Elf Bus E350 corbeil

[cadillackid]

twigg - what engine do you have? im a Navistar 444E, joe is the ford version 7.3

the 2 use completely different diagnostic systems.. my navistar I use a VMSpc on the J1708 (im also building my own that will give me more PID's).. Joe is using Torque Pro as his is OBD-II
-Christopher

[Twigg]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

twigg - what engine do you have? im a Navistar 444E, joe is the ford version 7.3

the 2 use completely different diagnostic systems.. my navistar I use a VMSpc on the J1708 (im also building my own that will give me more PID's).. Joe is using Torque Pro as his is OBD-II
-Christopher

I don't have an engine yet.

Unless something special crops up though, I am only looking at buses with DT466, DT530 or Cummins 8.3. ... and any transmission is fine except AT545.

When we do begin to drive one, it will do highway miles. I'm okay driving 60 mph, but I don't want it limited.

I'm looking at those engines because we want a bus of around 35 to 38 foot.

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by Twigg

I don't have an engine yet.

Unless something special crops up though, I am only looking at buses with DT466, DT530 or Cummins 8.3. ... and any transmission is fine except AT545.

When we do begin to drive one, it will do highway miles. I'm okay driving 60 mph, but I don't want it limited.

I'm looking at those engines because we want a bus of around 35 to 38 foot.

the DT's will use servicemaxx J1708 software by navistar and require a Ndexiq USBlink 2 or a chinese knock-off of it.. Cummins uses a differemnt software for their electronic engines.. im not sure as ive only mnechanical familiarity with cummins..
-Christopher

[joeblack5]

Every time when I am in this part of the country I am lucky. Probably the people.
This morning i drove 58 thru the mountains JEB highway or such and a car came towards me flashing its lights. I slowed down and looked at him in the miror and there it was, black ice. The rear end gave out . I was doing 25 at the time and got thru it ok mainly because of the lower speed and that because the people in the other gave me the heads up.



alternator light still on voltage stays at 14.3Volt.
Worked for a couple of hours.

Later J

[joeblack5]

Made it back home with the alternator light on
Nice to camp for a while then you can see the de-efficiencies. The webasto has two power levels 5Kw and 2.5 KW of heat.
The heater cores do not dissipate all of it to the interior and as a result the webasto switches down and then starts back up. The starting cycle takes a lot of power because of the glow plug. I added a computer fan to the front heater core to reduce electric consumption by the dash fan. Clearly this is not optimized yet.
The engine block stores a lot of heat. I added a switch and wire to run the webasto coolant pump by itself but did not modify the webasto to make it work.

I made one double pane lexan window in the back door and that window feels a lot warmer then the single pane glass windows. I would like to make a piano hinge along the gutter above the side windows and use a lexan sheet and weather strips that hangs over the side as a storm window. In the summer they hinge open and cab become an awning by draping a towel over them.

Hooked up the EGT gauge and tach. The tach reads 2 the rpm so 4K rpm is actual 2000. The speedo and mileage is 5.6% of. I actually confirmed that on Interstate 81 with the mile markers ...100 miles is actually 105.6 miles similar for the speed. With these tires and 4.10 rears is runs 60MPH and 2000 rpm. Wonder if i can get away with 3.55.


School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: Elf Bus E350 Corbeil II - Picture

The EGT is pretty neat. At flat roads around 800K and it climbs to 1250 if try to race up a hill. Need to hook up the illumination and redo the red paint on the needle.

Later J

[joeblack5]

I did this cluster swap 4 years ago in my 4x4 diesel van. For whatever reason Elfie reads twice the rpm so I decided to dig in a little deeper.
With some E serie powerstrokes or F series factory diesel clusters the tach reads twice the actual RPM.
The potentiometer on the back side of the cluster does not bring the tach in the range
Opened up the cluster and found an air core tach chip CS8190. You can google it for the data sheet and schematic. With the schematic I was able to find what component to change to make it work correctly.
I connected an 220 K ohm resistor in the circuit board parallel to the R19 smd resistor. This is part of the Rt resistor in the cs8190 schematic. The r19 is 182 kohm. the minimum value for rt is 100k ohm. The 220 k in parallel brings it close to the minimum of 100Kohm. Good enough,... now you can adjust the pot meter so that the tach reads correct.

School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: Elf Bus E350 Corbeil II - Picture

Later J

[joeblack5]

Has been a while with Elfie,


Making a work trip to West Jefferson and then Wilmington , NC.

Now taking a wifi break at a Lowes in Dunn along rte 421.


Not much is done Elfie in the last year. Still did not mount the last two solar panels. Still did not convert to 4x4.
Ok,.... I did change the Dimension 2500 Watt pure sine wave inverter with a big transformer towards an High frequency 2500 watt pure sine wave inverter that is much lighter and has much lower idle current.


Also fixed my tach conversion issues and dual EGT probe issues.





Last night in the mountains in West Jefferson it was freezing a little but the webasto kept me and the engine nice and warm.





Later J

[joeblack5]

Back home, all went well, another 1500 mile trip. I like the dual EGT gauge, redundancy and compare left and right cylinder bank in one view.
If I only could get myself to add the other two solar panels and finish some of the other leftovers....


Later J

[cadillackid]

what do your EGTs run on elfie?



since im now playing with power-adding to my 444E, I got an EGT gauge.. not a dual bank but I figured its better than none..



where are your probes? in the manifolds? I am going to install mine right in the left bank manifold .. in the bottom so most of the shavings from drill n tap will fall down instead of into the manifold..



I never was concerned about EGTs. at 190HP. but the fact I can bump it to as high as 250 makes me concerned.. esp since i havent put a bigger turbo in..



-Christopher

[joeblack5]

Hi Chris, About 900 at a flat road 60 mph ..1800rpm . I think mine might be 50 to 100 F on the high side.
Mounted the probes in the pipes leading to the turbo I drilled very slowly so that the chips would not be flying around and removed chips. When ready to break thru the wall I used grease to make the last chips sticking to the drill.



Since this is a van style the probes fitted only at one location as not to interfere with the cover. The wire length of the probe was just enough to reach the gauge without extension,


Later Johan

[Tango]

EGT's are typically read in one of maybe two spots. On the exhaust manifold near the rear of the engine...or...on the exhaust, just after turbo. That said, it is best to confirm the preferred location with the maker since any published numbers will correspond to that point in the system.


Example: Lots of Cummins builders put the probe between the rear two cylinders on the exhaust manifold in the belief that reading the highest temp is what is important. However...all of the EGT numbers published by Cummins are based on readings taken 6" behind the turbo on the exhaust.

[joeblack5]

Interesting Tango, With all respect to cummins I give the benefit of doubt to the builders and measure before the turbo.

I am not much of a performance guy anymore so no need for me to chip the 7.3. but I had this old aircraft dual EGT gauge laying around asking for a job.

Later J

[joeblack5]

Wow, that is long time ago, better keep this thread going.


Took Elfie out to Chollicothe,OH to pick up a water cooled 7.5KW Kohler generator. Drove out saturday slept along I70 last rest area before Columbus,OH and loaded the genset on sunday morning in the spot where my bed was. Then met Christopher for coffee in Circleville.
Great times. Back home now.


Tomorrow need to clean up shop and unload the genset.
The watercooling part is going into the house heating and the electric part is going partially in the Sanden CO2 heatpump and partially thru the outback grid tie solar inverters back into the grid.
A exhaust heat exchanger will be included and the genset is in my shop to extract the last little bit of heat out of it. It is going to be converted to natural gas and run 10m hours in the night to keep out electric energy balance neutral.


Thanks Chris for coming over and hanging out.


Johan

[PNW_Steve]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Wow, that is long time ago, better keep this thread going.


Took Elfie out to Chollicothe,OH to pick up a water cooled 7.5KW Kohler generator. Drove out saturday slept along I70 last rest area before Columbus,OH and loaded the genset on sunday morning in the spot where my bed was. Then met Christopher for coffee in Circleville.
Great times. Back home now.


Tomorrow need to clean up shop and unload the genset.
The watercooling part is going into the house heating and the electric part is going partially in the Sanden CO2 heatpump and partially thru the outback grid tie solar inverters back into the grid.
A exhaust heat exchanger will be included and the genset is in my shop to extract the last little bit of heat out of it. It is going to be converted to natural gas and run 10m hours in the night to keep out electric energy balance neutral.


Thanks Chris for coming over and hanging out.


Johan

Do you have a hybrid or grid tie inverter? A straight grid tie inverter will shut down if it looses grid power. Not ideal for mobile applications.

There are a bunch of PG&E customers that installed good sized grid tie systems that are loosing power when PG&E shuts the power down due to fire danger.

$20k or more on solar that shuts down when grid shuts down I would be pissed off too.

[joeblack5]

Hi Steve, We have two outback GVFX3600 inverters. They are for grid tie with battery backup. Our battery back up is our 48Volt electric forklift. Power never goes here in town but it is fun to have. With the forklift being dual function it all works out with to much of $$ tag.


The main PV solar is 7.5 KW as above and then an additional 1 KW thru a " ul listed chinese ..outlet" gridtie.. it works good.


I spend a lot of time being " independent" with WVO in our diesel cars but now use electric cars for the daily drive around town. So our electricity consumption has gone up a bit.
We have a listeroid "clone" Cs 6-1 in the basement tied into the floor heat but it is a bit of a thumper at 500 RPM.


later Johan

[joeblack5]

Hello folks, The next installment on our Elf Bus E350 Corbeil


A little history. Before we had the Elf Bus we were traveling with an 1998 E350 Quigley 4x4 van 7.3 powerstroke. Then we got a 1994 E350 Quigley 4x4 ambulance 7.3 IDI . We put a lot of work in the ambulance but ultimately it was / got to rusty and when I overheated the engine and lost a head gasket the next solution was the Elf bus E350.
Even in that time I wanted to use the 4x4 conversion and put it under the Elfbus.
Well three years have gone by and no is the time. COVID is great for projects.


Our ambulance campers name was BULAN and we had sitting around waiting as a donor so that it could live on. It had solar panels on top, fridge and a WVO system.


so last week we finally decided that this project needed to get done and we removed the transfer case and transmission , then cut the frame and took the engine with front axle.

It is sad to take apart our BULAN after we had so many adventures but many parts are now going to be spare parts for the Elfbus and for our other red e350 Quigley 4x4 conversion.

TBC
Johan

[joeblack5]

Today I removed the front suspension btackets from the remaining ambulance. Got a $260 plasma cutter... Great fun..
The new black bracket is from a 96 guigley 4x4 conversion ( our red van)
Murphy was around. The 1994 Bulan quigley 4x4 conversion is a little different. So I am reusing and updating the welded on brackets and converting them at the same time to bolt on similar as the later van.
Johan

[joeblack5]

Friday 14 Aug 2020. Put Elfie on chassis blocks and started unbolting the front axle. Most bolts complied.

[ol trunt]

I'd like to see a pic of the 4x4 front axle--does it keep the "twin "I" beam" format?

As to the plasma cutter, it ranks as one of my three favorite tools. They being my high dollar HVLP gun, my mig welder and the plasma cutter with the all time favorite being the one I am using at the time!
Jack

[joeblack5]

The front axle is a solid Dana 60 that was used on our Quigley 4x4 ambulance..Bulan.. We reinforced some of the somewhat corroded sections. Here it is laying almost ready for a first fit.