A tiny wire…

So much support

The amount of calls and tips we received after the last blog was amazing and very heartwarming! Several people helped us with tools or pointed us into the right direction to get the information we needed.

We got in touch with someone who used to work on Cat engines and someone who used to work at the Pearland bus barn. They helped eliminate some of the potential problems and gave advice on how to start the engine directly from the starter without hurting ourselves. We followed the advice and …

IT STARTED!!!

Yes, indeed the bus started! We drove around the storage lot just to have the engine running and the tires rotating. Even though starting via a loose battery on the side of the bus is not how we want to keep starting the engine, it finally felt like we were getting somewhere! Plus, this confirmed that the engine faults were indeed fixed.

Drawings

From another direction we received the electrical drawings for our specific bus we so desperately needed. We traced and traced and traced wires some more. We noticed a “door open” LED that had appeared during all this tracing and we knew there should be a way to bypass all the door safeties. Door safeties are not necessary on an RV.

Wires, safety, and not all freightliners are built alike

From the very get-go, we have suspected that the lack of starting must be a problem with either a wire or solenoid. We did not want to spend thousands of dollars fixing things that do not to be fixed. After tracing all the wires using the drawings, we finally came to the solenoid we needed to bridge to get the bus started by ignition key at the driver seat. And that without impeding any of the other bus operational circuits!

Any freightliner that is not designed as a school bus does not have the door safety circuits so it was merely a matter of figuring out which wires to connect. (or solenoid to bridge)

We took out the interlock solenoid, put in a jumper wire and – praise the Lord – THE BUS STARTED BY TURNING THE KEY UP FRONT!!!!

We drove it home right away. Now it is a matter of closing the engine access hatch we created, putting back the bump guard underneath the engine and fan coil spindle that we had removed for easy engine access. Then we will be back on track so we can continue to prepare for the raising of the roof. And that’s how one little wire stopped us in our tracks for months on end…

Onward we go!!