Tag: #busadventures

Categories
Stage 1 rebuild

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!!!

The sound of success

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)

The red jumper wire did the trick

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…

Bottom hatch already installed

Onward we go!!

Categories
Stage 1 rebuild

Summer Update

July / August / September 2022

Where have the updates been?

We have had quite a few requests for a bus update. Why has it taken us so long to get back on track? Unfortunately, in a very short time span we had several tragic losses in our extended family and circle of friends. We never experienced this much grief and sadness on a weekly basis during a two-month period. Even living in the comfort that they are now all rejoicing with the hosts of Heaven, the mental impact for those left behind takes huge amounts of energy and does not leave much room for anything other than keeping the girls and ourselves moving forward. Add to that: camps, COVID, and AHG, and any free time we might have had was claimed by activities.

Getting back to life

Now that things are calming down, we are resuming our quest. Once we finally managed to get back to the bus, we tried once more to start it. Of course, it did not turn over. Instead, flash codes 25, 63 and 49 showed up. We are working with the flash codes since we do not have a reader that we can plug in.

Flash code 25 is a boost pressure sensor or intake manifold sensor issue.

Flash code 63 is a Fuel pressure warning

Flash code 49 is an inlet heater relay issue

We wanted to work on the boost pressure sensor code first. Unfortunately, it is impossible to access it from behind or side of the engine. We had to cut a hole in the bench. Always nice to do something like that AFTER having insulated and covered it with plywood…

Plywood, insulation, steel bench and sheet aluminum layers

Not an easy fix

Cutting the hole was not as easy as it sounds and due to limited time availability, it took about three weeks to have the individual cuts complete without destroying anything below the bench. Then we pulled out the sensor from the top of the engine and discovered that the replacement we had purchased was not the same as the sensor we had on the engine. It took two weeks to get the correct part. After that the engine still did not turn over so we proceeded to work on flash code 63.

Next code – fuel pressure regulator

This code can normally be resolved by replacing the fuel pressure regulator. This regulator is placed in another very convenient location: at the back of the engine. Hoping not to have to cut another hole in the bench, we decided to move the air intake line. This was much easier than expected. Even though access was difficult, we could see the front side of the engine clearly. The front of the engine was so caked in dirt and grime that it took us a while to find the regulator. It involved a few more days of research to make sure we would pull off the correct part.

With help from Oma, who had arrived for a two-week visit, we managed to get the grime off and find the problem location.

Ecstatic to be making some headway, we started to undo it (two more trips home for the correct tools). Lo and behold, the part came loose…. after breaking off the attached fuel pressure sensor… AAARGH!! Fortunately, Oma was sitting beside me to hold open the access hatch, which prevented the explicits from coming out of my mouth.

Oma helping to keep the calm, shine her light, hold the hatch, clean and preserve

Perseverance pays off

A few frustrated deep breaths and onward we went, unbolting the entire system. After blocking off and covering the now open fuel line, we took the section home. A little cleanup and reassembly, then back online to order a new fuel sensor. These have changed since this Cat was built so we hope the new version works the same way.

The old and new fuel pressure regulator and fuel pressure sensor

We did spot fuel in the electronic part of the sensor, a common issue with the Cat C7, so a replacement was due but still more money and time spent. We remounted the assembly and put back the air intake line. Re-strapped all the electronic cables and re-tightened all the bolts we had loosened for the easy access.

More delays

We spent a day replacing the batteries in the bus with fully charged ones. Then a day to figure out how to reset engine error codes. And of course, the latter did not work. Meaning we now have run all electrical possibilities and replaced:

  • Batteries
  • Starter
  • Boost pressure sensor
  • Fuel sensor
  • Fuel regulator

All of this, plus a lot of prayers and we are still stopped dead in our tracks. And we have not made one step of progress since May. We now officially have reached the point where we need to call in assistance. Frustrating, but we look forward to the moment where we have a purring engine again…

Categories
Stage 1 rebuild

Week 16 – May Update

No start frustrations (Still or again?)

The new batteries did not solve the issue. We have been trouble shooting ever since. Which is very unfortunate since it pushes us way back on our timeline. We have run by every fuse and wire and still did not come up with a sensible explanation on why the bus will not start.

We had great assistance from our electronics guru out of Colorado Springs. He deepened our knowledge and understanding of bus system electronics drawings. It also resulted in elimination of many potential issues that were proven in good order. But it did not get us closer to a start.

What was checked

We checked for loose wires, tested every fuse, checked the ECM, ECU, VIM, VEC, TCC, (yeah learned a LOT about this bus!) fan module, starter, and transmission. We did electrical component checks, tried to jump solenoids the right way as well as the wrong way (getting close to setting a bus on fire, which was no fun but a great heartbeat check) We had a nice battery weld arc because we accidentally connected the positive of one to the negative of the other battery at the end of a very long and tiring day of trouble shooting, destroying the thread of one of the terminals which we then had to fix, and still… nothing.

What we eventually did get is engine faults appearing on the display. The one we are working on now is the boost pressure sensor fault (code 25) and low fuel pressure fault (code 63). Neither should affect the starting of the bus, but we might as well fix them now. Of course, the 63 fault makes sense since the engine is not running.

All this trouble shooting is very educational, but not fun. Especially crawling under the bus in a very dusty and sometimes windy gravel lot does not make for very good moods and positive attitudes.

Why don’t you get a mechanic you ask? Two reasons:

One: skoolie.com is FULL of no start issues. About 95% of them are due to a simple wire disconnects or rusty connections. It is merely about finding out which wire that could be.

Two: skoolie.com is also FULL of regrets. Spending thousands on mechanics who made people replace very expensive components (like the $1000 ECM an $800 HUE or a $500 starter) with no avail, only to discover that $4000 later the problem was a simple corroded wire on a starter solenoid or a starter screw that had vibrated loose.

Another factor is we have no idea where to find someone locally who knows how to work on Thomas pusher busses with a Cat C7. You may understand our trepidation here…

Positive Note:

On a good note, all the inserts for the roof raise are ready to go and they look awesome! We ordered them from Vico Manufacturing here in Houston. They took the sample beam and matched it perfectly! You can check them out here Vico (vicomfg.com)

We have ordered a boost pressure sensor and hope to have better news at our next update…

Categories
Stage 1 rebuild

Week #11

The last of the windows

The week started with the bus in storage and three more windows to clean. We washed one a day during the week to finish them up. However, Ivo noted that the wording on one of the already re-installed emergency windows was facing the wrong way. The words “DO NOT BLOCK” should be read from the inside, not the outside. We want to keep this little bit of the original bus feel to our RV, so we took that one window out again. Ivo disassembled the frame, turned the pane around, and reassembled it. That was about a 10-minute job. We did shift the emergency window over one pane from the original position so there would still be access once the beds are installed.

With the last three windows also re-installed we finally can drive around without plywood in the windows. It looks a lot less trashy. 

The warning was facing the wrong way

Flooring

We brought the bus home Saturday afternoon after soccer. The first project consisted of screwing down the plywood subfloor with the 2″ screws that finally had arrived. This made about 150 new holes in our pretty clean and filled floor. Ivo checked the bottom of the bus to make sure we would not hit anything delicate, but the length of the screws was just perfect. We used coated screws so they won’t rust away in the future.

The next step was taping the approximate layout of our bathroom walls to make sure we knew the location of our future shower pan and toilet.

Painter’s tape marks the bathroom “walls”

In the section where the shower will go, we have the option of removing the plywood and rigid foam to create a little more overhead space when showering. We did not want to put screws in that section only to have to remove them later. While discussing this matter that evening, we once again tossed with the idea of just raising the roof where the shower will go. Which got us searching for a good and affordable MIG or TIG welding machine. But that is for later date.

More cleaning

Last but not least, the wheel wells needed a thorough cleaning. You may wonder if it would not have been smarter to do that before putting the plywood floor in? We wondered the same thing ourselves. And absolutely it would have been easier. But at some point, we just wanted to see some progress over the spring break and thus focused on the floor first. Cleaning the wheel wells went surprisingly fast, and in the end, it only cost a full day. Most of it was waiting for the Goo Gone to do it’s job.

Once the wheel wells were clean, Ivo put a bead of caulk around them and then installed the sound and heat barrier material that we purchased. It is basically a foamy cushion with super sticky glue backing.

You can also find the same stuff inside the hood of a vehicle engine compartment. With that installed, the bus is starting to look pretty spiffy! The bottom section of the rear bench (which is basically the engine compartment cover) is the only section left to be cleaned before covering it with the same padding.

And just when you think all is well….

By the time all of this was done, it had gotten dark. The bus had to be returned to storage, so we started the engine (yes, we, too, now cringe when we have to write that, because you just know something is going to happen) and heated it up, then switched on the lights and….. saw flashing lights!?! Why were the top lights that we had re-wired flashing?? Not supposed to do that! Seems like we did something wrong in the connections; we forgot that at night those lights are also used as running lights and thus need to be wired accordingly. So as a quick fix, we just disconnected them and drove to storage. That is a problem for another day…

This coming week will be occupied with traveling and AHG camping so we will have to skip a week of the renovation work.

Categories
Demolition

Week #9

All good plans

We ended last week with another episode of the bus not starting. Window cleaning continued, however, since that can be done at home. We went to the storage place on Saturday to exchange clean windows for more dirty ones. While there, we decided to make another attempt on trying to get the engine going. I put the key into the ignition, turned it to let the bus run through its starting sequence, manually switched through the transmissions (neutral, forward, reverse, back to neutral) and turned the key to start….

Guess the bus liked the nicer weather of the weekend, because its engine started without issue and was purring like never before! YAY! I called Cindy and she said to bring it home right away so we can get some real work done since next week was spring break.

Filthy filters and black oil

Now that it was home, it was cleaning and filter changing time. There are quite a few filters on this vehicle; a water separator filter, fuel filter, oil filter, cooling liquid filter and an air filter. Unlike with a gas engine, the main risk of changing fuel filters on a Diesel engine is air in the line. If for some reason you get air in the line, the engine will cut out immediately. I read up on how to change these filters without dousing the driveway in fuel prior to changing the water separator filter. Luckily, the filter tool arrived the very afternoon we brought the bus home. What would we do without Amazon.

After a little bit of searching, I find the manual fuel prime pump and the fuel filters are changed in just about an hour. Of course, we have a little cat-engine experience from our merchant mariner days. Started the engine and no issues.

Then it is time to crawl under the bus and change the oil. The engine takes either 6.5 gallons or 4.75 gallons of fuel. So was looking for a bucket that would fit that amount of oil. In the end, one of the bins with cots from underneath our bed was sacrificed.

Letting the oil pour out was not a big deal and neither was unscrewing the oil filter, but that is merely because engineering assistant Cindy walked by just in time to help and catch the filter without spilling oil everywhere!

Last but not least is the cooling water filter, but that is straight forward with two valves to block of the filter.

Getting the inside started!

Meanwhile, the cleaning process was started on the inside of the bus. The flooring and sides were SCRUBBED! By Sunday night, Ivo was able to paint rust prevention coat on the first 4ft section of flooring.

Spring break is next week, with the bus in the driveway. It’s starting to turn around from demolition to rebuild!

Categories
Demolition

Week #2

How many days does it take to lock a skoolie?

It is the simplest things that seem to take the longest. Locking a skoolie with so many single pane windows may be a little redundant, but we want to make sure that when the bus is finished, people do not just walk off with our stuff.

Locking the Bus

School bus doors are made of glass inside a metal frame. Between the two doors is a rubber seal that closes off when the doors are shut. We had to figure out how to put a lock on them. Our doors have a small frame at the bottom where the lock would fit. We bought a very nice deadbolt lock for this purpose. To make it burglar proof, we made sheet metal supports for the lock as well. At first instance everything seemed fine. Holes were drilled, lock mounted…. but then it appeared the rubber center seal was too thick to put the receiving end on the other door and make the lock work! Since the bus is in storage and we don’t have many daylight hours to work with, the solution was postponed to day two.

On day two, the lock was taken off again. It was moved to the place it should be (drilling new holes in the door) so the mounting on the receiving door could start. Two broken drill bits later and not enough tools on hand to get the broken bits out of the door, the drill was about to embark on a 31ft direct flight through the rear exit. But…then the thought of having to explain the additional expense of a new drill to the CFO came to mind and thus we decided to just call it quits for the day.

On day three, the two broken bit parts were removed and the receiving end of the deadbolt was nicely mounted on the door. It looked awesome and very clean!!!

However, we discovered that since both doors swing out, there was too much gap between the door and the bottom frame when pulling on the locked door. Basically, you could pull the locked door back and undo the deadbolt by sticking your hand underneath the door and unlocking it…

What a waste of time, drill bits and money on a really nice lock! Sigh.

On day four, a different lock was ordered. Seeing the problems with the first lock, we decided to mount this new lock only once the bus was back in our driveway.

Other Work done at storage

Meanwhile, we kept working on cleaning up the wiring inside the bus. This is very tedious work but needs to be done since there are soooo many useless wires that will be in the way when we run our own electrical system. Each time we have to pull off a ceiling panel to follow where the wires go, we need to undo 120 screws. There are 11 panels in this bus so it is rather time-consuming work. Plus, as we learned last weekend, each time we cut a wire that we anticipate could be connected to the starting lockout we need to try to start the bus and move it ….

Even though our HOA frowns upon having an RV in the driveway multiple times a month, we decided to bring the bus home on Saturday to make it easier to put the newest lock on. This would also give an opportunity to drop off some insulation and ceiling panels that were removed throughout the week.

Weekend work at home

Day five of locksmithing was the winner. Having all the tools close by and a set of brand-new sharp drills may have been part of that. The doors look like Swiss cheese, but the lock is on, and our possessions are safe!

By end of day, all the cheese holes were filled. After that, R helped remove the last of the wheelchair rails.

Then we took out the last two ceiling panels which turned out to be a family affair. This left no one to take a picture of all of us with our hands in the air like we don’t care.

Meanwhile, Cindy spent 4 hours on both Saturday and Sunday removing decals/wording/adhesive from the back and right side of the bus. Slow but steady progress.

All in all, great progress this weekend. Let’s see what the coming week brings…