04-22-2015, 10:18 AM
Met Keith in Denver Saturday morning, rented a car and headed out to look the donor bus over. Keith discovered that it had a ZF Ecomat 2 6 speed automatic instead of the advertised Allison B400R. Wasn't misrepresentation by the seller, I saw the documentation that he was provided prior to going to Denver.
Did some online research of the ZD, and felt that it wasn't a show stopper. Only has one overdrive of .83 instead of the Allison's two, but think that might actually be better for not having to change the differential once it's installed. Took it for a test run and everything was as good or better than expected. Was governed at 70mph, which was better than the donor bus Keith got that was governed at 50mph.
We planned on taking I70 into Utah, but the storm that hit there Thursday pretty much decided that one for us. Ran into some weather on I80 but did make it back to Boise.
The helper that I had arranged to be here to help Keith was a no show Monday morning, so he got stuck with me taking the 8v92 out. Great learning experience for me, discovered that what I thought was an adequately equipped shop wasn’t even close. Had to run around town picking up tools and still took all day just to get the motor out. Keith very politely explained what was necessary to prevent a 100 hour job from becoming a 500+ hour job, so I knew I had to make some adjustments to my expectations.
Looking for a shop now that can do the job, my wife has some pretty good business contacts and shouldn’t be a problem.
Was really nice to finally meet Keith in person, what a genuinely great guy. All my friends that came over thought he was the bomb, and my wife was sorry to see him leave. Won’t have any problem at all convincing her to go up to Canada and taking Keith up on his offer to take us fishing.
Once I find a shop, I’ll make sure to stop in and get some pictures of the swap.
Did some online research of the ZD, and felt that it wasn't a show stopper. Only has one overdrive of .83 instead of the Allison's two, but think that might actually be better for not having to change the differential once it's installed. Took it for a test run and everything was as good or better than expected. Was governed at 70mph, which was better than the donor bus Keith got that was governed at 50mph.
We planned on taking I70 into Utah, but the storm that hit there Thursday pretty much decided that one for us. Ran into some weather on I80 but did make it back to Boise.
The helper that I had arranged to be here to help Keith was a no show Monday morning, so he got stuck with me taking the 8v92 out. Great learning experience for me, discovered that what I thought was an adequately equipped shop wasn’t even close. Had to run around town picking up tools and still took all day just to get the motor out. Keith very politely explained what was necessary to prevent a 100 hour job from becoming a 500+ hour job, so I knew I had to make some adjustments to my expectations.
Looking for a shop now that can do the job, my wife has some pretty good business contacts and shouldn’t be a problem.
Was really nice to finally meet Keith in person, what a genuinely great guy. All my friends that came over thought he was the bomb, and my wife was sorry to see him leave. Won’t have any problem at all convincing her to go up to Canada and taking Keith up on his offer to take us fishing.
Once I find a shop, I’ll make sure to stop in and get some pictures of the swap.
Jon & Chris Everton
1986 40' Dog House #86
450 hp ISM 5 spd ZF Ecomat 2
2004 Range Rover L322 Toad