Dumbasses!

In every field there are dumbasses. Usually such people believe everything they read in popular tawdry rags on an online in dodgy discussion groups. A former coworker described internet groups rather succinctly as “Maximum noise, maximum time soak, minimum technical information” and it’s so absolutely true.

In the bus groups and I have been a member of many I have heard many strange things...
The AT545 is a poor transmission
The DT466 is a poor engine
You can get 70mph out of a schoolbus
Bigger tyres make you go faster
Hydraulic brakes are bad

Let’s take all these myths and lay them to rest.

“The AT545 is a poor transmission”. This is usually accompanied by some claim that the person making the claim had one burn out on them or perhaps more or had some other disaster. The actual fact is rather different. The AT545 is a fine transmission. Mine ran out of transmission fluid which stalled the engine. Rather than restarting the engine after it stalled, I leapt out and checked my fluids. There was no transmission fluid on the dipstick so I called for a tow. Because I did that, I did not damage the transmission so all it needed was a replaced seal and more transmission fluid. I now carry two gallons of spare transmission fluid, just in case. Another claim is that the AT545 cannot be used downhill to slow a vehicle. This is a nonsense claim. All transmission can be used to slow a vehicle going down a hill. Just put it in a lower gear and when speed picks up too much, brake down to the speed you want then let the brake cool while the transmission and engine eases you down the hill. For a steep hill, I suggest slipping the transmission into 1.

“The DT466 is a poor engine”. No - it’s a fine engine. It was designed for hauling plenty weight. It’s not a Ferrari engine and it never will be. This is an excellent engine for towing etc. It’s not for interstate racing. A well maintained DT466 will last for hundreds of thousands if not millions of miles. It has an upper rev limit of 2900 RPM. I have heard other say it maxes at 3000 and others say it can be made to go faster. Sure it can - just like you can put nitrous and high octane fuel in a Ford Escort. It will run fast and furious but will break pretty quickly. It’s intended use is medium speed hauling. It’s an about town hailing engine, not am interstate engine. Leave it governed to 2500RPM and you’ll have a happy engine for years if not decades.

“You can get 70mph out of a schoolbus”. Sure you can but you’re going to burn out that engine and transmission. If you throw it off a bridge I bet you can get it to go even faster than 70mph. Of course when it reaches the bottom, you probably won’t find it still runs. The official specification for a school bus is “Must achieve 55mph” and that’s it. Thus most schoolbusses can do 55mph - on the flat. Uphill it drops to 35 and downhill you can get 70. 70 is not advisable as must busses have F rated tyres. F is 50mph. For reference, here are some tyre speed ratings...
F Up to 50 mph
G Up to 56 mph
J Up to 62 mph
K Up to 68 mph
L Up to 75 mph

Schoolbusses were designed to spend 90% of their life on backroads and dirt tracks at anything up to 45mph. On my daily school runs (I drive a schoolbus) I spend most of my time in housing estates at between 20 and 30mph, depending on the speed signs. I do spend periods of up to 10 minutes at 45mph getting between housing estates on 45mph rural roads. Not once in my day do I need to go over 45mph. That’s not to say that I have not had to on some routes. I drove a route one year that involved two interstates. I used a variety of busses. Some would do 57mph with my foot on the floor. Some would barely do 45mph. They were fine. All the interstate traffic was roaring past me. On the other hand even when I’m in my car and 5 or 10mph over the limit, the vast majority are still screaming past me. Hence I stick to the limit in my car and to whatever the bus will do in a work bus.

If you want a bus that goes faster then honestly you shouldn’t have bought a schoolbus. You know how fast they go from when you were a child. You know the legal limit is 55mph for a schoolbus on a road with a limit of 60mph or faster and 45mph or the actual speed limit (whichever is the lesser) on all slower roads. Souping up your engine is not going to help - it’ll burn through fuel at a horrible rate, will wreck the engine and leave you no better off.

“Bigger tyres make you go faster” or “A higher ratio back axle makes you go faster”. Both of these are disingenuous. They will increase speed on the flat but will negatively impact speed uphill and downhill. Downhill you need the gearing and tyre size to be right in order to control descent correctly. Uphill if your ratio is wrong or your tyres too big, you’re putting way too much strain on the engine.

“Hydraulic brakes are bad”. This is utter nonsense. Cars have hydraulic brakes with hardly any problems. Somebody wrote that their hydraulic line suddenly burst and left them with no brakes on their bus. That is complete nonsense as all hydraulic systems have a cable backup system. It is also indicative of a complete lack of inspections and maintainance going back several years. The cry is “air brakes are safer”. Not really - if an air hose breaks or gets snagged then there’s a sudden release of pressure which means the brakes all come on full instantly which in traffic can have deadly consequences. Air brakes and hydraulic brakes both have their pluses and minuses. It’s like drum versus disk brakes - they’re both equally good. The sole advantage of air brakes is that it’s very simple just to add a couple of hoses and control the brakes on a trailer. With hydraulic there’s a lot of fiddling using ancialiary electrical systems.

So, in conclusion - if your stock schoolbus won’t do what you want to do then sell it and buy something else. For the rest of us that have no desire to race on interstates, guzzling fuel, a schoolbus is just fine.

In other news, this is the completed battery hanger with its final coat of paint. I’d run out of white so I had to use silver. That’s just waiting for a weekend for me to get under the bus to fit and bolt it into place. When my connectors etc arrive I can wire it into place and install my despised Harbor Freight battery.

The Final Answer to the Insurance Question

Today I had been hoping to be off on my next trip in the bus. I’d had to book to see the HR people about my 401K so I’d booked early and asked if there was space in the parking lot for my bus as I felt I’d be pausing in my bus on my way somewhere. That’s not quite how things happened though. Let’s run back a few days...

I normally work from 5:30am til 4:30pm with just two two hour breaks. That means overtime every day. Anyway, there was a hurricane that swept through the state on Thursday so on Wednesday they announced work would be cancelled for Thursday. Friday was already a day when work was not scheduled. Thus I’d arranged to go to HR on Friday morning. Well, Thursday came and the hurricane swept through. The rain was pretty intense and managed to enter the bus through the roof vent that Carpenter put at the front of the bus. Normally water does not enter. It was not entering majorly but it was entering and probably soaking the insulation inside the roof cavity. It was dripping onto the door opening handle in the centre of the console and water was dripping over the instrument cluster and in other places under the console too. This is not a very happy state of affairs!

So, I set out on Friday to my HR meeting and got there in time despite not really knowing the way and having left my GPS in the bus. Speaking of GPS mine is fine for my car. I need one that will avoid steep downgrades and very low bridges for the bus. I gather Magellan might do one. Mine is a Garmen.

The meeting went well and I left the HR guru after a good chat about busses and motorhomes. From there I went to Tractor supply as on the way I’d decided that since both my Harbor Freight and Duracell 35AH batteries experienced rapid voltage drop when a 3.92A load was applied then an instant voltage recovery when the load was removed, they were both probably not ideally suited to a load greater than 2amps.

Having decided to put an extra battery hanger on with (at the moment) my Harbor Freight battery paired up with my Duracell, assuming the Harbor Freight battery still has a decent voltage when I check it, I went to Tractor Supply for supplies. I got the nuts and bolts needed to secure the battery but all of Tractor Supply’s steel was hidden behind a thick layer of rust that I had no wish to deal with. Let somebody else brush all that rust off and leave the steel soaking in vinegar for 4 weeks!

Moving on I went to Harbor Freight for some more batteries and there I saw the usual arrangement of tools crying “buy me now”. I held firm in my resolve and exited with just the batteries. These were D cell for my shower, AA for whatever and the big coin cell batteries for my Harbor Freight meters.

Home Depot was the next port of call. There I would have purchased four adjustable chain links and two turnbuckles as well as some steel angle. I got the steel angle with no problem. Two 4 foot lengths. I failed totally to get the links and turnbuckles because the aisle was blocked off while somebody was up on a great big electric lift, grabbing merchandise off the top shelf. Not feeling too much like waiting, I bought my angle steel and moved on.

Back at the ranch I procrastinated a bit then pulled out the angle grinder and cut the steel to fit a new battery. This time I cut the steel big enough to allow half an inch all around the battery. That’ll solve problems with batteries that are quite oversized.

I cut two approximately 12 inch lengths. These will attach to the ribs under the bus. I cut four exactly 10 inch which will act as the vertical hangers from those two bars. Then I cut two approximately 8 inch lengths to go along the sides of the battery and two approximately 5 inch to go along the ends.

I simplified the design of this hanger from the previous one considerably. Now the battery is supported at the sides only. The end pieces are just there to stop the battery from sliding. The end prices on the old hanger also support the battery.

At the end of the cutting, I had just 3 1/2 inches of steel angle left. I’ll use some to make my attachments for the turnbuckles and will weld them onto the base later. The older hanger also had a piece keeping the top pieces a set distance apart. I’m not really sure that’s strict necessary.

I was defeated when the strange glowing orb in the sky vanished for the day. I’d got almost to the end of the welding on the main body. As can be seen in the photo, the base is done and one side is complete. The other side needs the other bar to be attached then the two sides welded onto the base. Then I have to make and fit my attachment points for my turnbuckles. I don’t need a top bracket as I already have one that will do perfectly.

Tomorrow, assuming sunny weather I shall complete my battery hanger, including painting it with anti-rust primer. Then it will be time for topcoat. At some point I shall go under the bus to install the battery. Cabling is next but I need two more self-resetting breakers. I might have these set at 5A each with each going off an individual battery. I also need another battery connector like the other one. Yet more 8 gauge wire too.

Now I missed a bit. I drove past my insurance agent today. I popped into State Farm to find out about insuring my bus as a motor home. Chatting with them I found my existing car insurance was poor. It was expensive and poor. My bus insurance is collision only and is poor. State Farm offers fully comprehensive bus insurance for the same as I’m paying Progressive for just collision. All they needed was photographs of the interior and exterior to show that there were no passenger seats remaining and that I had a permenantly fitted bed and permanently fitted cooking facility. That’s no problem whatsoever! They didn’t even need me to retitle the bus as a motorhome. That saves me hassle if at some point I have to insure it as a bus.

The totals for the bus came to $609. The lady couldn’t type it into the computer but had to work everything out manually. Thank Heavens for people that can think! My car insurance will rise, which is unfortunate but I’ll have adequate coverage.

It strikes me that the problem people have with getting bus insurance is due to their laziness. I went out and met an agent and she came up with a quote. She knew how to get a quote together. None of these online things actually seem to work. Not insurance quotes and not the search for insurance. My quote is for a product that is not sold online. I’d not really been ready to talk insurance before. Now, I am.

I can say that Progressive only does bus insurance, collision not. AllState did not offer anything for motorhomes that weren’t purpose built by the original manufacturer as a motorhome. State Farm seems to offer insurance and doesn’t really care too much about what they’re insurring. They dont even want the bus titled as anything but a bus.

So I sent off photos of my bus interior and exterior and will now await my responses. Meanwhile tomorrow I shall complete my battery hanger and shall paint it. I’m not sure whether I’ll put the holes to hang it from yet or whether that’ll be something for another day. Whatever, things are looking up!

New Toys and other thoughts

Today I put together two of my latest toys. A camera and a digital recorder. Now before you go saying “but you could have bought an all-in-one unit” I bought two separate pieces for a specific reason. The rear camera used solely for seeing what’s right behind me is excellent but as collisions from the rear are pretty common, I figured I’d put a recorder onto that camera. That will involve putting a Y connector onto my existing camera so that the image is shared between the rear view monitor and the recorder. Put together it all looks quite a muddle.

I’ll have to do some work on it. The power inlet on the recorder (the blue unit) has no indication of polarity and is bizarrely supplied with a 120v power adaptor that also has no indication of polarity. The camera comes with a color coded blank ended cable. Now that I can simply connect to my 12v system with zero issues. It took a while to work out how to put it together as the instructions are in Chenglish. Needless to say the recorder unit came straight from China for $20 and the camera came from somewhere in the USA but likely originated in China for $10.

The instructions for the recorder unit are somewhat more opaque than a tub of black paint but it seems that the recorder will record in VGA and QVGA. Apparently if I fiddle with it enough I can get it to record in VGA. I don’t really see the necessity of that to be honest. QVGA will adequately show a vehicle failing to stop and running into the back of me. It’s not as though a front license plate being recorded in detail is important because in SC as in many other states, nobody uses front license plates.

The camera is a little strange. It seems there’s no right way up that’s clearly identifiable and it’s not adjustable. That’s OK though as that is eventually intended for use in the front windscreen. I’ll hide it behind the second driver fan so it’s not impeding my view of anything. It’s supposed to be weatherproof and I’m supposed to be able to put it on the exterior but behind the windscreen makes more sense.

If the recorder works then I might be getting a couple more and another camera. That way I can hide one camera so that it records everything and everybody coming up the steps with one setup to record happenings in front of the bus and the existing backup camera being used to record happenings behind the bus.

The recorder has apparently got some date-time thing on it but that’s never going to be accurate as it’ll only be on while the ignition is on. I just don’t see the point of recording anything when I’m parked as all it does is burn up battery power.

The other day I was in a discussion on one of those school bus groups. You know - the kind of group that makes you roll your eyeballs and question how such people managed to slither out of their mother’s womb! In fact that sparked a conversation at work.

Where I work, I work with mechanics, school bus drivers and people of all kinds of professions. There’s even a former Marine sniper working with us. Thus, I work among experts on school busses. I’d even say I’m an expert too since I drive about 30K miles a year with them and diagnose faults.

On that god forsaken group they had been complaining about engines and transmissions burning out and about how useless some transmissions are and how useless some engines are etc. This same group is the same group that talks happily about feeding engines designed to run off diesel with trash vegetable oil that’s been thrown out by McDonalds etc. Needless to say when I brought reality to their fantasy, I was summarily ejected from the group with no notification or anything else. I regard myself as quite happy now. That group had been spoiling my mood for weeks. The problem of people preferring fantasy over truth is very evident in today’s world. Look at the number of kooky pseudo religions that proliferate! This was a problem known about thousands of years ago and is even mentioned in the Old Testement.

So, according to the “group” I should be running my schoolbus at 65 - 70 mph and getting 12mpg out of it. According to them it’s all because my engine had been de-tuned and the transmission de-tuned. All of that is the biggest load of horse dung I’ve ever heard of.

School busses (as opposed to activity busses) are specified “must be able to achieve 55mph” and are limited to 55 or 57mph by a governor. School busses are designed specifically to spend 90% of their time on back roads and dirt tracks, not on the interstate. In my time driving school busses I did drive on the interstate for a few miles most days one year but that was the exception. My current route is 100% back roads, dirt tracks and winding country roads. Those roads are so narrow I have to hit the rumble strip every time something big comes in the other direction.

Then there’s the going up and down hills and the fact most don’t seem to understand why there are markings on their automatic gear shifter other than D, N and R. Notice there’s no P (park) position on a bus gear selector unlike on a car. On long down grades and steep down grades it is better to have the gear selector in something other than D so the engine can take control of speed. Eventually brakes will heat up and fade rendering them temporarily useless. This is why there are runaway truck lanes on many hills. Similarly going up hills, you can max the acellerator and try to keep up with the traffic, overheating the engine on the way or you can recognize you’re driving a big vehicle and keep the gear selector in a lower gear and keep the revs down to 2,000rpm. That will prevent you overheating and straining the engine. You will be going slowly but that’s what big vehicles do - you’re not driving a car.

I’m going to hypothesize that most of the most irksome people on that laughable group don’t actually own a school bus and have no idea how to drive anything bigger than a small car. Add that ignorance to a complete lack of understanding of how to drive something wide, tall and long then throw in air brakes as well which is another level of complication and the situation gets scary. in fact, at work where we all have CDLs (commercial driving licenses) and drive busses every day, we’re all a bit nervous about people driving big vehicles that don’t have CDLs and experience.