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Old 02-15-2015, 06:17 PM   #101
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Nice welds on that hitch. Are you doing pre and post turbo for your pyro gauges? I had a trans temp gauge and it saved the mt643 on my last bus. I had my bus in to a shop for a once-over prior to a trip and they ovetfilled my trans. About 200 miles out, I noticed my trans temp creep above 200 for the first time ever. I feared the worst but after I pulled over and checked, i realized they had added about 1 gallon too much and it was frothing out the breather! I would have not known my trans was fixing to overheat had i not had a gauge. I drained it and continued on without a hitch and my trans never went above 180. The MT series is a great tranny and it would be a real challenge to cook one in a school bus. Cant have too many gauges.

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Old 02-15-2015, 06:31 PM   #102
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Welding is pretty easy. I had not fired up my welder for 2 years before I laid those down. They are a little nastier looking then I would like. Took me a second to get it dialed in. Threw in a bugger weld wanna be gusset in the corner for shits and grins. I need to weld on the real gussets. I will do that once I attach it to the frame.

If you saw earlier in this thread the stock manifold is a dual port unit. It also has pretapped holes for both sides. I am doing a front bank and rear bank pyro. In case I get a leaky injector or something. They should stay pretty close to each other if everything is going well.

I found the trans temp gauge pretty cheap on Amazon for $50 so I grabbed it. I misplaced the sender units from my ISSPRO gauges I was going to use I had in my ram.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Old 02-16-2015, 04:56 PM   #103
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nat_ster View Post

I hope you disregard all that non sense in that other thread telling people to not drill or mount hitches on the bottom of the frame rails. Almost every vehicle with a hitch mounts it off the bottom of the frame rail.

That other thread about hitch mounting needs to be deleted. No use full info, it might scare some one that don't know better.

Nat
Yeah, that could very well be my " building a hitch thread". I actually left my house for once and went to the local truck dealer. He burst out laughing when I asked about not bolting to the bottom flange.
It will get deleted? I'll figure it out.

Sorry for the drift.
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Old 02-16-2015, 10:32 PM   #104
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank's P-O-S View Post
Yeah, that could very well be my " building a hitch thread". I actually left my house for once and went to the local truck dealer. He burst out laughing when I asked about not bolting to the bottom flange.
It will get deleted? I'll figure it out.

Sorry for the drift.
Na leave it, and go post a follow up in that thread.

It shows the fellow users here which members here are credible, and which members don't have a clue what they are talking about.

I'm so glad we have great threads like this demonstrating with pictures the right way to do things.

Nat
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Old 03-24-2015, 06:59 PM   #105
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Time for an update. I got it finished enough to make a 3,000+ mile trip in it across the country. The traveling part of the trip was pretty uneventful. I did learn a lot about the ole girl along the way though. I ran her across the scales empty right before I loaded up and left, 20,750lbs is what she tipped at. Loaded up and ready to roll I know I was over 30,000lbs with the trailer and suburban in tow.

This 210hp DT466 does not like inclines of any sort. I was scrubbing speed on every hill I hit. I crawled up the mountain pass around 20mph. I got the dual pyros, trans temp, and boost gauge installed right before we rolled out. The trans temp and the coolent temp near matched each other the whole trip. Usually hovering around 185f. The pyros were pretty close to each other. They were very cheap units so I am thinking that could account for the small difference between them.

I could swap the probes and know for sure but I am not going to do that right now. I was between 700-1000f depending on the conditions. The most the boost gauge ever read was 14psi and was usually closer to 12psi. I was blowing enough soot under big loads to blacken a nice spot on the trailer and suburban. Nothing that would impress the bro's though. I know she could use a bit more air into her. I think a bigger turbo, aftercooler, and turning the pump up would net much better results.

It took 30 hours to make a trip I can usually make in 20 if I speed slightly. if I could not drop so much speed on every hill I know I could knock a nice chunk of time off that. We averaged 7.3MPG on this excursion there and back. We were trying to cruise around 55-60mph, which it would do fine until we hit a hill and had to drop the hammer. You could tell with the hammer down that last little bit it was pumping more fuel then it could burn and was being wasteful. So we tried to stay just off that for economy.

She rode and drove well enough. Minus all the huge missing chunks of pavement around and in Nashville, the ride was really smooth and comfortable. She really needs a retarder going down those mountain passes. She made it down fine, but it would be a lot less stressful with one.

I am still trying to get stuff put away and cleaned up from the trip. Once I get some time I think I might have a picture or 2 from the trip of the bus.
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Old 03-24-2015, 07:19 PM   #106
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Glad it went so well.
I'm jealous, my DT only puts out 195hp.
Looking forward to your usual great pics!
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Old 03-25-2015, 09:08 AM   #107
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Glad to hear you made it without any issues.

Please share pics if you can. We would love the share the adventure with you.

Nat
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Old 03-25-2015, 01:33 PM   #108
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Before I started working on the bus it appears I wired up my battery backwards for a long time. The weird part is that is would start and run. It made no difference on the direction the starter turned. Which is why I never caught it until I rewired the battery in it. I never payed attention to the gauges during those times because it was usually just started up to move a few feet or so. But it caused the fields in the gauges to mess up and no longer work. So everything but my speedo and air gauges were inop.

I was going to install some stand alone units but found a used cluster. It had over 8xs the mileage on it but the speedos swap very easily. With the new cluster everything was working again.

Old one going out for recycling.




The pyros in Celsius took a little getting used to.

Camera system.




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Old 03-25-2015, 01:35 PM   #109
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The air to electric brake controller worked out well. It looks cheap as all get out but worked flawless. It was not really any more expensive then a good electric unit. But the inertia units do not work well in this big rigs. I was in a rush to get it mounted so we could leave. I will likely move it at some point.



New 22.5 shoes and no widow makers.



My air distribution block. Quite a mess but it feeds a bunch of stuff. I threw an air horn on there last minute. Could not find a good way to mount it so zip ties it was.


Here is the hitch mounted up. She worked great towing 10K.


Here she is shortly before we rolled out.
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Old 03-25-2015, 01:43 PM   #110
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You have to tap into the primary and secondary air brake lines on the treadle valve and then send them to this special t fitting before the air line goes to the brake controller. This allows it to work if you lose air pressure in one of the systems.

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Old 03-25-2015, 04:58 PM   #111
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Nice.

Thanks for the pics.

Nat
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Old 03-25-2015, 05:01 PM   #112
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I should have some more. Just have not had time to dig them out.
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Old 03-25-2015, 11:44 PM   #113
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Picture of the air ride seat I put in.



The crew hanging out on the trip.





Proof it made it, we do not have palm trees in Kansas.



Main Street during bike week.




The Nina and Pinta were in port so we took the family to check them out.


Had to get a shot of the burb on the beach on the opposite side of the country from where it was tagged. I am pretty sure they do not let you drive on the beach in Cali as it will kill some hermitcrabmitebug that is near extinction.

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Old 03-26-2015, 05:03 AM   #114
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felt great to leave califonia and see America, didnt it?! man that was a tow job, remind us again which engine/transmission you have?
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Old 03-26-2015, 08:01 AM   #115
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I am not from cali. My friend is stationed out there and he drove out the bub for me that I have. I have not had a chance to tag it here yet. But to answer your question, 210HP DT466 and an MT643.
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Old 03-27-2015, 06:12 AM   #116
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cool! nice to know the towbility (is that a word?) of a bus. thanks for reply!
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Old 03-27-2015, 07:47 AM   #117
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Great pics, would you mind to take the time to do a write up of your air to electric brake control write up?
I will sticky it under drive lines and buy you a beer or soda when we meet

Also thanks for picture of the burb loaded "correctly" on trailer....I see so many loads that I cringe when I think of tounge wt...lol

Great job and great pictures!

Pm me about write up if you do it
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Old 03-27-2015, 10:54 AM   #118
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I can do a write up for the brake controller. It really was pretty simple to install IMO.

As for loading the trailer. My hitch will carry 2700lbs of tongue weight, which I know is much more then most. I positioned the burb like that to attempt to help the aerodynamics of this 60' train. No proof if it really helped or not.

My rear axle was just below 50% capacity when she was empty. I know I did not put an extra 6 tons into her. Then I have self leveling rear air bags on top of that. So I would be really hard pressed to overload the girl right now.

On long trips like this I use chains and straps. After having the burb hooked up I will be modifying her to make that easier in the future. It was not the most ideal way to strap her down but it was all I had to work with. The trailer is also a 10k unit so I had plenty of margin with her. You would have never known she was back there when driving it minus the extra weight and length.

The kids all wound up sleeping in hammocks. They though it was awesome and it saved me a bunch of floor space.
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Old 01-16-2018, 01:43 PM   #119
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Been a while sinceI was last here so i figured I would give a little update.

Not much change on the bus front at the moment. We had a house fire a bit over a year ago and I have been rebuilding the place for the most part with my own 2 hands. This is what I have primarily been doing over the last year. I have added another child to the clan (#5) since last posting, he will be 2 next week.

Eldest daughter is now 13 and on comes the drama. Which is spurring some new living ideas with the wife. That brings us back to the bus. There is currently a good chance after I get the house done a real conversion will start on the bus. We are kicking around taking all 7 of us to full time and show the children the country for a few years.

I tried talking her into getting a sailboat and going around the globe but she not not 100% on board with that right now. I love to sail.

If you want to follow along with the house I have been doing little walk through videos every no so often.

Thanks

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www.youtube.com/user/bassntruck
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Old 01-19-2018, 10:50 PM   #120
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Good to see you get back on. It....I just came back after a few year hiatus..

Good to see that its not an apt any more for your prior boarder ....
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