The Signs

October 2021 Update

In September, after I had shown off 1130 at the 1046 charter, my focus now shifted to beginning chipping away at some of the lighter work needed for the bus to pass its CVIP inspection that I brought it in for in August. For the most part this included simple things like changing several light bulbs that had since burned out, giving the battery tray some more love by installing the battery hold-down from 671 along with a locking pin to prevent battery theft, and repairing the spring for the fuel door which broke on me at one point as well. I also bought a fire extinguisher and hazard triangle kit to keep inside the bus.

I didn’t mention it here previously, but another major issue the inspection had revealed that I wasn’t aware of was that the middle and passenger side sections of 1130’s front bumper weren’t securely fastened to the bumper frame at the bottom. Upon taking an up close look at this myself I realized that the screws fastening the rubber body of the bumper had been ripped out. I guess a previous owner of the bus had ran the bumper against a high curb and caused this while trying to back it up afterwards. Luckily it wasn’t too badly damaged, and I took care of this by drilling in some new screws to firmly hold the bumper in place.

Fast forwarding now to later in the fall, in October, as I barely had time to do anything at all with 1130 during the latter half of September due to work. On a warm Fall day I decided to take the bus for a quick spin to a truck wash located in Foothills Industrial as I had still yet to take 1130 in for a proper wash up until now. The bus ran beautifully and I made a quick impromptu photo stop on Dufferin Blvd SE on my way there upon noticing the old bus stop signage for discontinued Routes 176 and 409 still there. Enjoy the following photos of 1130’s first daytime appearance on Calgary’s city streets in over a decade!

Now, aside all that, as per the title of this chapter, my biggest task with 1130 during these few months was dealing with the bus’ destination sign system as there was a number of things still wrong with it. After relying on Ken up until now, I decided to finally get down to learning the system’s operation for myself so that I could try and get it fixed in a timely manner. The first thing I wanted to fix was the positioning of the front sign as the sign being off centred in the slot with a large gap at one end (this is very noticeable in my above photos of the bus posed as Route 409) had started to annoy the hell out of me over time. Due to this being originally an MCI Classic side sign, it was too short for the existing mounting brackets in 1130’s front sign compartment by about 3 inches. To compensate for this, Ken and I had used 3.5 inch bolts at one end (and the proper screws at the other end) when we were originally mounting the sign, hence the large gap. So, I removed the sign itself along with the brackets, and got my dad to weld a 1.5 inch extension to each bracket. This way I not only could now mount the sign properly using its original screws, but it would now be centred in the slot without any gaps, making it look much better. I also gave the glass a good cleaning to get rid of some dirt spots all over the inside surface of it.

Next on my to-do list for the system was the side sign still being jumbled up despite Ken installing a new control board for it in August. This would prove to be a very easy fix. After testing it using the Black/Yellow sweep function I found out that the middle of the three sections of the side sign was scrolling to the left instead of to the right and as a result exposing letters backwards. I flipped the data cable around for that section and connected it the other way, after which the sign worked flawlessly.

Now came two much more challenging issues to figure out with the signs. The sign lights tripping the system out, and the rear route box not functioning whatsoever. I decided to try and figure out the lights first and worry about the rear sign last as the rear sign is most likely a deeper problem in the system than just the sign itself (I did verify this by plugging my 1999 D40LF rear sign into 1130’s system and finding that one to behave in the exact same way).

While searching for the cause of the sign light problem, eventually I was able to find the power cable for the front sign’s light inside its back cover and connect it to power, after which I found that light to work great. However the original problem still remained with the system tripping out after several minutes with only that light connected, and much faster with two or more lights (side and rear sign) connected. I spent many hours diagnosing the electrical wires around the sign system and while for the most part everything works properly, I eventually narrowed it down to the red 12- to 24-volt “step-up converter” which seemed to have an issue with any sign lights activated despite working normally with none. I tried running the system both with and without the converter and discovered that it stayed on with all 3 sign lights activated when the converter was completely removed from the system, though unfortunately the signs themselves wouldn’t work properly under only 12 volts. So, I took the converter home to have a good look at it.

When I opened up the converter, I saw a small transformer inside of it that was showing obvious signs of having severely overheated at some point in the past, with melted insulation and a dark mark on the red metal casing above it. I have a small amount of doubt this was due to the system currently installed in 1130 as the box never got warm to the touch as I was doing my own tests of the system. I suspect the transformer may have an internal short that could be responsible for the sign lights not working properly although I am not 100% certain on that at this time. Regardless, I will need to replace this part of 1130’s sign system due to the obvious damage, either with an authentic Vultron step-up converter of the same type if I can find one, or by wiring in a different converter to do the same job if I can’t find an authentic replacement.