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DD 60 Water Temperatures
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My transmission does NOT downshift upon activation of the engine brake. I have to manually do it if I want a lower gear. I have not ever had a plastic coach, so I can not comment on them.
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Yes I come from a manufacturing background, Gil, but reprogramming is not a manufacturing issue, but gets into the engineering side of how our coaches are set up.
I am going to ask a question that can let us know what you will be able to prove. Do you have records of all the fuel you have ever put into the coach and are you preparing to do performance runs prior to the change so you have absolute data for comparison to validate the change of fan temps? If you don’t are you prepared to take the months required to get a broad base of data to measure the results when you make the change? Otherwise anything you do is going to be lacking a benchmark for comparison.
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Jon,
My test will be much simpler and only needs to satisfy me. If I see that the temperature stays closer to 190 than 200 then I’ll deem the reprogramming a success. Yes, I do have a log of all fuel I’ve put into the coach. I tend to monitor Pro Driver to see fuel use and periodically calculate mileage to see how terrain or driving conditions may affect mileage.
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Mark…. We had a Series 60 in our 45′ plastic coach and it downshifted automatically when the Jake Brake was on… in fact we put our H3-45 in the shop to have the Jake Brake checked as I swore it wasn’t working only to find out that we had to downshift it ourselves to make it work. I wonder why the difference?
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A lot of the differences between coaches can be attributed to how the converter orders the coach. Like new cars shells can be set up as is seen fit by the converter. Same goes for optional equipment unless you buy a new bus in which case you get a better chance to spec it out for yourself.
In our first coach is was equipped with a Jake and I had to manually downshift, although the jake did function to an extent without downshifting, but was less effective than if a lower gear and higher revs were present. I think we all would benefit however from some active participation in driving, something that is gradually becoming less and less. With the new coaches the stability control keeps you from tipping over or sliding if you don’t know enough to slow down in corners thanks to stability control, adaptive braking lets you use the cruise and not even worry about tailgating because the brakes will engage if there is a potential for a conflct, we don’t have to shift thanks to the automatic, and if Google has its way the only reason we need to even be on the bus is to use our credit card to put fuel in it.
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Larry & Diane,
If you want your coach to downshift when the Jake is activated it doesn’t take an Allison tech 5 minutes to make the change. You can have it downshift to what ever you want. Mine was set to down shift to 4th as was my CAT powered plastic coach. I prefer having it down shift to 5th or not at all. We used the Jake extensively last year while traveling out west and found the automatic down shifting to 5th to be good for the way I drive. Here on the east coast I rarely use the jake.
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Jon….
You are so right… we also had the Vorad (collision avoidance system) on our plastic coach and it was really nice… as everytime Larry fell asleep at the wheel it would wake him up before he hit the car in front of us. LOL !!
Seriously though.. the Vorad was great … also loved the Jake Brake. I do miss those two items but nothing else about it for sure… just need to upgrade to a newer Liberty one day… if I could just not be at the airport everytime my ship comes in !! DUH
Cheers, Diane
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