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Gear Box
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That’s a big deal for you 2 stroke boy’s that gearbox is unobtainable.
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I’m pretty impressed. Apparently the stars aligned when looking up in the sky from Horne Drive in Vonore, TN. The business was still in business, they probably had the orginal tooling and engineering available, and most importantly the company was willing to restart the product line. Good job Jeff!
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Jeff,
That is great for 8V92 owners. I’m impressed that you were able to ge that done. Just out of curosity, will they be willing to make another one in the future if you need it? I wonder what other “show stopper” parts fall into a similar situation, where it is possible to get one made, even if it takes a while to happen.
FYI, my OTR air and crusie airs are still working great, Thanks.
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Good to hear Jeff what is the cost for the the gear box mine is a couple years old but if I need one I don’t think I can wait 16 weeks -
More can be made it is just that usually when it breaks you arent home or in a convienant location….waiting 16 weeks is not a real good option…
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Sounds good if I need one I know where to find them -
I Am wondering if any other 8v92 owners would like to commit to buying one of these to have on hand. It sounds like it would be a real nightmare to need one out on the road and have the coach stuck for several months.I would not want to count on that 1 dinosaur still being on Jeff’s shelf should the need arise.
Jeff, what would the approximate cost be per unit if you were to get a commitment from say 6 of us? If you would be interested in facilitating a bulk order I would be very interested. Obviously it would have to be verified that our busses in fact had that same box. Thanks, Jeff
Also Jeff, Great idea on getting one made.
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Before Prevost changed over to the Superior gearbox, they used the Boston Gear equivalent. My chassis is a late ’91 and is equipped with the Boston Gear variant.
When my attention was drawn to a disintegrating bearing in the pillow block I started paying more attention to the whole fan drive assembly. The gearbox was low on oil and when filled to the mark on the dipstick almost immediately produced a puddle of oil on the shop floor with a trail leading back to the seals around the protruding shafts. Sure enough, the years had made it necessary to do some repair work.
Prevost no longer had the gearbox available, referred to the Superior brand update, and then informed that they were also not available.
At the same time, another early H3-40 owner, neighbor and friend, Bruce Fay, was having similar leakage problems with his fan drive gearbox. Bruce was in the process of solving his problem with the help of Butch Williams. Bruce introduced me to Butch who is a man of many talents and is located in northern Indiana.
Butch had receently made similar repairs to his own MCI MC9 coach fan drive and offered his services to rebuild my gearbox AND pillow block.
By the time he finished, I had new bearings, seals, gaskets and coupling. I no longer have oil leaking and consider my fan drive assembly to be virtually new.
If you have a Boston Gear unit, you may want to contact Butch to inquire if he can renovate yours, Contact him at Butch@RVLocks.net
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That is correct the Boston gearbox was used on all coaches until the time that Prevost switched to the Superior. I believe Prevost never used this Superior gearbox in production coaches, it was only a part of the retrofit for the boston gearbox.
I will check on the cost of the units, however I would see no need in buying bulk amounts of these for a just in case item. I have seen the need for 1 per year basically. That is why Prevost no longer stocks them, yet for me, with no other good options, I am ok with only selling 1 a year. I cant see sitting for 16 weeks or trying to reinvent the wheel to get someone on the road….
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In addition to what Chuck has posted, be aware that getting the Boston gearbox out of the engine compartment is quite a task. Butch Williams helped me remove and replace mine. I then helped Chuck remove and replace his. We had to get the fan off of the output shaft and the pully off of the drive shaft on the pillow block, and then remove the pillow block and Morflex coupling along with the gearbox as a single unit because we could not get the bolts out of the coupling. The gearbox and pillow block went back in separately and then the new coupling was installed. Even with the flexible coupling, the alignment of these components is fairly critical. The gearbox was shimmed and we had to use those shims when reinstalling it.
I suspect that when Prevost built the bus they installed all of this stuff from the driver side of the coach before they installed the radiator. If you are willing to drain and remove the radiator, the gearbox work would be a bit easier, but that did not seem like a fair tradeoff to us. It would make it a lot easier to clean that side of the engine compartment, however, and if your gearbox has been leaking as badly as ours were, that side of the engine and the the floor (just above the muffler) will be pretty messy.
I have an article in the upcomging July 2017 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine on how Butch repaired the T-drive and blower housings in his MCI MC-9. That article is supposed to be followed by a 2-part article (in August and September) on all of the work that was done on my bus and on Chuck’s bus. See Chuck’s post for Butch’s contact information and feel free to contact me if you have additional questions and do not want to post them as a reply in this thread.
~Bruce
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