Non-affiliated buses for sale - thread

[Wutm8]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

That's a double whammy of bad. Lots of hours on a cat that wasn't ever very popular to begin with. And a price about double market value.
I do agree with you though, that the FE has better usable space.

I've only begun actively looking for a bus a few weeks now and it seems that a solid front engine is going to be a lot harder to find. Laaame. I lack patience.

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by Wutm8

I've only begun actively looking for a bus a few weeks now and it seems that a solid front engine is going to be a lot harder to find. Laaame. I lack patience.

Solid FE's are all over the place-You'll see!
Trying to find a deal on a RE bus is much harder.

[Rameses]

Originally Posted by Wutm8

I've only begun actively looking for a bus a few weeks now and it seems that a solid front engine is going to be a lot harder to find. Laaame. I lack patience.

One more advantage of an RE that I forgot to mention... You don't have a driveshaft and exhaust pipe running down the frame that you have to plan around when mounting water tanks, generator, battery bank, etc.

And I'm with EastCoast. There're more front engine flat-noses out there at decent prices than rear engine.

[Wutm8]

Originally Posted by Rameses

One more advantage of an RE that I forgot to mention... You don't have a driveshaft and exhaust pipe running down the frame that you have to plan around when mounting water tanks, generator, battery bank, etc.

And I'm with EastCoast. There're more front engine flat-noses out there at decent prices than rear engine.

The outside storage seems fairly useless to me. Having grown up in downtown Phoenix anything outside the vehicle is stolen, anything inside the vehicle is stolen eventually... I need out of this town! I drove a 30 foot delivery truck for a few years and even when we started walking the battery compartment they would still get stolen every few months

[PNW_Steve]

Originally Posted by Stu & Filo. T

Sorry misspelled, Macerator Toilet, pretty much has a little garbage disposal mounted to it turns your "solids" into a slurry & will pump it thru a 1in hose to where ever your holding tank is. I also am using a Macerator pump from my grey tank which is mounted between my frame rails about 20 ft fwd of my black tank to pump the grey into the black to help flush out the black, I'm also using another Macerator pump to empty the black tank which is mounted on the right rear & the W.M.C.B. (Waste Management Control Bay) Is on the left, the pump will move the slurry 150ft up hill thru a 1in hose.

1st pick Grey tank

Hey Stu,

Looking good!!

I do have a question for you: Have you used the macerator pump long term?

I started using one occasionally back in the 90's and more recently we lived two years in an RV that I had to pump the tanks weekly. Worked out a fairly slick setup and it played pretty well ..... Most of the time....

The macerator served us well other that the occasional failure to perform...... The biggest problem that I had was FOD. I would stress to people: "If you didn't eat it first then it does not go in the toilet".

I have, on 5 occasions, had the pump stop in the middle of pumping the black tank. Ok.... Tank, hoses & fittings are all full of waste and I need to service the pump......

Occurances: 3 - Feminine products, 1 - large rock and 1 - 9mm shell casing. Each time I had to clear the FOD, replace the impeller and seals.

I have had some other serious issues as well but they were due to limited water supply for flushing the black tank. These were the problems that caused me to yank the RV toilet and replace it with a "composting" toilet. No, nothing composts in the toilet but that is what they call it.


The change has been a significant upgrade for me. My weekly duties are much easier, quicker and sanitary than my black/macerator setup.

Keep up the build pics!!

Take care.

S.

[Wutm8]

Public Surplus: Auction #1773068

only a few hours left on this auction. Do the Cummins 5.9 usually get up to this price? They have two 8.3 that are both over for at this point

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by Wutm8

Public Surplus: Auction #1773068

only a few hours left on this auction. Do the Cummins 5.9 usually get up to this price? They have two 8.3 that are both over for at this point

I've seen folks pay ten grand for a bus like that.

[Wutm8]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

I've seen folks pay ten grand for a bus like that.

I've got 4.5 right now that I can put towards one of these. I'm eager to get started but it seems that I generally here more negative about that 5.9 in a full-size bus

[Rameses]

Originally Posted by Wutm8

Public Surplus: Auction #1773068

only a few hours left on this auction. Do the Cummins 5.9 usually get up to this price? They have two 8.3 that are both over for at this point

Okay, at this point I'm really starting to wonder if you're doing this just to screw with me.

One more time and then I'm done...


5.9 :





8.3 :





This bus :






THIS BUS HAS A CUMMINS 24 VALVE 8.3 IN IT.

[Wutm8]

I know that you told me they all had 8.3s in them, I went to check out for buses and was told that two of them were 8.3 and the other two were 5.9. So I'm getting a bit mixed up, two of them were obvious. The two higher-priced ones at this point both had a tsc badge on them, the other two did not.

[Wutm8]

Public Surplus: Search

On this search there are four from Arizona, those are the four I checked out. Of those four only two headed beds with TSC on the motor.

[Wutm8]

Sorry Rameses, although only two had that ESC badge on them the valve cover of the 8.3 still matches the other two. One person called him a 5.9 and it stuck with me

[Rameses]

Originally Posted by Wutm8

I know that you told me they all had 8.3s in them, I went to check out for buses and was told that two of them were 8.3 and the other two were 5.9. So I'm getting a bit mixed up, two of them were obvious. The two higher-priced ones at this point both had a tsc badge on them, the other two did not.

Was that the same guy that told you they all had Cat motors in them?

[Wutm8]

Selling my home and property in Phoenix about a year from now when I'm all finished converting the bus. It shouldn't take more than a few days to sell my home and then the wait to get all bank stuff done. After that we are packing up and I'm taking the bus on a cruise for a few months, finally Landing in Tennessee and then in search of some land within 15min of Nashville or Knoxville with relaxed building codes to where we can park the bus and build around it a bit. Thinking containers. After that we still plan on traveling with the bus three to five months out of the year

[Wutm8]

Originally Posted by Rameses

Was that the same guy that told you they all had Cat motors in them?

It is, haha. He's their fleet guy at the school... I'm serious

[Rameses]

Originally Posted by Wutm8

It is, haha. He's their fleet guy at the school... I'm serious

I wonder if that's similar to how they have a gym coach teach health classes. Maybe they put the auto shop teacher in charge of the bus fleet.

[ourmefa]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

those 2009s.. I wouldnt touch them.. or anything newer than 2006 unless you are going to lease a brand new one.. not only can regen / DEF / DPF issues cause the comoputer to shut a bus down, the engine can be damaged severely by a malfunctioning Regen system... so theres no way to know if those busses imply have Regen issues or if the engines have been damaged..

the fsct that schools are dumping 2009 otherwise Nice Air-conditioned Busses vs fixing them says its probably something very costly.. to buy those brand new today are probably $80,000 busses.. vs them getting, what maybe 8-9k at auction to cut them loose? says the repair was likely going to be in excess of 10k to fix them.. after all in florida they seem to run busses for 15 years so those wouldve had another 7-8 years left in them...

being that I live in florida part of the time I can definitely Second that florida runs their busses into the ground... My 2 used busses look and sound better than some of the stuff I see taking kids to school.. esp broward and pinellas county stuff..

-Christopher

This just ensured that I will be purchasing a bus that is as mechanical as possible. EastCoastCB has been preaching hard to me about going older, lol. I fully understand now! I will start changing up my filters to look for older buses - I found what look to be some decent 1989 Activity buses . I think I may try to shoot down to the location in the next couple of days and put eyes on them myself. Would you happen to have any feedback on the engines of the diesel items there?

[EastCoastCB]

Not as old as I'd like but a really nice bus for what you wanna do, other than not being the high headroom model.
Public Surplus: Auction #1773047

[Rameses]

Originally Posted by ourmefa

This just ensured that I will be purchasing a bus that is as mechanical as possible. EastCoastCB has been preaching hard to me about going older, lol. I fully understand now! I will start changing up my filters to look for older buses - I found what look to be some decent 1989 Activity buses . I think I may try to shoot down to the location in the next couple of days and put eyes on them myself. Would you happen to have any feedback on the engines of the diesel items there?

I happened across those earlier.

The Internationals are listed as a 5.9 diesel. My guess would be that they have DT360s in them, being that they're Internationals. (360 cubic inches equates to 5.9 liters.) I could be wrong, but I wouldn't expect to see a Cummins under the hood. As far as the DT360 goes, I'll wait for Christopher to chime in. He knows a lot more about those than I do.

[deftone]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

I'd rather have my 25 year old Kentucky beauty than ANY Florida bus!

I got one of my buses from Florida and it was in great condition for a 1999. Not a spot of rust on it anywhere and the motor and transmission ran like new on the 350mile drive home.

I actually just sold it as I want an RE