Low Coolant Alert

[michaeldterry]

Two days ago, the owners of Evangeline's new storage home called to ask if I could move the bus to another part of the lot temporarily as they are in the process of running conduit under the concrete tarmac to install an additional 12 Jamestown Advanced 50 Amp power hook-ups! Of course, I had no problem accomodating this request and went right to the bus lot to get Evangeline disconnected from shore power, cranked, warmed up and moved. When I went to crank her - nothing - just a barely audible click. My initial assumption was that I had set the inverters wrong and had allowed the chassis batteries to discharge. However, it had been less than a week since I "exercised" her with a day trip to Forsyth County to watch the indoor drumline that my son designs for and teaches in a competition (and the bus operated flawlessly).

I cranked the generator with no problem, forced the inverters to bulk charge, tried the "battery boost" feature on the dash - all to no avail. On a whim, I went to the back of the bus and opened the engine compartment. I used the rear start panel and she cranked right up! I went back up front and looked at the DDEC only to notice that there was a "Low Coolant Alert" at 0% and the Check Engine (yellow) and Stop Engine (red) lights were both illuminated! I double checked around the exterior of the bus to make sure that there were no "puddles" indicating a coolant/radiator leak. The concrete was dry with no evidence of a prior leak event (no stains). I moved the bus to another part of the lot as requested, but shut her down immediately to make sure that I didn't make things worse. I'm now at a loss for what to do to resolve this latest issue. Obviously, I want to take the bus to an appropriate Detroit Diesel Service Center to have the issue diagnosed/resolved, but I'm scared to drive it any distance with the stop engine light lit!

I'm literally between a rock and a pile of doo-doo! I'm hoping against hope that I simply have a bad sensor, but don't know how to verify that. Is my only recourse a road service call from someone like W.W. Williams? I've got to act on this immediately because we have a hard wired commitment in the bus on April 6th!

Any advice/guidance/help from the POG braintrust will be most appreciated! (Remember to speak slowly and use small words - you're not dealing with the sharpest tool in the drawer)!