Replacing Power Steering Hoses on a pusher school bus

Replacing power steering hoses on a pusher school bus involves bypassing the original steel power steering lines. This school bus is almost 12 years old, the pipes deteriorate over time from rust and vibration. They are clamped to the underside and usually start to leak in that area.

To make the job quicker we replace the pressure and return lines with high pressure double wire braided hoses. The ends are pipe thread and can be easily adapted to fit properly. The factory piping needs to be flushed out after and plugged since it will drip oil for days after and appear to look like the power steering is still leaking.

The hoist makes this job much easier running the new lines and securing them to the body. Once the lines are installed, the filters in the reservoir should be changed and 10w30 engine oil added. We found on occasion that 15w40 is too heavy an oil and creates a backup in the reservoir causing seepage.

The hoses are approximately 40 feet long and can be made up at a hose shop. They have all the tools that a mechanic shop could not justify to have since this is not a regular failure. This mechanic fix isn't hard to diagnose since oil leaks are pretty obvious to the naked eye.

Replacing Worn Alternator Pulley Serpentine Belt

These are typical pulleys that run a serpentine belt on a Leece Neville alternator. The alternator pulley on the right is the original and is worn on the top edges of the pulley grooves. They are flattened out from belt wear which tells you how durable today's serpentine belts can be.

Of course we launced a campaign to replace the pulleys on the other buses spec'd with the same alternator. Click on the picture above for a closer look (if you could hold these pulleys in your hands you would see the wear much clearer)

The alternator puts out 160 amps so there will be a substantial load on the pulleys and the belt. The engine is a Cummins ISC which uses a tensioner pulley. If this pulley was left on any longer there very well could have been belt slippage eventually. Most mechanics (myself included) would not notice this wear especially during an alternator replacement.

We looked a little closer in this case because of a recurring charging system problem. That's what happens when you look a little deeper into a stubborn mechanical problem.