas pedal, but on rolling hills requires you to do all the work (if not using the cruise control) of the pedal your self.

Jlink- the steel radials of today are a fair reach from the old bias nylon and rayon ply tires of yester year.  I can tell you from experience, that I had my bus parked inside my warehouse for four years without moving it, and the 11R-24.5 16 ply radials were just fine.  They did bump a bit at first, but once warmed up, smoothed out quite nicely.  Good Luck, TomC

[HB of CJ]

We were told that idling was about 2 to 3 times harder on a Cummins and 2-stroke Detroit than running the mill at cruising rpm pulling a load down the hiway.  Now we have the fuel costs to also consider.  I would shut it down if it had to idle more than 1 minute, but that is just me.  Your choice. 

[ake1994]

Jlink,

I had a similar situation with my bus when I first started the conversion. For the first 6 months I started it in the driveway about once a month and let it idle for 30 minutes. Then I began to hear that that might not be doing it any good. So while I was raising the roof and doing some other stuff, the bus sat for about 6 months without being started. As soon as she was road worthy I changes the oil, topped off the fluids and started driving her. I drive her every couple of weeks now. If not going somewhere I will run 50 miles just to get her hot and blow her out. I've been driving her for a year now and have not been able to see where her down time during the conversion process has hurt her. I also have the 6V92TA DDEC.

FWIW

Goodluck with your conversion,

Breck