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Old 11-20-2015, 06:24 PM   #201
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Absolutely INCREDIBLE Thread! Beautiful Job!

Thank you so much for being willing to start and keep us posted on your progress. This is the most incredible project I have seen documented. Many of the thoughts and ideas that I have had are covered and so many questions answered.

I look forward to more of your progress and to starting my own project.

Thanks again!!

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Old 12-18-2015, 03:43 AM   #202
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Year: 1998
Coachwork: Blue Bird
Chassis: TC2000 Rear engine
Engine: Cummins 8.3; MD3060
Rated Cap: 84
I am in the process of moving from coast to coast.... We sold our house to developers and were supposed to move some time in spring but they decided to pay us 2 month ago.... Last 2 month were a real hell for me....

Many things are done, bus is drivable licensed and registered as motorhome.... this was a real hell...

We will be in Windsor Ontario after Christmas. I will find some time to post some details.

Right now I have no time to even sleep....
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Old 12-18-2015, 08:17 AM   #203
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Cool

No worries, Vlad!

We're glad you are still on the planet!!

Good Luck with the move - take it easy!

Knowing the project is still up and running is all we wanted/needed to know!!

Best Regards,

thjakits
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Old 12-18-2015, 10:14 AM   #204
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Hang tight Vlad and have a safe trip. Just check in when you can.
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Old 12-18-2015, 12:52 PM   #205
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Are you moving to Windsor, Vlad, or is it just a stop over while travelling further east? You sure can't beat the east coast for culture, beauty and laid back living. If only there were more jobs out there...
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Old 12-24-2015, 09:13 PM   #206
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jazty View Post
Are you moving to Windsor, Vlad, or is it just a stop over while travelling further east? You sure can't beat the east coast for culture, beauty and laid back living. If only there were more jobs out there...
We sold our house in BC and decided to move to Ontario. We are still thinking about what city to choose there.

BC is nice but real estate is just CRAZY EXPENSIVE. One of my friends just bought a house 1974 2300 sqft in Burnaby (Vancouver suburbs) and paid almost a million CAD. When he asked me what needed to be done to make this house OK I only had one thing in my mind DYNAMITE..... He can't even afford to pay this kind of mortgage... he will live in 2 rooms and rent all others and hope that the price will go up and he will make some money.... reminds me what happened in US some time ago....
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Old 12-24-2015, 09:16 PM   #207
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I am still driving the beast.... I will have a bunch of stories about this trip...

One thing I know for sure I need MORE POWER to move this bus....
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Old 12-25-2015, 08:14 AM   #208
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Quote:
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We sold our house in BC and decided to move to Ontario. We are still thinking about what city to choose there.
If you want natural beauty and affordable property then go north! Around here land goes for around $800 an acre. Houses are reasonably priced as well. Same as with out east, the jobs aren't plentiful, but we all make it happen. Also, there's not much of anything urban up here.

Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brings you a turned up injector pump ☺
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Old 01-05-2016, 12:07 PM   #209
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After 9 days of road battle and 4000 miles I am safely arrived to Windsor Canada.

The bus is parked in heated storage. The owners allow to work on bus which is a BIG bonus.

The are many things happened on the way blown tire together with a bunch of air lines leaving me in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere...., leaking water pump, escape from hurricane, Christmas in the hotel etc.... all the good stuff

When I put the bus on scale I was surprised to see total weight of over 42000 lb, which explained my I5 speed at some places 15mph....

One thing surprised me is 8 mpg considering total weight of over 42000 lb...

Now I am in the process of sorting thing out. I need to organise the house, the bus, tools etc... As soon as this all or most done I will start working on bus and I will write all in details....
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Old 01-05-2016, 12:13 PM   #210
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42,000!? Wowser. Are we still talking about the Blue Bird?
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Old 01-05-2016, 12:23 PM   #211
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42,000!? Wowser. Are we still talking about the Blue Bird?
Yes, 42000+ lb was my total weight. 5000lb was my Jeep WJ which I was towing....

The empty weight (just the bus) was 21000 lb.

Front axle 7000 lb
Rear axle 14000 lb


My loaded weight was:

Front 13380 lb
Rear 23660 lb
Jeep 5000 lb
Total 42040 lb

This buses are serious beasts....
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Old 01-05-2016, 12:36 PM   #212
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16,000 lbs. of stuff is a lot of stuff!

How much of that is the weight of the roof raise and the slideouts?

Over 13K on the front axle does not sound good. Depending upon the size of the tire you most probably are overweight.

Almost 24K on the rear axle sounds like you are pushing the max weight there as well. Again check your tires to see how much weight they can carry.

Glad you were able to make it without too much drama.

Good luck and happy trails.
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Old 01-05-2016, 12:46 PM   #213
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Quote:
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16,000 lbs. of stuff is a lot of stuff!

How much of that is the weight of the roof raise and the slideouts?

Over 13K on the front axle does not sound good. Depending upon the size of the tire you most probably are overweight.

Almost 24K on the rear axle sounds like you are pushing the max weight there as well. Again check your tires to see how much weight they can carry.

Glad you were able to make it without too much drama.

Good luck and happy trails.
The bus was just full, I mean full to the roof everywhere including slideouts. Also under belly storage was completely full with heavy stuff.

My front tires are real steer semi tractor tires, rear ones were recaps and this is why one of them gave up when I was going downhill at 70+ mph.... not fun at all . I replaced all 4 rear tires with new 16 ply tires.

Also I added air bags to the front axle to help front springs... I do have all detailed pics. This air bags helped a LOT. I "jumped" on couple of bridges really bad and without bags I would smash my bumper to the road....

I added about 50 psi of air into bags and my springs straitened completely and bus front raised about 2".

Later I will get rid of rear springs and install air bags....


Load like this is a bit extreme and I am not planing to do this again....
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Old 01-05-2016, 12:55 PM   #214
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OK...that makes sense. My old 40' BB weighed in at about 19K empty.

The chassis on my '46 is only about 3700. I figure another thousand max for the bus body. Right now I am guessing (hoping for) a finished weight of about 6 grand or less. Will be interesting to see where it winds up.
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Old 01-05-2016, 01:08 PM   #215
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Sounds like you were only nominally overweight on the axles and springs anyway -- as I recall yours are the same as mine, which I think are 13,200 front and 23,000 rear for a total of 36,200. The inclusion of the extra 5,000 for the WJ toad really shocked us all... I, too, initially took the 42k to be the weight of just the bus! Glad you made it safely, or safe enough. That must have been a grueling trip.
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Old 01-06-2016, 01:44 AM   #216
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The other thing I noticed when I was crawling uphill on I5 my speed was about 13-15 mph and I was sure I was in 1 gear but tried manually shift and found one gear even lower.

Next time I started counting gears and counted 6 gears in total including one gear I shifted into manually.... Was I hallucinated ??? to much driving ???

My shifter is showing 5 but I can count 6 gears....
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Old 01-06-2016, 12:06 PM   #217
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I'll guess that your transmission is programmed to shift like the sequences shown in this pdf: 1C-2C-2L-3L-4L-5L, where C denotes driven through the torque converter and L denotes driven direct (converter lockup clutch engaged). One might feel the 2C-2L change where the converter locks and misidentify it as a shift.
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Old 01-06-2016, 12:13 PM   #218
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Quote:
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I'll guess that your transmission is programmed to shift like the sequences shown in this pdf: 1C-2C-2L-3L-4L-5L, where C denotes driven through the torque converter and L denotes driven direct (converter lockup clutch engaged). One might feel the 2C-2L change where the converter locks and misidentify it as a shift.
I didn't know this transmission has so many lockup options. I knew about 5 and 6 gear lockup....

So I guess I was driving in 1L and by manually shifting to "1" I unlocked lockup making it 1C....

BTW I saw this pdf before but didn't read it carefully enough... thanks for the info.


Reading pdf even more carefully here is a shifting patern:

1C-2C-2L-3L-4L-5L

There is no "1L"

And you are right 2C-2L is "my ghost extra gear"
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Old 04-09-2016, 08:34 PM   #219
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VLAD!!

Are you alive?!

Everything on track to resume construction of the "Megabus" ?!!

Best Regards,

thjakits
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Old 04-10-2016, 12:30 PM   #220
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Wondering same

Such a remarkable thread deserves closure and certainly hope it happens.
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