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Old 02-02-2017, 02:48 PM   #21
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7-9 MPG should be very easy to get.

If you don't do much idling or big hills you should have no problem with the upper number.

Big loads, big hills, and lots of idling and you will be looking at the lower numbers.
With my 4.10 and VERY easy driving conditions locally, I'm gonna hope for 10!
Our lawn truck only does about 10 MAYBE 12 under the same conditions.
I'm thinking the bus will be a HUGE improvement though in terms of usefulness. Like a mobile shed/office/shitter. Can keep the power equipment inside now instead of out in the elements.
This bus is gonna improve my whole day to day life, man. I LOVE the excitement of a new bus!
Maybe I'll find some way of getting more.

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Old 02-02-2017, 02:49 PM   #22
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I GOTTA say, Chris- you've inspired much of my thinking when it comes to all this.
What kind of real world mileage do you get with Redbyrd? Not interstate, just regular use.

I actuallly havent kept good run around mileage records.. I do know up here in Ohio it gets much worse mileage because it runs in cold mode much longer..

its definitely nowhere close to the mileage I get in a silverado or a cargo van.

and its hard to beat a V-dub esp a TDI for mileage...

I havent tried towing with RedByrd, ive had it fully loaded with people before and it didnt seem to drive much different.. (had like 10-12 guys on there with luggage)..

it definitely gets better mileage than my DT-360 around town..
on the highway its about the same.. but im driving the DT-360 at 55-60 and Redbyrd at 65-68


-Christopher
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Old 02-02-2017, 07:58 PM   #23
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The nice folks in Aurora overnighted my title and BOS!!! So tomorrow I'll call and get an ins policy. I won't have time to go tomorrow for the tag, so I'll get that monday morning then some friends are supposed to fly out and drive it back for me.



Anyone in the Aurora area wanna gimme a hand and help my buddy get on his way? He's a great driver but will need a hand with putting in new batteries and such.
Maybe the school personnel will help him, idk.
If anyone wants to be a hero and help check it over I'd love you for life. Just sayin.
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Old 02-02-2017, 08:25 PM   #24
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Wish I could do that....Wisconsin basically requires that you go through the entire conversion process before re-titling as an RV.

It is a nice bus but personally I would've held out for something without the AT545. If you go post 2000 or so there's a fair amount of IC shorties with DT466s and the Allison 2000/MD 3060 etc.
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Old 02-02-2017, 09:05 PM   #25
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Wish I could do that....Wisconsin basically requires that you go through the entire conversion process before re-titling as an RV.

It is a nice bus but personally I would've held out for something without the AT545. If you go post 2000 or so there's a fair amount of IC shorties with DT466s and the Allison 2000/MD 3060 etc.
Meh, it was cheap and i live in the flatland. Speed limits here are 45 mph. Its gona be a lawn truck.
Why would I title it as an RV???

Plus- living in FL, someone may just beg me to sell it to them for five grand +/-.
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Old 02-03-2017, 04:38 AM   #26
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Wish I could do that....Wisconsin basically requires that you go through the entire conversion process before re-titling as an RV.

It is a nice bus but personally I would've held out for something without the AT545. If you go post 2000 or so there's a fair amount of IC shorties with DT466s and the Allison 2000/MD 3060 etc.

my bluebird shortie with a T-444E and an AT545 runs 65 on the highway all day long.. it will max out about 73 or so.. I limited the RPM at 2600 and the speed at 70.. but it runs nicely at 65..

ECCB LIKELY has the 97 or perhaps 98 chassis.. if he HAppens to have a late 96 Chassis then he will have the ECM that can easily be cranked up Like a ford Power stroke. theres tuning available aftermarket for the 94-96 444E but in 97 they went to the Diamong Logic computers which no one made any aftermarket tuning for..

there is one guy out there I know of that put the ford computers on his T-444E and got it to run and has it turned up.. he did it on a 4700 truck, I think that truck is a spicer stick and not a 545..

in the later 545s its imperative to make sure the Electric modulator works or the pump pressure on heavy throttle is not high enough and can cause primary clutch-pack burnout.

super shorties are tough to find in a DT-466, the standard offered package was a 444E.. later on they started offering the allison 2000 standard but I think it was only 1 year, 2004 that the 545 wasnt available. and by 04 Most werre going to the ill-fated VT-365 (6.0). after the 6.0 came out you could find more shorties with the DT-466 as the VT-365 became hated very quickly.. IC released the BE series which was a lighter duty chassis and thats where they pushed alot of their super shorties.. the DT-466 IC shorties were usually then 7 or 8 window instesd of 6.. that extra 3 or 4 feet makes a big difference in driving / parking esp on a worksite. thomas seemed to be going freightliner / CAT about that time on everything...

-Christopher
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Old 02-03-2017, 10:31 AM   #27
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my bluebird shortie with a T-444E and an AT545 runs 65 on the highway all day long.. it will max out about 73 or so.. I limited the RPM at 2600 and the speed at 70.. but it runs nicely at 65..

ECCB LIKELY has the 97 or perhaps 98 chassis.. if he HAppens to have a late 96 Chassis then he will have the ECM that can easily be cranked up Like a ford Power stroke. theres tuning available aftermarket for the 94-96 444E but in 97 they went to the Diamong Logic computers which no one made any aftermarket tuning for..

there is one guy out there I know of that put the ford computers on his T-444E and got it to run and has it turned up.. he did it on a 4700 truck, I think that truck is a spicer stick and not a 545..

in the later 545s its imperative to make sure the Electric modulator works or the pump pressure on heavy throttle is not high enough and can cause primary clutch-pack burnout.

super shorties are tough to find in a DT-466, the standard offered package was a 444E.. later on they started offering the allison 2000 standard but I think it was only 1 year, 2004 that the 545 wasnt available. and by 04 Most werre going to the ill-fated VT-365 (6.0). after the 6.0 came out you could find more shorties with the DT-466 as the VT-365 became hated very quickly.. IC released the BE series which was a lighter duty chassis and thats where they pushed alot of their super shorties.. the DT-466 IC shorties were usually then 7 or 8 window instesd of 6.. that extra 3 or 4 feet makes a big difference in driving / parking esp on a worksite. thomas seemed to be going freightliner / CAT about that time on everything...

-Christopher
Cadillackid, My Carpenter is the T444E as well, but I have no idea what Allison is in it. I have had it out on the highway and it seem to cruise at 60 to 65 with no problem. I will see if I can climb under it this weekend and pin down a little more info on BLUTO. I've been to wrapped up in the demo and building out. Guess I need to stop and do that. I love it when someone else has the knowledge and is willing to share it. Thanks
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Old 02-03-2017, 01:12 PM   #28
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Cadillackid, My Carpenter is the T444E as well, but I have no idea what Allison is in it. I have had it out on the highway and it seem to cruise at 60 to 65 with no problem. I will see if I can climb under it this weekend and pin down a little more info on BLUTO. I've been to wrapped up in the demo and building out. Guess I need to stop and do that. I love it when someone else has the knowledge and is willing to share it. Thanks
Just google "allison 545" and "allison 643" and you'll know which one you have once you look under the bus. Easy to tell the difference.
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Old 02-03-2017, 04:45 PM   #29
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Thomas went all Freightliner in the early 2000's because they are both under the DaimlerAG banner, Daimler bought Thomas around 1999. Kinda like Navistar and AmTran, and now Blue Bird is almost all exclusively on their own chassis. In my area, most of the districts are running IHC/International-AmTran units since Navistar has a plant in the area, though I think the bus plant is far away.
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Old 02-03-2017, 05:02 PM   #30
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the schools here are buying mainly IC conventionals as they tend to beat everyone up on prici9ng.. at least here in Ohio.. I dont know where they make those anymore... springfield ohio navistar plant has been gone for a long time..

-Christopher
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Old 02-03-2017, 08:16 PM   #31
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Thanks EastCoast
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Old 02-03-2017, 09:25 PM   #32
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No problemo, man.

We have my neighbor and his wife booked to fly out this coming tues and hopefully head back in the bus weds.

If ANYONE out in CO could help me out getting them on their way, I'll hook you up with gas and beer money, or whatever.
I may have them bring new batteries and ask the bus yard guys to give them a hand, if at all possible.

I'd definitely LOVE to go get it myself. I love CO, but I just won't have the time.
Gona have to buy some more out there so I can go back.
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Old 02-04-2017, 01:12 AM   #33
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The IC bus plant is in Tulsa, OK in a former aircraft factory. You can see the factory from the airline terminal.

Blue Bird was purchased by Volvo. The chassis under the Blue Bird Type 'C' buses are medium duty Volvo, more or less.

And as it was pointed out, Thomas was purchased by Daimler so the chassis under the Thomas Type 'C' buses are medium duty Freightliner chassis.

The move to keep things in house and no longer provide OEM vendor supplied chassis to body builders was done for a couple of reasons. With the advent of computer controls and multiplexing having everything in one wiring harness reduces issues.

It also resolves warranty issues very easily. There is never a fight over whose fault something isn't working correctly. In the past I have seen some pretty major league type fights over who got blamed for a warranty problem. In the meantime a bus under warranty isn't getting fixed in a timely fashion. Now since the bus builder is responsible from the ground up warranty issues are now a one stop shopping problem.
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Old 02-04-2017, 02:27 AM   #34
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Blue Bird was purchased by Volvo. The chassis under the Blue Bird Type 'C' buses are medium duty Volvo, more or less.


It also resolves warranty issues very easily. There is never a fight over whose fault something isn't working correctly. In the past I have seen some pretty major league type fights over who got blamed for a warranty problem. In the meantime a bus under warranty isn't getting fixed in a timely fashion. Now since the bus builder is responsible from the ground up warranty issues are now a one stop shopping problem.
Actually, Bluebird was sold off from the holding company that owned Volvo in 2006. This is why Visions up until around 2008 or 2009 utilized the gauge panel & steering wheel from the Volvo VNL trucks but after that they switched to Bluebird's in-house gauge cluster design as seen in the pic.



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Old 02-04-2017, 02:46 AM   #35
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I should also mention Bluebird has a very weird production model. They do NO quality control at the Fort Valley plant. Buses are simply rolled straight off the assembly line and off to a parking lot where they can sit for months awaiting delivery.

It's the responsiblity of the dealers to go through each bus and correct any mistakes made in the manufacturing process. This becomes a problem because each bus has to be driven to the dealer first.

You find out pretty quickly how well a bus was assembled when it starts leaking transmission fluid or losing air pressure after just 10 miles down I75 because the assembly line techs missed a few bolts or hose connections.

We ship around 100-150 Bluebird buses per year out of Fort Valley and on average 1 in 10 will not make the trip back without breaking down.

The assembly line workers at Fort Valley frequently forget or skip a lot of stuff. One year we got a batch of 30 All Americans that were missing part of the engine wiring harness so the fan stayed on continuously instead of shutting off. I could go on and on with all the weird stuff that goes on there.

Luckily most of this stuff is ironed out years before they're retired, but I figured I'd give a perspective on the manufacturing process for these buses.
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Old 02-04-2017, 05:13 AM   #36
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I should also mention Bluebird has a very weird production model. They do NO quality control at the Fort Valley plant. Buses are simply rolled straight off the assembly line and off to a parking lot where they can sit for months awaiting delivery.

It's the responsiblity of the dealers to go through each bus and correct any mistakes made in the manufacturing process. This becomes a problem because each bus has to be driven to the dealer first.

You find out pretty quickly how well a bus was assembled when it starts leaking transmission fluid or losing air pressure after just 10 miles down I75 because the assembly line techs missed a few bolts or hose connections.

We ship around 100-150 Bluebird buses per year out of Fort Valley and on average 1 in 10 will not make the trip back without breaking down.

The assembly line workers at Fort Valley frequently forget or skip a lot of stuff. One year we got a batch of 30 All Americans that were missing part of the engine wiring harness so the fan stayed on continuously instead of shutting off. I could go on and on with all the weird stuff that goes on there.

Luckily most of this stuff is ironed out years before they're retired, but I figured I'd give a perspective on the manufacturing process for these buses.
That's how Subaru build cars now. NO quality control. The customer ends up doing the qc.
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Old 02-04-2017, 06:04 AM   #37
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I think ALL cars are like that now..

I ordered a 2008 Wrangler brand new.. I got it and through the first couple months it was great until summer hit then anytime the rad fan hit high speed it blew a 80 amp fuse and burnt up a bunch of wiring.. after having fans, computers, wiring, fuse boxes, relays etc replaced I filed it for a lemon law.. I was awarded a brand new Jeep that would be built for me (a 2009).. 2008 to 2009 saw nearly no changes... (nor did 07 to 0.. that jeep went through extra QA in chrysler's Toledo Plant..

that 09 was an absolutelyt Fantastic piecde of machinery... imagine a jeep wrangler with no rattles, squeaks, quirks, leaks, and it steered perfectly... and for the few years I kept it and nearly 60,000 miles it never so much as developed a dash rattle...

every other jeep I had surely did.. so yeah QA is done at the customer;s driveway now..

WIBluebird - being a bus enthusiast myself (and it sounds like you work for BlueBird).. is it possible for someone like myself to get a tour of the fort valley Plant, and maybe get to drive a new bus? just for kicks really...

-Christopher
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Old 02-04-2017, 08:34 AM   #38
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Sounds like the Microsoft model. Create something new then just throw it out there and let the users do the debugging.
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Old 02-04-2017, 08:46 AM   #39
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And ever since Steve jobs died it's also Apple too.. my latest MacBook pro is a real disappointment
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Old 02-04-2017, 11:06 AM   #40
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WIBluebird - being a bus enthusiast myself (and it sounds like you work for BlueBird).. is it possible for someone like myself to get a tour of the fort valley Plant, and maybe get to drive a new bus? just for kicks really...

-Christopher
I don't work for Bluebird. I do drive for a large school bus company in Wisconsin that is a huge customer. We actually buy our buses directly from Bluebird and we will fly 20 drivers down at a time to get the new buses back to WI.

And the Fort Valley plant is bus HEAVEN. You will see configurations and options that you didn't even know existed. Fort Valley is a small town but the factory rents just about every square inch of vacant lot in the town and packs it with hundreds, if not thousands of buses awaiting delivery.

The only thing that doesn't get manufactured there are the Type A buses, which are assembled up in Canada.

And driving a new bus is pretty nice. If you think new car smell is nice, wait til you try new bus smell

I will take pictures if I go down there this summer. I am not sure if they offer tours to the public and I'm pretty sure you'd need a CDL to test drive their stuff.
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