Harvey

[Lee Savoy]

Well we finally found the one for us. It's taken a year of thinking and dreaming, then more than six month of hunting, but the hunt is over. I give you Harvey.

It's a 2001 International FE, DT266E, MD3060 (need to verify the trans), 189XXX miles and has already been stripped inside. To boot, it was only a little over a hour from home. There's minimal rust, it is a southern bus, just a bit by the stairs. I assume it's from the tire getting mud up in there. Other than that, it's pretty clean. The price seemed reasonable, our mechanic gave it a clean bill of health, so we pulled the trigger. It runs and drives great and we're super excited!

I'm not totally sure of the exact body type, but it does have Thomas markings in the electrical area, but is badged as an International.

Y'all get ready for a pile of questions. WE GOT A BUS!

[Lee Savoy]

I was able to confirm with International that the transmission is an Allison 2000 series, not the MD3060.

[Lee Savoy]

Got Harvey home, about 75 miles from Harvey, La. up to Hammond. The first 15 miles was straight through the middle of downtown New Orleans, on Hwy. 90, it was a bit tense but I took my time and didn't have any problems. The bus ran great and the trans seems to be smooth and work perfectly. I talked to my local International dealer and found out I have 4.44 gears in the rear end, it does 55mph at 1500rpm and 65mph at 1800rpm. I can't imagine I would want to drive my house any faster than that. It's backed in next to my shop, ready for the roof raise, the last big hurdle before the fun part starts, the build out.

[cadillackid]

4.44 gears with an allison 2000 is a win.. it gives you the ability to run the speed up in 4th gear when needed to enter a freeway or climb a hill.. then drop into 5th for the cruise.. 1800 at 65 is right about whjere that 466E lieks to run... possibly a tad low but your tires look pretty large so you canm give it a kickdown and it should drop to 4 up to about 62 or 63.

[Lee Savoy]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

4.44 gears with an allison 2000 is a win.. it gives you the ability to run the speed up in 4th gear when needed to enter a freeway or climb a hill.. then drop into 5th for the cruise.. 1800 at 65 is right about whjere that 466E lieks to run... possibly a tad low but your tires look pretty large so you canm give it a kickdown and it should drop to 4 up to about 62 or 63.

That's great to hear, I thought it was a good combo. The tires are 11R22.5s.

Your response reminds me of a question I had while driving it. A couple of times when I had to slow down, I could tell the motor was lugging a bit so I just slowly increased the accelerator till it caught up. It made me think, should I be shifting more than in say a passenger car with an automatic? When I hear the engine lugging down, should I downshift?

[cadillackid]

if the computer program in the allison is correct it should drop down when you nail it.. up to a point.. the allison usually wont allow a kickdown if your new RPM will be within 200 of the redline.



what is the redline shift RPM for 4-5.. (if you are getting uo to speed anbd you keep it nailed at what speed will it shift on its own into 5th? that a few MPH off of that speed and that will be the maximum speed you can be going and have it downshift when you floor it in 5th..



I will say that the downshift techniques for navistar and the 1000 / 2000 steadily improved from the late year 2000 onward.. when I swapped my '00 engine ECM for an '04 ECM my transmission downshifting got a lot better..



you can also go from D to 4 if you need to.. again making sure that the new RPM wont be right at the redline or the allison will deny the shift..


-Christopher

[Lee Savoy]

Great, thanks for all the info!

[Lee Savoy]

Made a little progress on Harvey over the last couple of weekends, although hurricane Delta tried to make a mess this weekend so we only got one day to work on the bus.

The roof and floor were demoed when we got the bus, but we still need to remove the side wall, interior (and exterior) panels to do the roof raise the way we would like. We're cutting below the windows and moving them all up, we want to keep the original windows. Luckily the interior panels are held on with screws not rivets, I was able to get them all removed over the weekend except for a few stubborn ones that stripped out, need a new wheel for my grinder and those will come out this coming weekend too. I assume that's where I'm going to find rust, when I remove the panels.

The day after we got the bus home, it wouldn't start. We also got that diagnosed over the weekend. It's looking like the ignition switch went out. Luckily again, I was able to get it where it will be for the conversion before the switch went out. I've got the new switch, so we'll get that sorted out next weekend. I'll get some updated pictures next weekend too.

[Lee Savoy]

Well, got a bit more done. The last couple of weeks we've been concentrating on the floor and working on the interior wall strip. The floors are taking a bit of work, the floors were painted with Henry's Tropi-cool before we got the bus. That covered up more rust than we'd like so we're stripping the Henry's, grinding off most of the scale and treating with naval jelly. We then prime and paint with Rustoleum. It may not even be necessary, but since we're planning on this being our home, we're not taking any short cuts.

I figured out the no start issue, turns out it wasn't the ignition switch. It was a small relay contactor in with the fuse panel. I realized it was clicking when we tried to start the bus, so while my wife was holding the key in the start position, I tapped the relay and boom, the bus fired right up. I have a new one on the way, it will be here tomorrow and I'll install it this weekend. I'm hoping that fixes all my starting woes. Once I can start the bus dependably, I'm going to start stripping the wiring harness of everything that's not necessary.

[Lee Savoy]

Well, lost most of weekend before last to stupidity, "let's get a gallon of daiquiris" I said. "it'll be fun, we never really drink", I said....turns out seven solo cups of "Hurricane" daiquiri will totally incapacitate me the next day. Now you'd think an almost 54 year old man would know better, but NOOOOOOO...this past weekend was much more productive.

Got the starter contactor replaced and the bus starts great, that was definitely the problem. I got maybe a 1/4 of the non-necessary circuits stripped out of the bus, I'm just methodically working my way through each component or circuit and starting the bus after each. So far so good. We had the floor rust removal almost finished yesterday and the electricity went off with 1 1/2 of the floor panels left to go. We'll knock that out and finish removing the wall panels and insulation next weekend. We want to treat any rust we find in the walls the same way we're treating the floor panels. Once that's complete and the electrical system is stripped of non-essential components and dropped below the cut line, we'll be ready for the roof raise. Won't be long now....

[StanTheMan]

I can tell that you definitely put a lot of work into this. Great job, Lee! The only thing that's missing from your bus build are high-quality tires. 4WheelOnline has a huge selection, so be sure to check them out.

[Lee Savoy]

Originally Posted by StanTheMan

I can tell that you definitely put a lot of work into this. Great job, Lee! The only thing that's missing from your bus build are high-quality tires. 4WheelOnline has a huge selection, so be sure to check them out.

We still have a long way to go, there's still a lot missing, but tires isn't one of them. Our bus has (6) brand new Bridgestone tires. They were changed the night before I brought it home, they literally have 75 miles on them. They're safely tucked under covers as of now and on pads off the ground in the next few weeks.

[Lee Savoy]

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Thought I'd post a little update since I haven't in a while. We got the rust removed from the floor and the first coat of paint on it. It came out great, thanks mostly to my wife. So far we don't have any areas that have rusted back through our first coat of Rustoleum. We're going to leave it with just one coat as of now and watch for anything to pop back up while we're working on the rest of the build. Once we're ready the plan is to roll down some oil based Rustoleum, then RedGard, then insulation and sub floor.

I'm working on the bus in an area that use to be my grandfathers garden. It was what I had available and it's next to my work shed. Problem is Harvey was sinking with the fall/winter rains coming through. It had sunk almost 6" in the last month or so since I moved it last. That needed to be fixed. I thought about rocks, but I don't want rocks in that part of the yard, we will probably want to make it a garden again in the future. I thought about a concrete pad, but that's too expensive for something I won't need after a year or two, and again, garden one day. So I've been mulling over the solution for several weeks and I was riding down the highway week or so ago and saw the solution. I live in south Louisiana and large equipment uses these things they call mats. They're basically massive timbers arranged flat with large cables running through them to hold it all together. They lay them on the muck and it basically "floats" the equipment weight on top of the mud. So I made a set for my bus and it worked like a charm. Some reclaimed lumber from work, two ratchet straps and a few drywall screws/washers and, voila, my new Bridgestones are up out of the mud. I'll post some pics below.

I've also gotten all of the wall panels and insulation finally out and need maybe another 5 or 6 hours to finish up the bus system electricity prep then it's time to "Chop, Cut, Rebuild"!

Oh, and I was able to connect my Bluefire birthday present and got that all working last weekend. That was kind of fun, being able to peak at all the different systems.

Stay safe out there!

[Lee Savoy]

I made some good progress this weekend, I think I'm just about ready to do the roof raise. I got all the electrical stripped out that wasn't necessary, a set of steps at the back door and all the tires, but one, back up to the correct pressure. I have one that's lost pressure and the bead has slipped, I'm not sure how I'm going to get it back on. I've tried a 4" ratchet strap, that didn't work at all. I'm toying with the starter fluid method, but I've never personally done it so I'm a little hesitant. The other option would be to call a mobile tire repair truck, I'm not sure what that would cost, so I haven't tried that yet or honestly even checked on it. I'd like to save the money if I could figure out how to do it myself. Here's a few pictures of my progress from the weekend. I've got a progress video, but don't have a hosting site to drop it.


Anywho...
You guys have a great week.

[rossvtaylor]

Just the week before last, I mounted 6 bus tires. It's pretty easy, if you have the right bars. But since yours is already mounted, and you only need to set the bead, then that's the fun part. It's really not scary at all. You can use starter fluid or brake cleaner or even WD-40. Lay the tire down and step on the top of it, to push the bottom bead down and to create a bit of a gap at the top, between the bead and the tire. I've tried spraying into just one spot, when I was learning, but that doesn't work. And spraying all of the liquid inside, neatly, also doesn't work. Instead, spray into the gap but also get some on the bead's outside. Go all the way around the bead, then spray a line away towards the tread. Hit that line with a lighter, enjoy the poof, then quickly put the air chuck on. Once the heated air cools, the tire will collapse...so it's good to add air right away. I like the clip-on chucks for that.

It's not dangerous, unless you go way overboard with the spray I guess. It only takes about 6-8 seconds of spray. It's such a non-event that my wife totally missed it when she came out to take a video.

[Lee Savoy]

Originally Posted by rossvtaylor

Just the week before last, I mounted 6 bus tires. It's pretty easy, if you have the right bars. But since yours is already mounted, and you only need to set the bead, then that's the fun part. It's really not scary at all. You can use starter fluid or brake cleaner or even WD-40. Lay the tire down and step on the top of it, to push the bottom bead down and to create a bit of a gap at the top, between the bead and the tire. I've tried spraying into just one spot, when I was learning, but that doesn't work. And spraying all of the liquid inside, neatly, also doesn't work. Instead, spray into the gap but also get some on the bead's outside. Go all the way around the bead, then spray a line away towards the tread. Hit that line with a lighter, enjoy the poof, then quickly put the air chuck on. Once the heated air cools, the tire will collapse...so it's good to add air right away. I like the clip-on chucks for that.

It's not dangerous, unless you go way overboard with the spray I guess. It only takes about 6-8 seconds of spray. It's such a non-event that my wife totally missed it when she came out to take a video.

Thanks for the info, but there in lies another side of my problem. I have yet to be able to break the lug nuts loose. I bought an electric impact, the biggest I could get my hands on, no luck. Then I twisted my breaker bar, nope....

Will the starter fluid method work if it's still mounted up or does it have to be laying down?

[Mountain Gnome]

Originally Posted by Lee Savoy

Thanks for the info, but there in lies another side of my problem. I have yet to be able to break the lug nuts loose. I bought an electric impact, the biggest I could get my hands on, no luck. Then I twisted my breaker bar, nope....

Use a 3/4" or 1" sliding 'T' bar, and slip the handle of a 3-ton rolling floor jack over it. Then use another jack (floor, scissor, etc.) to lift the handle if you still can not break it loose by hand.

[Lee Savoy]

Originally Posted by Mountain Gnome

Use a 3/4" or 1" sliding 'T' bar, and slip the handle of a 3-ton rolling floor jack over it. Then use another jack (floor, scissor, etc.) to lift the handle if you still can not break it loose by hand.

Cool, I can give that a try. Thanks!

[rossvtaylor]

Originally Posted by Lee Savoy

Thanks for the info, but there in lies another side of my problem. I have yet to be able to break the lug nuts loose. I bought an electric impact, the biggest I could get my hands on, no luck. Then I twisted my breaker bar, nope....

Will the starter fluid method work if it's still mounted up or does it have to be laying down?

Ah, that does add a certain wrinkle to it. And, I don't know if that can be done while still on the vehicle. It may, but I have never done it so I can't speak to that.

I think that anyone with a bus ought to own one of these! I couldn't bust loose the lug nuts on a Freightliner we bought, even with an 8-foot pipe. But this made it easy. Just search "lug nut torque multiplier" and you'll find lots of them. This is the Northern Tool one, just as an example.

[Lee Savoy]

Originally Posted by rossvtaylor

Ah, that does add a certain wrinkle to it. And, I don't know if that can be done while still on the vehicle. It may, but I have never done it so I can't speak to that.

I think that anyone with a bus ought to own one of these! I couldn't bust loose the lug nuts on a Freightliner we bought, even with an 8-foot pipe. But this made it easy. Just search "lug nut torque multiplier" and you'll find lots of them. This is the Northern Tool one, just as an example.
Attachment 53181

That thing might be the ticket! I've never seen one of those. I wish we had Northern Tool in Baton Rouge, I miss that store. When I lived in Dallas, I had one across the street basically.

This should be it though right?
https://www.amazon.com/ABN-Heavy-Tor...NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Will it work ok for a dually set up that has outside wheel offset to the outside of the axle? Does that make sense? I'm concerned it's too deep for the rotating handle.