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rrueckwald · (09-15-2013)

My data placard is gone, destroyed when the PO had the TV cabinet rebuilt, so I am having difficulties establishing which front axle rating I have. Do you know if BB cut the 15,500 front axle into production at a given coach number? I have F128626, a 2000 single slide, built somewhere between November, 1999 and February, 2000. After reading this thread, it is clear why I am having this difficulty.

davidbrady · 09-15-2013, 10:49

I wish I could help Ron, but it is a mystery to me. A while back I attempted to get George Morris on the phone to quiz him but after several tries I never got thru. I long for the good ole days when Bennie Collier was a phone call away. Sigh...

I wonder if Parliament has any records on your coach having purchased the Wanderlodge intellectual property at the auction?

All we've been able to piece together is that there were Service Campaigns to go from 14600# to 15500# and not all buses were upgraded, and we don't know what "upgrade" means - new parts or just a sticker? At some point, and again we have no body number or time-stamped engineering rework order, buses were shipped with a new beam axle rated at 16000#. My bus chassis (F132512) left Blue Bird for it's trip across the street on 3/1/2001 equipped with a 16000# Spicer beam axle.

I quickly re-read this thread and Al Perna mentioned trying to find out more info once he had his bus inspected down at Josams. I wonder what he learned. Al?

pgchin · (This post was last modified: 09-15-2013 14:20 by pgchin.)

Ron,
As suggested, when you are snowbirding this year, maybe parliament will have your info. If not, another idea is to pull the serial number off the axle and call the manufacturer and see if they can tell you what it shipped to bluebird with.....FWIW 14600-16000 is only 1400lbs total or 700 per side so if I was a betting man and willing to take a SWAG, I'd say beefier tie rod ends, thicker tie rods, 9 inch rims, 315's, etc..... with the ball joints, bearings, etc being the same. I bet the manufacturer can at least tell you that much I.E. the differences between 14.6 and 16...... good luck and please post the results when you find out for the benefit of others.
FWIW at 14.6 I am running 8.25's and 12r's like your old 95 with the rims being the component in the entire assembly with the lowest number........... and when these things are assembled, the component in the assembly with the "lowest rating" usually sets the "total" rating for the ENTIRE assembly........... when in doubt, set the bird up for the lower number and you can never go wrong until you can verify........... Wink

rrueckwald · 09-16-2013, 10:17

(09-15-2013 12:56)pgchin Wrote: Ron,
As suggested, when you are snowbirding this year, maybe parliament will have your info. If not, another idea is to pull the serial number off the axle and call the manufacturer and see if they can tell you what it shipped to bluebird with.....FWIW 14600-16000 is only 1400lbs total or 700 per side so if I was a betting man and willing to take a SWAG, I'd say beefier tie rod ends, thicker tie rods, 9 inch rims, 315's, etc..... with the ball joints, bearings, etc being the same. I bet the manufacturer can at least tell you that much I.E. the differences between 14.6 and 16...... good luck and please post the results when you find out for the benefit of others.
FWIW at 14.6 I am running 8.25's and 12r's like your old 95 with the rims being the component in the entire assembly with the lowest number........... and when these things are assembled, the component in the assembly with the "lowest rating" usually sets the "total" rating for the ENTIRE assembly........... when in doubt, set the bird up for the lower number and you can never go wrong until you can verify...........

Thanks, Pete. I have the 9.00" rims. I got the only numbers off the axle and called Rockwell (Meritor) who did not recognize the numbers. I wonder if Ridewell would? This bus has a heavy Girard awning factory installed, so I am thinking BB must have taken care of the front axle GAWR. Or not.

On my '95 I bought the build file from Parliament, but the axle information was not in it. I am reluctant to do it again as there was very little info of value in that file.

I am currently collecting VIN and chassis numbers around early 2000 coaches to see if I can bracket mine. It is F128626, but an unknown manufacture date.

pgchin · (This post was last modified: 09-16-2013 13:48 by pgchin.)

(09-16-2013 10:17)rrueckwald Wrote: Thanks, Pete. I have the 9.00" rims. I got the only numbers off the axle and called Rockwell (Meritor) who did not recognize the numbers. I wonder if Ridewell would? This bus has a heavy Girard awning factory installed, so I am thinking BB must have taken care of the front axle GAWR. Or not.

On my '95 I bought the build file from Parliament, but the axle information was not in it. I am reluctant to do it again as there was very little info of value in that file.

I am currently collecting VIN and chassis numbers around early 2000 coaches to see if I can bracket mine. It is F128626, but an unknown manufacture date.

Ron,
If it were me I'd call Ridewell and see if they can explain the differences between a 14.6 and a 16k front axle. Then see if you can match up your components. Alvin Meditor has been no help to me in the past on Ibeams but Ridewell has.
http://www.ridewellcorp.com/home.html
"Bracketing" is a good task to do for the group and this thread can be used to do it if all LXI's owners list body numbers and years HOWEVER be aware just because you "fall" into a bracket does NOT necessarily mean you will have that axle..... Wink

As an example, you could fall into 1 bracket and the PO did an upgrade that is not documented or a bus was ordered with not as many options and the factory used a lower rated axle(each one of these things were custom ordered and custom built)........... The best info would be in the differences from 14.6-16k from Ridewell so you can look at actual components to see what you do or do not have. FWIW ,as I said in the past, IBEAM's are old technology decades old and built rock solid..... not much there but attachment points, king pins, ball joints, tie rods and associated connectors, etc........ I'd love to know what they say........ Wink

with only a 1400LB differential, I'd doubt much was changed besides rims , tie rod ends, and tires but that is just a SWAG! Tongue

PS If you got a blue box form the PO, then there is a spec sheet enclosed listing the axles' part numbers and serial numbers from Ridewell as well as being on the axles themselves.

PSS Suggestion to help you: As a trial Balloon to my theory above maybe you and David B can list your tie rod end part numbers and let's see if they are the same or different as David has a 16k axle??????? Tie Rod ends are the "weakest" chain the link so if they upgraded components, they'd surely start there...........

Kurt Ickler · 09-17-2013, 23:43

Our bus is a 2001 Lx40,s/n F130222 built in Feb.2001. The placard lists the front axle rating @14600, however I called Spicer (now eaton/roadranger) and gave them the part # on the axle...same as David's 161BN2081...the service tech was very helpful and explained to me that number covers the complete assembly from spicer....king pins,snout,etc...all rated at 16,000lbs....I assume that if the rating is less it would be because the of the mounting to the Bluebird chassis. 15k miles ago we changed to the 9" wide alcoas and to the 315/80R/22.5 tires.We have noticed that our bus rode a little high in the back,so we 'topped off" all the fluids,and went thru the scales. We are way out of whack...15,300/steer..15050/drive...13010/tag...need to adjust airbag height and tag axle pressure for major weight distribution...

pgchin · 09-18-2013, 15:22

David,
As always, many thanks Smile

I had a sneaking suspicion the axles were "close" and Kurt provided another data-point
Kurt,
Many thanks for the reminder! Big Grin

.old age and forgetfulness!!!!!! Tongue

,Yeah, the "cradle" is different between David's 02 and my 95...... we did some "comparing" about 5-6 years ago when the 95-97 shock mounts started breaking and David posted what he found out about the 2 cradles from the manufacturer so I would agree the "axle" may indeed not be the "weakest link"....... I have no idea when the cradles were upgraded I.E. what years....... but I do remember David's is VERY different than mine and much more "stout"............

davidbrady · (This post was last modified: 09-18-2013 16:00 by davidbrady.)

Kurt,

That is an interesting weight distribution to say the least. I did some back of the envelop calcs and I think if you bring your tag axle down to 10,000# you'll gain 4000# on your drive and you'll lose 1000# on your steer for a distribution of: 14K, 19K, 10K: steer, drive, and tag. As you know you can remove weight from the tag by adjusting the tag axle air pressure regulator. You'll also have a better percent weight distribution on the steer axle of approximately 32%; I've been tracking this for a while and it seems most buses carry around 30% on their steer axles. I wonder what your weights are on either side of the drive and tag axle? It could be that one side is much heavier than the other hence the lack of overall weight on your drive - someone may have set it up that way to compensate for side-to-side imbalances. The drive axle is the beefiest of the three so it stands to reason that you should be exploiting the capacity it provides. Your bus will probably ride, handle, and brake better with some weight distribution changes.

(09-16-2013 13:12)pgchin Wrote: PSS Suggestion to help you: As a trial Balloon to my theory above maybe you and David B can list your tie rod end part numbers and let's see if they are the same or different as David has a 16k axle??????? Tie Rod ends are the "weakest" chain the link so if they upgraded components, they'd surely start there...........

Hi Pete,

I have a Blue Bird part number for my steer axle of: 0014617. In a minute I should be able to dig up some tie-rod part numbers.

BTW, I inadvertently deleted (and re-posted) my posting. This post should appear before Pete's post above! Sorry for the confusion.

Pete,

My tie rod ends are: 220TR115 (left) and 220TR116 (right).

cmillsap · (This post was last modified: 09-19-2013 00:31 by cmillsap.)

(09-14-2013 23:23)rrueckwald Wrote: My data placard is gone, destroyed when the PO had the TV cabinet rebuilt, so I am having difficulties establishing which front axle rating I have. Do you know if BB cut the 15,500 front axle into production at a given coach number? I have F128626, a 2000 single slide, built somewhere between November, 1999 and February, 2000. After reading this thread, it is clear why I am having this difficulty.

Ron,

My body # is F125610, Serial # 89307. No Date. If the same results hold true regarding body #s on all LXi's as with the body #s on all M380s, the body # will not develop any useable patterns to track assembly times.

I did a spread sheet (can be found on WOG) trying to track the blown head gasket
issue on the Cummins ISL 400 engine. The information was collected on several M380s but was useless in tracking when the problem may have started and ended.

David,

The PO's maintenance notes on my bus indicates the 14600# axle was completely removed and replaced with a new 16000# axle. But who knows for sure? It reads as follows:

08/15/2000 to 08/24/2000. Invoice # 1181-Replaced new front axle 16000# from 14600#. New tires and rims all around 315/80R/22.5

Chuck

davidbrady · (This post was last modified: 09-19-2013 11:44 by davidbrady.)

(09-19-2013 00:20)cmillsap Wrote: David,

The PO's maintenance notes on my bus indicates the 14600# axle was completely removed and replaced with a new 16000# axle. But who knows for sure? It reads as follows:

08/15/2000 to 08/24/2000. Invoice # 1181-Replaced new front axle 16000# from 14600#. New tires and rims all around 315/80R/22.5

Chuck

Hey Chuck,

We'll compare steer axle setups at the WaGu rally. Mine's slightly complicated because my bus was shipped with the 220TR115(116) tie rod ends, which incidentally are rated for 22,000lbs, but I swapped them out for a drop socket assembly to lower the tie rod cross-bar. I don't know if you remember that thread, but way back I had an issue with the cross bar making contact with a frame member when the suspension is dumped. Lowering the cross-bar solved the issue. Dana Spicer set me up with a new tie rod assy: cross-bar and tie rod ends.

(09-17-2013 23:43)Kurt Ickler Wrote: We are way out of whack...15,300/steer..15050/drive...13010/tag...need to adjust airbag height and tag axle pressure for major weight distribution...

Kurt, for every pound of load removed from the tag axle you should gain approximately 1.333x that on the drive axle and lose approximately 0.333x that on the steer axle; i.e., 1000# off the tag adds 1333# to the drive and removes 333# from the steer.

This formula came about by calculating your LX's center of gravity and assumes a wheel base of 248" and a distance between tag and drive wheels of 48"