Eagles International Forum

This is a pic of the black air hose that is the culprit of the air leak. Hose is in the middle of the pic and comes from the left side and curls back around to where it would connect onto the red cylinder in the next pic. Hose is very hard, dry rotted and cracking. No way to get it back on the hose barb on the cylinder. This is the red cylinder with the hose barb. It mounts in the middle of the above pic. This is the power cylinder (?) where the other end of the hose goes. It's the round thing with the yoke on it my flashlight is shining on. I can get a finger on the hose at the cylinder, but I am unable to get a wrench on it to take it off. This end is threaded and screws into the cylinder. You can also see the conditions I am working in. Very rough. This is the other side of where the power cylinder mounts. Cock your head to the right and it makes more sense. There is a metal cover running vertically and has a link poking out the bottom going to the transmission. Top end is inside the cover and connects to the power cylinder somehow.

I need to figure out how the power cylinder comes out so I can change out the hose. My plan is to have a hose manufactured and use threaded fittings on both ends instead of a hose barb. I am confident I can come up with 90 degree J.I.C. fittings and just run a #4 Stratoflex hose. Should outlive the bus after that.

There will be no working on the bus today. The temperature down here will be into the mid 90's and inside the oven, Ii mean BUS, will be well over 100. Can't drink water or Gatorade fast enough before sweating out.

Any and all help provided will be greatly appreciated.

Bruce.

Okay, I went out into my 1982 Model 10 with a five speed manual, which is still seated, and got the long hatch open. The setup looks identical to yours except that they used much smaller air hose between the elements. Your red part is the actuator which receives the pressure hose from the safety valve. That is what is leaking, correct? The hose that runs to the power cylinder is the only other hose involved and might not be leaking at all. The rotted black hose does not connect to the power cylinder, which appears to be connected to the frame post with one bolt, and with a pin on the control arm. If that hose is good, you do not need to disturb it. You did not need to take the red actuator off, but you have to track that black hose down to where it connects below to the safety valve. Going by the parts diagram, it should have a barbed connector for the hose. Of course, previous owners could have bypassed the safety valve or rearranged things. A good example is that crudely cut hole in the sheet metal for hoses to go through that were definitely not done at the factory. The fact that the actuator is painted red indicates that someone has replaced it or rebuilt it.

You'll notice that in the clutch linkage there are three connections on the pivot point, one from the mechanical linkage from the clutch pedal (driver side), the middle one connects to the actuator. and the third one connects to the power cylinder. When the clutch is pushed in the actuator moves to release air pressure to activate the power cylinder to do the heavy pushing to move the clutch levers in. If this situation happened to someone while on the road they could simply plug the supply hose to stop any leak in the whole clutch boost system, but then they would have a hard clutch pedal.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the safety valve is a pressure reducing valve that feeds something like 60 lbs for the clutch system. They used reduced pressure for air seats and front doors as well. Now, your main problem is tracking that hose down and hoping that the other end is accessible. If that end is a barbed connection you can cut it off. The other end is already free, so you are 50% done. It sure would be nice if the owner of the bus had gotten to the point of installing roof A/C's and a generator, but apparently not. They just took the seats out, the way it looks. Remember this when somebody rolls in with a manual bus in the future in the summer. Many Eagles have A/C and cool drinks in the refrigerator, but the other catch is that they may have covered up the hatches with flooring and cabinets. Fortunately, many other Eagles have automatic transmissions.

Thank you for the help, Walter.

From what I see in this bus, the black hosed does connect to the bottom of the safety valve you have identified. I can feel where the hose threads onto it, but I cannot get a wrench on it to take it off. Is the single bolt on the frame the only thing holding the safety valve on? If I remove that bolt, will anything jump out and eat me for lunch?

I see from your '82 that you have a plastic hose with compression fittings going to the actuator. That type of hose is very common on big trucks and could be a simpler fix for me. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier. In my first pic, there is a blue hose that can be seen. It curls around and connects to the top of the actuator on the threaded fitting. Pressure is supplied by the blue hose, passes though the actuator and out the hose barb which is on the bottom when installed. I would suppose the air would then continue through the black hose to Oblivion and all points South. I took the actuator out for ease of maintenance and to be able to get a shopvac hose inside to suck out the rodent nest.

There won't be any working on the bus today as the heat index will be up over 100 degrees again and my Boss is out of pocket for answering phones, so I guess I'll stay inside, tap on the computer and soak up the A/C.

The single bolt in the square tube is the rear attachment point of the power cylinder (I assume), not the safety valve. Check the parts diagrams carefully. If the blue hose is the pressure supply going to the actuator (and not the black hose), it is running from the safety valve to the actuator, and that hose is not leaking (I hope). If that is the case, then it is the black rotted hose that is going to the power cylinder from the actuator. The hose connection is underneath the power cylinder, and that is probably what you are having trouble with. Therefore, it might be be best to remove the frame bolt and the yoke pin to move the cylinder up and out to redo the connection. You can use the plastic hose with compression fittings if that works for you, apparently it worked in 1982. Going by the manual, the hose that runs from actuator to power cylinder looks like it has threaded female connections on each end.

I've never taken the rear of the power cylinder off, but it must be doable, someone got it in there. If it's any consolation, it's hot in Ohio too with heat index's pushing 100 this afternoon, and the mosquitoes and ticks are waiting patiently.

OK...so here is my proposed fix for this particular problem. I am going to use 3/8 DOT plastic air line with brass quick connect fittings. Components of this nature are widely utilized on big trucks, so I am very confident they will perform as required.
I had originally thought about using the braided stratoflex type air hose, but there really isn't enough room under the power cylinder for the required fitting. The brass fitting for the plastic line is much smaller and has a lower profile for the confined area it will be in. Should do well. The original yoke pin has grooves worn in it from years of wiggling back and forth in the yoke. The yoke holes are also egg shaped allowing for lots of play. I couldn't find an adequate replacement for either, so I am just going to make a pin. I took a 1/2 x 4 inch grade 8 bolt from our bench stock and re-engineered it to fit my purpose. Having a good pin back in the yoke, there is still play, but not nearly as much as there was before. This also should work well.

All the original hardware I removed to get to this point will be replaced with new grade 8 hardware. Nuts and bolts are cheap and can alleviate a myriad of problems down the road.

I did go through the motions of bench testing the cylinders for leaks by plugging them into a regulated air tester, put 60 psi against them and sprayed them with soapy water. There were no bubbles, so I'm crossing my fingers. That does not, however, say one cylinder or the other will not have a groove worn inside to cause an air leak during the travel of the piston. I've seen that before. I will get them installed and pressurized and soak them with soapy water again.

Hopefully my next post will be full of victorious cheer.

Great! You have breakthrough progress. What are the details of the rear attachment point of the power cylinder, it could save someone else some misery. Was the bolt in the square tube involved at all, how did getting it off go? You are on your way to a solid fix.

The bolt in the square tube is the rear mount bolt for the power cylinder. It takes a 9/16 socket and ratchet on one side and the same size box end on the other. Unscrew it, don't drop the nut or washer, convince the rusty bolt to move and the cylinder will come loose from the tube.

Getting the cylinder to come out of the hole was a different story as the bar the yoke is attached to is in the way. Blow up the image to see what I did. Install in reverse order.
i did get all the components re-installed in the bus this morning before the oven was hot enough to bake cookies. I did get the bus started and pressure built up with no leaks I could see. No bubbles in the soapy water. There was a problem I found with the transmission not shifting. I had to have the clutch pedal all the way down or the engine would stall because the transmission is in gear and I couldn't get it out of gear. Only thing I can determine wrong is the bolt in the next pic.
I have the upper rod on the wrong side of this bellcrank. I looked back at an old pic I had of the linkages from before I took anything out and everything is parallel. I had a co-worker come out and push the clutch pedal while I looked at things and the new bolt is contacting the old bolt next to it. I will crawl back into it Monday when it is cooler to swap that out and try again.

Incidentally, I was at another repair facility in our industrial park yesterday speaking to a good friend of mine over there about another vehicle and he also has an early '70's Silver Eagle in his shop. The bus he has was at one time the tour bus for Reba McEntire.

He didn't go into too much detail on what the bus was in for, only that he would not be able to complete all the needed repairs because of parts not being available.

I thought it was kinda neat having TWO Silver Eagle Tour busses at shops in the same industrial complex less than a quarter mile apart. What are the odds?

Should have taken a pic of that bus.

You are almost done, now it looks like the best setup on the bus is yours. The owner should be grateful that you stuck with it. It would be cool to post pictures of both Eagles, someone here might even recognize them and provide more details. Whether that other Eagle needs parts that are not available may or may not be true. There are not as many sources as there used to be, but parts are available if you are creative. What parts does he need? This is the place to ask about them.

Nice solution Bruce, glad to see you guys figure that out
!