HDX School Bus Rear Emergency Window
You might be thinking what is there to talk about with the rear emergency window on a Thomas HDX pusher school bus? There’s a lot of information I’m going to share with you concerning the window alarm and the vandalock and some tips on keeping the window from seizing up when trying to open it.
This is crucial and the driver MUST check this window every day because if there’s an accident and that window does not open there will be hell to pay down the pipe. Our shop checks it every service at 5,000 KM. When the CVSE inspector finds one of those windows seized up he gets very angry. This should never happen.
Relying on the driver to open these windows every day works 99% of the time but there is that 1% of operators that do not think it’s important….don’t get me wrong we have very good drivers in our fleet but sometimes it doesn’t get checked enough times during the week. In other cases the cable and spring jams up and the window will not function properly.
One improvement thomas bus corp made was a longer handle to make the operation much easier with more leverage. I have to admit it takes a good pull to open the emergency window from the outside. Our shop uses PenLub spray to lubricate the channel that the window latching assembly slides back and forth on. The return spring has to be lined up so it does not go off course and stick…..then you want the cable linkage section to return to it’s proper spot.
Vandalock installation and alarm system
When we received these buses the first year and it started to rain our there was a constant problem with the rear window alarm going off. The only way to fix the problem was to blow off the moisture around the window frame with compressed air. The ground for the window alarm was riveted to the window frame which caused the ground continuity.
We decided to install the older version of the vandalock hardware from earlier bus models and they worked beautifully. It was a simple system with a push button switch and a deadbolt for the vandalock. This was an easy straight mechanical device that worked every time and the driver no longer had to radio in to us during his or her run complaining about an aggravating window alarm that wasn’t shutting off.
I’ve heard from Thomas Buses that there is a diode that can be added to fix this problem. This remedy happened way after we changed our system around so it’s staying the way it is. Thanks for stopping by and please check out the mechanicshub.com membership. It’s free to join and a place for men and women who like to pull wrenches to talk tech and help each other out.
