Why I won't be ready for the $2020 Challenge

Did some digging on 5.9 coolant leaks last night. This installation doesn't have several of the usual suspects for leaks on the passenger side of the block because of the heater format (LOTS of other potential leak points compared to the normal pickup truck installation, though).

Pushing past those search results, I eventually come upon mention of "its leaking somewhere on the passenger side, near the freeze plugs, behind the turbo, but not seeing anything obviously suspect", followed by "is it a 53 block?".

*spidey senses*

I don't know Cummins well, so I look into 53 blocks, find lots of grim articles along the lines of "the fatal flaws of the 53 block 5.9 used between 1998.5 and 2000".

*spidey senses intensify*

One of which is water jacket cracking.

*oh no*

On the passenger side.

Behind the turbo.

And sure enough, mine is a 53.

So I'm going to try to get ahold of a pressure tester and maybe some UV dye and see if its as bad as I think it is. 

On the bright side, if its a cracked block, I won't have to pay a shop to diagnose and fix it over the holidays.

Nice stove John!

Degreased the passenger side of the engine the best I could short of powerwashing or disassembling. Bottle of UV dye in the header tank, brought it up to temp, and checked for wet spots.

Cracked block. Looks to be about 3" long, horizontal, passenger side, right behind the turbo on the underside of a lip/shelf in the casting.

Put a bottle of block seal in it. We'll see if that slows the leak down.

Diesel mechanic at work used a block sealant called k56 or something on our trucks, relatively  expensive but effective. Could that be brazed at a good welding shop?

My closest cheap diesel contact is up in TN, but he’s also the best! Not the fastest, but has the top quality and good price part. 

Do have good shop I trust on the SE side of enterprise.  Pro Masters Automotive. They’ve got the good and fast part down, but they ain’t cheap!

Can ask around about some high end block sealant, but don’t know if it will do that. Might. 

Ive also used a industrial type of j b weld (belzona) helped a sbc for a while. But again, not ideal. 

My guy in TN will prolly let you do your own work there, with his help.   Charged me $400 (and I bought about $500 in parts) to help me diagnose and repair the Allison 3060 in my Freightliner.... a big truck shop would have been over several thousand. 

Prolly has a block, or a short block, or a used engine around as well, if ya have to go that route. 

Bummer.  Can you use a 5.9 out of a ram pickup or is there a bus version that is special for some reason?  How about an upgrade to the 6.7? 

Still scheming on the long-term solution.

We didn't really plan on using this as a long distance vehicle, but it would be nice to have a trustworthy drivetrain in it.

As far as I'm aware, a Dodge pickup 5.9 should be the same animal, just with different plumbing fittings. A slightly newer or older casting would be the easiest answer. 

I wouldn't complain if it had a little more grunt on big hills, but I'm a bit leery of an engine/trans swap of this magnitude.

Bit of an update.

Drove the old girl back to Kansas in early June. Was almost entirely without incident, though when we stopped for diesel at 4am just short of Tupelo, there was oil on the side of the bus and the crankcase level was real low. A very dark couple hours of researching "why is my 5.9 puking oil" led me to blowby. Limped it to the diesel truck service center at the next exit and talked to the goodest and oldest of the good old boys about it. He eventually settled on "it doesn't seem to be knocking, and if it's still running okay, fill it back up with oil, zip tie some empty jugs to the oil breather tubes, keep the speed under 60 and keep an eye on the oil level". So that's what I did. No further issues, and next to no oil wound up in the catch cans. Best I could figure after the fact was maybe it was puking oil as a side effect of being in the governor so much. Had kind of a heavy foot through Birmingham.

The rear fresh water barrel slipped out of its rear saddle strap in southeast Missouri and by the time I realized it was dragging, it had rubbed a hole through the bottom of the barrel. Secured it and carried on.

Since then, really haven't done much with it until today. We replaced the stove in the house, and in the couple of days between removing the old and installing the new, we used the bus stove. The fridge in our house shot craps last week, so we stole the mini fridge from the bus. Will need to put it back tomorrow when we take delivery of the new house fridge.

This morning, I hauled the solar panels out of the back of the shop and got reacquainted with the ins and outs of solar power systems. Ordered the wiring needed, and bit the bullet and ordered pre-made bracketry to install the panels on the roof. The brackets ran nearly $300, but I suspect they'll work at least as well as I could have made, and be a hell of a lot less work in the meantime. The parts should be here by this weekend. Also swapped out the damaged fresh water barrel with a new one.

We're pretty seriously considering tying off the loose ends of the build and putting it up on Airbnb at $100 a night.

Seems like a solid plan (AirBnB).  Bummer about the block crack but happy it seems to be doing alright for the time being.  Weird issue with the oil.  Hopefully you're right about the cause and it can be avoided.  

are you going to let people drive it? Or just sleep in it?

Because airbnb is a good idea for the latter, but there are RV 'airbnb' websites out there too for the former. You could likely get some good coin from that. 

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

The latter, for sure.

Knuckled down and spent about $400 to get the rest of the bits and pieces needed to mount and wire the solar panels into my battery system.

This is probably gross over-engineering, but wanted to err on the side of excess. Each panel has a pair of 1x1x1/8" aluminum angles bolted to it, one on each long edge. Each angle has three aluminum swivel brackets bolted to it on a 28" center, corresponding with the spacing of the bus ribs. Each bracket is secured through the roof to the ribs with two big screws and sealed with seam sealer.

Panels are wired in series-parallel; two sets of two panels in series, and the pairs in parallel. Max output of the panels is roughly 8 amps and 38 volts, so max input to the charge controller is about 16 amps and 76 volts. Controller rated for 30 amps at 100 volts, so there's room for another pair of panels if I decide I need them. Controller necks the power down to 30 amps at 12 volts.

Long term plan is to build a set of props to fit the brackets so I can raise the panels toward a more efficient angle for catching sunlight.