[John]

Could be as grounds are important and these won’t run without some of the relays. Mine is a 8V92TA 2 stroke but had a battery issue about 6 or 7 years ago that folks overlooked while chasing problems. I always shut my master switches off even if just overnight after that problem. The ECM always has juice going to it or heard that even with things shut off. Sure some of the folks have had a similar issue and will chime in. Wonder if a scanner hooked up would tell you something amiss.

[Bob]

Faulty key switch? Failure to start from front, now not fully shutting off, maybe?

[Dick]

Thank you, John.

It “appears” the key us cutting everything off as far as gauges and idiot lights are concerned. The ignition has been a concern of mine since Jason at Mid Coast suggested the only way he could figure to kill electrical power to the engine without throwing a code was to turn off the ignition.

The Detroit Diesel Monitor is staying on all the time now. It has always gone dark until I pushed a button on it or turned on the key. The only way it goes off today is to turn of the 24 volt switch by the batteries.

It is raining heavily today, but I did slip out a few minutes ago to check the voltage. The batteries are up to 24 Volts collectively, but not enough to start yet. I will try to crank it after church tonight.

If the batteries need to go, there is a NAPA in the next town I am going, Ellisville, Mississippi, and I will have a decent place to work.

Davy

[Davy]

I had a brand new Interstate Group 31 fail at five months, Interstste charged and load tested all four, one had a bad cell, replaced at no charge. Then at 3yrs 9mos they started to go soft. I needed to charge them with hardwired onboard charger. Finally the four wouldn’t take a charge. Pulled them, turned them in as cores, bought four new NAPAs. (Done with Interstate, I’m exclusive NAPA batteries from here on out.). I didn’t have time to load test.

At 4.5 years the batteries could be done. All it takes is one bad cell or one bad battery and the four just can’t get the job done. If it turns out one is bad, replace them all. I’m told that after 6 or 9 or 12 months months if one goes bad, replace them all.

I don’t know what others expect from there chassis batteries, but I’m expecting to replace mine at five to six years. You’re getting pretty close to that.

[Davy]

Chassis batteries live in some really harsh and extreme conditions, partially because of where they are located in our buses. Extreme temperature swings, engine vibration, as well as road bumps and sways don’t necessarily make for longevity in the chassis batteries. House batteries generally are a little better protected in our XL coaches, and as a result we may be able to enjoy a little longer life out of them. My personal rule of thumb for chassis batteries is to change them out every 3 to 3 1/2 years. I can more easily handle dealing with pushing the timeline out on house batteries, because if I can start the engine, I can at least get someplace to get knowledgeable help with any problems that may crop up on the house side.

I may be totally off base here, but with all the cranking I suspect you did with your recent problems, and the resulting heat generated within the batteries themselves from the heavy use, I think it would not be unreasonable to assume that the increased stress may have caused some “corrosion” (for my lack of the technical term) to flake off the battery plates and potentially short a cell or drastically reduce the battery capacity. As has been said before, batteries can cause problems that seem to be totally unrelated, but given their age and recent events, they are the first place I’d be looking and individually stress testing them if I had that capability and didn’t want to replace them right now.

[Davy]

I agree with Mike, 3 years on Chassis batteries, I have experienced a failure at 3 years.

[Archived]

I hope I do not live to regret saying this, but all my batteries are on a five year plan, including chassis. Yes they are in a hostile environment, but one rule I have always followed is I always use Delco 1150 batteries. So far so good. I never turn off the master chassis switch, but if I am working on a bus system and using battery power I use the charger if it hits 24.8 volts on the jumper posts. The Delco batteries are a no-maintenance lead acid so I do not have to monitor electrolyte.

It would be interesting to know the brand of batteries that have to be replaced prematurely not because of a schedule, but some type of failure.

[Kirby]

It sounds to me like you have an ignition-triggered relay sticking, probably something for the DDEC. I tried looking through the Prevost wiring diagrams, but I have to wait for the engine control page to be emailed to me.

[Loc]

Thank you for all the helpful suggestions. I am definitely interested in all the information you can find and give me. It has been an eventful morning.

First, confession. I discovered that I am probably the reason for the batteries running down. The batteries were reading good this morning after charging so I sat down in the seat to start and nothing. We had lights, camera, but no cranking.

I went to the back and flipped the start switch there and pushed the button. No joy. I started checking the voltage on the rear switch and noticed it was in the Normal position. What? I thought I just flipped that from normal to rear start? Nope, I had flipped it from rear start to normal.

Evidently, I had left the switch in the rear position Tuesday when I was checking the switches for proper operation. That would account for the Detroit Diesel Monitor staying on even with the ignition off and would run down the battery.

My bad. Davy, you stupid idiot.

Now some comfort. With the switch in the rear start position and the batteries charged, I pushed the button and it roared to life. Oh man, that sounds and feels much better. I let it run about 20 minutes, had my wife turn it off up front and crank again.

No comfort there, only confusion. It cranked beautifully with the key and the button in the back, but would not start. Ouch! The batteries had 27 good volts and the engine turned over like a top, but it would not catch.

I hemmed and haw for several minutes and decided after about 15 minutes to try it again at the button in the back. It started on the first bump of the starter like normal. That produced a great feeling, but still confused.

In my mind, it is like something is getting turned off or something is sticking and bam, no joy. Give it a few minutes and there it goes.

I let it run about 45 minutes, but did not have the guts to try to immediately crank it again.

I apologize for leading you down the wrong path yesterday. I have not ruled out replacing batteries now. I will monitor them later today and tomorrow before I hopefully travel about two hours, but I have something else going on in addition to that.

To recap glitches, the engine shut down with no codes after running nearly 8 hours two weeks ago today. I coasted off the interstate and it cranked twice and died both times. It cranked a third time and ran flawlessly for nearly 6 hours that evening and all day the next day.

The third day we drove 40 miles, stopped for an hour and it would crank over, but not start. I walked to the back and it started immediately from the rear start.

The third glitch is what I have described today.

One thing I found this morning while looking over connections was the small wire on the back of the alternator was not tight. I could easily move it on the post and make it spark. I tightened it. That shakes my confidence that all the other connections touched in the removal and reinstall are good now.

Davy

[Archived]

This is a very long post catching you up on the last week of activities.

In my last post on this thread, I detailed all of the glitches I have had since the repair in Houston two weeks before. They were intermittent, sporadic and then I suddenly had nothing at all.

We planned to leave Citronelle, Alabama Friday morning. All of those plans came to a screeching halt when I sat down in the driver’s seat, turned on the key, gave the computer time to clear, turned the key to the start position and the engine instantly turned over, but would not, could not start. Ugh!

I had been put in contact with a diesel mechanic and heavy equipment repairman about an hour from where we were stranded in the church parking lot.

His name is Brad Nicholson, BPR Heavy Equipment Service, from Richton, Mississippi and he had made himself available to me. I called him. I explained what was happening and he said he would be over later in the day and hook his computer up and read the error codes. Cool, that is a plan.

While I was waiting, Jeff Rowe, my hero, walked me through some voltage checks. He was looking at the electrical schematic for my bus and telling me where to check for voltage and such. All the wiring and relays in the start cycle checked to be operational.

All of that was good to know. Now we would see what the computer would say.

However, when Brad arrived he discovered he did not have the right adapter for my bus. He had an empty place for it in his new kit, but no adapter. He called his tool guy and got the adapter on the way and then he jumped in with his tools.

It looked and sounded like the batteries were plenty strong and the engine was turning over great. It seemed like it was getting no fuel.

Was there fuel in the tank? Yep

Without any code from the computer, his first stop was the crank sensor and cam sensor. Both of these must read correctly or the computer will not send a signal through my new wiring harness to the fuel injectors. He took those out and they both checked good. We later replaced them anyway, just to be sure.

For kicks and grins, he put a gauge on the fuel line to check for pressure and the pressure was almost nonexistent when cranking. What in the world?

He removed the fuel pump and discovered this.

That is definitely a problem. We spent about 90 minutes running toward Mobile to Empire Trucks Sales and Service to get the fuel pump. I also picked up the sensors there.

Once the fuel pump was installed, we hit the starter and the bus cranked and was running in an instant. Oh, yeah! That is what I am talking about.

We shut the engine down so he could remove the fuel gauge from the line and the engine would not start again. Wow! Roller coasters make me sick! But, it never did start again Friday or all day Saturday!

Saturday the first order of business was hooking up the new adapter to the bus and looking for error codes. We needed some information to go on.

Brad’s computer recognized my transmission immediately, but never did recognize the engine. We thought it was a problem with his software, but it was supposed to be loaded with all of the latest software and licensing. Ugh again!

All day Saturday they checked and rechecked everything over and over and still no running bus. We thought for a while that maybe we had a problem with the fuel line from the tank back to the engine. We chased all of that for a couple of hours.

At the end of the day, we admitted temporary defeat and prepared to take the car 90 miles to our next revival in Ellisville, Mississippi Sunday morning.

Monday, Brad decided to go to the bus, remove the ECM (Engine computer) from my bus and have it read remotely. He found that Burroughs Diesel in Laurel could read it so he brought the ECM to church Monday night.

I took it to Burroughs Tuesday morning and the technician took it in the shop to read it. He was back in the office in only a few minutes and he told me the ECM was good. What?

I ask him if there was any way to read any codes it had been throwing so we could have something to go on. We were lost without some information on the ECM. He said he could probably do that.

He was gone 20-30 minutes that time. He booted up the ECM and began searching through the information when the ECM shut down. He tried everything in his bag of tricks and the ECM never booted back up.

When he brought it back he said, “You were right, the ECM is bad.” I had been dealing with Curtis at Burroughs and he took me in to see Leon the parts guy. Leon got right on it, knew exactly what he was looking for and had a new ECM on the way in moments. It would arrive the next morning.

The existing ECM was installed on our bus the week we purchased it in March 2008. The old one had a problem and the seller replaced it before we drove away.

Wednesday morning I took the old ECM back to Burroughs. They were hoping it would boot up one more time and they could download the programming for my engine from it. It was dead and would not arise. It is my understanding that they downloaded the programming from Detroit. I gave them the numbers for the new fuel injectors and they said they would program those numbers in as well.

(Just a note about Burroughs in Laurel. They really treated me well and went out of their way to help me. They have a huge shop, but they do not work on buses at all. They told me they are not insured for buses in the shop, no exceptions.)

Thursday morning brad met me at the bus and installed it. Most of you know, but for those that may not, the ECM mounts down low in the passenger side of the engine. This is the fuel line going into the primary fuel filter in front of the ECM.

Side view

We had a fuel line running from a portable container of diesel into the fuel pump. Once the ECM was installed, I turned the switch to rear start, pushed the button and it fired right up instantly! Praise God! I know you can not see it running, but the picture below was taken only moments after it started.

I wanted to let it run forever, but we were running off of a five gallon can and needed to switch over to the fuel tank on the bus. I reluctantly shut it down and Brad filled the fuel line with diesel all the way back to the tank and hooked it to the pump. I pushed the button and it came to life again. It has started every time since then.

Brad hooked his diagnostic computer to my bus and the ECM came right up.

I am so thankful for Brad’s hard work and diligence. He made trip after trip to us and spent many hours working on the bus and many more hours working it over in his brain. We would not be running without him.

Jeff Rowe is amazing. I appreciate his willingness to help us from afar and guide us with his knowledge and experience. His advice and insight have been fantastic and we owe him big time. He is a real friend.

We have driven the bus about 195 miles since the new ECM was installed and that is a good start! MAYBE we are about to get through this.

Davy

[DONALD]

So pleased for Davy to see him rolling the green machine again.

For those that would like a place to diagnose and rebuild your ECM, ECM King in Santa Fe, TX has lots of experience doing just that. Diagnose is free. Rebuilt my dead logic and dead power board for $1000. My Cummins M11 is going again. Detroit, Cummins, Mack, International and Allison ECMs fixed with one year unlimited mileage guarantee. They even have a box loaner program.

ECM King, 6421 Hwy 646 South, Santa Fe, TX 77510

409.927.1800

You can send ECM to them or drop by and they will diagnose ECM in the bus.

[Dan]

Just wondering? was the ECM the cause of original problem, before the engine R&R and new injectors?

what’s the cost of new or rebuilt ECM?

Thanks

Jim

[Davy]

Thank you, Rudy, for the information about ECM King. That would have been great IF I had a few days to spare. It would have saved a little money even with shipping. The fact that I would have had to either lost a week’s work or stay in a motel 2.5 hours from the bus for a week would have eaten the savings in this case.

I hope this ECM will finish out the life of this bus.

Just wondering? was the ECM the cause of the original problem, before the engine R&R and new injectors?

That is the $10,000 question, Jim. I have talked to Brad and Jeff about that. I watched Mark from Mid Coast Diesel in Houston push on the wiring harness with his fingers and cause the engine to run so rough it was about to die. That and the original code from the ECM and the Detroit Monitor make me think the wiring harness was indeed bad.

Did the bad wiring harness also short something in the ECM? Did something in the R&R damage the ECM? I will probably never know either one of those things for sure.

I am interested in educated or experienced opinions though.

One thing I do know for sure, the shutdown I experienced that led to the repair AND the glitches that I experienced after the first repair had ever happened to me before in this bus. I hope to God they are over.

what’s the cost of new or rebuilt ECM?

Burroughs Diesel in Laurel was about $1750 for a remanufactured ECM plus one hour labor for the programming. It would have been $600 more without the core. That was less than I expected. When the ECM was replaced in 2008, it was not on our tab. We were told the price by the guy from Detroit, but we failed to make a note of it. My wife and I both have $2200 in our mind as the price then.

Davy

[Ron]

Davy, I’ve enjoyed reading your writing. If you ever write a book, let us know.

[kenneth]

Dan,

Thank you. Funny you should say that. I have actually written several, but mostly instruction books for conferences of ministers in my beloved Nigeria. Not much demand for my writing in the states.

I wish I could write fiction and that this whole post was fiction. It would have been a whole lot easier.

Davy