For those who want the short story: It was positive. They don't care if it's a skoolie. The tech they dispatched was very knowledgeable and had skoolie experience to boot.
For the rest: 1993 AmTran/Genesis on an IHC chassis, DT360 engine, AT545 tranny, 137k miles. Leaving Cripple Creek on twisty, steep roads, the bus started running strangely and then stopped. Would start & idle roughly for a while, then die. Then wouldn't start at all. Ugh, 3 miles into our big journey south. I look under the bus for anythign obvious....loose hose connections, damaged wiring, fire, etc. Nothing obvious. My suspicion was a Fuel Delivery issue, clogged fuel filter, dead/dying fuel pump? I don't really carry spare bits for the bus (I know...I know) so we called the Good Sam Roadside
Assistance number, which I had signed up for only a few months prior.
They took our bus information (didn't even blink when I told them it was a school bus), location, description of the problem. They said they'd call around the closest mobile repair shops & send someone if they could find a qualified person, otherwise they'd do the towing thing (which we really wanted to avoid). About 1/2 hour later, they called & said they were dispatching someone, gave me the tech's name, business name & cell phone number, and ETA of 2 hours.
About 2.5 hours later, our tech shows up. I described the problem. He asked (and I know some of you are probably already on this): "How much fuel do you have?" Me: "1/8-1/4 of a tank." He suspects right away that air got into the fuel line. We go down the road and get 20 gallons of diesel and pump it into the bus tank. Then he cracks a few of the injectors open slightly. Then he loosens a clamp on the air intake hose, wedges a long screwdriver in there to create a small gap, and sprays ether in the gap while I crank it. She comes to life and air bubbles start coming out around the cracked injectors. After a bit of this fun he closes the injectors and she runs fine on her own, re-tightens the hose clamp and says we're done.
Good Sam covers everything but his time & materials while at the repair site. That means they cover his time during travel to & from the repair site, his mileage to & from the repair site, and any extra dings for being a weekend service call, etc.
Turns out the guy is a skoolie, had converted & lived in a bus a few years back. How cool is that?
Anyway, we had a positive experience with the Good Sam roadside assistance service. I learned something new about keeping the tank at least 1/2 full while going through the mtns, and how to check for & fix air in the fuel system.
The guy they dispatched was A-1 Emergency Mobile Repair out of Colorado Springs. Chuck is a very competent & nice guy.
http://aoneemergencymobile.com/index.html
Thanks for listening, hope this helps.
Sean
Linear Mode
