Tag Archives: Zena

2013_06_10 (Mon) Working On The Bus In Twelve Mile

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Linda worked all day on the accounting for Service Motors.  Butch and I drove to Logansport first thing in the morning to get various parts for the bus projects.  When we got back, Butch welded unions on either end of the bendable exhaust while I worked on the water pump issue.  On the genset end, one part of the union was welded to a cut-off pipe nipple and then threaded into the outlet from the GenSet turbocharger.  The mating part for the other end was already installed in the floor of the generator bay.  We secured the pipe with the unions on each end and ran the genset to check for leaks.  Seeing none, we bent the pipe into its initial/open position.  I them wrapped it in 2” wide fiberglass header heat wrap, using a 50% overlap, and secured it with hose clamps.  We tested it again and say no evidence of leaks, so we slide the genset back into the bay and coaxed the pipe into its final/closed position.  It now works well and looks nice.

Genset exhaust union

Genset exhaust union and bendable pipe

The fresh water pump is connected to the coach plumbing by 30” long hoses whose purpose,

beyond allowing the connections to be made, is to isolate the plumbing from the vibration of the pump.  We disconnected the pump outlet hose from the plumbing and checked the pump flow by pumping the discharge into a bucket.  The flow was not good.  We then attached the hoses so we could draw water out of the bucket and pump it into the fresh water tank, thus back flushing the supply (suction) line.  That seemed to improve the flow a bit.  We also drew from the bucket to test the outgoing lines to house and that flow was also quite restricted.

One of the problems with bus conversions is that they are essentially one-of-a-kind vehicles built to the requirements of specific original buyers.  To that extent they are custom built more than they are engineered, and that really shows up in the systems that are hidden from view.  Our fresh water system was built with two supply lines from the fresh water tank to the water pump.  These lines leave the fresh water tank on the driver side near the floor of the bay and are routed up and over

the fresh water tank to the other side of the bay and back down to a compartment about 18 inches above the bay floor.  This is definitely not a good design as water pumps like the Shur-Flo 4048 are not designed to draw very hard on the vacuum side.  We back-flushed the other supply line and them plumbed the two lines together using additional short hose sections, plastic pipe nipples, and black iron pipe connectors.  The flow was improved a bit, and we decided it was as good as we were going to make it for now.

Long term the better solution will be to relocate the water pump to the driver side of the bay and mount it at floor level near where the water exits the fresh water tank, which will eliminate the draw on the vacuum side.  I will then attach the outlet of the pump to a new, larger supply line and route it to the other side of the bay and then redo the plumbing in that compartment to eliminate as many

of the right angle fittings, T-fittings, and valves as possible.

In the midst of all this work we also discovered that the middle (kitchen) air-conditioner was not producing any cooling.  Butch, among many other things, is an HVAC guy, and suggested we take a look at the three house AC units before we left the next morning.  Knowing that we would be spending much of the summer in the high plains and mountains of the west, that sounded like a good idea to us.

While it was not our intent to work on the Zena power generator, I was able to pick up some welding cable and crimp on terminal lugs and make the battery connection cables using Butch’s press.  They did not get installed, however, as I still need to locate and mount a fuse holder for a Class-T fuse.

A good day’s work done, we headed to Logansport for dinner at Pizza Hut.  Pizza hut serves various pasta dishes, but they all involve meat sauce and/or cheese.  We had a thin-crust pizza with no cheese, and it was OK.  They also have a salad bar, and that was OK too.

 

2013_06_07 (Fri) Ready…

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Welcome to our blog.  I (Bruce) will be the primary person posting here, but Linda may contribute something from time-to-time.

We purchased our converted coach in September 2009.  It is a Prevost H3-40 that was built as a shell in August 1990 and sent directly to Royale Coach (Monaco) for conversion, so it was never in commercial service.  Monaco finished it in October 1991 and titled it as a 1992 vehicle.  The conversion was 18 years old when we bought it with the shell being about one year older.  It is now four years later.  Since it’s titled as a 1992, the state considers it to be 21 years old.  At age 25 I think it will qualify as a historic vehicle.  The license plate is OMNIBUS, from the French phrase meaning “every man’s conveyance.”  The term “bus” was ultimately derived from this word.

As best we can tell we are the 4th owners.  The coach had been sitting (outside) in a northern climate for at least a couple of years before we bought it.  We were still a few years from retirement at that point and wanted some time to fix it up while we were still gainfully employed.  We have been fixing it up ever since, while using it primarily to attend nearby RV rallies.  I have been submitting articles to Bus Conversions Magazine describing some of this work.  The first article was in the February 2013 issue, where our coach was featured on the cover.

I (Bruce) retired June 1st 2012, and Linda retired April 1st, 2013 (no fooling).  We have been pushing hard to prepare for our first extended travels.  We planned to leave on June 1st, but could not pull everything together in time.  We finally set our deadline as June 9th, ready or not.  On the date of this post (2 days prior to departure) I tried to finish up work on several bus projects as best I could, which is to say, they were not really finished.

One of my projects was the installation of a Zena power generator system for charging the house batteries while driving the coach.  The physical components were all installed, and the wires were all run but not completely hooked up and thus not yet operational.  This is a complicated system that needs to be installed correctly, so it was unlikely that I would finish this project while on the road.  This was not absolutely necessary for travel, however, and finishing the project could wait.

I had also installed a Parker Fuel Polishing Module (FPM) and had to redo some of the fuel lines due to leaks.  The re-worked lines still had a small leak in the return line from the Aqua-Hot.  The leak is either where the hose fitting threads into the check valve or between the two halve of the check valve body itself.  The purpose of the FPM is to circulate and clean the diesel fuel when the coach is parked/stored long-term, so it was also not necessary for travel.  The leak is only present when running the FPM; operation of the Aqua-Hot was unaffected, so it was usable while traveling.

Another project I was trying to wrap up was replacing the leaking flexible exhaust pipe in the generator bay.  I discovered that I was unable to get the new bendable exhaust pipe end-fittings to fit on either the powerplant exhaust or the fitting going through the bay floor so that they would not leak.  This, in turn, prevented me from wrapping the pipe in exhaust header insulation.  Without a leak-free, heat-insulated genset exhaust we would be unable to use the genset, and that would be a problem for travel.

Finally, I had replaced two older Aqua-Jet fresh water pumps with a single Shur-Flo 4048 water pump.  The pump was installed and connected, but yet to be tested as we had not yet filled the fresh water tank.  All-in-all it was a pretty discouraging start to a long trip.

While I was wrapping this stuff up Linda started cleaning and organizing the interior of the coach to make it ready for travel.  We spent the evening trying to get the house ready for us to be away for a while.