| Author | Message | ||
| David Anderson (168.215.176.179) Rating: |
After confering with guys on the eagle busnut boards and great advice from Jim Sheppard, I got my eagle 10 raised, leveled, and balanced. Let me share with you what not to do. If you are riding low, 12-13 inches from the reference points, don't just raise the fronts and drives like I did. (more about that later) Read the book and raise those bogies first. Of course the first thing you have to do is weigh the coach. I took mine to a scale and weighed the whole coach, front, front/bogies, bogies/drives, and drives. With all these numbers in hand I was able to determine the the bogie weight. I had already raised my drives and fronts to 14.5" before I did this. 14.5" is 1/4" too high, but I wanted to see if it would settle in. I took the coach out to test and made a hard brake application and the bogies locked up. Darn, now I new I had to reindex the bogies. According to the book, you need a bottle jack with a gauge. I bought an 8000lb gauge and a friend had a 20 ton American made bottle jack with a pipe port on the side. I screwed in the gauge and weighed each wheel. I didn't fabricate the jack jig like the book. I jacked the fronts under the shock mount and the bogies under the bearing arm. I jacked up the street side front wheel. psi was 1700 on the jack I jacked up the curb side front wheel. psi was 1000 on the jack. 1700+1000=2700 My total front weight from the scales was 10880lbs 10880/2700=4.03 The reason for the difference in pressure is my genny is in the front compartment, street side. 4.03X1700=6851 lbs on street side axle 4.03X1000=4030 lbs on curb side axle No, my genny doesn't weigh 2800lbs, but eagles are all heavy on the street side, so I've been told, and I needed to try to balance the coach from side to side. I jacked up the bogie arms: street side 700 psi curb side 720 psi Scale weight on the bogies was 5920 lbs 5920/(700+720)=4.17 700X4.17=2919lbs street side 720X4.17=3002lbs curb side. Uh oh, it's a different factor from the front. I decided to use 4.10 as my factor to index the bogies. After doing some math I figured I'd need 5 splines on each wheel to add a total of 5000lbs of weight. This would get me to about 30% of the coach weight at around 10000 lbs. I reindexed them and buttoned it all back up. (more on indexing later) I took the coach out for a drive. It handled better, but it was now 16" HIGH. Also, I made a hard brake application and the drives locked up. I put the jack under the bogie arms and now was carrying over 12000lbs on the combined axles, over 2000 lbs over gross. What did I do wrong? I went back to the book. It says to jack the coach on four corners of the frame to 14 1/4" THEN get the bogie arm weights for indexing. I didn't do this because I was already at 14 1/2" Big mistake. I tried to mathematically figure how much pressure to take off the bogies to get them back to 24% to 30% of the coach load. I came up with a 2 spline adjustment from the original setting. I pulled the bogies off again and reindexed them. Now I was at 15" high on the coach. I lowerered the drives and fronts to 14.5" all the way around, reweighed the fronts and bogies with the pressure gauge. The weight on the fronts lowered. The bogies went to a total combined weight of 9200lbs using 4.10 as my multiplier/factor. I made some drive axle and front axle adjustments left and right that took some of the excess weight off the streetside front to balance the bus better left to right. It was now close enough to book specs to satisfy me. Ok, I rambled on about my errors so you guys won't have to do it twice. Now, how did I get the bogie arms off? I spent an entire day welding a press jig out of 1/4" angle to hold a 20 ton bottle jack horizontally to press the arm off. The front jig arms were held in with 1/2" bolts in the 5/8' holes of the bogie arm, forward the spline. The back jig was bolted on using the big hole in the arm just aft of the spline. Cut a plate in a circle that fits over the spline hole to use as a jack point. Lay the jack in the jig with the pump handle down so you won't suck air, and pump away. The arm came right off. No heat, no chiseling, and no hammering. I used an engine jack to manuever the arm assembly when loose. Also, you have to remove the shock and air line. I did not remove the wheel drum. NOTE: Only the outer half of the arm is splined. The rest is smooth. Once you pull the arm half way off the spline the wheel drum drops like a rock. (Ask Jim Sheppard about his thumb) To reinstall I cleaned the spline, applied never seize, and WD-40 and I used moderate tapping with a sledge hammer. Aligment: The book calls for realignment. I didn't do this. It seems ok on the test drive. Results: The coach rides like a smooth cloud. It eliminated my steering wander completely. I am still at 14.5", but I have a 500 mile trip this weekend. I want to see if there is any settling. If not, I will lower the drives and fronts to 14.25" next week. Believe me, it is much easier to lower these beasts than raise them. If anyone tries this, get the Eagle manual. It gives good illustrations on the proceedure. I tried to cheat by just raising the ride height. If you do it, do right the first time and check those bogie weights. By the way, Jefferson Truck quoted $500 per bogie wheel to reindex. I don't know if that included alignment or not. Raising the rest of the coach would be $65 per hour. The second time I reindexed the bogies took me a total of 6 hours. I got much faster on the 2nd try. Good luck. David Anderson | ||
| Jayjay (64.12.116.135) Rating: N/A |
I think I'll just keep my 4905 thank you! ...JJ | ||
| TWO DOGS (65.179.201.120) Rating: N/A |
maybe ol' JJ will get tired of bounceing around someday....wish you'd do mine David.... | ||
| Tim Jones (Torquester) (12.72.176.250)
Rating: N/A |
Great post !!!! Thanks for taking the time to share this. I am saving it until I get to the point when all of my weight is aboard. Would you have any pictures of the press that you built that you would be willing to share ? Thank you !!! Tim '74 Eagle 05, Colorado | ||
| Phil Dumpster (24.16.243.37) Rating: N/A |
Adding a pressure gauge to a hydraulic jack is a neat idea I have not seen before. I have a pair of 20 ton jacks I use for various heavy lifting duties. I'll have to see what is involved in adding pressure gauges to them. | ||
| TWO DOGS (63.185.72.24) Rating: N/A |
My brother used to live in Evergreen Co. till contenental airlines killed him...20.00 for the thumb...not bad...TWO DOGS ..'78 Eagle 05 | ||
| stilllooking (152.163.252.199) Rating: N/A |
hey whats this about an eagle bus nut board never heard of that one. what is the email adress and can you put pistures up. | ||
| David Anderson (168.215.176.176) Rating: N/A |
Here is the eagle bus nut group. They have an MCI group, too which is very big. You have to register to be a member and get tons of ideas and request for bus info. I was signed up with the MCI group, but was getting about 15 MCI email questions per day, hardly none I could answer. The Eagle group is smaller and only about 7 queries per day come through. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eagle-bus-nuts/ Phil, The Eagle manual gives good instructions on how to use a jack and gauge for weight. It is very comprehensive. I just got back from my 500 mile trip. The coach rides very well. I did get blown around in heavy winds on I10 out by Junction TX. Overall I am very pleased. Torquester: No I don't have pictures, but it is just 3 pieces of angle iron welded in a way that I could push with a jack. If you are in Colorado, you need to hook up with Jim Sheppard in Evergreen. He just did his bogies; however, he strapped chains around it to hold his jack. David Anderson |
