Itinerant Air-Cooled

Do you take notes and records when doing work on your ACVW's? I've got a Steno Notebook that I keep mainly to makes lists and then check off items on said list. But I wonder if it would be better to keep my notes in a journal format. I do record my odometer readings on the inside cover of my Bentley. And all of my receipts I keep in sock and underwear drawer.

Does anyone have a good system that works well for them?

Jeffrey keeps notes in a notebook and on his workbench of when he's working on something. He also types up what he does and keeps that in a word file. I've got a file for Phred in my file cabinet with every.single.receipt that's been issued except for gas when we are local. Phred is an asset of our business so I need to keep track for tax purposes.

Little notebook for maintenance records / mileage. File folder for purchases / receipts.

I got as far as creating the notebook.
It had boxes to fill in for valve adjustment amounts, etc. I even made a nice, blue cardboard cover for it.
That was two or three years ago and I still can't say, to the day, when my last oil change was. I can't even find the book.

BellePlaine wrote:Do you take notes and records when doing work on your ACVW's?

I quit that stuff long ago. Somewhere around 375,000 miles, I looked at all that crap and said No. No-no-no. But, I have an easy system. Since my odometers all work, I just change the oil at the 5,000 increments, and do the deluxe lubrication/maintenance/adjustments at 10,000 mile increments on the odometer. At 30,000 mile increments on the odometer, I will do the transaxle fluid and filters and front wheel bearing repack. Every 100,000 miles, I will do distributor caps and spark plug connectors/wires and brake fluid flush, CV repacks, pull heads and replace lifters and exhaust valves, etc.

At my rate of driving, oil change once a month, tune-up three times per itinerary, transaxle, front bearings once a year, and pull the heads and whatnot every three years. Poor BobD, itsacomin'.

Amskeptic wrote:

BellePlaine wrote:Do you take notes and records when doing work on your ACVW's?

I quit that stuff long ago. Somewhere around 375,000 miles, I looked at all that crap and said No. No-no-no. But, I have an easy system. Since my odometers all work, I just change the oil at the 5,000 increments, and do the deluxe lubrication/maintenance/adjustments at 10,000 mile increments on the odometer. At 30,000 mile increments on the odometer, I will do the transaxle fluid and filters and front wheel bearing repack. Every 100,000 miles, I will do distributor caps and spark plug connectors/wires and brake fluid flush, CV repacks, pull heads and replace lifters and exhaust valves, etc.

At my rate of driving, oil change once a month, tune-up three times per itinerary, transaxle, front bearings once a year, and pull the heads and whatnot every three years. Poor BobD, itsacomin'.

I like the easy-to-remember mileage increments, but I think until I become more comfortable with my bus, I might take good notes and record the timing setting, compression results, if any valves were tight, CHT's up the local hill, etc. Whether or not I go back and use that information; likely not.

I write down everything I do in a little green Burlington Northern book I found in the rail yard trash at Downers Grove, IL in 1982. It's fun to see where we've been, the bus and I. 30K miles in 7 years thru the brush and dust.

Amskeptic wrote: I have an easy system. Since my odometers all work, I just change the oil at the 5,000 increments, and do the deluxe lubrication/maintenance/adjustments at 10,000 mile increments on the odometer. At 30,000 mile increments on the odometer, I will do the transaxle fluid and filters and front wheel bearing repack. Every 100,000 miles, I will do distributor caps and spark plug connectors/wires and brake fluid flush, CV repacks, pull heads and replace lifters and exhaust valves, etc.

At my rate of driving, oil change once a month, tune-up three times per itinerary, transaxle, front bearings once a year, and pull the heads and whatnot every three years. Poor BobD, itsacomin'.

I'm curious for what maintenance schedule you'd recommend for us Summertime Only Belles? What if she's lucky to see 5,000 miles per camping season?

hambone wrote:I write down everything I do in a little green Burlington Northern book I found in the rail yard trash at Downers Grove, IL in 1982. It's fun to see where we've been, the bus and I. 30K miles in 7 years thru the brush and dust.

I've been by that Downers Grove Metra station, is that where you got your name, "Hambone"?

I just keep track of gas fillups & mileage; small notebook in the glovebox.

BellePlaine wrote: I'm curious for what maintenance schedule you'd recommend for us Summertime Only Belles? What if she's lucky to see 5,000 miles per camping season?

Change the oil in the fall.
Valve adjustment/tune-up in the spring.
"Deeper" maintenance items whenever the sunny day inspires you, you'll be doing them maybe once per decade.
Colin

justgimmecoffee wrote:I just keep track of gas fillups & mileage; small notebook in the glovebox.

I do that too...have a little pad of paper to keep track. It gets depressing sometimes when I calculate the MPG after a tankful of city-only driving.

Other than that, I keep track of my valve adjustments in a notebook, but that's really about it. I do my periodic maintenance based on the calendar, more so than the odometer.

...oh, and I also have a fat file folder for all of my parts purchases.

Hi Chris,
I use a 3 ring binder.
EZ to organize, add, discard, and keep things where I can find them.
Logs, procedures, misc reference, receipts, etc kept in different sections.
I find it very helpful to make brief notes when doing long term maintenance, makes it much easier the next time.
Somewhere along the way, I wound up w a bunch of those thin plastic 3 ring page protectors, they work well to keep things from falling out and to keep procedure notes clean when using them during maintenance.