This little office is where they fix the destination signs for the vehicles.

This is the final article in a six-part series about Fleet Overhaul, the vehicle maintenance centre down at Burnaby Transit Centre. (Check out the earlier articles on the body shop; panel fabrication; the paint shop; high-mileage vehicle work; and the warehouse.)

A little room just to the side of the body shop floor is where the electronic signage is repaired.

The electric shop, where they fix vehicle elements with electronic components.

Overhaul manager Jeff Dow explained that they not only fix the signs, but also program them to flash custom messages like “Go Lions Go” or “Countdown 2 Gold,” which the buses showed for the Olympics.

There’s also an electric shop nearby, where electronic components of vehicles are repaired. Defrosters, fareboxes, new electronic motors, circuit boards, and more are taken care of here. (It’s a clean room, so we didn’t get to take an actual peek inside.)

Repairing wheelchair lifts for high-floor buses

The high-floor wheelchair lift repair area. The black frames (atop the blue structures) are the actual wheelchair lifts.

Wheelchair lifts for high-floor buses are in fact a special challenge for Fleet Overhaul.

While lifts for low-floor buses are just small ramps that flip onto the sidewalk, the high-floor lift is a complicated beast that extends out from under the driver’s seat, then lowers itself down to meet a passenger in the wheelchair.

The high-floor lifts can be quite finicky, and if they’re not working, it’s often because of alignment of the unit—not necessarily because the lift isn’t functioning.

The lifts often show up at Fleet Overhaul for repair work, and a small area is set aside for those tasks.

Considering the warehouse setup at Fleet Overhaul, you might have guessed that Fleet Overhaul does build all the parts for the lift. There’s only one company in the U.S. that supplies the high-floor lift parts, and it’s much easier and cheaper for Fleet Overhaul to make the parts themselves.

So here is a video of a wheelchair lift being tested! (That’s overhaul manager Jeff Dow who steps in to explain a few things about the lift.)

And that’s it for the series on Fleet Overhaul! It has been quite some work putting all of this together and I sure hope you enjoyed it.

A big thanks to Jeff Dow and Jack McKenna for their patience and help with these articles. And of course, a big thanks to the hard working crew out at Fleet Overhaul!

A glimpse of the warehouse space at Fleet Overhaul. Sorry for the out-of-focus-ness of the photo!

Fleet Overhaul also contains a big warehouse of bus parts, which is about 40,000 square feet.

The warehouse has about 60 to 70 per cent of our total inventory—the rest is new items that have to be ordered as needed.

This warehouse supplies Fleet Overhaul and all the outlying transit centres across the Lower Mainland with any bus parts they might need.

During the day, each transit centre e-mails the warehouse staff about what parts they need. The items get picked out in the afternoon, and then at midnight every night, two trucks go out and tour all the transit centres, dropping off products.

It’s a bit easier for Fleet Overhaul staff: since they’re in the same building, they just go over to the warehouse office and order the parts they need.

Also, sitting next door to the warehouse is the Materials Control office. That’s the department in charge of regulating the warehouse inventory, including buying parts and issuing work orders so Fleet Overhaul staff will produce parts. Materials Control basically makes sure that all the items we need are actually on hand.

Making parts in the fabrication shop

The fabrication shop at Fleet Overhaul, where vehicle parts are created! (The body shop we talked about earlier is actually to the left of this photograph. A wall separates the two shops.)

The fabrication shop at Fleet Overhaul is where licensed machinists produces many crucial vehicle parts needed by our fleet.

They rework existing parts to exacting specifications until they are like new and ready to be used.

A rear wheel hub that will be repaired.

The Magnaflux, which helps identify microscopic cracks in vehicle parts.

For example, in the photo at right, here’s a rear wheel hub that the machinists will repair.

There are holes in the top of the wheel hub. The wheel hub bolts to the tire rim, and the holes that are being repaired are for axle studs that the drive axle secures to.

When the holes are worn out, the drive axle doesn’t stay on properly. So, the machinists will fill the holes in and then redrill them so that they’re the perfect size — essentially putting together a brand new part.

The machinists also have a big black-light box called a Magnaflux, which helps them check if parts have microscopic cracks or other core problems.

(Here’s the Wikipedia page explaining a Magnaflux, by the way.)

The air shop

The air shop.

The air shop is tucked into a corner of Fleet Overhaul and produces vehicle parts that don’t require wires.

Brakes, wipers, air compressors, water pumps and more are built by staff in the air shop.

The air shop is for rebuilding entire components. The machinists, who work in the fabrication shop described above, repair and fabricates parts for the air shop so they can assemble them to together to create the finished product.

My photos are kind of terrible of the air shop—apologies!

The small paint shop

The small paint shop for vehicle parts. These are water pumps being prepped for painting.

A cylinder head for a Detroit 6V92 engine that has been painted blue.

Finally, this is a smaller version of the paint shop for the vehicles – it’s tucked away in another back corner of Fleet Overhaul.

Once parts are ready to go, they get painted before they’re put into inventory under direction of Materials Control.

Jeff says if a part can be painted, they will paint it. It makes everything look good!

Okay, stay tuned for part 6, the final installment in this series – about the electronics shop and high-floor wheelchair lift repair!

After driving 800,000-900,000 kilometres, conventional and articulated buses get an overhaul at our vehicle maintenance centre, Fleet Overhaul.

This is the fourth in a six-part series about Fleet Overhaul, the vehicle maintenance centre down at Burnaby Transit Centre. (Check out the first article on the body shop, the second about panel fabrication, and the third about the paint shop.)

Did you know we completely rebuild engines and transmissions for our conventional vehicles at Fleet Overhaul?

It’s true. Most engines are rebuilt for any conventional or articulated bus that has clocked 800,000 to 900,000 kilometres—it’s the central part of a high-mileage overhaul.

And transmissions are built and replaced in vehicles more frequently, usually when a vehicle hits 350,000 kilometres.

The high-mileage overhaul

A look at the row of buses currently being fixed up. In the top photo you can see the high-mileage buses in the far back – at the bottom you can see the row of buses from a side view, with one articulated bus at the end.

A high-mileage vehicle with a new engine in place. Why is it painted light blue? The colour helps identify the type of engine, which type of bus it goes into, and the engine’s parts and emissions requirements. There are four engine colours in total.

In the two photos above, you can see the row of high-mileage buses being overhauled.

How do we fix them up? Well, first, mechanics at Fleet Overhaul completely rebuild the engine until they’re good as new.

While the engine is out, the back end of the bus gets a steam cleaning, reinforcement of its rails and structure, and a paint job. A licensed electrician also does rewiring and replacement of electrical parts.

After the engine is rebuilt and replaced into the vehicle, Fleet Overhaul staff then take the bus out for test drives to ensure everything’s in proper working order.

It takes about three weeks to overhaul a high-mileage vehicle. After this, Fleet Overhaul won’t usually see the vehicle again for engine work for another six or seven years.

Each year, Fleet Overhaul completes work on about 90 high-mileage vehicles. In 2008, the staff managed to overhaul 160 buses, as a small afternoon shift was added to help prepare for Olympic transportation demand.

Engine work

A rebuilt engine, ready to be put back to work.

A mechanic’s bay for engine work, with engine block at centre. The blue shelf at left holds all the parts the mechanic might need for this particular part of engine. A mechanic’s bay for engine work, with engine block at centre. The blue shelf at left holds all the parts the mechanic might need for this particular part of engine.

There are eight mechanics who build engines full time, and each engine is built by just one of these eight mechanics.

The mechanic’s name is then attached to each engine when entered into inventory, and there’s a definite pride in workmanship that comes with that. As overhaul manager Jeff Dow explains, each mechanic is very conscientious about the engine he or she produces, and feels quite personally responsible if an engine fails for any reason.

It takes about three and a half weeks to rebuild an engine, and Jeff says that 108 engines are built in an average year. In 2008, 120 engines were built, again in preparation for Olympic demand. (Due to cost savings, some engines are also bought new.)

A rebuilt engine in testing inside the Dyno.

Once an engine is rebuilt, it is tested extensively in a Dyno, a testing facility that runs the engine through its paces and can reveal any possible issues. A computer simulates the terrain that the engine might face in the real world, such as a run down Hastings or up the hill to SFU, which is considered the most difficult terrain of all.

Once the engine has been fully tested, it is painted one of four colours – red, yellow, dark blue, and light blue. The colours help identify the type of bus it goes into, the parts needed for the engine, and the engine’s emission package. (An emission package dictates what internal components are used to build an engine. Regulations are always increasing so a different engine was built in 1996 versus 2000, as the regulations are more strict.)

Transmission work

The transmission bays, where transmissions are rebuilt. (The bays are along the back blue wall in this photo.)

Transmissions are also built by mechanics at Fleet Overhaul. (A transmission takes the power generated by the engine and uses it to drive the vehicle’s wheels.)

There are eight mechanics who build 220 transmissions every year. It takes less time to build a transmission, roughly 50 hours. But as I mentioned before, transmissions are replaced more often, usually around when vehicles have driven 350,000 km.

The transmission Dyno, where transmissions are tested.

Transmissions are also sent through their own Dyno for testing, simulating the regional terrain including the hill up to SFU again. Jeff explained that coming down the hill with a full load of passengers can be very hard on a transmission!

All right, that’s it for the high-mileage vehicles! Watch for the next installment in this series, which will be about the warehouse and the vehicle parts that get created at Fleet Overhaul.

Here is the third in a six-part series about Fleet Overhaul, the vehicle maintenance centre down at Burnaby Transit Centre. (Check out the first article, on the body shop at Fleet Overhaul, and the second article, about panel fabrication.)

Well, once a bus is repaired, it needs to be painted! And that happens here, in the large paint shop at Fleet Overhaul.

The paint shop is right next to the body shop. See the video above for a very quick look at how it’s laid out. The door visible in the far left corner is the long room where articulated buses are painted, and the room visible on the right is where conventional buses are painted. The bus on the far right is being washed in anticipation of a paint job.

The conventional bus paint booth

A Nova bus in the conventional bus paint booth.

The same Nova bus in the conventional bus paint booth, from a different angle.

A paint job doesn’t always require a full repainting. This Nova bus only needs the front painted after some repair work – that’s why there’s paper covering the rest of the bus up.

The articulated bus paint booth

A West Vancouver Blue Bus in the articulated paint booth.

As mentioned earlier, articulated buses get their own paint booth, because they’re too long for the conventional paint booth!

When I went to visit, a Blue Bus was in the articulated paint booth for some paint work after repairs. It’s not an articulated bus, but since conventional buses fit in the articulated booth, a conventional bus can be painted there.

And I’ll just leave you with a few more photos of the articulated paint booth:

Inside the articulated bus paint booth.

Another look at the articulated bus paint booth.

The back end of the articulated bus paint booth. As you can tell, there’s some extra room because the Blue Bus is a conventional bus length.

A template for a bus body panel that fits over a wheel.

Here is the second in a six-part series about Fleet Overhaul, the vehicle maintenance centre down at Burnaby Transit Centre. (Check out the first article, which talks about the body shop at Fleet Overhaul.)

Did you know that Fleet Overhaul makes all of the aluminum body panels for the vehicles in the fleet?

We started making our own body panels a long time ago, so we can easily get panels for repair jobs or bus overhauls.

As body, paint, and trim manager Jack McKenna explains, it’s tough for bus manufacturers to build and send you the panels themselves, since they’re either using all the panels they have to build more buses, or they’re just generally busy.

The panel fabrication area on the body shop floor. The blue curtained area houses the plasma cutter.

As well, at Fleet Overhaul we have a plasma cutter, a special type of metal cutting torch that cuts panels extremely quickly. Jack says that it takes about two minutes to make a panel using our plasma cutter, while older machine cutters take about 15 minutes to do the same job.

There are templates for panels on every type of bus in the fleet – a standard set of panels is often created as a “kit” when a bus comes in for repair or overhauling.

During my tour of Fleet Overhaul, I was lucky enough to see the plasma cutter in action, cutting a panel for the back of a bus, fitting over the rear lights. Here’s a video of Angelo from Fleet Overhaul cutting the panel –you’ll notice that it does take less than two minutes to finish, just as Jack says!

(By the way, for those interested in safety precautions — Angelo is wearing protective glasses as he uses the plasma cutter, and he’s not looking directly at the light as he works.)

An articulated bus getting a mid-life overhaul down at Fleet Overhaul, the conventional bus maintenance centre down at Burnaby Transit Centre.

So, this is the first in a six-part series about Fleet Overhaul, the vehicle maintenance centre down at Burnaby Transit Centre.

Let me be frank: Fleet Overhaul is pretty much mindblowing.

A huge team of incredibly talented mechanics and tradespeople work there to keep the articulated and conventional bus fleet in good working order. The phrase “vehicle maintenance” just barely hints at what they do, which includes the following:

• mid-life overhauls on vehicles that are eight to 10 years old (that is, they restore the whole vehicle to good as new condition, so they will last another eight to 10 years)
• repairs to articulated and conventional buses involved in major vehicle accidents
• totally rebuilding engines and transmissions for vehicles that have done over 800,000-900,000 km
• programming the destination signs so they display custom messages like “Go Canucks Go”
• constructing almost all the body parts for conventional buses in the fleet
• warehouse storage and inventory control for all vehicle parts
• and even more, if you can believe that

(I should mention that Fleet Overhaul only takes care of articulated and conventional buses—community shuttle repairs are done elsewhere.)

I was really lucky to go on a tour of the facility a few weeks ago, so in this series, I’ll share lots of behind-the-scenes photos and video to let you see just what they do there.

We’ll start with the body shop!

Fleet Overhaul’s body shop

Here’s a video looking at the body shop floor at Fleet Overhaul. The panel fabrication area is in the foreground, and the buses up on the hoists are in the back, of course. (That’s overhaul manager Jeff Dow speaking in the video, by the way.)

You can’t see it that clearly in the video above, but there’s another row of service bays further back. In total, there are 10 service bays on the body shop floor, four spots for vehicles in the adjoining paint shop, and two more spots for vehicles in the aisles.

Here’s another video showing the body shop service bays from the ground level:

The body shop takes up just part of the large Fleet Overhaul building, but Jeff explained that this centre is actually too small for the size of our fleet.

A new maintenance facility is planned to open in Maple Ridge in 2012, doubling the space to about 230,000 square feet.

Fleet Overhaul moved to this building in 1986 – it was originally a Kenworth facility, where large trucks were built in the 1950s. Fleet Overhaul was initially located out at Cambie Garage at Cambie and 16th in Vancouver.

Mid-life overhauls

Another view of the articulated bus getting a mid-life overhaul. Notice that its lower body panels have been stripped off!

About 50 buses come through the body shop for rebuilds every year. As I’ve touched on, mid-life overhauls are one of the major reason buses come into Fleet Overhaul.

Basically, when buses reach eight to 10 years of age, Fleet Overhaul takes the vehicle in to do a mid-life overhaul, restoring the bus to basically new condition so that it can serve another eight to 10 years in the system.

The front of the articulated bus being overhauled -- the floor panels have been completely stripped out.

Body, paint, and trim manager Jack McKenna explained that in Canada, buses tend last 17-18 years due to the mid-life overhauls that Canadian agencies perform on buses. In the U.S., vehicles last 12 years – instead of doing major mid-life overhauls, they tend to just buy new vehicles.

What happens in a mid-life overhaul? The vehicle is stripped down to its chassis and the body is reinforced and repaired. Flooring and lower body panels are replaced; rust is removed and rustproofing put on and seats reupholstered if needed.

It takes about five weeks to fully overhaul a conventional 40’ bus, and about 50 buses are overhauled every year. About 12 articulated buses are overhauled each year – articulated buses take about two months for a full overhaul, and as well, there’s only a few specialized lifts that can hoist the longer 60’ artics in the air.

Here’s a few more pictures of the articulated bus in the midst of its overhaul.

Looking into the first set of double doors.

I got to stand inside the back of the articulated bus. Here’s a photo of the back seats – the engine sits underneath it!

As I was standing inside the back of the bus, I also took a photo of the articulated joint interior and the empty floors up at the front of the vehicle.

Here’s a conventional bus undergoing an overhaul. Welding is being done on the frame to repair a rusted-out element. The red colouring is existing rustproofing provided by the manufacturer.

Major vehicle repairs

A Nova bus with left-rear damage, being repaired at Fleet Overhaul.

Another key reason buses come to Fleet Overhaul is for major repair work.

Jeff explained that while every outlying transit centre has a body and paint person to fix minor bus scrapes, major work like accident repairs are done at Fleet Overhaul.

For example, at left you can see a new Nova bus that has been rear-ended on the left side, now being repaired. This Nova was hit during the snowstorm over Christmas 2008—that snowstorm in fact tripled the volume of repair work for Fleet Overhaul.

(Rear-ending on the left side is apparently a common major vehicle repair – as body, paint, and trim manager Jack McKenna explained, that’s the side of the bus exposed to traffic as it pulls out of a stop.)

Side note: Jack said that the new Nova buses have a stainless steel frame that won’t rust, and other plastic body elements, meaning that the buses requires shorter mid-life overhauls to keep them in long-time service.

Here’s some more photos of bus repairs at Fleet Overhaul.

This articulated bus also got rear-ended, and had some big scrapes on the side.

Here’s the scrapes on the side of the bus.

And here’s the back.

A bus having its windshield repaired. Over time, windshields can develop “smoke,” permanent white discolourations that require the glass to be replaced.

Plywood floors!

The plywood flooring on a bus

Also, here’s something very interesting I learned about the buses while at Fleet Overhaul: the buses have plywood panels under the rubber matting!

Fleet Overhaul has a carpentry shop across the street that provides the plywood floors. Plywood is in fact the industry standard, so basically any bus you travel on in North America has plywood panels as its flooring structure.

And Jack McKenna said that the buses ordered in 2009 are the first to have composite, non-plywood flooring.

Whew – so that is it for the body shop area of Fleet Overhaul! Watch out for part two in the near future, where we’ll talk about panel fabrication (a.k.a. how we make all of the body panels for vehicles on site)!