The Art, Science and Cost of Bus Maintenance

[lostagain]

The subject of yearly maintenance cost came up in the $6000 bus buying thread yesterday, and the shop building thread also brings it up.

Out of curiosity and in the interest of the board at large, two questions come to mind:

1- How much do you spend on maintenance per year?
Do not include add-ons. Only tally R and R of worn parts and broken bits that normally occur in any vehicle. Fixing appliances and house systems upstairs should be part of it. Include all fluids and filters, tires, brakes, etc. Big items like a clutch, trans., should be amortized over 5 to 10 years because obviously you dont fix that every year.
There are variables that will skew the results of course such as catching up to the previous owner's neglect, and wether you do your own work or not.

The second question naturally follows:

2- How much of it do you do yourself? and why? What are your mechanical skills?
On one end of the scale are the  guys that wont even check their own tire pressures and take the bus to the tire shop for that. They wont or cant replace a light bulb. I  saw one at the Kenworth dealer the other day where I had the hockey team bus in for an inspection. He had his semi in to get a head light changed.
At the other extreme is the full fledged mechanic that will rebuild an engine over the week-end. And he packs a full complement of tools in the bus to fix things on the road if he has to. Others carry good road side assistance and tow insurance.
Everybody has their own philosofy about how to do said maintenance. Bobofthenorth mentioned blowing a wheel bearing and replacing all the bearings to have peace of mind. Same with air bags. I've met several people like that. I myself would pull all the other hubs and repack the other bearings to make sure they were allright for my peace of mind. Its like we've all met people who get a new battery in their car every fall, where's most of us get 4 or 5 years out of it and only replace it when it gets weak.
Some guys with less mech. skills and less time get some or all of the maint. done in a prof. shop. That's great. It takes a bigger budget at +- $100/hr.
Others like myself do most of our own. I am semi retired so have the time. And I really like putsing and tinkering and learning from manuals and friends.  I like picking people's brains about tech. stuff I need to learn. I do basic arc welding, electrical, plumbing, carpentry, etc. I draw the line at rebuilding components. Blower off for a rebuild at the DD dealer. Air compressor off for an rebuilt exchange. Maintaining and fixing myself gives me the satisfaction of self reliance and of knowing that it was done properly. Also inspecting the brakes as an example gives me first hand knowledge of their condition.

So lets hear how you do your maintenance and how much of it do you do yourself if any and why. Expand on your philosofy on the matter.
Give the board a rough estimate of yearly cost.

My '57 MCI conversion, 10 to 15K km/year, parked all winter, driven from May to Sep.: $3000/year.
The '95 MCI 102D3 hockey team bus, 40 000 km/year mostly winter driven: $6 to 8000/year.
I do my own on both.

JC

[skipn]

JC,

    If possible could we add a third question?

   3. Preventive Maintnenace........Any thing written up on life expectancy.

   To me if an item has a 100k life expectancy and it is expensive I would like to save up the money
    and change it before it goes bad............Can that be done in an old bus?

Thanks
Skip

[bobofthenorth]

I'll kick it off.  I've already posted some examples of what I consider necessary.  I do about 1/2 of my own work and farm out about 1/2.  Probably that will change to doing more of my own work because I have more time now.  (I still have the same 24 hour days but more of those hours belong to me)  I don't have any particular inclination to do or not do the work.  If I'm making more doing consulting than it will cost me to hire somebody to do bus work then somebody else is going to do the work.

My maintenance goal is to have the bus ready for a 5000 mile trip on a moment's notice.  JC said he'd probably have replaced the hot bearings and repacked the others.  That's not really an option on oil bath bearings and I have always preferred to replace bearings and tires if there is any doubt about them.  They both have the ability to really wreck your day if they quit on the road.  The problem with buying a used coach is that you don't know the maintenance history.  I now have a time reference on the bearings that I didn't have before.  At the time I replaced them I assumed that they were likely original which indicated to me that they could have upwards of 1 million miles on them.  Same with the air bags - now that they are replaced I have a definite service history on them.  I know the service history on the engine because it was a DD rebuild when the conversion was done.  Same with the transmission.  On the engine I do regular oil samples so I have some confidence with what is happening there. 

For the last three years I have spent between $7,000 & $9,000 annually and that likely includes $1500 - $2000 of hired labour.  I disagree that the results reported here should "amortize" the annual expenses over an extended period.  When I write a cheque the merchant doesn't allow me to amortize that expense.  As I posted elsewhere, you can mentally amortize the amount but, if you have to write the same size of cheque every year then you are only fooling yourself.

My PM schedule is to oil sample every 5-6000 km and change only when indicated.  I grease over a pit every 10,000 km.  I take infrared tire temps every 3-500 km when we are travelling and check tire pressures when the infrared indicates a problem.  On the same walkaround I take infrared temps over each cylinder, on the corner drive bearings and on the front engine bearings as well as each drive hub.  When I'm over the pit I do all the brake checks and set the clutch.  I'm toying with the idea of having a 3rd party vehicle inspection done annually, like a commercial truck.  Its not required here but I think its a good idea.

We put a minimum of 15,000 km per year on the bus.

[lostagain]

Skip, as an example the engine in my old MCI. I don't know how many miles it has. It was last rebuilt in '72. It runs really well, doesn't smoke or burn excessive oil, the oil samples come back good. Should I spend $10 000 now for a rebuild, or keep running it till it gets bad? Myself, I'll keep using it. Someone else in the same shoes would get it done now for fear of breaking down on the road.
Another example is I just had the air compressor rebuilt. It was pumping air good, but was passing a lot of oil that I had to drain out of the ping tank and wet tank every day. Now like Bob says, I have a service history on it and I know it is good for a long time. But I still don't know how long. Things usually don't quit all a sudden, they give you some warning if you pay attention.

Bob, good idea about a third party inspection. Our team bus gets inspected every 6 month per DOT regs. They have pointed out problems on occasion that I had missd. You would have to ask them what to look for specifically, because a DOT inspection is limited to safety related items like brakes, lights, steering clearance tolerances, etc.

JC

[skipn]

JC,

    Thanks for the reply....It was only a curiosity to see if there was anything published.

   "Things usually don't quit all a sudden, they give you some warning if you pay attention"

     Since you do oil samples do you also........
   Have the injectors/compression tested on some schedule.
   Have the cooling system ph/pressure tested
   Have the oil pressure checked at both top end and bottom end.
   Have the blower clearances checked.

     I guess the list can go on, probably irrelevant, but to me a 36 year old engine would probably motivate me to start saving
   some money for that eventfull day when I may need to shell out 10K. To me oil analysis shows changes/situations of an engine
   not the aggregate over all wear on an engine.

   JMO
   Skip

[lostagain]

Skip, I don't worry too much about my engine other than I look after it quite well: oil changes with analysis. I change coolant every 3 or 4 years  and would know if it over heated abnormally. I keep an eye on both my oil pressure gauges, front and back. I feel the compression is good because it starts easy, doesn't smoke (especially since I put a turbo on it), doesn't burn oil abnormally. I had the blower rebuilt a couple years ago when I turboed it. You don't need to worry about a 2 stroke Detroit untill it starts smoking eccessively, looses power, becomes hard to start, burns lots of oil, and then you can still make it home.

JC

[bobofthenorth]

That's one I missed that I do Skip - I use the DD test strips on the coolant every time I do oil maintenance (change or sampling).  I'm not sure what I'd do different if I had an unknown engine.  As it is I know the history of this one - I'll do a bearing roll at somewhere between 250 and 300k kms and that will probably outlive my life on the road.  I wouldn't worry about the injectors unless it started to smoke and I have an oil gauge at both ends so I'm pretty comfortable with my oil pressures.  I'm only vaguely aware of why there even is a blower on a 2-stroke so I must confess I don't think about it at all.  As far as the turbo is concerned I've been told that these 2-strokes pump so much air that you don't have to worry about turbo cooldown but I do it anyway so I don't expect to have any issues there in the lifetime of use that I anticipate.

[H3Jim]

I spend about $2,000 to $3,000 a year on maintanance, at the dealership.  The bus is sound, so its easier to keep it up than if it needed alot of stuff.

I'd like to preface this with the fact that I have done a lot of mechanical work over the years on my cars, trucks, motorcycles etc. 

Originally, right after I bought it, it seemed like a good idea to  have them do the work as I was new to the bus, and it was important to me to get / keep things right / up to date.  Maybe I've gotten lazy, but it seems that they find things that truly need to be repaired / replaced and I would have missed.  The dealership out the bus on the lft, and they always check everything, coolant etc. 

I have it lubed every year, no matter how few miles I put on.  I also have the oil and all filters changed. I drive between 5,000 and 10,000 miles a year.  Its lubed on the rack so the kingpins get plenty of goo injected.  I go to the desert, and I have had some excess silica in the oil, so I am happy to change oil more frequently than "needed" as well.

The dealer has found bad seals on the mitre box, badsteering damoper, bad radiator overflow tank etc.  Some of these would have left me on the side of the road, and its a lot cheap;er and more convenient to have it done at the shop ahead of time.

I do change all my own lights, wipers and constantly check air pressure, fluid levels etc.  I try to stay tuned to what is happening to each of the systems, so I don't just run it into the ground.  Its fun anyway.

[HB of CJ]

lostagain.....great question.  While doing the annual spread sheet thing for tax purposes, we figured out that it was costing about $80.00 per month just to own the Crown Super Coach.  This includes tags, licensing, insurance, storage fees and some fuel for putting around once in awhile.

It also included some parts like various filtures and some minor replacements like headlights, wiper blades, batteries and stuff.  Not too bad considering, but the total did not include any $$$ for the planned bus conversion.  We then figured out what a proper conversion project would cost.

After looking at the retirement portfollio (or what it pretends to be) it was decided that the money dedicated for the Bus Conversion would be better "spent" keeping it for retirement rather than spending it now on the Crown.  You financial situation may differ.  Good luck. 

[jlaney]

hello from texas
my bus maintaince is less than the 98 dodge caravan , which i drive
i spent 1800.00 on a transmission, starter. hose's belts and so on.
my bus costs in the last three years has been less . i don't put as
many miles on it either. the most expense was rebuilding the aux
gear box for the radiator fan, also watch the big old air cleaner,before
my last trip ,i pulled it out and never saw such a large amount of black
dirt in my life.  thanks for this thread  jt.

[FloridaCliff]

I have been thinking about this topic and how to answer.

Since most of us are buying a shell and converting, when does the actual maintenance start and the rebuilding end?   

I expected to change a lot of parts when I first got it, like air lines, brake cans, tires and all the tightening up you have to go through during the first couple of years.

I guess to me the maintenance started around the 2nd year I owned it, the first two years were really shaking down all the gremlins and neglected items that first were seen and then the ones that were hiding.

I would not be surprised to spend 500-1000 a year on maintenance.

Of course I do my own work and any not spent should be allowed for tire replacement in the future.


Cliff

[travelingfools]

Ive had my bus for less than a year, so I don't have a yearly cost, however, unless I win the lottery, Ill be doing any repairs/maint. myself. The reason is purely financial. No other motivation or philosophy. Ive got a buddy who is a truck mechanic that can help me with most of the DD issues and another acquaintance who is a bus mechanic. He will come down and guide me through repairs at a very nominal price. I haven't really set a maint. budget, but don't plan on putting any major miles on the bus for a few years.

[PP]

I do all my own maintenance, that's half the fun of owning her. If I run into a problem, I post it here and wait on the experts to weigh in. Then I take Chazwood's advice and proceed forward (Thanks Chazwood). Yet, even doing all the nitty gritty stuff myself, I'm still spending in the neighborhood of several thousand a year on miscellaneous things. But where do modifications and improvements end and real maintenance begin? Because truthfully, buses are never finished. Least, I've not seen one yet that the owner isn't dreaming about changing something real soon. Busnuts are just weird that way!

[travelingfools]

Another plus of doing the maint/R&R yourself is getting familier with the mechanics of the machine. Comes in handy for breakdowns to know what does what and where to find stuff..