Dory transit a new start.

[CHEESE_WAGON]

Originally Posted by Brewerbob

Since you didn't take teh bait last time, I guess I'll just have to ask directly... what the hell good is a spare tire without a rim? With a flat you're still going to have to call someone to get it on the rim aren't you?

Originally Posted by Tango

Have to admit, I was wondering the same thing (?).

With a pry bar, a can of ether, a cigarette lighter, and an air hose adapter, you can change it yourself. Old trucker's trick.

[BeNimble]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Thanks. Yes originally I had selected some ss prison toilet but to convert that to incinerating is tough...
Johan

Nice bit of hacking there! Was thinking the same is why don't they separate the urine in those incinerating toilets. If poop catches fire, isn't that what it should do? lol

Maybe the approach is to collect it up and then burn it in a big batch, rather than on each flush? I dunno, doesn't seem the poop is the nasty part of a composting toilet, it is disposing the urine everyone complains about?

[joeblack5]

Thanks Nimble. Thought to let you know you are not the only one.

Had to fix some leaks in my heat exchanger / uv sterilizer. Hope to install the thermo mixing valve tomorrow. Then a second drain in the stainless shower tub. Getting closer to a test run.

Johan

[joeblack5]

Had an unfortunate slow leak in my passenger front tire of the Elfbus. Made it home with a air fill every 5 miles.
Here is our little one wrestling with a 255/85/R16.

Then some more wrestling with the impact. By lug eight she got the hang of it.

Johan

[Native]

Teach 'em young, teach 'em right! I like it!

[joeblack5]

Hi CW. Yes I tried the starting fluid with a tractor tire....exciting...

Tried to crowbar the tire from Dory after the "pro's" had started to take the wrong side of the tire of the rim..and gave up..

I clearly need more training with bus tires...that 6 foot bar had a decent swing when it came back at me..

Johan

[BeNimble]

AAHHH! Looks nasty, keep a watch for head trauma, no more workee for a few days.

[joeblack5]

No worries.. that was a year ago...

Today I removed the shower tub and add a drain on the opposite side so that my recirculating shower works indepent on the buses angle.

It is nice to see that you have to build some things twice to get the result you want...or at least I hope...

So it turns out I have some space under Dory..so I am connecting both drains to get her with a 3/4 hose under the floor. Only 3/4" so that I do not have a lot of dead volume. With this improved design I might have to fill in the pan I welded in the floor just to reduce the water volume.

I do not measure the volume of the heat exchanger yet but I am striving to stay under one gallon total....resulting in 2 gallon per showerering...1 gallon wet and wash and 1 gallon rinse of.

Johan

[joeblack5]

Today the first badge of lithium phosphate batteries came in ..direct shipment from China..
272 Ah .
We are going to assemble three parallel strings of 8 batteries for 24 volt to replace the 2 x 8D lead acid batteries.

Planning on insulation on the bottom and heating mats to prevent low temperatures.

But first a charge and check capacity.

Johan

[BeNimble]

So they relabeled the 280ah as 272ah ? lol

[joeblack5]

Hard to say.

The 280 ah batteries had twice the internal resistance. So this brand should be in theory more efficient.. time will tell.
These units have a metal case that has some voltage to poles.. there is an insulation foil but it is better if they do not touch each other. Which is of course also good for heat distribution.

Johan

[joeblack5]

Wow, More the 1-1/2 year have gone by, of course lots of things have happened.

We are picking Dory back up where we left of and are now going thru a third iteration.

We designed this bus with my then 93 year old Mom with wheel chair in mind.

After that became impossible we modified for 2 adults, 2 kids and one gsd. To travel out west for 5 months.

Now we are making a second attempt with that.
We found we needed more mouse proof storage and decided to sacrifice the lower bunk bed. My Mom's folding couch / bed will be used by our oldest daughter and that frees a lot of space up.

Decided that vintage steel filing cabinets are going to be used so we got 5 and cut one drawer of to get to the right height.

The too bed can now be 1" lower so that is convenient.
It turned out to be easiest to cut the bottom drawer of.
Tomorrow I can make the modification to Dory and see how the theory works out.

Johan

[joeblack5]

The first fit of the filing cabinets in the sleeping compartment.

A total of 5 x3 drawers can fit here..

Johan

[joeblack5]

Dory gets a third shot at upgrades and cleaning.
Removed several mouse nest and also cleaned the old HVAC ducts.
Took some floor panels and wall panels out. Sanded and then 2 to three coats of clear polyurethane.

Freed up the alternator again and ran the engine for a while. The multiplex system showed some errors and found another mouse nest with cut wiring.
Cleaned and repaired but the error warning is still there.
One tire was low, after two years sitting , fortunately the air hose and adapters were on board. So we were ok to move.

We left her spot down at the creek.

The air suspension in the front did suddenly drop down. Sounds like a solenoid gets activated.. some cycling of the system brought it back up. It happened again so something needs attention.
Nevertheless she made it home for repairs and further outfitting for the next trip.

[joeblack5]

After a couple of days of crazy cleaning and refinishing troubleshooting we decided to take it for a test drive. Pre covid I had installed an upgraded tcm for the Allison with an unlocked 6th gear.. it showed 6th on the display, but no 5 anymore.. I was sceptic.
Never had tried it I hoped the tranny would not lock up.

Around town I could not get it above 45 mph and so could not test the 6th gear function but before anything else we had another sudden kneel function when driving.. not good at highway speed and a bump in the road.

After a lot of studying of the air and electric system I decided to open up one of the class1 es key modules that control this bus with a proprietary can bus system.

One module in the main electric cabinet had been so much exposed to mouse pea that it had leaked into the module and did some damage.

New modules are expensive and I am not sure that this is the only problem. Besides that with our departure day of tomorrow the part would not come in time and at a very high cost.

So we bypassed the multiplex system . Not all that simple since for a working understanding of the air ride system I had to be under the bus which is hard to do with a normal stationary ground clearance of 4".

Lots of jacking and blocks to keep it as safe as possible but we were able to locate the responsible components , did some more testing and thought we had it licked.

Still had not done a road test with a half functioning multiplex system so we got up early in the morning and it all seemed ok.

Quick packing and by 11 am we were on the road to hickory state park.

20 miles into it I started to hear a hissing sound .. leaking tire? Pulled into a Sheetz for coffee and food raised the bus in ferry mode with our electric bypass wiring and found that the quick release valve from the parking brake was leaking.. we were holding air pressure but I was afraid that if it would get worse that we would come to a standstill along the road . So decide to go back home.

Fortunately all the blocks and cribbing were fresh in my mind and I had the bus up in no time.. the quick release valve cooperated so that the 4 torx screws came of and indeed the rubber disk had a hole in it with also general deterioration.. I was glad that we turned back because it easily could have been a show stopper.

Local Napa did not have a part but connected me to a local company that could. Called, yes ,stop by and we will check..
Then when I stopped in and actually met the people it turned out that they new me as the guy with diy electric vehicles, unimogs etc. So I received a good price for a new valve .. $23.. could not get a tow for that.

Since I did not want to mess with the airlines and connectors I decided to take the rubber disk and I ring out of the new one and put that in the one under the bus..all fitted like charm and by 1.30 we were back on the road.

With much pleasure I noticed that the my tom had dropped from 2000 at 55mph to 1700 at 55mph and that it was lot quieter inside. In general it seems to hold speed in 6th on highway hills so all good news.

We made it to the campground with no other problems.

[joeblack5]

Here some more pics from our little adventure.
The best part time together with the girls trouble shooting this bus and making our youngest into an expert fire starter.

Johan

[Veloc]

Glad you made it safely, but when you get home you need to give the rear brakes a good going over for safety's sake. If you dropped 300RPM on a diesel by fixing the air brakes, the rear brakes were likely dragging pretty hard and the shoes may be glazed over. It's also possible that return springs were heat damaged from this, and if a spring lets go that brake assembly turns into a mess. I once had a spring on a drum break loose on a car and it ground some of the steel parts completely into dust. Had to look at the other side to see what was missing.

[joeblack5]

Thanks veloc,. I was a bit unclear. There was never any brake dragging and pressure stayed above 100psi.

The 300 rpm drop at 55 mph was because the unlocked tcm allowing the 6th gear to enable.

Thanks J

[Ronnie]

Good to hear you have it back on the road.

[Bus'n it]

The memories you are creating for your kids is priceless. So happy for you!