[Davy]

At first I thought it was a bed pan… smile

On closer look, it seems very practical and well done.

If someone wanted one in stainless :

[Davy]

I had coach net but when my former agency went out of the motor coach business and I tried to find coach net I somehow concluded that coach net was no longer available. I then got the roadside coverage through FMCA. I used the coach net once when I got stuck and was very satisfied. If coach net is still out there where do I find it? Probably a dumb question, but is it still available?

Thanks for any info.

[Davy]

630170 is the part number of the bags we installed and will have to re-install to get moving again. If that’s not what we need then we will have to figure out what to do to try to mitigate the problem after we are mobile again.

I can’t get under the coach to see if that line is hitting the valve until I can find a mobile service person to replace the bag.

Thanks for all thoughts and research. As I mentioned, we did have the 109 bag and Prevost installed those at an FMCA rally back in the early 2000’s. 5-7 years ago when we ordered replacements they said the 109’s were wrong and shipped the 108’s which have survived for years but we often had issues with the front end dropping during sharp/sloped turns. I can’t recall that happening in the early years.

[Davy]

Enlighten us David on the fix.

[Davy]

That’s the first thing I thought of, wrong bag, assuming axle and components are not shifting which is doubtful.

[Davy]

Hi Harry,

Thanks-so much for the leads on who works on our Detroit Diesel 2 Strokes! I’ll add to the list.

Ron

1987 Prevost LeMirage

8v92T with 6 speed Spicer

[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

[Davy]

Phil, I’m glad as a design engineer you can appreciate how unexpected product issues can crop up. In another life I also did product design and before the products were released to production they went through extensive testing. And as you can guess, when they hit the market stuff we never expected cropped up.

In Prevost’s XLII problem it appeared to be more likely on the stainless skins of the motor home shell. To add to the problem and their response you can bet the farm that the production people and the adhesive suppliers were pointing fingers at one another as an initial response.

Follow that up with the problem becoming more widespread as more units were put into the market, and most of those were year old chassis by the time they went into service due to the time of conversion. Making the problem worse was motor homes have limited use, unlike seated and entertainer coaches so nobody could see a pattern to the failures.

Then they repaired them by doing what they did to build them. They just stripped the panels, cleaned off the old adhesive and rebonded the panels. Now Prevost was faced with new repairs and repairs to the repair. I can only imagine at this point how people involved in finding a solution were under intense pressure, because they not only had to figure the cause and fix that, they were still building coaches and everybody involved with the bonding process was under a microscope and still the problem wasn’t going away. They had to design a field repair that would work, but more importantly they had to insure the materials used and the process for manufacturing had to be fixed.

I cannot imagine how big the challenge was to fix the problem. But apparently it has been fixed.

[Davy]

Phil, being that I have this problem I’m very interested in any options that might be a fix that’s less expensive. I’ll talk with Prevost in April when we head to the oyster fest to see what options I might have. If you find anything please let us know.

[Davy]

Thank You for the lead. I couldn’t read the tiny letters on the part for a name.

[Davy]

There are some Trace SW 4024 inverters currently for sale on ebay, I bought a couple of them from this seller about two years ago and pulled the ones from the coach to save as spares. They were both in very good condition and have worked very well. I know they’re getting harder to find, so I just thought I’d pass it along.

Copy and Paste

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trace-Xantrex-SW4024-Inverter-Charger-4000watts/292936156309

[Davy]

Come on Larry

Go make some smoke, the road is shit in spots on both sides of Kingman.

You know how it is President Pelosi won’t fix any roads till all the cheap labor gets here.

Later

bv

[Davy]

I spoke to Jay today. He is trying to get to Bill this Saturday (the first day it will not be raining in Houston after he freed up).

[Davy]

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

[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.