2002 E450 Quigley Shuttle?

[Luminous Moose]

Hi Skoolies!
Been browsing the site religiously for the last couple weeks reading up on all the great posts!
We have a 2002 E450 Shuttle Quigley 4x4 7.3 250k miles picked out local to us. Newer transmission, new tires, alternator, breaks, starter, batteries. The guy is getting it inspected and it should be ready for pickup next week. Underneath looks great, but the body is in rough shape, lots of dents and even a tear above the wheelchair door. We can't figure out what kind of shuttle body it is, looks like the outer skin is aluminum? We have full time jobs, the plan is to add bed/kitchen/bath/heater for it to be a rolling ski chalet. We're on the east coast in PA and planning to do long weekends in VT and WV during snow season and day trips to our local mountains and some camping in the other months. We're going to be in it for $5500 but I know we're paying up for the Quigley conversion and 4x4 buses are rare. Is there anything we should be worried about?
Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks!!!

 

[Johnny Mullet]

You can't buy a 4x4 diesel pickup that cheap. Even if it's a little rusty, it might be worth the investment. 4x4 bus is a rare find.

 

[roach711]

There should be a sticker on the driver's door frame listing the bus body builder.

 

[Luminous Moose]

Thanks, that's at least one vote that we're doing the right thing!

Argh, didn't look that close at the door frame. I crawled around under it with a flashlight for a good bit but didn't check the door frame that closely. The guy we're buying it off of thinks it's champion? but he's not even sure. I've read starcraft is to be avoided, I hope it's not that.

We've been out to see it twice and at the very end I'm like I should take some pics quick...

 

[joeblack5]

Great price. We have yo Quigley ford vans and with the 7.3 power stroke you will be in great shape.

 

[alpine44]

Hi Skoolies!
Been browsing the site religiously for the last couple weeks reading up on all the great posts!
We have a 2002 E450 Shuttle Quigley 4x4 7.3 250k miles picked out local to us. Newer transmission, new tires, alternator, breaks, starter, batteries. The guy is getting it inspected and it should be ready for pickup next week. Underneath looks great, but the body is in rough shape, lots of dents and even a tear above the wheelchair door. We can't figure out what kind of shuttle body it is, looks like the outer skin is aluminum? We have full time jobs, the plan is to add bed/kitchen/bath/heater for it to be a rolling ski chalet. We're on the east coast in PA and planning to do long weekends in VT and WV during snow season and day trips to our local mountains and some camping in the other months. We're going to be in it for $5500 but I know we're paying up for the Quigley conversion and 4x4 buses are rare. Is there anything we should be worried about?
Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks!!!

You know what I would worry about with a Ford 7.3L Quigley 4x4 conversion offered at that price? Paying the seller and getting van and title in my possession ASAP.

If you still decide against buying this van, please PM me the seller's contact info and I will take it of his/her hands - cash, as is where is.

 

[Luminous Moose]

Hey so Update: We got the bus! It had some power issues though so we've been trying to go through the mechanical issues. We changed the oil. It had a leak in the Y pipes, when we took the doghouse off half of it was covered in black and you could see exhaust coming out of the one pipe. So we upgraded to the bellowed pipes and wrapped them in $10 heat wrap from Amazon and rebuilt the turbo with a RiffRaff kit with upgraded wheel. The bolts holding the Y pipe to the exhaust manifolds were shot, had to use a cutting tool on the in-between part and hammer the rest out, had to drill one of them out and grind out one at the top. There was some oil in the intake side of the turbo so glad we did that and it made a huge difference, we couldn't hear anything but engine before and now we can talk at a normal voice in the cab and it got a lot of power back.

Also we found out it's a "Coach and Equipment" chassis from Pen Yan, NY. Seems to be a Phoenix 158" model. It seems to be well made, has R7 foam in the sides and a thin metal plate underneath the particle board in the floor.

So on deck, with all the rain we found out we have a leak in the roof and I've got some tubes of Dicor waiting to redo the seams on top. We have a fuel filter and ICP sensor to put on. We have a wheelchair lift to pull out and interior to demo. We found a 5"x5" hole in the driver's pan that needs patching. Weird thing...the rear a/c and the interior lights and mirror heater all worked when we got it, after doing the turbo work they stopped working altogether, seems like a power issue but there's wires everywhere so I don't even know where to look or if we're keeping the rear a/c unit. The front temperature controls weren't working at all, we replaced the fan resistor and now it's on defrost only at half speed. We've got the glow plugs but this is my first diesel and I didn't realize what a pain in the butt it would be. There's some funky wiring going on that looks like someone did something with what I'm guessing is a glow plug relay and fuse? I'll post a pic.

 

[Luminous Moose]

And here's some funky wiring. Any idea what this is and how it should be wired? Someone unplugged something and tried to add another relay but it's just dangling there and the wires have melted or fallen off? Looks like a starter relay to me but since it's a diesel I'm guessing it's a glow plug relay? It's on the driver's side firewall. It does start but not on the first try if it's been sitting.

 

[BlackJohn]

Nice little melt down there. Wonder how that happened? That is a good one, don't see them too often. Might be wise to correct the glow plugs from a-z and harnesses and relay. Seems awfully wet around that area, that can't be normal either.


John

 

[roach711]

The glow plug relay is mounted back behind the fuel filter beside the passenger side valve cover. Not sure what the relay in the picture is. My 2000 E450 7.3l doesn't have anything mounted in that area. Maybe trace the big cables and see where they lead.



The oil in the turbo inlet is likely from the EGR on the driver's side valve cover. It's not uncommon to see a bit of oil there and in the big air intake hose connecting to the inlet. If no oil is seen in the intake hose the oil probably came from bad turbo bearing seals which you just replaced in the rebuild.

 

[Luminous Moose]

So another weekend's in the books, I'd like to say this is now a build thread but we haven't actually built anything...yet.

Thanks Roach, I tracked some of the wiring of what's not working and it seems to go to the mystery solenoid. I tried redoing the connections but that didn't help so I think the next step is get a replacement solenoid and see if that's the issue.

We spent the weekend power washing(it was fiiiilthy), waterproofing the roof by scraping and cutting out the old sealant and applying new Dicor RV sealant and we put on new stripping over the metal pieces that are screwed on over the joints for the roof. We started trying to fix some of the rust around the doors and we fixed the tear in the skin above the wheelchair door. Ends up some of the screws weren't even screwed in so we cleaned up behind the tear, applied some sealant behind the skin, screwed it back down and used Everseal RV tape over the tear for now. Looks good enough to get us through the winter.

At the beginning of the weekend, we went to move it at the start of the weekend to the other side of the driveway so we could work on it and it wouldn't back up our slight grade until it had warmed up for at least 10 minutes. We replaced the fuel filter and ICP sensor. What a pain, I was over the hood lining up the wrench and the future wife was inside through the doghouse when I had the wrench in the right spot, then flip the wrench, repeat, and that was 1/6 of a turn. We also added some Archoil and it fired right up and ran like new, after all that it had some power after only running for 30 seconds. We're going to use a engine oil flush and redo the oil with a better synthetic before it gets really cold.

On deck... Finish rust repair and sealing the skin seams, remove the wheelchair lift and seats.

 

[Luminous Moose]

FYI if anyone is interested, there's a twin bus for sale, 2002 E450 4x4 Quigley 7.3 shuttle for sale on Philadelphia Craigslist listed for $10,500.

 

[roach711]

Try jumping across the two big power cables at the solenoid and see if you get power to your dead circuits.


The 7.3l uses engine oil to power the injectors so it likes fairly fresh oil. Many owners have fixed drivability issues with a quick oil change.

 

[Luminous Moose]

So we're back to working on the bus after taking some time off the project to get married.
We're still having electrical problems. I posted in the electrical section that we redid that mess of wires and we had interior electrical back but the heat switch for the rear a/c/heat started the hydraulic fan instead. Well we went to start it and now it only makes all kinds of clicking sounds, no glow plugs and no turning over. The battery is only reading 10 volts so going to try charging it and see if it just drained in the last six weeks but thought I'd post to see if anyone had any other thoughts.
Thanks!

 

[roach711]

A battery at 10 volts is totally discharged. Many times a starting battery that discharged will not take a new charge. Give it a good overnight charge and try again.

 

[Luminous Moose]

Yup! Left the charger on all yesterday afternoon and overnight. This morning no more crazy clicking with all the dash lights flashing! Wait to start light came on like normal, after waiting for the light to turn off it tried to turn over but wouldn't fire. Put it back on the charger for now but going to try to look at the glow plug system, looks like there's a problem with the glow plug relay or all the glow plugs have failed. It's only down to 50 degrees, it would start but run a little rough at first when it was 80 before when we were working on it.
Thanks!

 

[Luminous Moose]

Update: Installed a new glow plug relay and batteries and she still won't cold start. I was starting to wonder if it was the starter, and don't know why it took me this long but finally tried plugging in the heater block even though it was only in the 50's at the time but she started right up. It snowed pretty good today, had it plugged in last night and she started right up today, took her for a spin to see if the 4wd was working well. So now we have a replacement set of glow plugs in hand, we have the intake and turbo out and I'm staring at seemingly unreachable bolts for the valve covers, particularly the passenger side and that's where we stopped for the day.
One day we'll get this thing running right and we'll actually be able to start our build.

 

[Luminous Moose]

Still having starting issues! We've replaced the glow plugs which was a massive pain, took us about 12 hours total. Had a few bolts on the front of the valve covers that were difficult to reach and had a square piece of plastic settle next to one so that we couldn't get a socket around the glow plug to remove it. We replaced the starter with a denso style starter. During all of this we realized the batteries were not charged although we got brand new batteries a couple weeks ago, so tightened all the connections, ends up the bolt that holds the wires to the battery clamp were a little loose, charged the batteries all night and today it still won't start. If we plug it in for as little as an hour or two it will start but for what we're planning to do with it leaving it plugged in is not an option. We had previously replaced the fuel filter, icp sensor, glow plug relay, oil with 5w40, tried adding archoil, that made it run better but not start better. I'm running out of ideas.

On another note, we got the lift out. We lowered it down manually by turning a valve and lowered it onto a dolly. It was 8 bolts, 4 unbolted from underneath, needed a very long 9/16 socket and a breaker bar, one snapped, and 3 needed grinded off. Then I was able to disconnect the positive cable and cover it to the side and had to cut the negative cable. The bolts that needed grounded had to be popped off getting a crowbar under it. Once the base was loose we hand cranked it with a lever that would have been to raise it but had the effect of pulling the base out towards the rest of the lift that was in the lowered position. Had to angle it out so it would fit with the mechanism but a few well angled assists with the crowbar and it slid right out and folded in on itself. All in all a pretty safe way to do it, took about 2 hours and most of that was trying to unbolt the base from the bus.

On a positive note, I had previously posted that the coach heater switch ran to the lift... I'm a little embarrassed to say the plastic cover for the lift mechanism was't on right and made the square thing with two fans look like it was part of the lift, ends up that's the heater! Looks like it just has a heater core with a long run of coolant under the bus and a two little fans attached.

 

[cadillackid]

OK so you replaced the glow plugs.. now we need to find out if they are even coming on.. you need to measure curren t going from the glowplug relay out to the plugs with a clamp on meter.. there may be some reason the glowplugs arent actually heating up.. weak engine ground strap? feed voltage to the relay is low?



at the minimum i would take a volt meter and make sure there is voltage on the plug-side of that relay when you are in glow plug start-wait

-Christopher

 

[alpine44]

As Christopher pointed out, check whether the glow plugs are actually drawing current.

What are the symptoms when the engine is cranking but not starting? White smoke or nothing at all?

Keep in mind that this engine has HEUI injectors that are individual injection pumps driven by high pressure engine oil and triggered electrically by the ECU. As a consequence of that, the 7.3 will never fire on the first half turn of the crank like a P-pumped Cummins or a 6.2/6.5L GMC. It has first to build up the oil pressure to actuate the injectors.

I think the ECU monitors the oil pressure generated by the High Pressure Oil Pump (HPOP) and will not trigger the injectors if the pressure is insufficient. Someone please confirm or refute this.

I have observed that if there is something amiss with the HPOP system, nothing will happen; the engine just cranks. OTOH, if glow plugs are burnt out or the compression is too low (worn engine or low cranking rpm due to weak battery), then you will get a lot of white smoke but no fire.

So, if there is NOT some white smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe while cranking, I would take a closer look at the HPOP side. First order of business should be changing the oil to a quality brand and a viscosity that is appropriate for the season. This by itself will 'fix' many injection issues on this engine.
(EDIT: I just saw that you already did this - GOOD)

If that does not improve the situation, I would check the HPOP pressure in the galleries. High oil pressure out of specs will throw a code IF the sensor is OK. You should always have a spare ICP sensor on board for these engines. If the pressure is not up to specs, you have either a worn HPOP or a high pressure oil leak past the injectors.
(EDIT: You already changed the sensor. Any codes like p1211?)

Lastly, fuel quality makes a big difference. I am generally not a fan of snake oils but these engines respond in my experience very well to the use of fuel additives like Stanadyne Performance Formula.