Yet another Texan!

[Robin97396]

Thanks guys. I'm thinking get that fluid changed first. If it's still a problem I'd better hurry up and find that other transmission.

[GreyCoyote]

Holy smokes! Elliot went OFF! (And in a wonderful way, too!) I'll encourage him to do that again because it served as a great refresher for what I thought I knew! Thanks, Elliot!

Having had a chance to really drive "Johnson"'now, and after thinking about it for a bit, I've decided I'm not happy with the cooling setup. At all.

Most of the driving I will be doing is desert highway with hills and elevation changes at high-ish density altitudes. Unfortunately, this is exactly opposite of what the bus was designed for.

My bus has the "split" radiator, meaning the radiator is half-sized and sits next to the intercooler. They each get equal space. Not to put too fine if a point on it, but this sucks for engine cooling. As a local International mechanic told me, school busses are designed to start/stop many times per hour with a short period of idlng after each stop. Under these circumstances a "halfsie" radiator is fine as things are allowed to cool-off between bursts. And since they are governed at 55 mph, you never really get to explore the last 400 rpm. But things get very marginal when you try to make highway power for hours on end without a governor. The engine would be very happy cranking out highway miles, but the cooling system just isnt made for it.

If I want a freeway-capable bus, "things must change". So I'm researching converting the "side-by-side" radiator/aftercooler arrangement into a proper "stacked" arrangement. Not a trivial job, but I dont want to be stuck in the middle of west Texas on a 110 degree day with a blown motor.

On another note, the universe has seen fit to make a DT530E enter my life. Its the same exterior as the DT466E, but adds another 100 hp. Of course, now I need to find a new trans as well since the existing AT545 would get pulverized by it. And since the DT530E has a 250 rpm lower "happy point" than the DT466E, that means we're also looking at a rear-end gear change as well!

This where the little guy in my head says "have you lost your tiny little mind? You are seriously considering replacing the ENTIRE drive-line?"

Somebody once warned me that busses are addictive and expensive... And yes, I'm STILL blaming Elliot!

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by GreyCoyote

Holy smokes! Elliot went OFF! (And in a wonderful way, too!) I'll encourage him to do that again because it served as a great refresher for what I thought I knew! Thanks, Elliot!

Having had a chance to really drive "Johnson"'now, and after thinking about it for a bit, I've decided I'm not happy with the cooling setup. At all.

Most of the driving I will be doing is desert highway with hills and elevation changes at high-ish density altitudes. Unfortunately, this is exactly opposite of what the bus was designed for.

My bus has the "split" radiator, meaning the radiator is half-sized and sits next to the intercooler. They each get equal space. Not to put too fine if a point on it, but this sucks for engine cooling. As a local International mechanic told me, school busses are designed to start/stop many times per hour with a short period of idlng after each stop. Under these circumstances a "halfsie" radiator is fine as things are allowed to cool-off between bursts. And since they are governed at 55 mph, you never really get to explore the last 400 rpm. But things get very marginal when you try to make highway power for hours on end without a governor. The engine would be very happy cranking out highway miles, but the cooling system just isnt made for it.

If I want a freeway-capable bus, "things must change". So I'm researching converting the "side-by-side" radiator/aftercooler arrangement into a proper "stacked" arrangement. Not a trivial job, but I dont want to be stuck in the middle of west Texas on a 110 degree day with a blown motor.

On another note, the universe has seen fit to make a DT530E enter my life. Its the same exterior as the DT466E, but adds another 100 hp. Of course, now I need to find a new trans as well since the existing AT545 would get pulverized by it. And since the DT530E has a 250 rpm lower "happy point" than the DT466E, that means we're also looking at a rear-end gear change as well!

This where the little guy in my head says "have you lost your tiny little mind? You are seriously considering replacing the ENTIRE drive-line?"

Somebody once warned me that busses are addictive and expensive... And yes, I'm STILL blaming Elliot!

if you are going to go with a DT530E and new transI would go with an allison 1000 or 2000 series that gives you overdrive.. no need for rear-end change... either 5 or 6 speed can be had.

you can also do a remote mount secondary radiator.. either in series or parallel with the current one.. and place an electric fan on that remote radiator.. thus you dont have to redesign the engine compartment.. remote radiators are common in the hotrod world where you want a massove big block engine but the front end of the car (40s and 50s) came out to a narrow point.. made it tough for large radiators..

-Christopher

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by Robin97396

I would guess that it's optional when ordering a bus, but I lucked out again. Mine is centered in the side of the transmission pan on the drivers side. Looks like a fitting was welded in and the sensor placed in that. I've seen photos on here but I'll never remember where they are.

so POST some pics.

[Robin97396]

One, my camera isn't working.

Two, I don't crawl underneath vehicles to take pics.

I measuring places to hang tanks a while back and recognized the sensor in the tranny pan because someone had posted a pic of it here previously. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have known what it was.

[Elliot Naess]

First of all: DIBS on that 466!

I have finally found the specs on all current Allison transmissions. It's all on the Allison website, of course, but they seem to go out of their way to brag -- used car salesman fluff -- rather than giving us facts. But it's all there:

Our Transmissions

Noteworthy... is that they have both close ratio and wide ratio versions.

I will study all this now. Sometime.

[Elliot Naess]

Ah.... Half a radiator and half an intercooler, side-by-side. Well, there is a tradeoff here: A radiator of 1/1 size does not have twice the cooling ability of the 1/2 size, because it sits behind the intercooler and receives already-heated air. Actual numbers? No idea.

Anecdote, pertaining to the mention of hot rod cars: When the Kenworth "Anteater" highway tractor first came out in the 1980s, you could not order it with a Caterpillar 3406 -- because there wasn't room for a large enough radiator, as per Caterpillar's specs. I believe they solved that pretty soon after, but it was definitely a concern at first.

[FlyboyHPD]

Hey GreyCoyote, where have you been? What's up with your bus these days?

[GreyCoyote]

Hi! I'm having all sorts of fun with it.

So far, I've swapped all the fluids, changed the serpetine belt, yanked the seats, tossed the heaters, pulled the stop sign and mechanism out, and put a bulkhead with door at the 50-yard line to separate the bus into two compartments. We also did a quick (and really dirty) latex paint job to kill the illegal color and get the decals unreadable. Installed a shore power-port where the swing-out stop sign used to be. Added a 2-meter/440 antenna and my Kenwood TM-710 with APRS.

The forward compartment now has drawers, a futon, a 3/4 tall refridge/freezer, a sink (not yet functional) a prep table. I've also insulated all of the forward side windows with sheets of foam on the inside, and installed a 15k AC unit into the forward escape hatch and am working on the lighting.

The rear is purely for hauling gear. I installed FOUR chest freezers, a 100 lb propane tank, and am working on the tie-down system for more stuff.

I'm really in crunch mode. The entire purpose of the bus is to haul our camp stuff out to Burningman... and I leave in less than a month, hence the silence on this end.

I'll post pictures at some point, but pretty much everything I'm doing right now is temporary. When we get back and I have cool weather and some time, I'll do the whole thing right. Or at least thats the plan. Lol!!!

[FlyboyHPD]

Man, sounds like you're making good progress even if only for Bman. Mine will be here in 2 weeks and I'm chomping at the bit. Hope things go as planned for you. Good to hear back from you.