Wisconsin 2001 Bluebird All American RE

[WIbluebird]

Originally Posted by Bon Voyage

That looks nice; I had something similar on my old Ford Excursion 6.0, I could even adjust the tuning. I don’t think I’d risk tuning my bus though... maybe just a little..

Where did you get it? How much do they cost? I’ll have to get something for my bus.

You can buy them here. As far as I know they are the only widely available scanner for these buses. They do not modify ECM tuning at all, just read parameters and I believe they have the ability to turn off CELs.

[WIbluebird]

Finished up the bracing on the 100 gallon fresh water tank. This past weekend I also started on the bed frame and roughing in the RV power converter. The girlfriend’s dog certainly seems to be pleased with the progress!

Today I am dropping it off at the local tire place for a fresh set of open shoulder drive tires. Went with Bandag DR 4.3 recaps. Then it’s going to the truck body shop nearby for an alignment and to diagnose a lean to the passenger side.

[Oscar1]

Nice use of the strut to locate the tank and good service location for the panel.
Cute pup ya got there.
Cheers

Oscar

[WIbluebird]

Bus is now at the local tire shop for a fresh set of drives. She did great on the 12 mile drive in, no apparent issues have cropped up after a winter of sitting. The only real concerns were my tail lights not working (brake lights do however!). I was planning on rewiring everything back there anyway, just didn't get to it in time.

Also the oil pressure gauge on the dash AND the blue fire scanner were both reading 97 psi flat with no changes at idle or driving around. Guessing it needs a new oil pressure sensor but those are pretty easy iirc.

[WIbluebird]

[WIbluebird]

Bus is back from the local truck shop. They did the following:

New tie rod ends
Alignment
Checked wheel studs
Rear brake drums were sticking
Fixed slack adjusters
front left kingpin was siezed up, got that unfroze and lubricated
Checked all steering components

$900 total. A little on the high side but with these vehicles I'd say getting out of the shop and staying under a grand is a win and the safe peace of mind. Now onto the rest of the interior build out!

Scored a 6 foot piece of laminated countertop with backsplash from the local Menards for $42.

[WIbluebird]

More work on the bus yesterday. Cut an opening in my finished floor for the shower pan (before verifying that the underside is accessible for the shower drain!).



Shower pan fits great and I gain 2ish inches of headroom so that’s a win. Anyone over 6 feet tall is still not going to have a good time using my shower but oh well.



I’ve been re evaluating where to put my generator and 75 gallon gray tank. Originally the grey tank was going to go in my understorage with the generator suspended from unistrut in the space directly behind the front axle.

Now I am contemplating moving the gray tank to the spot behind the front axle (see below pic) and generator on a drawer in the understorage. This would be less fab work for me sinfe I could then fill in the open skirt area in front of the tank without having to fab up doors or drawer slides in that area. My ground clearance would also be better since the tank requires a lot less vertical height to fit in there.

I guess the 2 downsides to this approach are having to utilize seperate drain hose attachments for the grey and black tanks. I’m not worried about the grey drain but it seems like a dedicated black tank drain hose would be suspectible to clogging. Thoughts on this?

Also having the generator in the enclosed understorage would mean working out a safe ventilation approach as well as a way to properly route the exhaust pipe out of there. But upside is a lot less work to mount it in there as well as it being away from prying eyes.

[Bon Voyage]

I don’t like the idea of a dedicated black tank drain because of not being able to flush out the pipe after dumping the black contents. I think the buildup in the drain pipe might get smelly and it would drip black water after dumping. You could use a cap on the end so it doesn’t drip but then it would come out when you opened it to dump the next time along with a nasty poof of air. Just my thoughts.

My generator ended up in the engine bay beside one of the side doors on a platform I built. I think it works great but I can’t run the generator when driving because it’ll overheat being surrounded with hot air from the engine. I had to get a 2200 max generator (smaller than I wanted) to make it fit.

If you could come up with a solution to the black water drain even if it’s running a long grey drain over to the black I think the switch is fine; but in line with your first plan, I do like having my tanks in the under storage. I have them suspended from the bus floor so I can still use the area underneath them and I don’t have to worry about road debris damaging them.

[WIbluebird]

Originally Posted by Bon Voyage

I don’t like the idea of a dedicated black tank drain because of not being able to flush out the pipe after dumping the black contents. I think the buildup in the drain pipe might get smelly and it would drip black water after dumping. You could use a cap on the end so it doesn’t drip but then it would come out when you opened it to dump the next time along with a nasty poof of air. Just my thoughts.

My generator ended up in the engine bay beside one of the side doors on a platform I built. I think it works great but I can’t run the generator when driving because it’ll overheat being surrounded with hot air from the engine. I had to get a 2200 max generator (smaller than I wanted) to make it fit.

If you could come up with a solution to the black water drain even if it’s running a long grey drain over to the black I think the switch is fine; but in line with your first plan, I do like having my tanks in the under storage. I have them suspended from the bus floor so I can still use the area underneath them and I don’t have to worry about road debris damaging them.

I do have a sprayer hose attachement on my toilet so I could potentially spray water down in the tank to help a bit.

But yeah, a long gray water drain hose doesn't appeal to me either.

[Bus'n it]

Nice progress!

[WIbluebird]

Well, first trip is finally in the books. Spent the weekend at a county campground 2 hours north of me.

Bus abruptly died 10 miles into the drive up. I was luckily able to coast over to the side of the road and start troubleshooting. No power to dash, no crank, etc. at first I though my starter interlock bypass had failed but it turned out to be a loose negative battery cable. Tightened up the connection and replaced the two 7.5 amp ECM fuses that blew when the cable got loose. Lesson learned!

Obligatory Walmart parking lot photo. The side door is invaluable for loading groceries etc. glad I left that accessible in my floor plan.



Arrived at the campground shortly before sunset. The site had 50 amp service and water, neither of which I could use since my electrical isn’t set up. $35 per night wasn’t bad though. I simply hooked up a small lawn tractor battery to power my interior 12v lights (it wasn’t cold enough to require the diesel air heater although I had power to it)



The main takeaways from this trip:

1. The Blue Fire data adapter is worth every penny. Even on the older buses like mine with the J1708 ports they transmit data that is so useful. It is nice being able to monitor my temps going down the highway especially with the level of accuracy they offer over the unreliable dash gauges.

2. Carry extra fuses! If I hadn’t bought that extra box of micro fuses I would’ve been screwed.

3. Curtains, I neglected this and paid the price for it. Privacy is essential especially in the crowded campgrounds. It also makes a huge difference in bus interior temps as well.

The bus ran amazing the entire weekend, cooling system kept it at 190 the entire time and I got to give the 8.3 Cummins a workout on the big hills. On the way back i took the Interstate. Bus seems happiest at 68 mph (engine is at 1700 rpm at that speed). So lucky to have a bus with the unlocked 6th gear already

[VinHay]

Wondering if there are any more updates to this build thread?