Sweet Evening Breeze

My last post was in November when I drove the bus to Bluegrass International Trucks & Buses for repairs.  They have had the bus finished for about three weeks now.  Today I was finally able to get a corrected invoice from them so I could settle up.   The original estimate was for $5700 and change for all the work.  However the initial bill came in MUCH higher than that... almost three times.  However the service manager wrote down enough of the labor to make it more reasonable.  Still over the estimate by $2300.   Looking back at all the work they did, I knew they could not stick to the original estimate.  While the final bill of $8027 is hard to swallow, I do feel it is more reasonable.

I knew early on that they were having a really rough time in the R&R.  Some of these components had probably never been removed in over 30 years of service, so beating out, pulling out, heating, and drilling out was the norm in almost every instance.  James the mechanic that did almost all the work, said that nothing was coming apart easy.  So that told me that the labor hours were going to end up much more than normal.  Ok enough of that.

The breakdown is:  

$1593 to replace all inner and outer drive studs, remove drums and the complete brake assemblies on both drive axles, check bearings, brakes, and all related components.

$2530 to replace two slack adjusters complete, 2 s-cams, all cam bushings and 1 DD3 brake actuator, and 1 brake line from relay to can, and replace wheel seals on both drive axles.

$1866 to replace both king pins from front axles, replace drag link and tie rod .  Replace wheel seals and adjust brakes.

$960 to replace bearing assembly complete on street side tag axle, and replace seals on curb tag.

I still have a power steering leakage at the quick connect fittings in the engine room I want them to look at before I pick up the bus.  They also made me aware that I will need new axles and bearing on both drive wheels at some point before I start to do a lot of driving as they are worn, however I elected to not do that just right now.  The bearing are not spinning yet.  Axle surgeons will probably be the guys to actually do that work.

With a little luck maybe I can finally make the trip to Fred Hobe's in Florida to change out the steering gearbox and steering wheel assembly in early summer.  At any rate, right now she is much more road worthy than before.  Now it's all about credit card payments on all this.