Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 09, 2025 ...

Re: Overheating? 6V92

Reply #25 – June 20, 2020, 06:00:53 pm

The OP may have had an air bubble  in the system or poor ground.  Get it running and turn the lights on. If the  gauge moves with changed voltage, recable  the connections.

 IMHO running some one elses bus at 235* seems a little inconsiderate. 

Quote Selected

Re: Overheating? 6V92

Reply #26 – June 20, 2020, 07:04:44 pm

If you had had numerous customers leaving hot areas before dawn because of set too low warning systems and pulling over in dangerous turnouts because they were afraid that their motors were going to fail if it's temp gauge moved you might have explored more info as to what the various then available power were actually capable of.

The Gillig rep was a great help as their Phantom chassis was the rapid transit districts in LA's choice for busses as was several customers who owned large garbage truck fleets and several customers who owned truck fleets.

Universally when I mentioned engines running at 220 and trans at 250 or over then grinned widely.

I rode along several times with Haribendians trash truck guys.  They all ran around the 220 to 230 range in hot weather.

Now if you tell me that this a problem 25 years later that's interesting. 

The Detroit's has a good warranty and I still owned the coaches during the delivery process up Baker grade.

Versus have them terrified about damage and leaving in the middle of the night and pulling over on grades in short turnouts that would be dangerous to merge back in traffic?

We did remote temp sensing with Oshkosh's engineers many times out of my store in the summer with both the Detroit guys present and the Allison guys at times.

Exact scenario up baker with the Detroit guys next to me.

They said we were so light they were not worried about those temps for the time we were actually on the grades.

Notice no warning come on?  It was tested to death.

25 years later possible problems is interesting.

Nothing was done without the manufacturers approval.  They rode along to see what exactly happened

Remember I planned on taking these back in trade someday. Versus they are damaged?

Countless conversations with worried customers. 

"Bob my temp gauge moved.  My car doesn't" 

I showed them video tapes of the exact same coach going up the grades with the gauges being visible and the Detroit and cat man in the video showing it's ok. 

Quote Selected

Re: Overheating? 6V92

Reply #27 – June 20, 2020, 07:15:39 pm

Bob,

The DDEC goes into shutdown at about 230 degrees. Half power for 30 seconds and then it shuts down. I have had it happen so never get anywhere near the 230 mark. The gauge is close to the DDEC specs and the Pro-Link readout.

There is just not enough radiator for hot summer weather and long grades. Any other season, I can charge up out of Death Valley and stay pretty cool.

Naturally, high elevation and hot weather are the worst.

Pierce

Quote Selected

Re: Overheating? 6V92

Reply #28 – June 20, 2020, 08:35:10 pm

Pierce,

The Silverleaf does work on the DDEC but DDEC II only has minimal readouts on the CAN bus. The transmission doesn't talk to the CAN bus so nothing from there.

Off the top of my head here are the monitors I use.

Coolant Temp
Oil Temp
Fuel Temp
Turbo PSI
Load %
Speed
Cruise Set Speed
Tach
Volts
Clock

These make it worth the price. There is a Gallons Per Hour reading that the software uses to calculate MPG (poorly).

I set mine up many years ago and haven't felt the need to go back and play with the new(er) software. I trust the ECM outputs way more than my dash gauges.

Silverleaf only reads from the CAN bus but its advantage is I can see every thing on the screen at the same time. Pro-Link can send commands into the CAN bus to update settings in the ECM. So a lot more functionality there. Draw back is that you have to scroll thru readouts line at a time. I'm still on the look out for a good deal on a Pro-Link & cartridge on ebay.

see ya
ken

 

Quote Selected

Re: Overheating? 6V92

Reply #29 – June 20, 2020, 09:00:35 pm

If in a dangerous location I remember  you can override the shutdown for 30 seconds a time.  Three times I think.

Foretravel programmed their own DDECll's engine boxes, 

I had Foretravel/Detroit  change the production engines power in oct 87 at the unihome introduction in because the originals were 277/840.  Customers Complained that there buddies were ribbing them that they had 300hp. 

The Allison guy and the Detroit guy and I were in the back of the room and they pulled out their pocket guides and said we can make it 300/820, 

Allison guy liked it because the ATEC 648 was nominally rated at 780.  So they approved the over spec use because of the light weight of the coach.

I thought the shutdown was 250?  Warning at 235?  Derate after 30 seconds? 

I helped set this stuff up 32 years ago but a lot of things have happened in between.

JamesT knows.  He worked with me among others to get this right.

He was at that same intro.  I told him I talked them into the 300/820 even though it's slower.

Mr Fore asked me why?  I told him it was killing my sales with a 277 rating.  He laughed.  He said he was never a good salesman and to go ahead

Quote Selected

Re: Overheating? 6V92

Reply #30 – June 20, 2020, 10:47:47 pm

Ray Davis with his CanPod bluetooth module works on Prevosts, Eagles, Wanderlodges, etc and with an iPad. The problem is that the bluetooth module is about $600 compared to $10 for a Ford or Toyota module that does the same thing. Web site: RV Techtools

The Pro-Link 9000 reader can be available for less than $100, sometimes way less. It's the cartridge that costs. Again, the Ford, etc cartridges are usually just thrown in for free.

The Pro-Link will read our Alilson HT- 746 but with a different cartridge and a different plug. See top right of A3376 https://www.foreforums.com/index.php?action=media;sa=album;in=194 I don't have the Allison schematic.

Yes, the ECM outputs a huge amount of information that never makes it to the dash but it takes the Mother Detroit to add horsepower.

Bob, yes, three times but that is usually enough to fry the engine. Too much torque for the lighter duty earlier transmission and probably heat for the rear radiator too. That ruled the earlier 6 speeds out until the world Allison came out. Then the Detroit would not smog.

Ours shuts down at 230°

You have a deluxe toad. Nice.

Pierce

Quote Selected

Re: Overheating? 6V92

Reply #31 – June 20, 2020, 11:13:56 pm

So irritating to find from the Allison man and a 87 FMCA show that the 3060 was done.  They had a 4060 also on displayI asked when we would see it and was told that the Allison line in Indianapolis had just been retooled for $500 million and that as they had no competition basically that it would be 4 years or more.  Gag.

My drives up baker grade in the summer had the temp gauge stop rising before any warnings or derating occurred.

As the gauge was probably too high I was under the warning limits.

The exact delivery in 30 degree lower ambient temps had the dash gauge almost exactly the same 30 degrees lower.

I doubt any owners ever pushed their coaches that hard ever.  But they knew it was capable of it.

Gilling reset their beaver  warning system to more reasonable numbers after I explained they were terrifying the owners as theirs came on at maybe 200 degrees. 

Enoch and I reset their Monaco settings also.  Enoch Hutchcraft was their engineering vp and a old street racing friend of mine.

The northwest Cummins distributor turned their engines power up for Monaco before shipping them to Oregon.  No fair.

I was an extreme user.  Ski at minus 30 in a ORED.  Desert/river  at 115. 

So the manufacturers came to my stores after I asked a lot of questions and telemetered coaches for testing.  Then adjusted their settings to match actual results.  Was great fun.  Customers got better setups. 

Maybe a few dared to have the temp gauge move but not many. 

Only ways to sell Foretravels was to tout the abilities.  Power to weight.  Rugged.  And the club.  New friends.

I had 10 foot long frame engineering drawing printouts from Oshkosh.  Spread them out on the desks.

Product sell.  Not the pretty.  Then the GV came around.  We laughed as it would sell.  And it did

Quote Selected