Ball Family Bus

I liked the way this turned out…

In celebration of her upcoming birthday, Macy had a friend come over to spend the night. This morning they wanted a ride in the bus.  I took them a little way up the road - about a three mile round trip.  Here are some blackberry photos from the trip…

It might be early to pronounce success, but I thought I would share some initial findings… On Wed nights, I usually drive the car home from choir/orchestra practice. It’s about 35 miles of mostly highway driving, and I usually average around 45-46 mpg with the car (2006 Jetta TDI). Last night was the first time to make that drive after adding the oil to the diesel. With 4 kids in the car with me, it averaged 51.6 mpg!! So far it looks like it could easily pay for itself and hopefully increase engine life to boot.

As of Sept 2006, all on-highway diesel sold in the US is now ULSD. And all diesel vehicles manufactured for model year 2007 and beyond are made to use it exclusively. Lately I’ve been reading about some problems it can cause with older engines lately.

While sulfur isn’t actually a lubricant itself, it combines with the nickel content of the alloys in the engine to form a new alloy that is lubricating. By drastically lowering the sulfur content of the fuel, this lubricating factor is missing and will cause extra wear on the engine. Apparently, the distributors of the fuel are supposed to add lubricating agents, but it’s not controlled or uniformly done.

There are a lot of additives that can bring back the lubricity that is missing. I read a test report covering various popular additives (see links below) and one of the most effective, most widely available, and cheapest additives is plain old (ashless) two-cycle oil. The concentration that I’ve seen recommended is 1oz per gallon of fuel.

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought a gallon to try in the bus and possibly in the Jetta TDI. There are people who keep very detailed logs and report that a nice side effect of using it is improved fuel mileage. So hopefully it’s enough to offset the cost of the oil - making it a break even proposition. Either way, it looks like a fairly easy way to improve the life of the engine.

By the way, ULSD not only reduces lubricity but also reduces the amount of energy available in the fuel by about 1% and it’s estimated that the extra refining adds $0.05 - $0.25 per gallon to the cost of the diesel. Gotta love the EPA….

References:

• Wikipedia entry for ULSD
• Lubricity Additive Study Results
• Article about adding 2-cycle oil to diesel

I took the bus into town Saturday to the gas station where I filled up the gas cans that I use for the lawn mower. It’s nice to have the cargo bay for smelly gas cans rather than the car trunk. It was fun to drive it a little - I felt a little rusty at first, but it came back quickly. I think the biggest difference from driving a car is the need to anticipate stops much further in advance. Here are some silly Blackberry photos:

I also think I finally figured out the problem I had been having with the air compressor not making pressure. I found that the engine oil was a little low and that was effecting the compressor. After topping it off a couple of weeks ago, it now charges at idle like it used to. I need to get the dipstick fixed…

Before buying the bus I had read a fair amount about the requirements for driver’s licenses and RVs. I was sure that a normal non-commercial license was fine for driving a vehicle registered as an RV. But later I read some conflicting information about vehicles with a GVWR of greater than 26,000 lbs. Some states add requirements or endorsements in addition to the basic Class D non-commercial license for larger RVs or for vehicles equipped with air brakes.

So today, I decided to clear it up by asking the Oklahoma DPS. After a number of calls and some time spent on hold, I finally reached the right person and was able to confirm that the state of Oklahoma does not require any special endorsements, etc for any private RV no matter what the weight or brake type.

The Federal law concerning commercial licenses explicitly excludes RVs so each state sets its own rules. The “Changing Gears” web site has a helpful page about state requirements but it’s always good to check for yourself.

The poor bus (and blog) have been neglected lately (it’s the chicken’s fault!).

Thursday I topped off the engine oil, and started the bus for the first time in a couple of months. I was worried about it not starting, etc but it started with no hesitation at all. I drove it about five miles between here and town to get the cob webs out. All seems to be ok.  My parents arrived Friday to visit. They had not seen the bus in person before so we gave them a brief ride on a bumpy country road. Sitting on the engine box is not ideal but about the only option at the moment. It will lead to an appreciation of how good the insulation is later!

Anyway, now that other big projects are done, I hope to be working on the bus again.

Since I first started looking at bus conversions, one of the aspects that I’ve been undecided about is heat. There are any number of options. They include traditional ducted furnaces, radiant heat, and hydronic systems that use water for heat transfer.

My inclination is to go with a hydronic system because it can supply hot water for sinks/shower, heating the bus, and even engine pre-heat for cold weather starts. These systems also tend to be diesel fueled which I like. It does mean you pay road tax on fuel you use for heat, but if I could avoid having more than one type of fuel on board, I’d love to. The main problem with these systems is they tend to cost about twice what we spent on the bus itself, so unless we found a real steal, they are out of the running.

Another consideration I’ve thought about is having an electric heat source in addition to a fuel powered one. This would be a nice option for when parked with a hookup so as to avoid expending fuel capacity. But I don’t really want to have to install dual heating systems.

Finally tonight, I came across what might be the right answer. The PrecisionTemp TwinTemp Junior does unlimited (demand) heated potable water and can drive up to six heat exchangers. It doesn’t appear to have the engine preheat option, but it is dual powered with both propane and electricity. It also has a retail list price of less than the bus! This may still be too much in the end, but it gives me hope that there are other options I like.

Now I have to get the taxes done so we can get things back in gear on the bus project….

Well, it’s been a while… No, we haven’t abandoned the project! I’ve just been really busy with work and Easter festivities. I did measure the bus so I could calculate how much steel we’ll need to get, but I haven’t ordered it yet. Hopefully things will get back under way soon - we are very close to being ready to start the roof raising.

Meanwhile for some entertainment, here’s a segment from Top Gear. They wondered what caravan (that’s UK speak for motorhome) racing would be like. So here you go:

At the end you can see why a school bus obviously makes a superior motorhome!

Friday evening, I started removing all of the now-unused parts of the ceiling wiring harness. This included wires for the flasher lights (both front and rear), speakers, dome lights, emergency exit sensors, and a button in the back of the bus that required the driver to walk all the way back and push it when shutting down. This was supposed to cause them to find any sleeping kiddos left on the bus.

Anyway, I spent a fair amount of time tracing out the ones I could remove and what I needed to leave (for tail lights, turn signals, marker lights, etc). I was enjoying myself because I knew things would look a lot better without all the extra dangling wires and I like getting the extra stuff out of the bus so as to have the simplest shell to start building on later.

Feeling good about the work I’d done, I decided to start up the engine for a few minutes to top off the air tanks. I turned the key and got nothing - just a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I immediately knew that the wiring for emergency exit sensors must have an interlock with the ignition to keep it from starting. I was frustrated because I should have remembered that or at least tested it as I took things apart. There had been a relay over the left side exit door that I was sure had been the culprit. I wasn’t sure which of the bundle of wires I had removed was the right one to connect though.

I went into the house, dug out all the photos that had been taken in the bus recently and starting looking through them to find any that might show the relay in question (it had been dangling for a while). I found a few but they were all taken pretty far away and all the enhancing and zooming I could do wasn’t really yielding anything useful.

Saturday morning I went out to have another go at it. I traced the wires back near the engine that I thought were the most likely to be involved. I looked through the electrical panel for clues.

In frustration I sat in the driver’s seat to contemplate my next move. I was thinking about how dumb it had been to take all that apart so carelessly. I absentmindedly wiped some dust from the speedometer and stared at the gear selector. It was in DRIVE! The bus won’t start with it in drive!!!!

The lesson I learned was that skills from different parts of life should not be kept in their silos - they should be applied more broadly. I troubleshoot computer software on a daily basis for work and would (almost) never fall into the trap of making such a quick assumption about cause and effect. The real difference is in my level of confidence. When writing code, I am much more confident that I understand the system I am working within than I am with the bus. I can feel when something isn’t a likely source of a problem when coding. My goal with the bus is to develop that level of involvement and confidence with it. I believe that will not only make owning a bus much easier but save a lot in mechanic costs eventually.

Meanwhile, I am calling Blue Bird on Monday to start tracking down manuals and schematics.