Quote:
Originally Posted by busone
Wolfman, are you in texas? Did you get your bus off Ebay? I seem to remember Texas A&M selling a few buses. Are you looking to change the rear end gears? They should not be too expensive since it is a "T" configuration.
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Yup, I'm in Texas. Ebay played a part in me finding my bus, but it was not purchased as an Ebay sale. I went down to the college to look at their offerings, as they were only a few hours away. What they had up for auction, were in particularly bad condition - not to say that any of their retired busses were spectacular. I paid $1400 for mine, with ~130,000 and 134,000 miles on the engine and transmission. The chassis itself has 440,000 miles on it. The bus drove home, but had a seriously failed rear main seal. It was bad enough to allow the oil pressure to completely drop to zero at idle once it warmed up. I got this problem repaired immediately after getting the bus home. It has electrical issues as well, but being rewired is part of the plan for its strip down prior to conversion. Mine has the air actuated french doors, and I'm gonna keep them as part of the busses unique quirks.
I have to changeout the gears as this thing is seriously wound out while still travelling WAY too slow on the highway. I lost count of the offensive gestures I received while holding the pedal to the mat on a particularly long stretch of 2 lane highway with no safe place to pull off to allow traffic by. On top of that, I'd really like to get it capable of getting 10 mpg on the highway, so I'm going to take the hit on pulling power on the grades, and have it regeared for a top end of 85 mph. Those here who are talking about regearing their Cat engined pushers will have the exact ratio I'm looking for, as my 555T Cummins is at it's sweet spot at the same revs that the Cat is being shut down by it's fuel governor. Mine has something along the lines of a 7.6:1 differential. Since I have a wickedly tight budget reserved for my bus, I'm looking to get deals wherever I can find 'em.
I got a good early start on the strip down, but then summer ended, and hell started earlier than normal. I haven't touched the bus since late June. Now that hell is over, and fall is here, I'll be getting back to work once a couple of other higher priority items are completed.
I'm stripping it down to the supports, as there is a bit of a rust issue on alot of the interior panels, and I want to make sure that there is no chance for cancer to get embedded.