| Author | Message | ||
| Michael Lewis (67.160.12.18)
Rating: N/A |
I'm wondering how others handle appliances such as refrigerators from becoming projectiles. Our set up is a side aisle, and the refer is situated just about in the center of the bus facing forward. Since it is a small Magic Chef household model, there are no tie-downs on the refrigerator itself. In fact, it states it is for "free standing" use only. We will provide air flow around the rear and one side of the box, including a fan if necessary. I am considering a couple screw eyes back in the partition behind the fridge, with some 1/8" cable to a turnbuckle mounted on top of the fridge. Not too elegant, but would probably hold it in a fast stop situation. Other ideas? Michael | ||
| TWO DOGS (63.185.80.230) Rating: N/A |
my ref. is a small,apt. size...I took a piece of angle Iron & pop rivited it to the side of the bus & pop rivited it to the outer skin of the ref.,I also bought (at r.v. supply), little plastic clips to hold the ref. door closed | ||
| Thinking about this (199.64.0.252) Rating: N/A |
And those little pop rivets through that thin metal fridge skin are going to keep that 200 lb (loaded) missile in place when in a panic stop or, God forbid, when you have a head on collision? | ||
| Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary) (209.128.79.46)
Rating: N/A |
My whole bus is held together with pop rivets. Gary | ||
| Henry R. Bergman, Jr. (Henryofcj) (63.224.197.10)
Rating: N/A |
It would be a total waste to survive a somewhat minor head on accident only to be killed from behind by a flying heavy appliance. Figure the math and the total gee load propelling your friendly, efficient and HEAVY stuff that can and will come loose in a wreck... ...and work backwards from there. Then figure if the floor or frame or whatever holding them in place is or is not going to come loose also. Then...figure out some sort of way to attach the appliances, fixtures, beds, tanks, etc., in such a fashion that they WILL NOT COME LOOSE. | ||
| TWO DOGS (65.179.193.103) Rating: N/A |
my ref. ain't goin' nowhere...one bracket each side...think about it "thinkin' about it"..... think about it when you let your little kids run around while traveling | ||
| madbrit (67.136.111.28) Rating: N/A |
....... and your 70 lb dog, asleep about 15ft behind you. He makes a pretty heavy projectile as he thunders towards the windshield via your head. Peter. | ||
| Henry R. Bergman, Jr. (Henryofcj) (63.224.197.10)
Rating: N/A |
No one runs around loose inside the "Banana Boat" (that's the coaches name!) while underway and right now I do not have a dog. Wish I did. However, you point is well taken. Why go to all the trouble of making your coach crash resistant when stuff beyond your control will ruin your day? Including unsecured passengers, pets, inlaws, forgotten tools, gadgets, widgets, etc., beer and wine bottles (lots of those) and whatever? Since I am crazy or dumb enough to be considering mounting the water and holding tanks INSIDE the coach inside the closets, I've got a big problem. You ought to sees the engineering sketches securing the 2000 pounds or soosss of full water tanks. The security brackets, girders, bolts... ...nuts (me too) alone make up over a hundred pounds and connect all the way down to the main frame. Aggghhhh! Wish me luck.  | ||
| DaveD (64.235.206.197)
Rating: N/A |
I kept the seat mounting rails in the floor and fastened the dishwasher and other seats to them. Partitions and cupboards, etc. are fastened to the floor, side walls and roof frame. FWIW Dave Dulmage (MC-8) | ||
| Johnny (4.174.103.17) Rating: N/A |
I'm with Dave--I'm using seat brackets for lots of my fastening. Also, there will be a safety cage (like a contractor's van) behind the cab area. | ||
| ChuckMC9 (Chucks) (66.167.142.76)
Rating: N/A |
InLaws going thru the windsheild...and the problem with that is??? Have been away from the board for a few days. Gee, what fun I've missed! Johnny - ooh, a luxury prison vehicle you're building - getting ready to haul Maaatha? | ||
| Johnny (4.174.106.124) Rating: N/A |
WTF? | ||
| TWO DOGS (63.185.81.185) Rating: N/A |
went over the head chuck... | ||
| John that newguy (199.232.240.239) Rating: N/A |
It's none of my business, but I just gotta' type it anyway.... All the commercial buses I've ever seen in my entire life that have traveled the roadways of the world, have done so without seatbelts for it's passengers or retainers for the luggage in the racks above the seats. I have never read of any bus accident where people in a bus were injured by anything inside the bus flying about during an accident, when they otherwise would have been safe from injury. Short of driving a bus into a bridge abutment, the sudden stop at the bottom of a long fall off some cliff, or a rollover, there's little else that could cause the bus to stop it's momentum with enough force to toss a heavy object from rear to front. A sharp corner taken too fast, or a jumped curb, can toss an item to one side or the other, but if the item is secured in any reasonable manner it will remain where it was intended. I heartily agree, that every item should be anchored as well as possible to avoid the possibility of it being a projectile. But securing a refrigerator with numerous rivets and angle iron top and bottom, should suffice. There wasn't much else that held the overhead racks together with the few hundred pounds of crap the passengers stuffed up there. And worrying about the toaster being left on the kitchen counter, is needless worry. I don't mean to imply that there's no need to be concerned with unsecured items, but worrying about "rover" flying into the back of your head due to a sudden stop, just ain't gonna' happen. So.... that was -my- two cents. (not to worry, I will not continue to argue the point) | ||
| Jim-Bob (12.46.52.74) Rating: N/A |
The important thing is to be sure the coffee carafe does not fly out of the coffeemaker! We installed a tiny bungee on ours as an in motion retainer. | ||
| Marc Bourget (209.142.38.81) Rating: N/A |
JTNG has a point, but we each have the opportunity to makes our choice and pays our price! I'd like to observe that there is a certain amount of relevancy to Galey's reference in his bible to the DOTs requirement that Propane Tanks be secured for 7x the tanks weight full. (from memory, I didn't open the book to check) Onward and Upward Marc Bourget | ||
| Still thinking about this... (199.64.0.252) Rating: N/A |
Obviously JTNG has no experience with buses having properly maintained brakes in emergency or panic stops. It's true that typically you won't have problems in commercial coaches due to the design of the racks and seats. The racks have dividers and end caps to stop forward movement of objects and limit their travel. The seats act the same way, limiting travel of objects and persons. In a converted bus, all this is typically removed. An object on a countertop, floor, or seat may not have anything between it and the front of the coach, and yes, Rover, who happens to be sitting up on the couch hanging his head out the open side window loving life may not have anything between him and the driver, other than the back of the drivers seat. I guaran-damn-tee you that bringing a coach from 65 mph to 0 mph in the shortest possible distance in an emergency situation will cause forward movement of those items. The heavier the item is, the more movement you will see. For fridges on the side of the bus, there's often a counter or partition to block it's movement, but one in the center, facing forward, may end up going through the front windshield. We're told to use the bus while in the process of converting so we don't get burned out. In a conversion-in-progress, where the interior is not complete, there's even more potential of flying and moving objects as people tend to stack their belongings along the side walls for travel. Been there, done that, and have had to stop on more than one occasion to collect and reposition stuff and pull things out of the stair well. A year or so ago, two fellows in Florida were killed when their Eagle coach left the roadway and down an embankment. Upon striking the front bumper at the bottom of the embankment, they were both ejected through the windshields (not wearing seatbelts), and the coach continued on and ran over them. Very tragic. They were friends of many of the people on this board. Untethered things fly around! | ||
| Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary) (209.128.79.46)
Rating: N/A |
"I guaran-damn-tee you that bringing a coach from 65 mph to 0 mph in the shortest possible distance in an emergency situation will cause forward movement of those items." My 30' bus has the same brakes as the 40-footers and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, that I can relocate all unsecured objects to the cab area with one careless application of the brakes. gary | ||
| John that newguy (199.232.240.239) Rating: N/A |
Wouldn't it be nice to argue a point without making a personal attack? | ||
| Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary) (209.128.79.46)
Rating: N/A |
Peace brother, I got no dog in this fight. Gary | ||
| John that newguy (199.232.240.239) Rating: N/A |
I guess the fault of assumption lies with me. In well over a million miles, I have never had to apply the brakes that hard. Most my driving was through NY, Long Island and Jersey. I never drove a bus that could "stop on a dime", but then, if I strain my memory, I never had to test that. You win folks. I guess if you have to drive foolishly, you had better make certain "rover" is on his leash and the mom-in-law is either buckled in or in a bay. (no more from me, here!) | ||
| John that newguy (199.232.240.239) Rating: N/A |
Thanks gar, didn't mean youse. | ||
| Michael Lewis (67.160.12.18)
Rating: N/A |
Stat brings up the exact points I am concerned about. Maybe my configuration is a little different, and as so, will need some more thought. Flying objects can ruin one's day or entire vacation. A few years ago, as my oldest son and I were traveling in the midwest, a very fine Amish apple pie, bought warm from a beautiful fresh faced farm girl reacted quickly when a tractor (probably her brother) pulled out in front of me on a country road. I was driving a 36'sticks home on a freightliner chassis. It did have some brakes. The pie slid down about 5 feet of counter, launched itself over the sink lip and smacked me square in the back of the neck. Worse, my son was of little help because he could not stop laughing! Had to eat that one. Michael | ||
| John that newguy (199.232.240.239) Rating: N/A |
oops. I erred. My -bus- experience is only around 400-500k, not "a million" as I too quickly typed. Oh well, that's what age does. | ||
| Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary) (209.128.79.46)
Rating: N/A |
You know if you hook everyone, especially the mother in law up to bungee cords, It could be entertaining. Maybe not for them, but I'd enjoy the hell out of it. gary | ||
| Jim Ashworth (Jimnh) (172.156.145.234)
Rating: N/A |
Driving charters, I used the unsecured objects scenario to my advantage. After dropping off the football team from a prominent prep school, I routinely hit the brakes hard coming into the bus yard. Everything from soda cans, sandwiches, backpacks and other stuff landed right behind me. Really easy way to clean the coach. Jim | ||
| Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary) (209.128.79.46)
Rating: N/A |
HA! I bet with a little left turn action, you could land everything in the stepwell! Gary | ||
| DaveD (142.46.199.30)
Rating: N/A |
Years ago one of my sons received a broken nose when an empty polyethylene popocorn container hit him in a low speed accident where the car he was in was broadsided. The force of the collision launched the container. Dave Dulmage | ||
| LABryan (63.198.141.130)
Rating: N/A |
As ML found out, leaving ANYTHING unsecured on a counter or dinette is asking for trouble. HD and other home stores sell rubbery mesh shelf lining material by the roll. It works great to keep stuff from moving inside the cabinets, but it also works great to keep things on countertops. My coffeemaker has been sitting on a square of the stuff for 7,000 miles w/o incident. Nobody gets to use a plate or cup in my moving bus without a "placemat" of this material. Here in earthquake country HD also sells "appliance straps", which are basically strips of seat belt type webbing intended to be anchored to a wall stud and then affixed to the appliance by either heavy duty adhesive or bolted on. I wouldn't trust the adhesive method, but there should be some way to bolt into the back of the fridge. These straps are meant to keep stuff from tipping over, but should also work to keep a fridge approximately where it it meant to be in a bus during panic stop or collision. I have these permanently bolted to my heavy china cabinets at home ever since they toppled during the Northridge quake, but thankfully they have not been tested since. Bryan | ||
| FAST FRED (4.245.212.174) Rating: N/A |
Bolts thru the floor will work with large fender washers under. Don't forget the stock luggage rack mounts , nice hard place for securing interior assemblys. The floor rails are great as they were factory designed & properly installed for high loads. Can make for a narrow isle, but many coaches have a seat mounting side rail in the wall thats great! FAST FRED | ||
| chuckMC8 (68.219.98.34) Rating: N/A |
Is it OK to secure the Mother-In-Law with Bungee cords even if were not in the bus? | ||
| TWO DOGS (65.177.144.57) Rating: N/A |
when faced with this question....always remember..."I" before "E: except after "C" |