Category Archives: learning

batteries, camping, Eclipse Trip, Electrics, Fort Massac State Park, learning, school bus RV, Skoolie, Super Museum

Our Eclipse Trip (Part 6)

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(Continued from Part 5)

Addendum to Part 5:

So, one of the things that we did after touring the Museum and the reconstructed Forts was to engage in one of the pre-eclipse crafts.  We made colored moon and sun cut-outs to paste over solar viewing glasses (though we had our own glasses, so we just took the cut-outs).

(Lego) Batman!

Then, that evening, they had an outdoor movie the our son and I went to see; Lego Batman.  We biked down with a couple of camp-chairs and a small table, and were some of the first people to stake out seats on the grass. 
Not only did we get to see the movie near the riverbank, on an inflatable screen, for free, but they also offered popcorn,Moon Pies, and Sun Drop for refreshments!

It was an awesome end to our day!

 

 

Now on to Part 6:

So, the next day, we ventured out to …

Metropolis! (Illinois, that is.)
Superman Square and surroundings (from Google Maps)

The city limits of Metropolis, Illinois directly abut with Fort Massac State Park, so it wasn’t hard to get into the urban setting.  In fact, this sign is right where East 5th street makes a right angle from where it runs south along the park, and then to the west, right over to Superman Square.

That’s right, Metropolis has been decreed to be the official hometown of Superman. On January 21, 1972, an official release from DC Comics made the proclamation, and that was followed by the Illinois State Legislature passing Resolution 572, which affirmed that Metropolis was the “Hometown of Superman” on June 9 of the same year.  Superman Square runs around the County Clerk’s Office, and from there, looking northeast along Market Street, is a 15 foot tall (painted) bronze statue of Superman.

Superman, ready for the upcoming eclipse with his eclipse glasses on!
Transport!

But, how to get there?  Well, we brought our bikes, and due to the floodplain nature of the area around the Ohio River, the route was overall flat (though the park area is about 20+ feet higher than much of the city along the river), and they have a designated bike route to get from the park over to the square.  So it was just about 2 miles from our site to the square, and taking our time we were still there in half an hour.

Who are these pesky knee-biters? Oh, some Kleinmartins …

So after taking pictures with Superman to prove we were there, we spent a couple of hours looking through the Super Museum, which is right across the square from the Superman Statue.

One of the lead knives used on ‘Adventures of Superman’ with George Reeves.

The Super Museum is pretty amazing (and air-conditioned!), starting off with the gift shop/store where you enter.  For only $5 per person (kids 5&under free), you can get access to see an amazing collection of memorabilia, comics, documents, video clips and documentaries, toys, video games (bring some quarters), and actual TV and movie props from the Superman world that DC has cultivated over the years.

Krypton Power Crystals!
Many, many Superman items …
And control panels …
The boy and Batman pose with Darksieid.

But even after seeing the Supergirl memorabilia room, and Batman and Darkseid, we finally came to the end. We then spent some time in the store, looking at all the stuff they had (they were out of kryptonite chunks, unfortunately).  We ended up with a commemorative magnet (to stick on the steel roof inside the bus), and the last of a commemorative poster that they had in stock.  With these we set off to see one more thing before biking back home.

Lois Lane is ready to take down notes for her story.

Metropolis doesn’t only have a (painted) bronze statue of Superman, but a few blocks northeast up Market Street, they also have a statue of Lois Lane.

To get to Lois, we had to ride through the set-up for a pre-eclipse street festival, that looked (and smelled from the cooking of the food vendors setting up) good and fun.  But, it was so hot and the sky so cloudless, that we thought we’d be better off heading back to the site, where we had shade trees and the woods.

The boy with the heater core fan’s entire output blowing on his back.

And once we got back, it was still pretty hot in and around the bus.  There was hardly a breeze, and even with all the windows and the roof vents open, it was hot.  We’d never encountered this level of heat and humidity (and Buffalo has plenty of humidity, but is pretty breezy), so I hadn’t thought to bring a fan. But I had wired the bus’ 12 volt accessories through a switch so that we could run them off the converter when we were plugged in (or batteries when we’re not) so I started up the big heater core fan and the two defrosting fans.  It worked pretty well.

The Star Wars Theme sounds pretty good on a dobro …

Later, as the sun was going down more, it cooled off as a little breeze started up.  Our son entertained us on his dobro, and I started getting a fire ready for dinner, while my wife made some potato salad and a green salad.

Beans warming up on (the edge of) the fire!

My contribution was to cook some burgers, and heat up some beans (in the can, of course) over the fire. The rotating, adjustable grating worked really well for being able to control the cooking, though

The burgers are about to come off the grill.

we started late and it quickly was pretty dark by the time the burgers were done, so it’s hard to see them well.  After a wonderful dinner, it was off to bed.  The Eclipse was the next day and we wanted to be ready.

(Continued in Part 7)

 

 

 

bus trouble, Engine, learning, School Bus, school bus RV, Skoolie

Replacing the IPR *or* No more Hot Start Fail!

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So, I finally got to replace the IPR (Injector Pressure Regulator), in hopes of tackling the very frustrating Hot Start Fail problem that I’ve been dealing with on the bus’ T444E engine.  The IPR is attached to the base of the high pressure oil pump, between the valve covers and kind of under the fuel filter/water separator, and lots and lots of wires and air ducting.

In doing my research on changing this part, I found that I’d have to be prepared for some oil leakage from the high pressure pump’s reservoir, and that I’d need a deep socket to get the regulator itself out.  I had a chuck pad I could use (they’re really absorbent) and was able to slide it in under the old IPR to catch the escaping oil – though no quantity had been specified, just that I should “have a bunch of paper towels ready”.  I hoped I was ready.

The IPR is a solenoid valve, and the electromagnet comes off the stem that houses the moving bit to control oil flow.  So, to take the piece off, you first have to remove the holding nut, a spacer, and the electromagnet from the stem, which can then be unscrewed.
All in this very small place.

But it can be done, and relatively quickly, it turns out.  The electromagnet has an electrical connection for controlling it, and that just has two clips on either side, then slides out and can be woven back around some pipes and wires to keep it out of the way.  The upper portion of the plug is wider than the lower, so you can’t plug it in the wrong way – an important detail for putting everything back together and doing it by feel.

The next thing is to take off the 3/4″ nut that holds the electromagnet and spacer onto the stem.  This is a very thin metal nut, so it doesn’t take much to get it off, but if your 3/4″ wrench is long (like mine), be prepared to make a bunch of very tiny pulls to get it finger-loose.

Once the nut is off, the electromagnet and spacer should come right off.  I ended up having to unscrew the spacer for a bit along the threads for the holding nut before it broke loose enough to slide.  And a little wiggling was necessary to get the electromagnet to slide, but it came more easily than the spacer once I got it wiggling.

It was then time to get the deep socket.  In doing my research, I had taken the new IPR I had apart and fitted the stem to a large (shallow) socket that I had to find that it was a 1 1/8″ size.  Our local Autozone had a deep socket in stock for $8, so that wasn’t bad at all to get the right tool.  However, the stem is so long that you need every bit of space in the deep socket (I wasn’t sure that the ratchet end would sit in the socket securely), and it turned out that the deep socket’s center hole wasn’t a full 1/2″ in diameter, so it wouldn’t fit the stem up into it.  And of course, that would mean that the socket wouldn’t engage the points.  Luckily, I was able to use a 1/2″ drill and get the hole open so that it would work.

Then there was just the matter of getting the socket onto the stem, which involved some wiggling, moving of wire harnesses this way and that, and then, once on, doing some more of it it get the ratchet down to engage it.  For this, I ended up using the 3/8″ ratchet with a 1/2″ adapter on it to be able to get a better pull, as well as to get a spacer between the socket and ratchet that was long enough, but not too long, to work around hard engine elements.

The stem broke loose fairly easily, and with some wiggling and shifting, it came out!  I could see that the chuck pad had collected some oil, but couldn’t see how much at that point.  But the important step of removal was now complete.

I transferred the protective red plastic cap from the new stem to the old one, and set about reversing the process to install the new IPR.  The only real difference was that as I was tightening the new stem in place, I slid the chuck pad back away from the high pressure oil pump, so it wouldn’t have a chance of getting caught and messing up the seal.  Once the stem was nice and snug, and the electromagnet, spacer and holding nut were on and secure, I plugged the control wire back in.

In cleaning up, I checked out the chuck pad.  It looks like there might have been about 4-6 oz of oil that drained out when the stem came out of the pump.  I don’t know if that’s typical, but it’s my best estimate.

Once all the bits were stowed away, I started up the bus.  It cranked without starting at first, but knowing that it would have to pull enough oil to the high pressure pump before it would start, I kept it cranking, and then it caught.  It ran rather ragged for the first half-minute, then smoothed out pretty well.

The new IPR is more responsive than the old one, but some of that could be  in the fact that part of the seal on the bottom of the old IPR was missing!  I’m wondering if that, coupled with either less viscous hot oil, or perhaps some dynamic of the metal being heated was what was causing the hot start fail.

At any rate, a quick test-drive, then attempted restart of the engine proves that the engine now starts up fine when hot.  It also seems a bit more responsive to the accelerator pedal, so I have to get used to starting off in second all over again.

bus trouble, Engine, learning, school bus RV, Skoolie

Hot Start Fail

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So, we had a nice day, and I decided to take the bus out for a test-drive.  Well, a test-start, really.  I figured that I should try and document what was going on, as I had read the last  service paperwork (where they couldn’t replicate the problem after it got towed) more closely while cleaning up on the bus.  The way it reads, they were looking for a hard start, but proved that the bus would repeatedly start when it was cold, and wouldn’t quit once running, which wasn’t the problem.

So, I videoed the cold start before a quick trip, and the attempt to start it hot that failed.  (Caution, it’s a bit jumpy at parts, as I had a webcam that I was holding in my hand to take pictures at times.)

This really shows the difference, and how the engine started/didn’t and how it sounded, mostly for my own reference, and to possibly take into the dealership to show them.

But in putting it together and watching it after I had uploaded it, I noticed how low the oil pressure was (I had been looking at the temperature, not the oil pressure).  While I had asked the mechanics at the dealership if the pressure was too low before, and they assured me that it was fine, this looks really low.  And since one of the things about that sort of non-start is the IPR (Injector Pressure Regulator) failing, so the injectors don’t get enough oil to function, that could be it.

Unfortunately, there’s also a possibility that it’s the whole High Pressure Oil Pump, which isn’t thrilling.  So, the next thing is to replace the IPR, and see what that does.