Frieghtiner/Cummins bus, died, no start, no wait to start light

[erobb]

Howdy folks, long time member, but I don't get on this forum very often unless I have a problem.

Last year our church purchased a 1999 Freightliner bus with Blue Bird body and the Cummins 5.9 engine. I myself have owned a 98 Dodge Ram 24 valve I kept my truck running for 385k and the engine in the bus it virtually the same so I help service the bus. It has been fairly reliable in the time we have owned it, a little more than a year.

Recently it began giving us problems in that it refused to start after sitting all week, I traced it down to the water dump valve on the fuel filter housing leaking ever so slightly, and allowing the fuel to drain back to the tank as it sat all week long, we only run it on Sunday's.

This past Sunday however, the weather has turned colder here, bus started perfectly, they headed out to pick up kids, the driver hit a fairly decent sized bump where 2 sections of pavement join together, the bus lost power and died. The bus will spin over but not start, I haven't had a chance to check and see if I have lift pump pressure yet, I want to install a pressure gauge but keep getting the run around, the Pastor doesn't want to spend the money, I keep telling him he can spend a few bucks on a pressure gauge or over $1000 on a VP44 but he doesn't listen or understand.

I have noticed that when I turn on the key, I no longer get the wait to start light. So I'm concerned that something went bad in the ECM or something, I can't hook up a scanner to this thing, and I can't even find where the diagnostic port is on the bus.

So, I'm not sure where to even begin at this point, also the weather is supposed to warm up toward the end of the week, so waiting for that to happen before I begin trying to diagnose the problem.

I have done a google search and found similar problems listed, but no clear answers as to what the fix was. Also, there was a recall campaign by Cummins in 2005-2006 in which the lift pump and VP44 and ECM were replaced and a fuel pressure sensor installed in the fuel filter housing, our bus had this recall completed.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[mwilson]

Please provide the last 6 of the vin.

 

[erobb]

I'm trying to get the VIN, I have placed a call to the church, the assistant Pastor will get it when he gets out of a meeting.

Thanks

 

[mwilson]

Ok, great. I think it is a wiring issue, but need the vin to bring up the proper schematics. Then I'll drag my little Cummins tech in here for a conference.......

 

[GCroyle]

Mike,

Ya deserve a warm spot to relax a bit tonight.

Nice job for trying.

Gary

 

[erobb]

Ok, sorry for the long response time, must have been a friggin long meeting he was in. I'm thinking he went and had lunch, maybe ran a couple errands before he got back to me.

Anyway. Last 6 of VIN are A27318.

And also, Thanks a lot for trying to help.

 

[mwilson]

No problem, just went out and asked Donnie (Cummins Guru) to stop in my office before he goes home...probably thinks that he is in trouble......I'll let him wonder....

 

[mwilson]

Diagnostic connector located on the right hand side in the interior. Over where the drivers usually keep the trash can. There is a plastic panel you pop out and the connector is down inside. For some reason the FS-65 bus chassis has it over there.

There are several fuses in the chassis harness. Make sure that you have power to the ECM. It appears to me that the grid heaters will not work if there is no power to the ECM.

I have 6 pages of chassis and engine side wiring schematics sitting in a folder ready to send. Please provide your e-mail address. You can put it on this thread, PM me or send an e-mail to -- email address removed --.

May just be a broken wire or a bad fuse.


Mike.

 

[erobb]

Thanks Mike, I responded to your link you provided above.

Sorry I have been extremely busy this morning so I didn't have time to check this thread until now.

 

[mwilson]

Thanks Mike, I responded to your link you provided above.

Sorry I have been extremely busy this morning so I didn't have time to check this thread until now.

That's all right, I must confess that I went flying out the door tonight and forgot to send it....

I am at a different location tomorrow but will re-create and get it to you. My apologies.

Mike.

 

[TFucili]

Memory is the second thing to go, Mike

 

[MMeier]

Whats the first ??

 

[TFucili]

Whats the first ??

I forgot...

 

[erobb]

UPDATE: I tried to do a little work on this thing last evening, although it was completely dark by the time I got home from work. I found the fuse box behind a cover on the right side of the dash as mwilson described. I could find no fuses that were blown. Also found what I believe is a diagnostic port behind the cover as well, it's a round gray plug with 5 or 6 pins. So I have no way of hooking up to it for a scan.

Also, mwilson mentioned several fuses hidden in the wiring harness, but I have no idea where to even begin looking, there are a bunch of wiring harnesses under the hood of this bus.

I wish someone could help me out with this thing, I was wanting to work on it tomorrow, because if it is something simple and can be fixed we would like to run it this Sunday.

I am going to place a call to our local Freightliner dealer in the area, see if they have someone's brain I can pick.

Still, looking for answers at this point.

Thanks

 

[mwilson]

Don't give up on me just yet.....

Am up in Houlton prepping for our inventory this afternoon. There is a tech up here that used to be at our Bangor location that can help us. Am going to get with him at lunchtime. I think the fuses in the diagram that I need to get to you are in the harness or the battery box area.

Will get back to you later on......I can do it from the house tonight if needed so that you can have the wiring diagrams for tomorrow.

Mike.

 

[erobb]

Thanks, I did talk to our local Freightliner dealer, they were no help at all really, they suggested I call a local shop that works on school buses exclusively.

I did call talk with a gentleman at that shop, he said he has seen corrosion in the ECM plugs, since our state started using salt brine solution a few years ago. He suggested I unhook the batteries, clean all grounds I can find, pull and inspect the ECM plugs, re hook batteries, and use a test light to verify each and every fuse in the fuse box is hot, not just do a visual inspection as he says sometimes it's hard to see if they are blown. I know that and I'm not sure why I didn't think of that myself last night, would have been easier than pulling each one and trying to see if it was blown while juggling a flashlight.

He said he had a bus do something similar to ours last year, but it was after they went through some standing water, the bus lost power and died. Ended up just being a blown fuse.

Any diagrams would be helpful however.

Thanks

 

[mwilson]

Thanks, I did talk to our local Freightliner dealer, they were no help at all really, they suggested I call a local shop that works on school buses exclusively.

I did call talk with a gentleman at that shop, he said he has seen corrosion in the ECM plugs, since our state started using salt brine solution a few years ago. He suggested I unhook the batteries, clean all grounds I can find, pull and inspect the ECM plugs, re hook batteries, and use a test light to verify each and every fuse in the fuse box is hot, not just do a visual inspection as he says sometimes it's hard to see if they are blown. I know that and I'm not sure why I didn't think of that myself last night, would have been easier than pulling each one and trying to see if it was blown while juggling a flashlight.

He said he had a bus do something similar to ours last year, but it was after they went through some standing water, the bus lost power and died. Ended up just being a blown fuse.

Any diagrams would be helpful however.

Thanks

Have talked with Mark, should be two fuses in the battery box. The three others are in the panel that you were exploring last night. He has seen one bus that had the suports for one section of the harness rot off and let it fall onto the driveshaft. Same model bus, Mercedes power instead of Cummins but the harness may be routed in a similar fashion.
The buses are a little different than a standard Freightliner truck...

You wires will be all white or yellow with numbers every foot or so. That will help you make sense of the diagrams that I will send you later on.
Mark thinks the ECM has lost power too.

Mike.

 

[mwilson]

They are sent. If anyone else would like to view them in the interest of assistance let me know and I will send them to you via e-mail. I can't get them linked to this site and don't have any spare time today to try and figure out how to do it.

I hate inventory, this is the fourth one in 6 weeks. One more after this.....

Mike.

 

[erobb]

I got them.

Thanks much!!

I may even try to leave work early today and get a head start on this, while it is still daylight.

Will report back my findings but probably not until Monday.

Thanks again.

 

[erobb]

Just wanted to send a big ole Thank You to mwilson.

I was able to diagnose the problem with the schematics you sent me. Indeed there are 5 fuses in the wiring harness in the battery box. These all supply power to the ECM directly. At first I only found 3, and they were all good. After checking a few other things, I consulted your drawings, it was then that I realized there were supposed to be 5 not 3, after finding the other 2 fuses, one of them was blown.

The fuse was replaced and the bus fired right up, and ran fine on Sunday.

Not exactly sure why the fuse blew, which worries me a little, but if it acts up again we will now know which circuit to chase, and look for a frayed wire or something. All is good for now.

Thanks again!!