Learning curve, brake adjustment, San Diego HELP

[Singing Land Cruiser]

Hi all, Any Bus nuts in the San Diego area that could help me adjust the brakes on our 102a3. Thanks M&C

[Melbo]

When you adjust those brakes don't forget to change your nuts

Melbo

[bevans6]

  This means what exactly?

[RickB]

I'm sure everybody here is a snervous as I am to tell you how to do this because if you do it wrong you're gonna get hurt.

Block up the wheels take the emergency brake off. Grease the zerk on the back of the can and take a 9/16 socket (you have to push in on the socket to over ride the safety cover on the nut) and tighten until tight and then back it off a half turn.

Please get consensus on this from others as I don't want to be the only one advising you on this and please be careful

Now I know how JD felt at C&J when he wouldn't tell me how to do this. It's super simple but it's super dangerous done wrong.


Rick

[John316]

Micheal,

What exactly are you trying to do? Do you want your brakes serviced (meaning greased, and slack adjusters adjusted)? Do you have automatic slack adjusters, or manual? What kind of brakes do you have? Spring or DD3? (I would guess spring, because your bus is fairly late modal.)

Anybody else have any ideas for him? Nick, you have a C...

God bless,

John

[Singing Land Cruiser]

Mel; thanks for the reminder.
 All; Melbo saw that Mrs. Jones has both the flat and the bevled nuts on the front rims and stated that they should be all the same "Bevled". We are looking for some.
Hi John, As you know, this is new to me, I am a good learner but I need someone to show me. BOTN offered but we ran out of time. I know you are out on the road, any chance you are near Ramona?
M&C

[Just Dallas]

Removed

[John316]

Dallas,

Do you know whether he would have spring brakes? And what about auto slack adjusters?

Thanks.

God bless,

John

[bobofthenorth]

This is a reasonably good video of the procedure.

Couple of additional points:
- block the wheels so they can't roll
- block the bus so it stays up if you lose air

I've never actually seen the kind of ratcheting adjusters illustrated in the video.  The ones I have seen have a miserable little retainer ring around the adjusting nut.  You have to hold the ring down against a spring while you turn the nut.

What I generally do is crawl under first with a can of my favorite weasel piss, a small ball pein hammer and a 9/16 wrench.  I spray the adjuster nut liberally and then put the wrench on the nut and whack it with the hammer.  I keep doing that until the retainer ring moves freely and easily.  Liberal additional applications of weasel piss will serve to flush the rust out of the spring mechanism.  That is also a good time to carry your grease gun and grease everything that moves.  

When you are ready to actually adjust the brakes make sure that the bus is blocked up and blocked against rolling.  Then release the brakes - IOW you need to have air up.  Crawl underneath and follow the instructions in the video.  FWIW I like to set my rear brakes a tad tighter than my fronts.  For me that means 1/3 of a turn back on the rears and a full 1/2 turn back on the fronts.

[bevans6]

FWMOIW (just made that up - "for what my opinion is worth", which is very close to nothing   ), My earlier MCI has manual adjusters on the front and automatic on the rear.  And I'm pretty sure that they might have come from the factory with both, as options, and might have been changed along the way.  so getting in there and looking is about the only way to know.

One of my front slack adjusters had the locking ring smacked with a hammer one too many times, or someone forced it to turn without smacking it enough to unlock, and it no longer locks the adjusting nut.  It came to me this way directly from a complete brake job and a full DOT inspection, and I can guarantee you that if the locking ring is broken, the brake stays in adjustment about to the end of the driveway.  I drilled the nut head and safety wired it, but there is a new pair of slack adjusters in this bus's immediate future...

I am reliably informed that you can't "adjust" auto slacks, they either are installed right and working, or they aren't.  All I do with mine is measure stroke and grease them.  

I have not figured out a way to get close enough to the rear slack adjusters on my MCI to do anything useful, so I take the wheels off to inspect and measure stroke.  I have no idea if this applies to a 102A3.  The front manual adjusters are easy as pie, just turn the wheels and pull on the slack to  see where the stroke is at, adjust to 2 flats from no stroke, and measure with a brake application.

Brian

[Just Dallas]

Removed

[RickB]

I'm feeling better now that other with more experience have chimed in.


Michael no running over yourself!!! and if you're bus tends to lose air quickly keep an eye on the clearance between yourself and the chassis.


Rick

[jjrbus]

When you are done adjusting make sure that the retaining ring returns to its original position. To lock the adjusting nut in place or you lose your adjustment and end up in a shop far from home to find out why the bus is pulling to one side.  BTDT   JIm

[buswarrior]

I think the original poster was looking for some hands-on help, for which he has my support and admiration. I don't think he was intending to set out on his own via these postings.

As for some of this stuff, warning, the rant starts here:

Why would the presence of automatic slack adjusters change whether a busnut spends time under the coach inspecting the wheels ends?

Only IGNORANCE would leave the wheel ends un-inspected, regardless of whether they need to take a wrench with them or not.

The whole string of reasoning that brakes would be ignored if auto slacks are present shows to what degree ignorance was/is rampant across the industry (and this hobby), at the driver, mechanic and fleet owner levels.

Without measuring, before and after, how does one even know that their "adjustment attempts" have been successful, or were even needed in the first place? How will one know whether there are other mechanical problems, like worn camshaft bushings or cracked drums, without a post-adjustment measure?

In the year 2010, laying a wrench onto a slack adjuster without measuring the stroke simply exposes us as out of touch with modern methods and of little help to the new busnut.

We, who are more experienced busnuts, want to advocate to the less experienced busnuts, that inspection of their brakes and the state of adjustment, needs to be done regularly, the choice of adjusting components does not matter in choosing the regularity of inspection.

And we have to keep up with best practices, as they evolve.

Rant subsides here...

Busnuts,

Please measure your applied brake stroke FIRST, to see what has changed since the last time.

Don't you want to have an idea how much lining has been consumed by how much of the kind of driving you have done since the last time?

Record your measurements.

If they are manual slacks, and the measurement was getting out towards the limit, re-adjust, and then measure again to confirm that the brake and all the parts did snug up.

Record your measurements.

If they are automatics, if they measured within regulated limits, leave them alone. If an automatic is stroking beyond the limit, it is either installed wrong or broken, it needs attention and follow up. Re-adjusting an automatic slack adjuster does not fix what is wrong, and you have no way of knowing how long it will stay "adjusted", since it has already proven to you that it has failed for some reason by being out of compliance.

Record your measurements.

If you have RECORDS, you can make comparisons, you can see trends, you can see when something suddenly is far outside what has become "normal" for your coach, and make repairs. Records give you some information from which to learn.

And if you have RECORDS, you have a fighting chance at defending yourself if you are accused of failing to maintain the coach properly. If you harm someone, if you unwittingly display anything less than the most up to date procedures and record keeping, the attacking lawyer will easily show you to be negligent and irresponsible in the maintenance of the coach.

If this is a little daunting, fear not, go pay a professional to do it for you. There might come a time that your organized collection of bills of service for brake adjustments will be worth many decimal places more than what you thought it cost, instead of doing your own.

If you think about it, it seems to make little sense to track fuel consumption, and not do something similar with the brakes?

I'll go take my meds now...

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[JohnEd]

BW.

Great post!  Stay away from those meds unless they are a reward for a job well done.

John