Under bus.. would you bother?

[adic27]

Would any of you bother cleaning this? How would you approach it and what would you use. Don't want to clean anything that's unnecessary and mess something up under there. Here's some pictures and a link to video

https://streamable.com/d1io6v

Edit: sorry for some of the images being grainy. Should have uploaded them to an external website

[Sehnsucht]

No harm in cleaning but before you go to town with the power washer you may want to look for any tell-tale signs of problems before you rinse them away and effectively ignore potential problems until they leave you stranded. For instance, I appreciate that my company is so diligent about this but when they found some oil on the engine oil pan they wanted to take it off the road and replace the oil pan gasket. It was using no oil and the accumulation was oil AND road grime over months so I asked to wash it off. I'd be due for an oil change in another month or so anyways and they could replace the seal then. The DD15 has 47 quarts of oil in it so believe me if it was leaking or burning significant oil I'd have known it! Now coolant on the other hand was a big issue. I was up to a gallon a week topping it off and they swapped some hoses only to have the entire radiator blow in less than 500 miles and cost twice as much for repairs on the road. So diligence is rewarded but not foolproof. Check for leaks and signs of wear, then wash off the crud.

[ol trunt]

Ditto on that. Then keep an eye on it all watching for leaks. In my world if it drips a drop on the drive it gets resealed but then I'd polish my slack adjusters if I had them.
Jack

[Bus'n it]

Originally Posted by ol trunt

Ditto on that. Then keep an eye on it all watching for leaks. In my world if it drips a drop on the drive it gets resealed but then I'd polish my slack adjusters if I had them.
Jack

I'd take it a step further and put in a new transmission and get some chrome bling under there ;)

[Bpike]

Those first two shots at the suspension. Actually somewhat of a good thing. Notice that little bump on the vertical piece? That is called a grease zirk, if you don't know what that is, I suggest you find out and squirt grease into it at defined interval. That is what the previous owner did to it, and that is what you see oozing out of the seals, which then collected dirt etc....

[cntryby]

If you clean it, don't use a pressure washer. if you tear the boots, or they're already torn, you could wash the grease out and cause premature wear / failure.


It looks like that because it has been greased on a schedule. If you continue to maintain the bus properly, it will look like that again very quickly. I wouldn't clean it unless I needed to make repairs.