You will have a tough time finding a shop that will dyno a bus they are not setup to handle the tag,just pull the info from the ecm have the dealer run the serial number if it was ever in a DD shop it will be on record 800,000 miles one is getting close to the end I saw a repair bill at WW Williams for a 60 series in a H model a whopping 50 grand with transmission work
Hi Bob, some thoughtful and insightfull responces for you. With your interest in prevost, to bad you cant come down to las vegas and visit Gary at B&B conversions, hes got 3 wrecked prevost conversions that he Van & Joe are making one from, exposed all the way down to structure, and another they put 3 slides in, always a great learning experience when I visit them. Couple of mci 102s and an eagle, their specialty, the other is Quartzsite going on right now, at Rice Ranch, just on the other side of the Colorado river from CA. More buses than you could imagine, you could drive there in easily,, lvmci...
Renegade is one of the better known toter-home makers. As far as I know they are built on to the chassis, not a drop on box, but you could call them and ask.Brian
The 4000 hours is for a factory produced coach with all the programming for the interior done on CNC machines, all the wire looms made to templates on a bench, and with workers who are highly skilled in their respective areas of expertise. The purchased components have already been sourced and the 4000 hours is just direct labor costs.As an individual you have to do the planning, the sourcing, the purchasing, and be skilled in all disciplines or be prepared for the on the job training with the typical rework to get first class results. 4000 hours might build a basic tin tent with a few of life's necessities, ...
Many, many hours of planning, sourcing, purchasing, and picking up skills. I was a car guy (product engineering and management) which provided *very* little background for this stuff. I tell people "if I'da known that it was going to be 1/20th the time and 1/10th the money, I'da never started -- look at the mess I'm in now" (of course, I wouldn't trade it for the world). Quick, easy, everything work right first time, cheap ... ain't gonna happen. BH NC USA
On my first conversion it took over 3 years to get it barely useable. On my second conversion it was 60 days from removing the seats to going cross country. My second conversion is more refined. After 4 years of use on my second conversion I replaced all air bags and brake diaphragms before our trip to alaska at a cost of about 1k. It cost me about 18k for the shell and close to that for the conversion. I could not have done the second conversion in that short of time if i had not had sound mechanicals and the previous conversion experience, and of course,,, Help from my friends. Good luck with your choices.
For an inverter I would recommend a pure sine wave, 3000 to 4000 watts, with a built in transfer switch and charger. Radically simplifies the AC and DC support systems, and does it per code as well. I have the Magnum 4024, and since I think the Prevosts are also 24 volts, that would be a good starting point. You can use 24 volt house systems or put in an equalizer and run 12V house systems through it, from a decent sized 24 volt house bank. That's isn't a $100 inverter, but it's the kind of choice most of us end up going to in the end, sometimes after false starts. (be nice if I could start jobs where I finish, most times...) Brian
busproject,you are way over-thinking this thing. Remember it is just a camper. Sounds like you are planning to build a ship to go to Mars with.
Good advice. I was told by "somebody who knew" that it was better to do a separate "house" system with an engine driven alternator, but it should be 12V "since so many things like radios" are 12V. But, now that I'm running it and living with it, it appears that it would have been a lot smarter to make the house system 24V, with a 24V inverter (lower amp loads, smaller wires, larger capacities) and an equilizer (or voltage converter) to supply 12V current to the 12V loads. But be sure that your inverter "load supplements" - if you're on a restricted power supply (say you can only draw 15 amps) and you switch on the coffeemaker while the hot water heater is on and you need a total of 18 amps, a "load supplement" inverter will draw 3 Amps from the batteries and 15 from "shore"; if it's a "load switching" inverter, it will shut down the shore power and draw *all* the load power from the batteries. It's usually easy for a "load supplement" inverter to charge the batteries back up; if a "load switching" inverter draws the batteries down, it will draw the down much more deeply and will take much longer to recharge. But as Brian says, not the inexpensive way to go (except maybe in the long run).BH NC USA