BusBuilding

Correct brake adjustment is critical in keeping the brake system operating in a fail-safe manner.

The brake chamber strokes, and through the linkage, mechanically moves the brake shoes against the brake drum. Typically, the maximum stroke is two to three inches, depending on the size of the brake chamber. As the brake shoes wear, the shoe/drum clearance continues to increase. Excessive clearance (brakes out of adjustment) will cause the chamber(s) to stroke near their maximum before the shoes contact the drum. With the brake chambers near maximum stroke, as the brake drum heats and expands, the shoes follow the expansion. Due to the mechanical advantage (ratio) between the brake chamber rod and shoe movement, very little drum growth will cause the chamber rod to move sufficiently to become fully stroked! Braking action on that wheel will be greatly reduced!

Once this concept is understood, it is easy to grasp that descending a grade with brake chambers at near maximum stroke spells pending disaster.

Air Brake Basics 101, by Dave Galey & Dick Stafford, Bus Conversions Magazine, January, 2006.

Fresh, from MCI:

2006 Coach Guard® catalog now available: MCI’s latest catalog of its own line of premium-quality, value-priced parts is now available online. In it, you’ll find a full selection of quality parts, including in-demand items like air system components, LED lights, brake shoes and anchor pins. All Coach Guard parts are tested to make sure they meet or exceed OEM standards, and all are a great value.

No prices listed, but having the part numbers gives a good head-start.

For 15 years, the 1939 International bus dubbed “Furthur” has been rusting away in a swamp in Oregon. With a $100,000 restoration, the owner of the historic roadhouse Barney’s Beanery in Los Angeles hopes to resurrect the old bus so it can help tell the story of Kesey, the Merry Pranksters and the psychedelic 1960s.

“I consider the bus to be one of the most important icons of the ’60s Counter Culture,” says Bob Santelli, artistic director of the Experience Music Project in Seattle. “Inside that bus occurred many of the things the counter culture was all about, from a revolutionary perspective. That is mobility, freedom to be on the move, and to react to situations and create situations… and the importance of music in a cultural revolution.”

Full story: AP/Yahoo News

…thanks to ‘Airless’ on the BNO Forum.

Excerpts from a 2005 University of Michigan Survey Research Center Study:

More American households — an estimated 7.9 million — own RVs today than at any time previously, with some 8% of U.S. households owning a traditional RV last year. That’s up from 7.6% in the last survey conducted in 2001 and it’s 58% higher than when the first survey was taken in 1980.

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Straight from the source, this comprehensive 63 page pdf download explains everything you wanted to know and more about air brake systems.

From the one-page Introduction to Air Brake Systems:
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When the man at the auto repair shop told him that it would cost $1,400 to fix his car’s air conditioning, he just laughed and said, “I can fix it myself for a whole lot less than that!”