[DON]

Jon that was a really great post … worth its wait in gold.

Many of us are not aware of the workarounds you outlined and in a tense situation might not have thought about those workarounds.

Another reason why its so important for members of this Forum to post their problem and their location before letting their significant other set their hair on fire. A simple, safe workaround could put them quickly back on the road and/or competent help might be just a few miles away.

This website gets me so excited I can’t wait for my dues invoice to arrive so I can pay it right away.

[Andy]

The pilots on here now where my train of thought comes from. In an aircraft manual there are procedures that deal with almost any issue.

We bus owners don’t have the “manual” for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is because no two coaches or its systems are the same. But that does not mean we cannot create our own. It doesn’t evenn have to be written down, but it does have to be in our minds. The thing to remember is everything on our coaches will break. Notice I used the word “will”. Trust me, stuff we never even think about can break so we have to remain prepared to recognize if there is a way to continue our trip, or if we have to throw in the towel and call for a tow or repair man.

Some things require advanced planning an action. I added a back up water pump system to my coach because if my main and only pump quit I was going to be sharing toilets at rest areas with 10,000 of my closest friends. On a previous coach I designed an inverter by-pass circuit so if an inverter failed and my refrigerator needed power I could just flip a switch and connect to shore power or run my generator. I had an aluminum hollding tank in my coach when I bought it, and I was not going to wait for it to fail so I just replaced it with a stainless steel tan.

Those are examples of being proactive. But there are some failures I try to avoid by replacing parts before they fail such as air bags and brake chambers. That would be preventative maintenance and it requires me to throw out a lot of perfectly good parts, but for me that is more important than trying to deal with a failure while traveling.

But some failures don’t lend themselves to anticipating a failure or some form of backup such as Dick’s examples of the Vanner monitor or the equalizer. So for that type of failure I have to consider my options. I provided my thoughts in a previous post. The point being is I have identified in my mind potential problems and have given some thought to hwo I would deal with the problem if it arose. Not all problems can be dealt with and a tow or expensive repair may be required. But others have simple solutions like carrying spare belts or relays or circuit breakers. Some may involve a little rewiring. I cited my reluctance to drive with a battery with a internal short even if I could get the bus running. But I would not hesitate to remove the cables from my chassis batteries so instead of 4 wired in parallel and series, I would have only two. I likely would still be able to spin the engine, and I eliminated risk by taking a bad battery from the equation.

All I am trying to point out is a lot of problems are more of an inconvenience if we take the time to prevent those we can prevent and we take the time to figure a way to work around those that happen despite our best efforts. What I would never want anyone to do however would be to compromise their safety such as disabling a brake chamber so it is not leaking air, and then continuing a 3000 mile trip so it could be properly repaired or replaced at home. Certain things have to be dealt with ASAP and a temporary fix such as plugging a failed or leaking line is only to get your coach to a service facility.