98 Bluebird TC2000 Conversion: 2 Feet Roof raise 3 Slideouts

[Vlad]

Hey I am not dead.... bus is not dead.....

We moved from coast to coast and still live in rental house. We just bought our own house and in the process of moving in.

My whole setup is a mess my desktop computer is buried somewhere my camera with ton of pictured is also buried somewhere.... I am using my wife laptop to surf the net.....

I do work on the bus and some things are done. I just don't like crying about my problems....

I know I will finish the bus and will post as much as I can. I just don't want long useless empty build thread about nothing.....

[Vlad]

I keep bus in rental warehouse. The owners allow me to work on the bus but I have too many restrictions what and when and how can be done.

I removed exhaust system completely and adding exhaust brakes in new setup. Going downhill on I-5 wasn't fun at all, so I want exhaust brakes....

[Tango]

Welcome back Vlad --- Glad to hear you made the trip OK. Here's hoping you find the right working location as we all want to see more of your very interesting build.

[aaronsb]

Are you tossing a pacbrake on there? I'll be curious to know if you end up keeping it independent of the transmission computer or integrate it.

On all the unimogs I have driven that have exhaust brakes, stepping on the little switch mechanically locks out the throttle to idle so you can't hit the fuel at brake at the same time.

I wonder if the "right" way is to wire pacbrake solenoid to some pin on the ecu, and the activation switch to ecu, that way its coordinated with the regular brake pedal?

I preferred to have the service brakes independent of the exhaust brake so I can ride just exhaust brake on downgrades.

Originally Posted by Vlad

I keep bus in rental warehouse. The owners allow me to work on the bus but I have too many restrictions what and when and how can be done.

I removed exhaust system completely and adding exhaust brakes in new setup. Going downhill on I-5 wasn't fun at all, so I want exhaust brakes....

[Vlad]

The reason we mess around skoolies is to build your own something....

I will have 4" inline flap made by Jacobs. It is fixed orfice flap. I am plugging the orfice and adding a wastegate valve in parallel. The wastegate valve will allow me to adjust exhaust back pressure.

I want to control exhaust brakes independent from transmission but transmission must be locked. I will see how to set it all up.

The reason packbrakes are wired the way they are is to make them dummy proof. Most people buy large motorhomes never drove large vehicles in their life...... give them extra button to control and they will end up in a ditch.....

[GreyCoyote]

Vlad: I joined the site after you went off-line for your move west, so we never had a chance to interact. But I wanted you to know how much I enjoyed your build thread. It honestly was a big part of the inspiration that led me to finally "do it!" and get a bus.

When you get settled-in to your new home, I do look forward to seeing the build resume!.

[Vlad]

Moving things has it's positive part... finally found my camera.... Tonight I will upload a bunch of pictures to Flickr and in next few days will post them.

[Vlad]

Before I moved to East Coast I decided to add air bags to my front suspension. There is not much room and not too many options but all skoolies are a bit crazy and determined....

I bought 2 large air bars from truck wreck yard ($10 each)




There is no way to put this bags between axle and frame rails. There is only 3-4 inches of clearance.... this is why I had to build some "ledges" for bottom of air bags:





Here are some details:


























So, the ledges outside side are bolted by spring's U-bolts and inside side is resting on axle and bolted by "clamp" from the bottom. There is nothing welded to the axle, just bolts.

Here is a cross member which I had to add above air bags:



This 3" or 3.5" (don't remember excactly) square tube is bolted with a bunch of 1/2" grade 8 bolts to the frame rails. I did't have to drill rails, there were ton of holes in rails which I had to trace and use after.

Some details:







Here are final results:





The air bags work just great. I still don't have any sophisticated pressure control system but what a difference. I just added about 40 Psi and my front end raised by about 2". Lucky me I added this air bags before my big move... I jumped on few bridges going 60 MPH and with my load I would smash into pavement without this air bags.

Later I will add gauges and valves to control pressure/clearance. Also I am thinking about removing rear springs and convert into air ride... but this will be later on.

[Tango]

Excellent Work! enjoy the ride.

[Robin97396]

That's bad a$$. I like the way you fabricate.

[Tool Amour]

Vlad--I just read your entire thread--your build is truly awe-inspiring! I look forward to seeing more of your bus when you can work on it again.

[Vlad]

My bus originally had a large compartment under floor for spare tire and some other things. Since I covered under floor space I had to find another spot for spare tire. I decided to hang spare tire right behind front bumper. I found semi cargo winch and used it to lift the tire up:



Also I used 3" channel , 2 angles and a bunch of bolts:







Here is a hole for extension to turn ratchet mechanism:



This is a bottom plate that is bolted to the spare tire rim:







Whole thing together except wheel itself:




I do have 2 safety chains which are bolted to frame and hold tire from the bottom, just in case if strap or winch fail.

I think I found optimal place to keep spare tire on the bus. It is accessible, easy to check/inspect, doesn't steal useful space under the floor. Also the way this spare tire is located (between front bumper and front axle) it creates extra barrier if front collision happen(hope it won't be needed, but nobody knows what can happen on the road...)

I will try to take a picture with spare tire on and post it....

[Docsgsxr]

Excellent idea using the cargo winch. I like it. May have to borrow that idea.

[thjakits]

Hello Vlad!!

I see you are BACK!! GREAT!

Looking at your front suspension - there is only 2 leaves/side holding the steering axle - no less!
It should be a major comfort-improvement if you can do the same to the rear axle - IF you can remove a few load springs, but torque-twist could become a problem.
Any intentions to install torque arms back there?

Cheers,

thjakits

[Vlad]

Originally Posted by thjakits

Hello Vlad!!

I see you are BACK!! GREAT!

Looking at your front suspension - there is only 2 leaves/side holding the steering axle - no less!
It should be a major comfort-improvement if you can do the same to the rear axle - IF you can remove a few load springs, but torque-twist could become a problem.
Any intentions to install torque arms back there?

Cheers,

thjakits

Air bags are just so much better you can't even compare them to leafs.

The first and the main reason I added front bags was my ground clearance. I build 2' high storage under the floor, so my bus started to look like low rider Just later I realized how comfy bis rides with bags.....

When it comes to back springs I want to take them out completely because there is absolutely no room to add air bags. I saw a semi rear suspension at one of truck grave yards. It had 2 lower control arms attached to the frame at the front only. The 2 air bags were on the back. The only one thing will make installation a bit complicated is cross arm. The cross arm (like track bar on jeeps) is attached to the frame at one end and the other one is attached to rear end above differential. I will hire a professional welder to weld on large steel ear to differential.

I will try to find some pics or video how it all setup and works, very easy and straight forward.

[thjakits]

...if the frame is "standard size" you might be able to swap in a complete Truck rear suspension.....though there might be problem with the diff-housing.
With the engine in the rear - I think the truck diff would have to go upside down....

Maybe you still have some connections "back home" - a complete rear salvage of a crashed bus: Volvo/Scania/MAN with a ECO-Split-16-transmission, rear axle and air-suspension!! Check it out!
That stuff was awesome 28 years ago - today everything is computer shifted - this package shouldn't cost much really!!

thjakits

[Vlad]

When I looked at one of the semi air ride rear suspensions it looked like almost direct fit with minor modifications the only problem is cross link. But on other hand getting rid of rear springs will require rear end removal anyway. I will open the diff weld the piece of still a call it done.

Having air bags will allow me to control road clearance which is a great feature considering bus wheel base.

Once I almost because local monument when I was getting out from shopping mall. The exit didn't look so bad but but I sraped my newly built hitch.

[Vlad]

Here are some pictures of spare tire:

















You can't see the tire unless you almost lay down like I did



This is the view from bumper level, front axle is much lower

[Pshots]

Beautiful build so far! look forward to seeing the rest of the slide outs and what you do with the interior!

[Vlad]

Lately I had couple of projects going on. Some info from this projects might be useful for some folks.

After I discovered water condensation in engine oil on my way from coast to coast I was wondering how to prevent this in the future.

First I want to add Frantz bypass oil filters using TP.

Second I will modify crankcase ventilation system. Instead of just just tube going down I will install oil trap with filter and route it into air filter, just like newer engines, but this will wait for some time.

One of the benefits of using TP bypass oil filters is their ability to absorb and keep water away from oil.

I was trying to get more info on how to connect bypass filters correctly but found almost nothing. There is a ton of info how to plumb 5.9 Cummins but 8.3 Cummins is not so common engine...


I had a small oil leak from engine oil cooler area, not even a leak but a bunch of dust build up there, so because my exhaust manifold was off there was a good chance to remove oil cooler fix the leak and see how oil system is plumbed.

Here are 2 plugs on oil cooler cover circled red and yellow. Cummins manual says this plugs are for checking oil filter performance, but it doesn't says which one is before filter and which one is after.

Now I know 100% bottom one (yellow circle) is before oil filter and top one (red circle) is after oil filter.



Here is another picture showing top circle is oil connection for turbo oil supply line (always after oil filter)




Here is another picture from the back:



And another one:



And one more:

BTW blue line is original Cummins oil bypass filter section drainage. It starts in the middle of the filter (next picture) and goes trough steel tube all the way to oil drain section which drains directly to oil pan(green area).



Original bypass circuit starts here (blue circle):



So, I ended up with something like this:

Red is oil valve after main oil filter for taking oil samples for oil analysis(just to make it clean and painless).

Yellow is oil before main oil filter goes to bypass oil filter.

Green return oil from bypass oil filter drains to oil pan. I drilled and tapped in green area(next picture)



Here I drilled and tapped 1/8" NPT hole for return oil line from bypass oil filter. This was possible because I had the cover off otherwise I would use drain plug on the side of the oil pan.