Eagles International Forum

Looks super good! I probably need to same or similar to my bus... Should be a good time lol.  As Walter said. Please post your video! Im very curious!

DoubleEagle wrote: ↑Wed Apr 06, 2022 11:50 am Gee, my back is aching from looking at all of your work, looks great. Did you ever hear from Daniel Lenz? Looks like Marty helped a lot. I look forward to your video. Did your work on the drop box get resolved?

Are those Hankook's 16 ply H rated 11 X 24.5? Not a bad price if so. I have seen prices of $800-1000 for Michelin's recently. Another worthy tire brand is Toyo. Your two year rotation is not a bad idea, buying all eight is a big chunk of cash.

DoubleEagle wrote: ↑Wed Apr 06, 2022 8:35 pm Are those Hankook's 16 ply H rated 11 X 24.5? Not a bad price if so. I have seen prices of $800-1000 for Michelin's recently. Another worthy tire brand is Toyo. Your two year rotation is not a bad idea, buying all eight is a big chunk of cash.

Got those springs in.  3 hours each side to line up the 4 big bolts on the axle.  It has about a 1/16" lateral tolerance in the alignment or the bolts will not go in.  

looks great!

I finished up the re-installation of all the suspension and axle related hardware.  It took a full day compared to over 3.5 days to get the stuff off.  It was much easier to put back together with cleaned up bolts.  I checked my ride height and the spring setting was within 1/4" on both sides.  That is a great victory.  I expected it to be correct because of the adjustment arm geometry.  I would have been really stumped if the height had changed.  I am drawn in on the adjustment arm threads as shown in the eagle manual for a new spring setting, so I have the full travel of thread adjustment if needed for the future.   I adjusted my ride height in 2016 and it is still the same today, so hopefully it will continue.  My bogies are loaded to 4000lbs on each side.  

This took me about 4 weeks.  If it holds up as expected it will be worth it.  I have a 250 mile trip planned in 2 weeks which will be my shakedown test.  I will compile the videos and wait a while to upload to U tube.  I have a 6000 mile trip planned this summer.  I want to wait until I get back to make sure everything works out for me before I post the video.  I don't want to lead anyone astray if this is a failure.  

I spent $230 on 2 shackles, $190 on bolts and nuts, and about $70 on miscellaneous tools and supplies.   The most difficult part was getting the curbside shackles removed.  There is so little access to the 8 bolts that hold each bottom half of the shackle to the bus frame.  It was all torch on those lying on my back on a creeper letting the slag drop into a bucket of water trying to avoid a fire, not fun.  The street side shackles were in good condition.  No messing with those.  I don't know why the street side components were in good condition, but I had corrosion and rust on the curbside which I had to fix.  I welded in steel gussets everywhere there were issues.  Those extra fixes took a lot of my time.  That's why it went to 4 weeks.  

David
 

I think all the salt/ water slush ends up a lot more on the curb side due to crowned roads. That is just my theory, having noticed the same on many vehicles.

I finally got to take the coach out for a test drive. Nothing fell off, and I have no left over parts. That's a good thing. I drove it about 20 miles. I came back to the barn and checked my measurements and was 1" low on the curbside. I raised the curbside drives 1" (1/2" of threads used) and now I am 14" all the way around. Those 1 7/8" nuts were easy to turn since all the threads were cleaned and lubed. That was nice. I am showing about 4200lbs weight on my bogies which is more than Dan Lentz recommends, but I have been there since last fall when I adjusted them because they would slide with a hard brake application. So far so good.

I have lots of thread adjustment now.  

The video clips are about 45 minutes. I will try to post them next fall after my summer trip.

David

David, you bring up an interesting dilemma - posting videos.

Currently it is not possible to upload a video to our forum.  Making a link to another host (such as YouTube)  is pretty straight forward.

Uploading a video to our server is a bit of a challenge.  First we must find a way to get that type of file uploaded.  That can be addressed a couple of ways.  The other challenge is how the reader will be able to view the video.  The easiest way to accomplish that process is to rely of the viewer's software rather than try to set up a viewing option on our server.

I will look into the options we have, but right now the best option is to upload videos to YouTube and then put a link in a post.

I really look forward to seeing your great work on video.

Jim