Ha! so its true.. I found the Holy Grail Unicorn of a Skoolie...
well Ok **MY** holy grail of a Skoolie.. which is absolutely the Opposite of this Board's holy grail ..
about a month ago i got word that there was a Bus Identical to one I rode to school on as a kid.. but it was Clear across the country... However the price was right, and me being up to prove everyone wrong ,hopped on a Jet and set lets do this...
The Bus - a 1978 Gasoline IH Loadstar 392 V-8 with an AT-540 Transmission.. full size and located 2500 miles (and 9,000 feet of elevation) away...
so I got up way before the crack of dawn one morning.. and regrettably before the StarBucks in the airport opened.. and hopped a first Class Seat from Columbus O. to portland oregon
so I made it there.. the dude picked me up at the airport, and we went straight to the bus!!.. ha! turns out he is building a skoolie himself.. or restoring one he built long ago.. regrettably my POS iPhone was dead by then so i didnt get a pic of his 80s Bluebird all american... maybe he will show up here one day..
loadstar!! a Classic indeed...
Off to go get some new shoes... the tires were dry-rotted and yucly.. alas somewhere else i posted my TERRIBLE Les Schwab experience.. . Never-Never-gonna do that again... i'll be paying for that mistake for awhile. a guy brought an old tractor in, turns out there was a cool old machinery show a few miles away so I took off and enjoyed...
now lets get this bad boy on the road.. so I did.. and I hit the ground running... the Carb was REALLY LEAN... but iunfortunately Oregon is not the Hot-rodder-heaven that the midwest is, so trying to find a Carb calibration kit for an edelbrock out there is like asking for A/C in a 40 year old school bus...
I hit the slopes.. and went up up and away..
all was awesome... the higher I got, the better the bus ran... of course.. it was in-service in the higher elevations on the dry side so it was tuned lean.. the air is thinner so you have to Lean out your carb or it will run really really rich... modern fuel injection systems auto adjust for elevations as we drive..
so i punched it and that little 392 punched right back!.. oh but wait i had forgotten that big motor is in front of a Lowly Shallow-pan stock AT-540 transmission.. about halfway up the hill i started to smell trans fluid.. yeah anyone who has ever smelled that "warm tranny smell" knows what im talking about... ..
we better take a rest... I hit the side of the trans with the temp gun and I was over 300 degrees at that point...
back on the road an hour or so later.. I got up high enough that it got pretty cold outside so i took it easy and kept the trans below 220 easily..
Peaked it out..!! rest of the trip is downhill from here!!
Lets have a drink and get some work done!!
the next copuple days were PURE BORING FLATNESS.. even my starbucks app was EMPTY for hundreds of miles!!!! Now I know why I dont travel west and north very much.. sorry guys I prefer the city life to the country Any day!!!..
Oops I noticed that i stopped for gas and there was a pretty loud Hiss under the hood... Crap I blew an air line!.. crappy 40 year-old rubber hose couldnt last longer???
more to follow.. i gotta go fix someone;s phone system first..
-Christopher