These larger bolts are holding these thick hat channels to the under side of my bus in all the yellow spots on my cad drawing. My go to mechanic buddy first suggested they were body bolts until I got the picture of what they were holding. He's now suggesting they exist to add strength to the floor to help hold up the weight of the walls. This seems like a reasonable explanation but I've seen a lot of people cut every bolt in the bus and seal up the holes. Anyone else have these on their bus?Attachment 57459Attachment 57460
Those bolted-on hat channel pieces look like some post-factory repairs for rust. I had a sort-of-similar thing welded on the underside of my bus, although bigger. It turned out to be a standard repair part that they sell for Internationals.
That's what I initially thought, especially the random placement. I think I'm going to go through and weld them in place then try and break the nuts lose from the under side.
Please Slow down there on the welding plan! I’m not 100% sure on what I’m seeing in your pics but school buses use a bolt and bracket body to frame clamp system when mounting the body to the frame. In a major impact this clamp allows the body to slide forward on the frame to reduce the crash energy. Is this possibly what you are looking at?
Please Slow down there on the welding plan! I’m not 100% sure on what I’m seeing in your pics but school buses use a bolt and bracket body to frame clamp system when mounting the body to the frame. In a major impact this clamp allows the body to slide forward on the frame to reduce the crash energy. Is this possibly what you are looking at?
I thought that too until I found the actual frame clamps
The two that I've cut off came from the top two blue rectangles and you can see three more just below them. In the CAD sketch I've circled where I'm taking about and you can see the yellow in other places on the bus where I've got more of them.
Our county transportation mechanics have been very forthcoming when I visit (bring donuts) and probe for details about Freddy D. Maybe the mechanics who have been working on yours for the past decade could provide details.
Your drawings are a terrific communication tool, so any school bus maintenance facility will understand your question. It may be a standard repair.
Keep us posted, I'm sure you are not the only one who wants to know.
The guy I call my mechanic buddy doesn't work for a school and unfortunately the bus was in service a few hours away and a few years ago so I might be difficult to get in touch with the people who are familiar with my extract bus. That's not to say the mechanic at the shop in the school wouldn't know about them and that might be worth the call.
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