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Old 01-05-2009, 07:39 PM   #1
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driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

Anyone have any good bad especially ugly drive, engine trans shaft rear springs etc,stories they wanna share.
thanks

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Old 01-06-2009, 08:18 PM   #2
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

Ask after I try to install my air bag suspension...!
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Old 01-06-2009, 08:35 PM   #3
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

I haven't had to do much. I've greased the u-joints which is very easy. I've also drained, flushed, and filled the rear end. The only thing I can say about that is that it takes A LOT of fluid (~5 gallons of 80w90). Other than that the only horror I had was doing my tranny filter and fill. I had to bring my filter in to the Allison place (we actually have one of those) because the one I got didn't match the one I have. I also had to wrestle with the dipstick tube. In the end I couldn't get it out of the pan so I disconnected it from all the clamps and kind of fed it through. That puppy is LONG! I was only able to lower the pan about 6-8 inches, but that was enough to get the filter out, the old gasket cleaned off, and the new gasket install. As a note...I snapped off two adjacent bolts on a corner of the pan no less. I was truly afraid that thing was going to leak in a bad way, but I reached into my tool box and grabbed my Mopar ATF-RTV and it sealed up without any problems. The stuff is available over the counter at any Chyrsler dealership, costs about the same as any other tube of RTV, and is utterly amazing at sealing even petroleum soaked parts.
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Old 01-06-2009, 09:11 PM   #4
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

i drove the first bus 20 or 30K miles total

the 2nd bus at least as far

the 4th bus i only drove a few thousand miles

but i have never had drive line problems. The most common part to fail for me is alternators, been through several of those. Also had problems with my cobbled together fuel lines more than once on bus II. She got a hole in the fuel line once and stopped running. I ran a "temporary" fuel line while parked on some street in the ghetto and continued to use this for a year or so. Finally got tired of the problems it was causing me and fixed it properly.

I did replace a water pump on a ford 6.6 liter bus with about 300K miles on it. It was working fine, just leaked a bit, and i was getting ready to drive through the mountains and out to the desert.

buses are really reliable. I loaded 15K extra pounds of people, stuff, and a trailer onto jacuzzi bus II and i figure she ran wide open for about 110 hours (detroit to reno and back) She just kept running like a top. She was about 6 or 7 K pounds over her gvw.
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Old 01-07-2009, 12:46 PM   #5
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

years ago driving a 2 ton ford straight truck I had the plate on top where the shifter was come loose and I had to hunt for the gears because at this point I could move the shifter sideways with out moving it up or down first.
Same truck I was getting back to the house one night and doing what I was taught to never stop in the first place crossing an intersection I ended up rolling through it when the clutch blew up and shattered the bell housing.

On a bus once I rolled back into the bus lot after the rear end gave up. The next day you could go out there and put in gear and the bus would not move forward or backward and yet the drive shaft was spinning under the bus.

Other that mostly small stuff like cracked leaf springs and blown transmissions. One transmission after getting bak from a road trip.

Heard from an older guy that used a tow bar to make a couple thousand mile trip pulling a dead car home that after getting home and hooking a small trailer up the hitch fell of the car that was doing the pulling.
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Old 01-07-2009, 02:29 PM   #6
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

Not too long after we finished "Lurlene" and hit the road, I began to hear this horrible skreeching when the bus shifted from first to second. Took the old gal in to the local bus guy. He said the tranny might last 2 more days or 2 more years, no real way to tell. Yes it still hurts to talk about this....Almost 2k later we have a new rebuilt tranny and no troubles. Guy did the job in 2 days. Lots of 2's in this story.
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Old 01-07-2009, 06:32 PM   #7
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

I got my bus with a blown-up 370 with broken rings, three bad pistons, no compression, and 5psi oil pressure at hot idle with straight SAE50. It now has a rebuilt 460.
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Old 01-07-2009, 07:31 PM   #8
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarlaxle
and 5psi oil pressure at hot idle with straight SAE50.
I don't see the problem there. That sounds about the same as an average small block Chevy.
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Old 01-10-2009, 10:13 AM   #9
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

long story short...8 people living in a bus probably, about 12 dollars combined, i was driving up a huge hill back woods middle of no where of west virginia at 2 in the morning. i was watching the temp gauge creep up. all the sudden it pegged and smoke started pouring out from under the hood. pulled over in a hurry the engine looked to be on fire. when i put it out, thank god we actually had an extinguisher it wasnt so bad. we bought the bus off a druggie, when we bought it we had to throw out some needles,awesome, who had been living in the woods for a few years in it, squirrels had stashed a pile of acorns in the valley of the v8 and the red hot turbo set them on fire. we let it cool down and kept going. i don't know what we would have done as it was our house. one lucky morning though. later that bus lost its parking brake while my friends we sleeping in it parked, it creeped down a small hill in a developement and took out some some signs and ended up in a yard. a different time that same bus threw a front brake caliper on a hill in SF. its still going too. 8.2 detroit diesel with a turbo
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Old 01-10-2009, 11:29 AM   #10
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

Last year I bought my 1980 Gillig in Tacoma, WA. Bringing it back to Winnemucca, NV, approx 650 miles. I'd already had a horror adventure less than a year before with an antique bus.....lost lots of time and money, so I was apprehensive. But the bus ran good, all seemed in order. Driving route 26 over Mt. Hood, near the ski resorts, hmmmm, you can smell the wood stoves. A few miles, hmmm...I didn't realize there were so many cabins up here. Lot of people burning wood to keep warm. Well past the two resorts, coming over I think the second summit, I'm thinking "This is really amazing that I can still smell all those wood stoves". Looked down, and noticed there was smoke between my eyes and my hand. Crap. Looked up at the center rear view mirror.......HOLY @#%^#$^& MY BUS IS ON FIRE!!!!! Pulled over as best I could, tires on the white line. Sun is going down, DEEP snow everywhere. Thinking I'm going to watch my new bus burn to a hulk, and then die of hypothermia. And if not, I'm going to watch my last opportunity to have a bus burn a hole in the pavement, and then my wife is going to torture me before she divorces me.........
Gathered up my bag, flashlight, coat by the door, took a deep breath and went back. Cobbled together bed in the rear is burning. Found a rug and dust pan near the front, went outside and scooped some snow, went back and put the fire out. Outside, ready to open the engine bay, expecting to see a raging diesel fire, gulp, here goes. Nothing. Quick scan, yep, thats scorched metal where some numbnuts put in a too big muffler, and clamped it tight against the bulkhead. The bed support was EXACTLY opposite, also tight against the metal. The long, slow crawl over Mt Hood had sent the EGT thru the roof, probably exascerbated by the hideously plugged air filter I found later. Ripped everything out near where the fire had been, opened all the windows, aired her out, and got back on the road. A bit scared, I had many many miles of empty high desert, several more passes and really cold temps, but she made it home with no further problems. The bus is now hastily converted, and spent a month on the playa at Burningman. We love our bus. There's a hunk of molten carpet on top of a cabinet, our mascot. Funny how our home while working for Burningman had such a fitting beginning!!
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Old 01-11-2009, 07:59 PM   #11
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

those times make you love life so much more once theyre behind you
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Old 01-18-2009, 11:37 AM   #12
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

this is not a skoolie story,but it will be told i used to have a 64 buick skylark ragtop it was a sunny summer day so 4 of us jumped in and went to long beach here on van isle 3/4 of the way there through the rock cliffs on 1 side and the river below on the other,my drivers side rear axle exited out of the housing at 60 mph the back of the car dropped down and the brakes dissapeared. i managed to steer the car over to the side and i could see the wheel sticking out of the car in the back of my eye.very scary. after a large tow bill ans stuffing 4 people into a tow truck with a driver, i went home turfed the 10 bolt rear end with the bolt in axles and installed a 12 bolt with the c-clips this is part of the reason i am foliclly challenged and short of underwear. and its true open cars enhance the experience! bald but alive,timbuk!
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Old 01-20-2009, 01:44 AM   #13
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Re: driveline, tip to tail and in between stories

I was driving a semi from Los Angeles to Oakland, Cal in the late '60s and had a load of tar paper on the trailer, I got to Manteca, Ca and was turning around in a truckstop to park and grab a bite to eat. Halfway thru my turnaround, the steering wheel literally came off the shaft. I took the steering wheel into the truckstop and told the owner I may be blocking part of his driveway till the boss can get there and repair it in the morning. I was so glad that that did'nt happen while I was driving 60 mph, that I forgot why I stopped and never did get my meal.
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