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Old 05-24-2016, 09:48 AM   #41
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OK kids.. I have had some people tell me these tires are Ok.. others say not..

to me these are tires that need replaced... and im inclined to go out and just get 6 brand new tires... but really if they arent as bad as they lkook to me then tell me..

im really confused by tires.. so tell me what you all think..

GO!





-Christopher

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Old 05-24-2016, 12:35 PM   #42
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Those are garbage, man. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but they'e may-pops for sure.
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Old 05-24-2016, 12:36 PM   #43
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That looks pretty scary. Maybe worse than the 40 year old tires that came on mine. Have you checked the date stamp on them?
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Old 05-24-2016, 12:38 PM   #44
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That looks pretty scary. Maybe worse than the 40 year old tires that came on mine. Have you checked the date stamp on them?
And I've been thinking my recaps and baldies look bad!
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Old 05-24-2016, 01:39 PM   #45
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I wouldn't drive those anywhere other than to the tire shop that is less than 10 miles away, and I'd be worried about a blowout the entire 10 mile trip.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cadillackid View Post
OK kids.. I have had some people tell me these tires are Ok.. others say not..

to me these are tires that need replaced... and im inclined to go out and just get 6 brand new tires... but really if they arent as bad as they lkook to me then tell me..

im really confused by tires.. so tell me what you all think..

GO!





-Christopher
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Old 05-24-2016, 02:18 PM   #46
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that was my thought too is that they are dead... the plan already in the works to get new ones... but I had a couple truckers tell me theyd run em for thousands of miles yet... then again maybe I shouldnt listen to some of the cowboys..

so Next Q.. these are 10R22.5 should I go up to 11R22.5? looks to me like theres plenty of clearance to do so and 11R22.5 is a much more common size..

and thirdly.. does it take a special tire shop to properly align and balance the Daytons?
-Christopher
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Old 05-24-2016, 04:20 PM   #47
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Just barely made it to the sidewall on the first pic. Those are bandaid caps and the sidewalls are cracked scarey. Farm equipment is all I'd use those on, and not if it was something important or at speed.
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Old 05-24-2016, 05:05 PM   #48
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Indeed that's what I thought and you guys confirmed it.. So I already got my neighborhood Michelin man gettin together to get 6 new smart way energy z tires.. All position all weather up to 75 mph rates which this bus will never see... Should be good road trip tires .. Now big question is to go to 11R22.5 from the current 10R22.5?

I already have to reprogram the dash and am going to bump the engine up a tad so I'm thinking it will let me run 65 without being against the governor like I was bringing it home.

Christopher
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Old 05-24-2016, 08:56 PM   #49
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Oh yeah baby!! Let the real cOOl fun begin!!!



-Christopher
Ohh!! That looks fun - what are you up to with those boxes of goodies?!? Is that a mini rooftop condensing unit?
Looks kinda like the inside of a walk in cooler evaporator.
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Old 05-24-2016, 09:24 PM   #50
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Ohh!! That looks fun - what are you up to with those boxes of goodies?!? Is that a mini rooftop condensing unit?
Looks kinda like the inside of a walk in cooler evaporator.

Coach style A/C (since my bus will be driven mostly as opposed to parked)..

the condenser is slightly oversized 3 fan rooftop or under-body unit.. the coils are routed such that it is multi-positional.. so im going to put it underneath..

to handle the fact its a bit larger capacity im going to disconnect the 3 fans from each other and run them on a controller individually.. based on Head pressure.. the included unit controller simply turns them on anytime A/C is selected..

the silver box is the evaporator.. it goes directly behind the driver seat bulkhead.. (my bus is old enough it has the poles and the half walls instead of seatbacks in the front)...

my work area is going to be in that same area.. so plan is that the evaporator ends up inside of one of my work cabinets.. with a grill in the side for air intake.. then a shelf above it with a rubber gasket.. this way if i pop a blower motor or such I can remove the shelf and service the A/C unit..

i'll be using a version of 'Line-hide' plastic housings to route the round ducting inside.. the louvers will mount on the face of the run and this way I can route several vents to the driver seat.. and several to the seats on the left side of the bus..

the unit has a heater core in it too.. (came that way).. not that I need yet another heater in a bus that has 6 of them already but I'll hook it up.. then I can run the A/C and heat at the same time for window defogging in cool rainy weather...

other than the head pressure cintrol, I'll hook it up at first with its stock controls and then add my advanced controls piece by piece..

I ordered a compressor with a 125mm pulley insteasd of the standard 137mm.. this way I can spin it slightly faster esp at idle.. and at cruise im still way off the maxx RPM of the compressor..

should be cool (literally)

-Christopher
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Old 05-24-2016, 09:34 PM   #51
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Awesome!! Looks like I fun project. I have enjoyed working on AC stuff and I see from your posts you really like that kind of work as well. I would love to add the electronic TXV for mine so I could more accurately monitor and adjust the head pressure. The plates work so well that if the water is warm to hot my head pressure runs a little high, but as the water cools it drops rather dramatically and boy do the plates run cold. I will definitely end up adding glycol to my system to avoid a plate freeze..

Will you plan for any air while parked?? That was my main goal. I'm parked far more often than I am driving now.. With the generator I'll be able to run the chiller while driving as well if needed.

What's the company that makes the condensor you got?
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Old 05-24-2016, 09:53 PM   #52
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Awesome!! Looks like I fun project. I have enjoyed working on AC stuff and I see from your posts you really like that kind of work as well. I would love to add the electronic TXV for mine so I could more accurately monitor and adjust the head pressure. The plates work so well that if the water is warm to hot my head pressure runs a little high, but as the water cools it drops rather dramatically and boy do the plates run cold. I will definitely end up adding glycol to my system to avoid a plate freeze..

Will you plan for any air while parked?? That was my main goal. I'm parked far more often than I am driving now.. With the generator I'll be able to run the chiller while driving as well if needed.

What's the company that makes the condensor you got?

my condenser is from ProAir LLC out of elkhart indiana.. they bought Frigiking a few years back... Frigiking was big into coach builders and factory OEM A/C systems (auxilliary) for busses / taxis, vans, etc.. its rated at 60k btu supposedly.. measureing its coil area and noting its parallel multi-pass design I believe it will be at or above its rating..

being under the bus there wont be much ram air going through it.. so I can control the head pressure with the fans.. the evaporator has a Block type TxV and I'll give it a shot.. they claim its really good.. (im used to adjustable valves... so we shall see)..

your compressors are multi stage correct? you could mount a switch that when the head pressure runs above where you feel its comfortable you can trip an unloader t oreduce the output of the compressor.. your water wont cool as quick but it will run more efficient..

the other thing is once you get both compressors running your head pressure may run lower by itself.. you will be dropping the water temp quickly.. esp if you dont run all the fans at once.. your loop temp will drop quickly and head pressure will go down...

but I think you can control your capacity and head pressure using unloaders and condensor fans..

right now I dont think I'll be parking more than short times in the bus.. and those times I'll be running the engine.. but in the works is the idea of a tri-pak that could be a small engine running the compressor... I just want to have A/C before I hasve that little box built.. once I get it built id move the compressor off the engine and into the tri-pak style box.. thus I could run A/C without the main engine..

I would love to have an all out generator but I dont like the horrendous loss of ground clearance on a school bus that I see.. driving the bus in the city will cause issues going into driveways and such if I had a generator hanging down..

so my choice is to build a smaller generator that can fit where I want it to and not kill the ground clearance..

-Christopher
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Old 05-24-2016, 10:34 PM   #53
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prepping underneath for where the A/C condensor coild will go... trying some rust converter.. ive only ever used POR-15 before but thought id try the rustoleum i hear everyone talk about.. first coat applied to that area... there wasmt much rust to wire brish off surprisingly.. now a few of the actual components like an air tank bracket and such were more rusty but the floors arent bad..



got a Nice new Driver seat!! I wont put that in until after I take apart and rebuild the heater units in the driver console.. the notors sound terrible and the coils are a clogged up mess.. plus the panel cover needs straightened out.. looks like it took a few boot hits from the drivers over the years..




so I fopund this wierd hole in my front ceiling.. at first i thought it would be for a speaker but theres no wires.. I noticed theres a bump on the roof...

if its a vent how do i open and close it.. anyone ever seen one of these?

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Old 05-25-2016, 12:24 AM   #54
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I can't see anything but sometimes pics load really slow for me. Doesn't seem to be anything coming through.

Just guessing, but could it be an access port for the antenna on the roof? Most of mine have had antennas or remnants of them.
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Old 05-25-2016, 12:54 AM   #55
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Quote:
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prepping underneath for where the A/C condensor coild will go... trying some rust converter.. ive only ever used POR-15 before but thought id try the rustoleum i hear everyone talk about.. first coat applied to that area... there wasmt much rust to wire brish off surprisingly.. now a few of the actual components like an air tank bracket and such were more rusty but the floors arent bad..



got a Nice new Driver seat!! I wont put that in until after I take apart and rebuild the heater units in the driver console.. the notors sound terrible and the coils are a clogged up mess.. plus the panel cover needs straightened out.. looks like it took a few boot hits from the drivers over the years..




so I fopund this wierd hole in my front ceiling.. at first i thought it would be for a speaker but theres no wires.. I noticed theres a bump on the roof...

if its a vent how do i open and close it.. anyone ever seen one of these?

Its a passive vent.
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Old 05-25-2016, 03:24 AM   #56
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In regards to tires--I would replace them ASAP!
  • As far as size is concerned, going to the 11R will give you a taller tire which will go fewer RPM's per mile which equals faster at the same engine RPM. It works out to about 5 MPH faster. It will work only if you have enough clearance between the duals--you don't want the sidewalls touching when the bus is fully loaded.
  • Mounting tires onto spokes is very easy. Unfortunately few have learned the tricks to mounting them. As a consequence you will see some wobbling down the highway. All you need to do is stand a spray paint can or can of WD-40 next to the sidewall once you have all of the lugs finger tight. Then tighten the lugs as you rotate the tire making sure you keep the tire equidistance to the can as you rotate the tire. Eventually you will have all of the lugs snugged up tight and you are good to go. Some don't like spoke wheels but the big advantage they have over Budd type wheels is you can take wheels on and off very easily with hand tools.
Vent in the ceiling--that is a static vent that is supposed to try and reduce the moisture inside the passenger compartment during inclement weather. Some of those types of vents will have a powered exhaust fan to increase air flow. It works best if there is an additional one or more vents in the roof towards the middle and towards the back so that you have air flow through the bus whenever the bus is moving.

I hope you didn't pay that much for that seat. Personally I would have chosen a seat with a cloth covered seat face. A vinyl covered seat like that will wear like iron but will have your back side sweating on even relatively warm days.

I don't know why you would think a genset would drastically reduce your ground clearance. If you are talking about a 12KW unit, yes it would hang down a long way. But little 3KW-5KW gensets would not hang much further down than the bottom of the panels of a bus with factory deep skirts or factory skirt mounted luggage compartments.
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Old 05-25-2016, 07:29 AM   #57
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Ok so l;ast evening was EXCELLENT!.. lets put this tiure thing to bed once and for all from a real-world nbeighbor thats been in about every position over the years when it comes to commercial equipment..

so of copurse first thing zi asked about was the tires.. are they really going to be 'May-Pops' as some have called them..

the answer was this..

NO they arent going to explode anytime soon.. he looked at the depth of the cracks.. and they are Barely into the first of many layers of rubber... people that curb their tires scrape off more rubber than the depth of the cracks in mine..

are they dangerous? - "the reason the DOT man that stopped by your bus didnt rib you hard about them is they are FAR from illegal.. the Rear Recaps are Solidly in place and show no signs of separation..

Should I replace them? - YES "the tires are showing signs that they are nearing the end of their useful life.. the steers for sure and the outer drives.. the inner drives still look very good. ". "replace them soon because they are giving you a heads up by the shallow cracks that they are not far off"

Do Tires 'Age out?' meaning do i replace simply because of age? - "UV is the worst thing for runner tires.. note how your inner sidewalls are perfect and both sides of your inner drives are perfect when you shine a light up in there.. the sunlight never hits this places. tires dont specifically age out, however by the time they reach 10 years UV has usually begun to deterioate the outer layers of rubber so by visual inspection you'll see that a tire sort of follows a schedule but if your tire never saw sunlight it wont tend to age as quckly.. we never age out tires as we mile them out long before on our road trucks.. our heavy dump trucks spend so much time in horrible construction conditions we usually break a belt, get a puncture, etc before we ever age a tire"
are recaps really as bad as they say? - "Recaps are a great way to extend the life of a tire economicallty on a HIGH MILEAGE truck where a tire may only be a year or 2 old and be miled out.. I personally would never run re-caps on a nice bus like yours.. if something does go wrong and a re-cap separates it will beat the H*LL out of your body and wheel house on that bus.. on one of our big trucks the worst that happens is we beat a mud-flap off or bang the bottom frame of a trailer till the tire comes apart.. we run TPMS on all of our trucks so we usually see a quick air pressure loss before the tire flies apart but its too late on a fendered truck if you stop when you hear the beating.. the damage is done.. Plus you will never put enough miles on a tire to justify re-caps.. and id never put them on something this nice"

"your dealer didnt send you out with a bad set of tires .. he sent you home wit ha set of tires that is nearing the end of its life... the DOT wont give you a ticket though they might make a comment, this is a nice bus and you are doing lots of neat stuff tp it, go get yourself a good set of wingfoots.. sorry they dont make Eagle GT's for busses (he knew I always put Eagles on my hotrods).. or the new michelins that give good rolling resistance.. theyll set you back a few but you will have a really nice ride quality esp with that air bag system you have..."

-Christopher
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Old 05-25-2016, 08:24 AM   #58
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Tires are a perennial topic in forums for RV's and other vehicles.

If you get two people on any of those forums together you will get at least three opinions on what is the best when it comes to tires.

I personally would not ever use recaps on a bus. When the recaps let go, and it is just a matter of time before one of them will, they tend to let go with a steel reinforced whip that is at least six feet long. If you are able to pull to the side of the road immediately you are still going to go far enough to cause some serious damage to your rig.

As to what brand to purchase the difference of opinion as to what would work the best runs about as far as the east is from the west.

IMHO it all comes down to how you plan on using your rig.

If you plan to drive thousands of miles per month spending the big $$$ for name brand tires might be worth it.

If you plan to drive just a few thousand (less than 1K per month) miles per year spending the big $$$ for name brand tires may not be the best place to spend your $$$.

If you are like most people whose bus is going to be sitting more than running down the road going cheap and getting the Chinese/Korean/Indonesian knockoffs can be a very economical decision. In most cases the tires will die of old age long before the tread is worn off.

In the past I have had some good luck in finding some good used tires. With the high price of tires in the last five years good used tires have become virtually impossible to find. I am not willing to pay 65% of what a new tire will cost for a tire that has less than 50% tread left.

I might try to eek out a few more miles with the tires you have by using some tire dressing to put some more moisture back into the tires. But at the end of the day, there isn't a lot of life left in those tires.

Good luck!
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Old 05-25-2016, 11:59 AM   #59
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That's exactly right. My rig does sit a lot currently, but I have intentions of traveling extensively. I knowingly overpaid for name brand tires because I want that issue to be a minimal concern while traveling. Plus in the NW, Les Schwab is a lot of reassurance if you have trouble changing a tire. Nothing is for sure, but I like to hedge my bets when possible concerning mechanical issues. Also having the same expensive tires on my dualies has allowed me to replace a steer tire with one of the inside duals to get home. Yeah I know, the things some of us farmer/ranchers do.
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Old 05-25-2016, 12:32 PM   #60
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Dry rot in the sidewalls is potentially dangerous and not something you want to overlook for long. When they go...they go big time.
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