March-April 2021

Well I’m back at it. I took a break from Bus stuff for awhile, mainly the entire winter. Lots of other projects around the house needed getting done. Plus the 2 Deep cycle batteries I had were junk and I couldn’t get the diesel heater to kick in due to low power.

In March I started by getting the starting batteries back in the bus, I took them out and put them in the garage for the winter. I wish I had done that with my old car since the battery died, froze, and cracked and leaked out into the trunk eating a large hole through the car. After the batteries were in the bus and charged up I fired it up. The bus fired right to life after stuttering a bit on one cylinder. I think one of those injectors I put in last year is a bit off when cold. I started in on misc issues that are preventing me from really getting it out and driving it. First big issue was the alternator would not charge. After tracing wires back to the dash and gauges and looking over a ton of info and Youtube videos, I found that the Ign wire was cut somewhere to the back of the alternator. I have no idea how that happened but I temporarily hooked it up to fix the charging. Then I started on the gauge issues. The only working gauge was the air pressure and oil pressure gauge(and now the volts). So that left me to figure out the Speedo, Tach and fuel gauge. Luckily it had aftermarket gauges and I found install manuals for them. The unfortunate part is whoever installed them used ALL black wires. After looking over manuals and tracing wires I found a couple wires that had come unplugged from the rat’s nest of wires behind the dash. Now I had all gauges working for the first time since owning the bus! That means on to tires and brakes.

On to April. The Tires in the front were installed about 3.5 years ago and have about 2k miles on them. Checked the air and they are perfect at 95psi. The rears were a different story. Manufacture date was the 44th week of 2010, yikes. The only thing they had going for them is that they are not dry rotted and held air. The outside tires had 60 psi, inflated to the recommended 100 psi. The Inners, well, they look lower than 60psi. I couldn’t check them because someone didn’t align the dually tires to be able to access the valve stem from the holes in the front tires. So I have a 90 degree adapter coming and will fill those later from in between the tires. I’m waiting on the new bottle jacks to be able to lift the bus and throw some cribbing under her to check the rear brakes. The good thing is according to the Carfax the rear brakes were done 11k miles ago so they “should” be ok ish. The brake rotors in the front had a good layer of rust going on them but I said screw it and went for a drive. I took the bus out for the first time in 2 years. Went around the block a few times and down the road. I put a whole 10 miles on it and it performed ok. Some issues are, shocks are toast I could feel every little bump(I have new fronts, waiting on rears), The trans slipped a bit when really getting on it, I’m thinking it just needs to get out and run(I hope). The first real heavy acceleration she let out a good black cloud from all the build up from idling for hours and not driving, after that she ran better and idled smoother. Again another reason why I think a good long drive to stretch her legs will help a ton. Plus I need to burn off the 3 plus year old diesel fuel. The biggest issues preventing me from going for a long drive are old rear tires, brake check and the oil leaks. The darn 5.9l 24v Cummins has 2 major oil leaks, tappet cover is leaking bad and the timing cover is leaking a bit. I watched a bunch of Youtube videos on fixing that. It’s not going to be easy. The bright side is gaskets are cheap. I’m debating on a billet aluminum billet cover since it’s a bit stiffer than the steel plate over it now. More to come.