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If you have a little mirror check the front and rear oil rail end plugs on each head. They use a big o-ring that gets old and brittle and can leak high pressure oil.
Those fitting can really dump some oil! I was using an F550 to haul tiny houses, and one of the o-rings blew out. We were losing around a gallon every 100 miles until we got it fixed!
Got home 4 days ago. What a trip! Put another 1700+ miles on the truck.
I had an HPOP fitting leak. Kind of irritating. I think doing this trip in Nov where I had 60 miles of dirt roads knocked it loose.
It’s a cool feature to know that instead of blowing up the motor it loses enough oil to make it run like crap due to hpop pressure 😂
truck was flawless otherwise. I think I want to really dive into boost leak testing everything, I haven’t really done that since putting it together.
other then that I have another 1000 mile trip coming up to pick up those axles. I really want to make a priority to have the 4WD swap and aux trans in by June/July.
Good to see you made it there and back with little incident! Does Momma's rig now take the place of needing to tow a travel trailer to events?
Funny you ask, someone just asked me that on another forum. I do not think it will replace the trailer long term. A few reasons it didn’t tow it this trip....the bus needs a trans cooler BAD. In the summer I could get it to hit 220 moving itself. Throw 8k plus behind it I’m sure I’d cook that trans. (bus weighs 9900 lbs as is)
My car trailer is still in so cal at a buddy’s place.
It doesn’t have a rear hitch and doesn’t have a bolt on option. I will have to buy one of those DIY weld together versions off etrailer.com
Still need to figure out trailer brakes, suspension and a sway bar. As is, the suspension is a little wobbly. I think the trailer would be a disaster.
I’d be around 18-19k gross with the bus, hummer and trailer. I’d want to tow locally to make sure the V10 is up to the task for 1700 miles.
She purchased it partially complete last summer. KOH prep this year I was redesigning my 3 link on the hummer, on the bus I was installing a dometic AC unit, diesel heater, grey water tank and a lot of little odds and ends. Between all that KOH prep I didn’t have time to get all the above done on the bus for towing.
Then it was time to decide if we would rent a trailer again or drive it. Trailer for a week down there last year was about 1k. We would spend 600 extra in fuel so it was cheaper....my wife was happy to have her own bus and she wanted to test out all the new stuff.
I hate redundancy and this wasn’t our plan to have the bus. Her complaint was a trailer and my F550 would be too big when camping in small little towns in Idaho and camping at lakes. The bus was 100% her deal. She pays for it and I am the free labor. For week long trips it’s a bit small but doable for 2 people. It fits in a parking spot and is good around small Idaho Lake towns for long weekends. Long term I think she plans to rent the bus out on outdoorsy for additional income.
I think when we have kids it could still be doable for long weekends in the bus but for anything longer then that I do not think it’s big enough.
ill just add this info in....somewhat related to the bus, somewhat not. I am continually amazed at how solid the rear suspension is. You don’t feel it back there. My wife said she was white knuckling it with some crosswinds and I didn’t even realize there were crosswinds, granted the bus doesn’t have a rear sway bar. I have way more weight up there. Buddy in a 2012 F450 truck (not C&C) said he had some white knuckle moments driving to koh with his truck bed camper. I have yet to have a white knuckle moment, even with 13,500-15,500 (15,500 one time) on the rear axle the suspension is solid and doesn’t care!
For the coil spring swap I don’t remember seeing any here where they spliced the frame most just remove the unneeded leaf spring stuff and install the coil spring stuff. I’ve heard of people doing the frame splice but you obviously have to pull the engine and have the welding equipment and skill to put the frame back together solid and true. The only difference is the coil spring trucks have a plate about a foot long behind the engine crossmember to box in the frame rails, the rest is just drilling holes using others to hold the brackets in place.
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