Finally got a bus

gs1949 · 04-05-2019, 05:42 PM

So I have been wanting a bus for quite a while, and have been more or less lurking on this site off and on for about 3 years now. During that time I've learned what I want. I could have picked up a short, gas bus a couple of years ago at quite a good price, but I didn't want a short, gas bus. So I waited and read thousands of Craigslist ads.

And I also watched govt auctions in Oregon and Washington, but I'm not very mobile right now because of personal family stuff and these auctions always sound ominous to me, so I was very leery of trying to buy a suitable bus from a school board auction.

Then I read a post on this forum that mentioned Wolf Creek Motors, which is here in western Oregon, and I managed to track them down without going on Farcebook, which I've been refusing to do for several years now.

So I called up Kurt at Wolf Creek Motors and asked about how many diesels he had with mechanical fuel injection. I think he said 6, so I went for a look. I fell in love with a 1995 Blue-Bird Rear-Engine 35 footer. It has a 5.9 Cummins 12 valve, with an Allison MT643 transmission, and just over 90,000 miles.

I know that people on this forum tend to believe that such low mileage on a bus of this age almost always means that the speedometer has been changed. I asked Kurt about this possibility and he told me that he picked up 3 buses from the same school district, all 1995 models, all of which had between 90,000 and 103,000 miles.

So I suppose it is possible that the speedometers on all 3 of these buses died within a few months of each other, but this bus seems to be in very good condition for one that's already turned over.

The bus came from a school district in a suburb of Seattle, so it's not quite rust free. It does have a few very minor, very small spots of surface rust on the exterior, mostly on the seams where 2 body panels come together. I don't think there's anything a paintjob won't take care of if it's well-prepped.

Yesterday, I drove the bus from Wolf Creek to the Coast, which is about 150 miles. The first nearly 100 miles was on the interstate. The bus has no overdrive, so I drove a little slowly, but it does 60 at about 2400 rpm or 55 at under 2300, so I'm satisfied with that. The last part of the trip, nearly 60 miles, was on one of those Oregon state highways that follows a river through the Coast Range, very scenic, quite crooked, with plenty of short, steep hills. The bus handled that well too. So I'm very pleased with the bus after a real test drive, andf I think I will be even more please when I get more habituated with driving it.

And I know some people on this forum will say the $6,000 I paid is too much, but as I said above I do believe this bus has only 90,000 miles. And I have not yet mentioned that it has 6 nearly new 295/75R221.5 Bridgestones. And I know what Kurt paid for this bus because the school dept official who signed the transfer on the back of the title also noted the purchase price right there on the title. And I am very, very glad I did not have to go all the way to Texas or somewhere else far away to get what I wanted.

I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures yet. I've been waiting for a little sun and there hasn't been any. But as soon as the sun cooperates a little better, and as soon as I figure out how to post photos on this site, I will take some pictures and get them up.

o1marc · 04-05-2019, 05:52 PM

Does it have an hour meter on it?

gs1949 · 04-05-2019, 06:08 PM

I don't know. That's a question I did not get around to asking. Where would I find that?

o1marc · 04-05-2019, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gs1949

I don't know. That's a question I did not get around to asking. Where would I find that?

Usually on the left side of the dash.

gs1949 · 04-05-2019, 07:14 PM

No, I don't think it has an hour meter.

On the left side of the dash is an ammeter. On the lower right side is the transmission oil temperature gauge, which I kept an eye on yesterday, and it never got over 70, pretty close to the ambient temperature.

Anyway, there are no unidentified counters, or gauges for that matter, located anywhere near the dash.

You did not mention any specific unusual places it might be, so I mostly checked around the remote start in the engine compartment, but I did a brief look around the engine compartment and didn't see any meters.

o1marc · 04-05-2019, 07:34 PM

If your trans temp gauge consistantly read 70, it is probably not working Nothing on a running motor should be at 70*

gs1949 · 04-05-2019, 08:20 PM

Yeah, you're right. I was misreading the number on the bottom of the gauge. It's 100, not 70. So we have to readjust my readings from yesterday. When I was running along the river at 40-50 mph, the transmission temp was just off the peg so it was reading about 110, not a little bit over 70 like I thought yesterday. And earlier yesterday afternoon, on the freeway running 55-65 mph it was around 120, not around 100 like I thought yesterday.

And lest anyone think I'm claiming I got a perfect bus, it now looks like I probably have a, hopefully minor, cooling system leak. I just put a half gallon of water into the expansion tank, and now I want to go see what that looks like after the thermostat opens.

o1marc · 04-05-2019, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gs1949

Yeah, you're right. I was misreading the number on the bottom of the gauge. It's 100, not 70. So we have to readjust my readings from yesterday. When I was running along the river at 40-50 mph, the transmission temp was just off the peg so it was reading about 110, not a little bit over 70 like I thought yesterday. And earlier yesterday afternoon, on the freeway running 55-65 mph it was around 120, not around 100 like I thought yesterday.

And lest anyone think I'm claiming I got a perfect bus, it now looks like I probably have a, hopefully minor, cooling system leak. I just put a half gallon of water into the expansion tank, and now I want to go see what that looks like after the thermostat opens.

Still something is askew. Yours trans temps should be in line with engine temps. normally 180* - 210* Your thermostat won't open till it reaches those temps.

gs1949 · 04-05-2019, 09:50 PM

Well, the plastic expansion tank is obviously leaking around the bracket on one end. I didn't let it get fully pressurized before stopping the engine, but it did idle for at least 10 minutes, and I also ran it for a bit a few hours earlier and both times it didn't seem to move the temp gauge on the dash very much.

So obviously the first thing to do tomorrow is rig a temporary patch for the expansion tank and then idle it a little longer to see what happens. There's no more danger of frost here so I don't have to worry about too much water.

And back to the transmission temperature yesterday, when I saw the transmission temp gauge running a little less than a quarter of the way up the scale, I just thought that was evidence that the stuff I read about this transmission having a very efficient cooling system was accurate.

I haven't registered the bus yet. I won't be driving it much until I get far enough along in the conversion process to convince Oregon DMV to retitle it as a motor home. It may be a while before it gets more than a short test spin, so it might take while to do some freeway driving again. But I'm not concerned, because it acted like I expected it to, and I simply remembered the numbers wrong. I do that sometimes.

And I'm not sure how Progressive will react when I register it as a motor home after the title change.

Mountain Gnome · 04-05-2019, 10:04 PM

The DMV in Eugene did not even inspect my bus to motor-home title change. "You wanna title it as a motor-home? OK. We title it as a motorhome." I bought a $30 bunk-bed frame off cragslist and poped on the mattress I dragged with me in my minivan, a shelf at Home Depot, and a propane camping stove from Wally World, and that was my legal setup anyway.

gs1949 · 04-06-2019, 12:50 AM

Yeah, I don't expect much hassle from the DMV out here on the coast either, certainly not as much as I understand there was just a few years ago.

I'm mostly concerned about the possible reaction of insurance companies. Do you have Progressive, or some other company?

I have my car insurance with State Farm, but the woman I talked to said they don't do unconverted school buses. She also said they would consider writing a policy after conversion, but they would want their own inspection and their standards would be higher than the state's.

Native · 04-06-2019, 01:20 AM

I know we have a different bus, however our transmission temperature rises considerably slower than the engine temperature. It takes 35-40 minutes of highway driving to see the temperature start to rise. This is with a 60 to 70 degree ambient temperature. (We have an Allison 2000 transmission behind a CAT 3126 engine.)

gs1949 · 04-06-2019, 01:40 AM

Yeah, I agree. There's a lot of mass there, metal and fluid, and if that transmission's cooling system is as efficient as I've read it is, then all the fluid that's circulating as the transmission warms up would make it slower to warm up.

That's exactly what I saw yesterday. The needle moved very slightly upward going over those 2 so-called passes on Interstate 5 in southern Douglas County but went back down going down the hill on the other side and stayed somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way up the scale for the rest of the trip.

I don't think I have a transmission cooling issue. There is some one else who thinks that, but I know I'm dislexic and have trouble remembering numbers if I don't write them down. I don't normally write down gauge readings when I'm driving, and I have no intention of starting that.

gs1949 · 04-06-2019, 02:06 AM

I just found an owner's manual for a 1997 Blue-Bird T2000, which is 2 years off for me, and thus on the other side of the mechanical/electronic divide, but even so there is information that will be useful to me.

In case some one else might be interested in this manual, it came from: https://www.manualslib.com/download/...d-Tc-2000.html

Mountain Gnome · 04-06-2019, 09:15 AM

I got State Farm insurance from the office on 7th Street in "downtown" Eugene. Commercial Vehicle for private use. No hassles. I got my insurance before the registration and re-titling to MH, which the DMV did not require. I then went back to State Farm and converted my policy to MH. My payment dropped to $70 for two years. Point is, get your title, then your insurance (assuming you are not driving it).

If you got your bus in Oregon, they will hopefully not need to see it to "inspect it" (or so they told me), so getting your insurance later will save you and your agent some time and hassle and paperwork.

RE: Owners manual:

https://vantage.blue-bird.com/Portal...--Service.aspx

gs1949 · 04-06-2019, 11:11 AM

Thanks for the insurance info. That certainly does not match what I got from State Farm here. They refused to do the commercial vehicle for non-commercial purposes and actually sent me to the agent where I got the policy from Progressive. So I guess I'm stuck with Progressive for at least a while.

I did get my bus in Oregon, but it was originally sold in WA and the title I have was issued by WA, so we'll see what happens with the DMV when I get that far.

And thanks for the link to the manuals, but those look far too new for me. The oldest one appears to be 2010. The manual I posted the link to above is 1997, which covers the 24 valve, and I have the 12 valve. So that will hopefully be very close except for the engine.

Anyway I ran my VIN through the search engine on a page that came up after that link you sent and it says my build date is 07/24/1997, which seems more than a little bit strange for a 1995 model, but that's what it says. A little further down the chart it tells me the pickup date was 05/30/1995. And it also tells me my model number is not a TC 2000, like it says on the dash, but rather it is a TC RE 3408.

So the results of that search are kind of confusing, but I guess that's mostly because my bus is so old.

gs1949 · 04-06-2019, 11:35 AM

Well, I played around a little more with the search on that link to Bluebird Vantage and apparently they have no manuals from 1995, which was not a big surprise..

cowlitzcoach · 04-13-2019, 06:52 PM

All BB TC models are either 1000 or 2000. I know the 3408 is an added identifier but I don't know BB's well enough to know what it means.

The trans temp gauge not moving up very much doesn't surprise me in the least. By 1995 or later the required amount of transmission cooling in a WA spe'c bus meant that the transmission temp gauge almost never goes up more than half way up into the green zone. If you ever seen temps over 180* I would say you are either on a really steep hill on a hot day with your foot buried in the throttle or you have a low coolant or low trans fluid issue.

Do you know which school district in WA the bus originated? Depending on which district would give an idea as to what sort of additional options were normally ordered and what sort of care the bus received. Most buses live outside but there are still a few that have covered or inside parking for their buses.

It sounds as if you found yourself a pretty good bus.

Good luck and Happy Trails to you!

gs1949 · 04-13-2019, 09:43 PM

@cowlitzcoach, thanks for the info and encouragement. I have no idea what 3408 means. I got that off one of those plates just inside the door. It did not have 1000 or 2000 in that number, but it does have a sticker on the dash that says T2000.

The bus came from Auburn. The dealer I bought it from, who specializes in buses, said he got 3 from the same school district, all 1995s, 2 with mileages in the 90s, and one just over 100.
It doesn't have overdrive, and it has 4.7 something rear end gearing 4.73, I think, but it might be 4.78. Driving it home I didn't feel comfortable going over 60, which was just under 2500 rpm, because I already had my last $50 in the fuel tank, and no one knows how long that oil has been in the engine.

But I intend to change the oil after payday, and I don't think I will miss the overdrive very much. The gearing should be fine too, because I plan to do a lot of boondocking in National Forests, and on BLM lands. They call it dispersed camping and it's free, unless you get caught making a mess, or cutting down trees.

cowlitzcoach · 04-13-2019, 11:20 PM

Auburn is an urban/suburban school district with virtually no long routes. It doesn't surprise me that a 20-year+ year old bus doesn't have 100K miles.

I don't think there is any place in the district that is much more than 10 miles from the bus garage.

The district has a few hills but most of it is down on the flat of the valley. Most of the schools in the league they compete is not a long drive away. As a consequence I doubt anyone every figured they needed any big HP buses with high speed gearing.

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