BusBuilding

IF “the dreaded” happens to you and you find yourself in a situation where your bus must be towed, there are a number of issues to be aware of. Regardless of make, take the following advice and engrave it into your dashboard. (well, not literally!)

• You must pull the axles (or disconnect the drive-shaft)
• You must use a tow truck that has under-reach capability
• The suspension system and brakes must have air pressure at all times
• It ain’t gonna be cheap

RJ describes the process of removing the axles:

If you look at the hub on your drive axles there will be a plate that looks like a cover with probably 8, maybe 12 bolts around the circumference. Pull those bolts and pull the plate off, the axle will come out - the cover plate is actually the end of the axle shaft. Find an old plastic oil container and make a cover plate to put back on and you are ready to tow. If the axle won’t come out easily once you get the bolts out get the biggest hammer you own and give the centre of the plate one **ll of a smack a couple of times. You don’t need to lift the differential or anything like that - just pull the bolts and pull the axles.

And the godfather of bussin’, Luke of US Coach, explains the type of tow truck to tell the towing company you will require:

Regardless of the make, for any bus, tell the towing company you need a tractor which has an “under-reach,” or “roll-on, roll-off” capability with a minimum 100 inch boom. The same 10-wheeled truck as the 18-wheelers use. These trucks have a hydraulically operated boom that reaches under your coach and lifts it by the front axle. The truck operator then lifts it, crawls under and attaches securing chains, attaches an air line to your coach for suspension fill and brake release. You can then be towed anywhere.

Ordinary “Lifting Tow Trucks” tow from under the front bumper, or the front part of the structure, sometimes using with boards or other material, and the net effect is usually body damage. And we’re not talking a few wrinkles. The entire front of the coach can be warped by lifting on the wrong places.

And lastly, ‘Busted Knuckle’ writes:

Never ever let anyone try to tow your bus from the rear unless you want a U shaped piece of scrap for the kids to play in in the backyard. I’ve been around tow trucks all my life and buses for 10 years and have yet to see anyone successfully tow one from the rear without tearing something up.

Trust me you don’t want to read the whole pages referenced by the above links. I pulled the best info out and put it here - believe me on this. The links are there to give credit to the experts.

And it’s no surprise that if you’re doing any traveling at all, it can really pay to have a roadside assistance plan. Many of the best can be obtained through RV organizations or manufacturer’s clubs. For my money Coach-Net is the plan of choice, which I obtained at a discount as an FMCA member.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 21st, 2006 at 3:44 am and is filed under Bus Conversion, Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.