Help! On the road far from home and will not start!

[BlackJohn]

My thinking is that the ground is made in the mechanical connection to the starter.
The other 2 wires, the smaller pair, just follow back to origin. Are they marked "R" and "S"?



Good idea not to disrupt much yet as you are doing.



John

[Mark carr]

Goto autozone and buy some terminal cleaner
And protective spray. I check my batteries every few weeks on the kenworth. Wire brush all your battery terminals then spray and protect

Nothing worse then finding green copper a foot up the wire

[david.dgeorge07]

Originally Posted by Mark carr

Goto autozone and buy some terminal cleaner
And protective spray. I check my batteries every few weeks on the kenworth. Wire brush all your battery terminals then spray and protect

Nothing worse then finding green copper a foot up the wire

Good advice for sure. The electrical on this bus needs a little tlc.

[david.dgeorge07]

I found it. I fixed it!

You want me to end the suspense or you wanna guess!

[brokedown]

I'm guessing it's either a bad starter solenoid or one of your interlocks.

[david.dgeorge07]

After tracing wires all over the place I found a failed crimp style butt splice in the engine bay door interlock, which is basically just where they route the wire that goes to the starter relay up to a push switch.

If only it were as simple as that to discover. Spent half the day tracing wires through a maze of bundles to discover it.

Thankfully I was eventually able to find it, and thankfully I learned a lot along the way and was able to catch some other likely future problems and rectify them before they failed.

One thing that you might not expect was that this area where I’ve been having problems with wiring integrity was one where the wiring passes over a heat shield that protects that part of the bay from the tailpipe heat. Unfortunately it’s made out of thin sheet metal that can pick up a significant oscillating vibration, especially at idle. It would just shake all over the place and the wiring in the vicinity was subject to it. I was able to add a new crossmember made out of angle iron and sandwich it in with a body mount. That worked amazingly well to calm down that particular piece from vibration and everything seems much less sketchy now. There were several areas where the insulation had been chafed off of wires from the vibrations and I was able to use liquid electrical tape to waterproof them.

[david.dgeorge07]

IMG_8044.PNG

Specifically this was causing the no-crank.

This looks to me like non-oem work. I don’t think I’ll ever use a crimp butt splice in any system critical area after seeing this.

I soldered in several new terminals today where old ones looked sketchy.

[david.dgeorge07]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

glad you made it home.. im in savannah or I couldve come to you.. i know that rest area.. or at least i think I do.. sounbds familiar. somewhat close to I-75. I think..

-Christopher

Yes. Close to 75. Sorry I missed you but I got it sorted! Safe travels in Savannah!

[Lkn4it]

Be very careful when jumping the starter relay. My mother lost her leg by starting a car that was in gear that way. Jumping that relay bypasses every safety feature in a vehicle.

[Dirtdoctor]

Your neutral lock out switch has given up- It’s deep within the auto transmission (Allison). But by process of elimination you can find the two wires that come out of the transmission (old style not the computer driven ones). Jump across and your bus will think it’s in neutral and can start.

[BoxGods]

Originally Posted by BlackJohn

Kind words there CB. You have been paying attention, but my bus knowledge in general pales in comparison to yours. Man you should be in the business, you can do it.



Electricity is an interesting phenomena and I think you have the bug now that you are getting more comfortable with it/around it. Every bus is the same that way basically electrically and diesels may differ a bit but they all work on similar principles. All you people for that matter should get to know how they work together to make your bus experince an enjoyable one and fairly easy on the pocketbook.


John

Although your modesty is refreshing...I gotta say from here helping out a stranger stranded on the road deems pretty heroic to me Sir. You may need to scrounge up some spandex, a cape...and possibly a side kick =)

Tip of the hat.