Hi Everyone,
In week 9 Jordan took the now fully charged batteries back to the bus and with a small list of jobs that he could do in the bag.
This week he decided to tackle the engine again as task number 1 to undertake. So while thinking at home about the problem he decided it might be worth to change the hose that runs from the lift pump to the filter however not being in front of the bus couldn’t remember what size of pipe was on it. So not sure a quick stop at Halfords to pick up some fuel hose it was picking up both a 6mm and 8mm hose. The current hose on it was a get out of trouble hose and was made for coolant not fuel so wasn’t really rated for the job. Turns out it was a 8mm hose so Jordan swapped that one out for the 6mm fuel hose which was not easy as the correct size of pipe is a 6mm hard line pipe that goes along the side of the engine.
Then with the fresh batteries and priming and a sniff of easy start Jordan managed to get the engine to fire, When it first started it was the same as it was last time and with a little bit of holding the throttle at full and undoing fuel lines he was able to bleed the system of air. However when this was carried out with the engine misfiring like made soon as he started to undo cylinder 5 the engine started to stall. So cylinder 5 was carrying the engine while the others wasn’t strong this shows that the compression in that cylinder is really good and the compression in the other 5 is rubbish. After a little bit more full throttle and bleeding the engine came into life with full throttle being able to be used. The engine is still very smokey with white smoke which shows the engine is just putting out raw fuel out the exhaust again possibly showing that compression in one or more cylinders is very poor and not truly burning the fuel. Or its not returning fuel that the injector can’t use putting too much in but this would be more like black smoke and the only other colour we get is blue which shows there is a seal gone somewhere allowing oil into the cylinder or exhaust system and no eminox exhuast will solve that problem. So we need to decide what to do about it.
Looking online its suggested maybe try a thicker oil and that might improve the seal. The white smoke might improve with a thicker oil but it more like a seal or valve is stuck. That will be a head off job and inspect what the cylinders look like and go from there.
The next job on the list was to test and hopefully install the solar kit that we bought from Ebay link at the bottom of the page. This was a basic solar system to charge the battery for our leisure/Office area at the back so that is on its own power and different from the bus system due to voltage and not wanting to drain the batteries on the bus. This went about as smooth as you can think with connecting 2 flat batteries to the charger that wouldn’t even power on. After a bit of messing about if the panel was stuck out the window rather than in the window as the listing suggested the panel made enough to turn the controller on and start the charging of the flat battery which it did do. When we left we disconnect the charger as we want to see how it handles when the battery is full and for that we would rather be there to watch it before we are happy to just leave it connected all the time.
Next up was to measure the floor to work out how much wood and flooring we will need to put the flooring back in. Jordan also cut some of the power steering brackets off freeing up them pipes from the body work, The power steering pipes is pretty much next on the list as once they are done and the chassis is painted the flooring can go back and we can get back to a little more normal looking.
Then it will be windows and seals that we will need to take care off as we can see daylight though the gaps in the windows which isn’t brilliant and also makes it even more drafty and harder to warm in the winter.
Anyway next week we not sure what the plan is going to be but we are sure there is going to be some sanding somewhere and more prep work.
Links
Solar panel Kit ( At the time of writing can’t say its worth it or not)