Our last travelogue post ended on a bit of a cliffhanger.
We started the morning off in Hohenwald, TN driving south on the beautiful Natchez Trace for a few miles, and we then headed westward on Highway 64 towards Memphis to rendezvous with our dear friends Kristin & Jason, who we hadn’t seen since our shared time in Cedar Key earlier this year.
It was an easy drive.. beautiful weather, cruising along a nice divided 4 lane highway through tranquil countryside.
And then it happened.
Pwooooosh!
In a matter of mere seconds, all of the air in our bus let out and as the alarm buzzer sounded the Mini-Max emergency spring brakes automatically engaged.
Chris skillfully pulled the bus to the side of the road, but commented as he did that there was no additional braking power – the main service brakes were completely soft. While the spring brakes were slowing us down, he was actually eyeing a guardrail up ahead to potentially ram us into to stop. I was at the ready to hop out as soon as the bus slowed down enough to grab the chocks and toss them under the bus.
Thankfully, we were on flat road and such heroics were not called for. We came to a complete stop, and I got us chocked… just in case.
We took a deep breath, looked each other in the eyes and said: ‘Not Again’ ‘We got this’.
We were already dealing with feeling overwhelmed, and really didn’t need another adventure like this. But we also knew that freaking out wouldn’t help matters.
Chris began to diagnosing the situation, while I started spreading the word online to solicit local resources and second opinions.
Diagnosing on the Side of the Road
Since we had just had work done to our air systems in Chattanooga at Choo Choo Express Garage – including a new air compressor & governor, and an air dryer added – those systems seemed like the most obvious culprit.
But the sudden whoosh of air out of the braking system didn’t seem to match the symptoms of an air compressor failure. We had had a governor stick on us before during our early bus days, and it was a more slow release of air pressure that still gave us manual braking power to get safely to a stop.
Chris got on the phone with Choo Choo, who started a conversation with the supplier of the rebuilt air compressor. They assured us that if the problem was the air compressor, it was completely covered under warranty. And Choo Choo assisted in a bit of troubleshooting.
Meanwhile, our online bus community was making remote guesses ranging from a blown air line to a sheered pin in the compressor gearing. A local bus nut affectionally known as ‘Busted Knuckles’ made phone contact with us and offered his ear and local resources for parts suppliers. It’s always so reassuring to have friends help out in such situations – and the online bus community is overall awesome.
At this point, it was getting late in the afternoon and nearing the closing of most business hours. We still had no definitive answer as to whether the problem was with the new compressor, or a blown line somewhere else in the system. The bus started and ran just fine, and though the compressor was confirmed to be putting out some air – the air gauge remained stubbornly at zero psi, and there were no obviously audible leaks over the sound of the engine either.
Further diagnosing the compressor would involve fully removing it, which is doable but tricky – and reassembling it properly would require a new gasket which we did not have onboard. So it was a bit of a speculative gamble if it turned out not to be the cause. We decided we wanted instead to get a higher powered air compressor onsite to try and manually air things up and test out the blown line theory. Our little automotive compressor from the Mini Cooper wasn’t doing the trick.
So… with the day progressing on, we placed the call to Coach-Net – our emergency roadside service dedicated to motorhomes. They helped us out tremendously when our engine overheated and made proper arrangements then to get us hauled to Billings for last summer’s 7 week engine rebuild.
They informed us with air system problems, they always deploy a mobile mechanic first and that doing so doesn’t take away our option of later having a wrecker service covered if we need to be hauled into a shop. That’s a very cool policy.
We weren’t ready to resign to needing to be hauled, and really just wanted some additional eyes on the situation.
Koenig’s Towing & Recovery service out of Savannah, TN showed up, and helped us with the diagnostics. Using our spare air line, we hooked up his heavy duty onboard compressor to verify that no air pressure would build in the system – pointing to a blown line somewhere. The mechanic Ron then got to work underneath our bus inspecting all the lines, and found a valve dangling – blown off the end of the primary air supply line.
It was a Bendix TR-3, which is the rear spring brake inversion valve.
As we understand it – this little gizmo is responsible for automatically engaging the rear air brakes whenever the rear spring brakes are engaged (whether as parking brakes or in an emergency). In an emergency, this valve will divert the last remaining air to the rear brakes to assist in braking. After all, the springs alone only provide about 60% braking power.
The threading to the main air intake on this valve had been stripped and it had blown right off, likely due to a former (before us owning the bus) bad installation with the valve not mounted to the rear bulkhead as securely as it should have been.
The new air compressor and governor may have contributed to this part failing by putting more sustained higher pressures into the air lines, but this was likely destined to fail eventually anyway.
But fortunately for us it happened in the best possible of conditions – while we were on flat 4-lane roads with wide shoulders and little traffic. If this had happened on a steep hill or in heavy traffic, things could have gotten messy.
Oh, and we had cell service! That was a huge plus compared to our engine overheating last summer, where the nearest cellular tower was 20 miles away.
We were able to verify that the Bendix TR-3 is a relatively widely available still current heavy truck part. However, by this time of day, all resources within range were closed. There was no fixing the problem that night.
Our mechanic apologized profusely for needing to leave us still on the side of the road, and then charged us $150 for an hour of his time troubleshooting. We vowed to hit the phones first thing in the morning to track down the closest TR-3 option. Our friends Kristin & Jason told us that if a part was to be found in Memphis, they’d be happy to bring it out to us.
The Next Morning
Instead of staying in the bus at a tilted angle on a fairly busy highway, we opted to head into the nearby town of Bolivar and indulge in a motel room and take long hot showers. Kiki would be fine for a few hours overnight on her own, and more comfortable in the bus than in a motel room.
Sometimes, just because you CAN stay in your house no matter where it is … doesn’t mean you have to. And this was absolutely the right decision for us.
At 7am, we were on the phones tracking down the valve – and found a couple options. The most promising was at Fleet Pride in Memphis, and Kristin & Jason were at the ready to pick it up for us and drive it out. I offered to hop in the Mini Cooper and meet them halfway, but they assured us they wanted to join us onsite and hang out a bit. We certainly weren’t saying no to hugs from friends!
The timing worked out great. Just as Chris was researching how to install this thing, including properly blocking the bus while underneath… Coach-Net called to get a status report.
They pro-actively offered to cover another service call by the mobile mechanic. And since he knew what he had taken apart, we felt that paying his hourly labor rate was probably worthwhile instead of having Chris shimmy under the bus on the side of the road with large trucks speeding by just a few feet away.
Kristin & Jason (and pups) arrived about the same time that Ron the mechanic did and we got to quick work. The install should have taken just 15 minutes, but Ron discovered that at some point the old Bendix valve had been drilled out to use an oversized fitting, the new one would need a different connector piece to install properly. Stuck without it, he headed into Bolivar to seek out such a part.
That left the rest of us catching up on the side of the road after a couple months of being apart. Not exactly how we imagined reconnecting – but then again, stories of how things went smoothy rarely get retold. We are very blessed with dear friends who kept us entertained instead of pacing while Ron was out shopping.
We’d of course do the same, and have, for friends.
Back on the Road
After visiting 5 different hardware and automotive stores in Bolivar, Ron was at last able to find the fitting he needed to make the new valve mate with our old air system plumbing.. and with the fitting in hand he quickly got it installed.
We fired up the engine, and things aired up exactly as they are meant to. We did some testing of the brakes to confirm. Hooray! Fixed.
We paid Ron for 2 hours of his time, unfortunately the bulk of it spent hunting for a fitting. Sure, we could have done the shopping ourselves – but we would have still either paid Ron to sit on the side of the road until we got back or paid for another service call ourselves or had to handle the repair ourselves.
This brought the cost of this little adventure to a $600 repair bill, especially painful on top of the $1800 we just spent at Choo Choo.
We were happy to pay it and get on our way.
We’ll still need to seek out a pit somewhere soon to have other valves in our system inspected just in case anything else is wrong, and to have the new Bendix TR-3 properly mounted to the bulkhead so it too doesn’t prematurely strip out.
We made the final 2 hour drive into Memphis and finally joined up with the Snowmads as temporary neighbors.
And as soon as we landed, Apple informed us our new app US Public Lands had been approved. No rest for the weary!
Is a Bus Worth It?
After the past year we’ve had, we honestly did have thoughts in the beginning of this ordeal of ‘what are we doing?’… ‘is it time to give this vintage bus nomadic thing up?’
Maybe it’s time to find another cool sublet somewhere, like we did in the Virgin Islands 3 years ago? Maybe this time, somewhere with a hot tub??
But we were reminded that any lifestyle has bumps in the road. In a stationery house, it could have easily been an appliance failure, an air conditioner quitting on the hottest day of the year, or an overflowing toilet causing stress.
There’s no escape from the finality of machined parts. They will break at some point.
You can only hope it happens at a time that has the least negative impact. And for that, we feel extremely blessed that this failure happened along a wide flat road, and not while traversing the mountains.
Less than 24-hours on the side of the road, and we were back on the road.. and off to new adventures.
It’s all good.
(But if you do have a cool opportunity available with a hot tub… do let us know.. we might just be tempted!)
Live Video Chat Re-Scheduled
We got to our next location to discover we didn’t have enough bandwidth to host the live video chat we had scheduled… so we rescheduled it for THIS Thursday instead. We hope you’ll join us!
When : April 24, Thurs @t 8:30 pm CST
(6:30pm PST / 9:30pm EST)
Topic: Blogging for RVers
[vc_button title=”Click to Join (our Video Chat Center)” target=”_self” color=”default” size=”size_large” href=”https://www.technomadia.com/video”]
To blog.. or not to blog? There seems to be RVers starting blogs all the time, but is starting one right for you?
We’ll discuss the various motivations behind blogging — from keeping family & friends up to date, keeping a record of your adventures to generating an income. We’ll share some of the rewards of blogging and some of the challenges. We’ll also briefly discuss the various blogging platforms out there — and how to choose what is right for your motivations and technical skill sets.
As always, a general Q&A to follow.
We are newbies and are looking to get roadside assistance for our 2003 Marathon Prevost XL II. We have been looking at Good Sam’s, but see that you are using Coach Net. I am getting the feeling from reading your blog that Coach Net is the better way to go… I know that a towing bill for our behemoth would be many $$$$.
Bummer. I had no idea you were in my neck of the woods. I live about 15 minutes from where you dropped the Trace and hit 64. The Trace is such a beautiful drive, but the rangers are really strict about that 50MPH speed limit. It’s unfortunate that you had all that trouble, though. Glad you made it out OK.
oooh, $150/hr for labor . . . My lease at homebase prohibits messing with appliances, so when the landlord’s fancy microwave stopped working on a Friday night, I called him. It was Tuesday before the service “tech” came and discovered the plug had somehow worked loose. Bill was, guess what, $150.
With home prices what they are, not only are you nailed down for 30 years, but it takes a 2-earner family & there’s little energy to do things like yard maintainance. Let’s see, $25 a week adds up to over $1200 a year, so in the 3 years Cherie & Chris have had Zephyr they could have paid for that $1800 air compressor twice over.
The list just goes on and on. Buses may seem expensive but in fact they are a bargain.
e3
Exactly! Stationary homes have regular scheduled expenses, and sudden surprise bills too.
I’m not sure I’d go far as to say that bus-life is a “bargain”, but it can certainly be very affordable if you approach it smartly.
– Chris
Hi, Glad this latest hiccup turned out OK. As you said it could have been tragic under different conditions. Have you talked with Choo-Choo. Seems like a big miss on thier part not to have caught this!
Will you be able to set a more relaxed pace over the summer? Seems that you’ve been going pretty hard for the last year. That and the anniversary of a major personal loss can take a lot of the shiny out of life. I’ve been there and now I take the same day off every week, just for me.
I have been following your travels since Sept. after I followed a link from “Our Odessey” and have read all of your posts and articales. There is a lot there! All well written and enjoyable. I check in every few days to see what is going on. Looking forward to more bus projects and hoping that you don’t give up on it!
I have also joined RV Village, looking fotward to our retirement and going on the road in a few years.
If you are looking for a hot tub we have one, and lots of parking, 15 amp and 3g Wi-fi. Oh yeah we make our own wine and beer. Unfortunatly we are located 10 hours North of Minneapolis but hey, Canada would count as international travel!
Glad to hear more good things about Coach-Net. We switched to them recently based on your experience with the engine problems. Any bus or Class A, and it’s always something. Glad you are back on your way.
You need to have a complete inspection of the complete air system on your bus. Any air system converted from “wet” to “dry” should consider a complete line, tank, valve replacement in a vehicle used as a RV. Why was the valve left ‘floating ” after a compressor replacement and dryer installation. This problem you had would have had some finger pointing and explanations warranted in a heavy diesel maintenance shop for transport operators.
Hey guys, glad everything worked out for you.
this winter we lost our jacks, had to have our Magnum 2000 pure sine wave inverter rebuilt, and are here on the sub base in Kings Bay GA putting new cooling coils in our 1402 Dometic fridge. Been quite a winter.
this isn’t the reason I’m writing though. Are you aware of the new data packages that T-mobile is offering for the iPad mini retina ? You lose your Millenicom package, but the T-mobile deal is much better for some of us. Check it out, and give your faithful followers an opinion.
Thanks for listening, Robbie
We’ve been discussing the T-Mobile stuff over on the Internet for RVers group 🙂 Not exactly blog worthy content.
Glad it ended well…we are also big fans of Coach Net, they have always been there for us, so we also recommend them every chance we can….I think it is also great you had friends near by that you can spend time with….that always helps….
also can you tell me why it asks for my name and email every time I make a comment?
That’s a standard WordPress commenting requirement/feature. We try to discourage anonymous commenters here.. keeps it friendlier 🙂
I understand that…but before I just had to do it once and it remembered it…did that change?…
Possibly. Our WordPress developer has been making some settings changes to improve performance. I’ll check in with him and see if this might be involved. Thanks for letting us know.
Scary, indeed. Very happy for you that it turned out the way it did. We, too, broke down in the middle of nowhere: 100 miles east of El Paso, 66 miles southwest of Carlsbad – just before a pass in the mountains. We also had cell service (thank goodness) and a safe place to pull over. Other than taking 5-6 hours, our problem was handled expertly by Good Sam’s Extended Service Plan. They negotiated with tow companies and found the right truck to handle the tow job. The two truck pulled us to our reserved RV site in Carlsbad, then delivered our pickup truck to the Ford dealership. Can’t beat having a good company take care of you when you brake-down.
So happy to hear your experience turned out as well as it did…and you got to visit with friends to boot!
Enjoy reading your blog, but I don’t always comment.
Thanks for commenting and sharing your positive story with Good Sam’s service. We appreciate it!
I doubt Coach-Net makes money on me — they just paid for the 50-mile delivery and install of blown dual rear tires, after shopping for price for me. I paid for the tires and replacement of the hose to the air-bag.
You are welcome to join me at a hot-spring in eastern California where I will be for the next week or so. (BLM land, volenteer built pool 🙂
Coach-Net definitely hasn’t made money on us either… our haul last summer was easily a $1500-2000 bill. But, we continue to recommend them, so hopefully that helps offset it 🙂
I’m sorry that you guys went through this but am glad it all turned out OK. Thanks once again for a great recommendation. I was just looking to join AAA before we head home to Alaska and looked into Coach-Net based on your recommendation and experience. It looks like a much better way to go.
Some folks have had really great experiences with AAA, but seems their service network is more regionally/state based. So it can be hit or miss for if they are able to service RVs. Since Coach-Net specializes in RVs, they really know their stuff – and we’ve been super impressed they’re able to get a tech on the phone who knows old bus conversions to help us find the right service provider.
Also Coach-Net covers you on/near maintained dirt roads, unlike AAA. Important for boondockers.
Glad t turned out ok! I’m super impressed about how relaxed you were about this! I need to take a page out of your book next time things on the road don’t pan out!
Hahaha… if we had made this post a week ago, it probably wouldn’t have been as relaxed sounding 😀 Time and distance generally helps put things in perspective. We did have a few panic moments while it was happening.
Great writeup of your “adventure”. It’s a wonderful thing when there are good mechanics and good friends around to help out. And of course I’m very happy you guys were safe in all this.
Nina
Thanks Nina 🙂 Friends make the world go round.
New follower here. Enjoyed that adventure you had and I’m happy you were able to muddle and learn your way through it. I’m confidant from what I’ve been reading that Chris could have handled the repair if not this time definitely in the future. I’ve enjoyed your videos on youtube and I’m jealous of your life style as I’m chomping at the bit with 15,600 some odd hours to go before I can retire. Be well and happy trials to you. If life gives you melons then you’re probably dyslexic
I am pretty sure I could have handled the repair on my own – if I had been over a pit and had some space to work.
But in this case, I am really glad to have had professional help. Working flat under the bus with less than an inch clearance, on the side of the road, with the entire bus swaying every time a big truck goes by… That would not have been ideal circumstances to be muddling through reverse engineering an air system and replacing a busted valve.
I am really glad it worked out as it did.
Cheers,
– Chris
well. . .you had several little guardian angels heading in all different directions. . .thankful for a good outcome!
Janice
ReadyToGoFullTimeRVing.blogspot.com
We feel very blessed that everything worked out just fine.
I love your positive attitude Cherie!
Whether living in a house on wheels or in a conventional home, life will always be full of challenges and adventures.
Thank goodness for helpful friends and Coach-Net!
Thank goodness indeed… and let’s not forget, a skilled and mild-mannered partner to share the adventures with!
Repairs stink, but you are right – nothing would change with a house instead. The good news is that for the house part of an RV nothing is usually more than a house. Even if you need to replace walls, roof, or floor, it still would be cheaper than what a house repair would be.
except for your engine break down…I don’t know how to compare a rebuild of that magnitude to a house other than building a new garage 🙂
Very true… many RV house systems are on a smaller scale than house projects. For instance, swapping out a new roof air conditioner was under a grand, whereas when I needed to do that in my former house it was four or five times that cost.
For the engine break down last summer, we considered that on par with a major remodeling project and/or replacing the roof of a house. I certainly had sticks & bricks house projects that cost more.
Speaking of a garage…
Back when I owned a relatively new (less than ten years old) house in Boulder Creek California, I discovered a design flaw that had water draining through an inside corner of the garage roof. And though the wood was soft and rotten in only one corner, to repair it required redoing the entire garage roof – which was also the flat rooftop patio, requiring a very expensive special surface material.
Every time we end up with an expensive bus repair, I flash back to that experience – and am reminded that it doesn’t matter whether your home has wheels or not, these things happen.
– Chris
I just house/dog-sat my way across country, east to west and then west to east. A couple of the places I tended had hot tubs. If there were dogs or other pets involved it was a paying gig. I’m on the east coast now and will be staying through September. I have a few gigs lined up. In the summer time I try to limit myself to beach front properties. Although, I have scheduled a boat/dog – sitting gig. The beach is close by!
Onward!
That’s a really cool way to travel! Do you use a platform for finding your gigs (like the housesitting websites).. or do you find your gigs on your own?
It sound like that turned out far better than it could have been.
We only travel a few month each year and we’ve never had to use our road-side assistance plan. In trying to understand what was covered, I’m presuming that Coach-Net covered the service call fee and you had to cover the labor and any parts and taxes. Is that correct?
Exactly. And if we had needed to be hauled, they would have covered the hauling expenses, but also not the repairs.