If I could do it all again...

[opus]

I wouldnt do it again! There, laugh at that.

[bapos]

you beat me this thread. i was going to post the same kind of question

[gbstewart]

maybe I would if I had a garge to do it in, and not on tight time frame. I really like my floor plan, so I wouldn't change it . I would maybe to a rear engine with a air ride this time, but Im real happy with the dog nose that I have now.

gbstewart

[lornaschinske]

If we knew back then what we know now.... We wouldn't have bought the Eagle. We would have just started out with a skoolie. But I sure learned a lot off the coach forums!

[kotflb]

The only thing I desire that my buses currently don't have is a stick shift transmission and faster highway rear axle gearing.
I prefer to roll my own gears, but changing out the auto is just too much trouble.

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by Maynard

... Lorna, I'm extremely interested in your remark about the Eagle. We were skoolie all the way from the jump, but I'll tell you the first time I saw an Eagle's bay storage door open up to reveal a room practically big enough to step into... well it made my feelings about crawling under our bus to bolt a frame for holding tanks a tad annoying. Just a little storage space jealousy with those Eagle's ha!

The bays were great but the more we tore into the bus to repair the rust, the farther we had to go. And our Eagle was in "good shape". The BlueBird is so clean underneath. It's amazing. Just very tiny amount of rust in a couple of places. Nothing like the Eagle... Rust bucket of the bussin' world!

Eagle Rust!

More pics here http://aluminumasylum.webs.com/eagle05photos.htm

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by ramblin.ruby

Yikes! Did they drag that thing out of the ocean? I grew up in Vermont and the road salt there killed every vehicle I owned long before its time. Rust is an evil, evil thing.

The Eagle was a TX Trailways bus (had the old trip thingy when we bought it... didn't get near the coast except when it was shipped over from Belgium... our bus was not built in Brownsville, TX). This is typical rust damage for an Eagle (and better than many we had looked at). Many converters do not strip down to frame! Eagle owners are some of the first to make the jokes about Eagles rusting.... ie

a couple of us Eagle owners not going to the Ennis Mountain Rally are thinking about heading east,if you guys don't mind the sound of Eagles rusting at night. You get flowing water and Eagle rust, it's a soothing sound lol

So you can imagine how funny I find some of you complaining about the rust you are dealing with on the skoolies. Like the song says "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

[lapeer20m]

I like to keep sort of a modular floor plan, so that as time pepgresses I can rearrange things to fit my current needs. Not so practical to move bathroom, but most items on the floor plan could be moved in a long weekend. My first couple of buses went through multiple makeovers as I learned what worked or didn't work for me.

[SeanF]

Less/lighter roof deck.

[SeanF]

Thanks for the deck compliment! The conversion log is here.

I just don't care for the weight. I do like the summer shade and E-Z access to the panels and chimney and the storage pods that are up there. Could have done the same job using less massive materials. But it's a "forever" deck if ever there was one.

Cheers
Sean

[sportyrick]

girlfriend said 6 more inches of bathroom width would be better, otherwise we wouldn't change much. Might have got a newer one, lighter too, this thing is a monster and very heavy, 23,000 w/o passengers or gear, weighed in at 20,000 before conversion (sans seats). sportyrick

[browncrown]

I keep changing little things here and there, but for the most part, I like the way everything turned out and would'nt change anything. I think every bus body has it's pluses and minuses and you work around what you have to work around.

[Elliot Naess]

I would NOT buy a front-engine-flat-nose again. Engine access is horrible. I'm having trouble with the throttle and other linkages on the left side of the engine, and it is almost impossible to work on it.

I bought Millicent in order to have a "toy hauler" tail gate, but now I would buy a conventional, or a shorter pusher, and use a longer trailer. (65 feet overall maximum allowed.)

We also need more bunks, what with friends constantly joining on our trips, so the half-living-space/half-cargo-space idea is not successful.