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Do what Jon says:
In that I am Schizophrenic and so am I…
I take out my additional Paranoia by being overly attentive to the motor coach.
Even then, I had never checked the engine pulleys other than to spin them when a belt was being replaced. I realize Jon and others have lectured those of us who are offenders to the principle of removing and replacing the pulley bearings.
With the hopes that this brief story will encourage others to take precautions…
On Sunday, I drove into an RV park in Arkansas after a 450 mile run and set up shop. All was great. No noises or any other sign of anything being wrong. On Sunday afternoon… here goes the Paranoia again… since I was tired of talking with my other self, I decided to “check” the engine.
When I opened the door to the engine bay, to my absolute amazement, the MAIN TENSION PULLEY IN THE CENTER TOP OF THE ENGINE WAS NOT THERE. The 24V alternator belt was still there… hanging over the other two pulleys on each end and resting further on the lower pulley. My engine had not heated and the charge from the alternator had not changed prior to stopping…. at least I did not see it…. and I have no idea where the pulley went.
All that was remaining was the pulley shaft with the frozen bearing race on it.
The rest of the story will keep you up at night:
I went to United Engines in Little Rock the next morning and to make a long story short… the old pulley was simply no longer available. The solution looked to be installing a $1500 tension system from Prevost. To the credit of the employees in that they recognized my Catatonic State was also about to kick in… they objected to that as much as I did.
They made a call and sent me to Arrow Coach… a place that repairs tour buses, etc. A gentleman there searched his used inventory extensively and after about twenty minutes and untold piles of stuff, he reaches down and picks up the only replacement pulley he thought would fit…it was absolutely perfect.
The rest is history as I had a mechanic come to the park and remove the pulley support structure from the coach engine and take it to his shop for the removal of the frozen race and installation of the pulley which is now outfitted with new bearings.
I tell this story for the lesson it provides…
If you, too, do not want to be Schizophrenic and have periodic bouts with Catatonic states of Paranoia … check your pulley bearings. It is a cure.
Best,
Pres
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10 Replies
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There is no end to places to check and how we will get surprised.
Before the October seminar I was at the Evansville rally and noticed my coolant was down. It took a little and I did not think much of it. When I got home it was down about 2 gallons and that got my attention because those two gallons were all over the rear of the bus and the area around the lower large coolant lines.
I isolated the problem to the elbow coming from the EGR intercooler and inspecting it found no problems so I retightened the clamp and added a second. I drove about 200 total miles and checked it about every 50 miles. Alan from ETLC also double checked and he also found no leaks. I left for the Grand Canyon Tuesday after a pre-trip inspection that would make everyone proud. The formerly leaking hose got special attention.
I was just west of Nashville approaching the west side of Briley Parkway when my camera got covered with liquid and my stop and check engine lights came on.
The leak was right where it had been repaired. I filled with water and attempted to get to Prevost, but within about 5 miles the lights came on again and when I stopped and gotout it was evident the leak was now a gusher.
I called Prevost and Steve sent Craig Jordan with the service van, including 12 gallons of coolant and a new elbow and clamps.
We were both shocked when we saw the failed coolant hose. It had a tear completely invisible because it was under the clamp. It was perfectly clean under the clamp and we have no way of knowing how it could have failed in that manner. Tightening the clamp arrested the leak temporarily but under more heat and pressure from driving it ripped open shutting me down.
I set the burst elbow in my engine compartment to phot later to post, but Craig was kind enough to flush coolant from the engine and the rear of the coach and he probably saw it and threw it away.
Lesson learned…….I assumed the obvious that tightening the clamp cured the problem, when in fact it masked the start of a tear under the clamp. My visual inspection during and after the “repair” I made never revealed the hidden start of what turned out to be a tear that lengthened to about 1 1/2″ all directly under the clamp strap, not on the edge but in the center of where the strap went around the hose.
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Any idea the age of the offending part?
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Great post Pres…. As we’re all aware, a failure can happen at anytime, even if you’re beyond anal with PM items and there just isn’t anything you can do about it. Doo Doo happens. As meticulous as Jon as is, no one is immune. Both ended well and I’m glad for that.
I ended up at Jeff’s with a tag wheel seal gone, hadn’t even dripped on the pavement yet. I make a habit of getting done on a knee and shining my light across to the inner tag and drive every time I get to my destination. This leak would have shut me down somewhere in E J, just got lucky.
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Dick, I assume it is the original equipment on the engine ’98.
Pres
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My hose was original and until I retightened the clamp I never had anything to do with the hose sections in that area because the hoses have always been considered bullet proof.
Obviously they are now on my list as 10 year items even though the failure seems to have been the result of physical damage that might have occurred during some type of maintenance event prior to my purchase of the coach 5 1/2 years ago, My coach is a 2006, 2005 chassis.
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Well since we are sharing about rarities has anyone experienced the engine air compressor hose to the air tank just blowing apart ?
Well we did… on our way home from the PC Seminar at Jeff’s… I was driving into Nacogdoches on the loop in Nacogdoches and suddenly an alarm sounded and I noticed the air tanks were both losing pressure fast like down to 60psi and dropping so I immediately pulled into a truck stop (luckily we were right at the entrance to one) and pulled over not having a clue what had just happened, but knew it wasn’t good.
I had been driving for the past 6 or 7 hours and always keep my eyes on all the gauges and all was well until that moment.
A few quick calls were made and Motorhomes of Texas were just down the road and closing for the day as it was 4:45 but they sent out 2 guys one of them we knew quite well and James Stallings Stallingsalso sent a mechanic friend of his over and within minutes they found the problem… The end of the hose that went from the compressor to the air tank had separated from the coupling that screwed onto the compressor… it just blew off.
The hose was braided stainless steel and luckily for us there is a Hydraulic Company in Nacogdoches that had just made up same hose with the exact same fittings on each end … it was longer but would work perfectly well according to these three mechanics… the Hydraulic company said they would stay open and wait for them to pick it up as it was 5:15 on Tuesday so we were lucky with that too as we weren’t going anywhere until it was fixed.
The fix… once they had the hose was fast and the guys were great about working late. Turns out the hose we got was made up for a Foretravel so that’s why it was longer.
I wonder if it mattered that it isn’t the same length ?? They swear it makes NO difference. I cranked it up and the psi went right up to 120… boy did I keep my eyes on that the rest of the way home..I was beginning to get really tired too with just 20 miles to go… but something like that is a rude awakening… I was still awake at 2 am
!!Just thought I would share this as it was another one of those things you most likely wouldn’t notice.
Cheers, Diane
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The length of the air hose coming from the air compressor to the dryer is important in that it has to be long enough to allow the compressed air to cool down sufficiently for the water vapor to condense so the air dryer can remove it before it enters the air system.
A longer length is good, shorter not so good.
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Pres Said,
” If you, too, do not want to be Schizophrenic and have periodic bouts with Catatonic states of Paranoia … ”
Guess thats part of owning a Prevost ?
I replaced all of My belts a couple of months ago. Now I am getting fine black dust coming off of the wide belt. Will that happen if it is too tight ? Or maybe I will have a missing pulley in My future ? Better check that out !
Glad to hear that You all caught the problems early and prevented some possible catastrophic events. Scary stuff !
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I have nothing positive to contribute to this thread except an “official” diagnosis.
My older brother says he is a doctor. What kind? I do not know. I could not read the fine print on the certificate he pulled out of the Cracker Jack Box.
He said that I suffer from “Bus Induced Psychosis”
It sounds completely accurate to me. My sweet wife agrees
Davy
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Check the alignment Rocky..
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