2001 international - The bus with no name (yet)

[HighNoone]

So we finally pulled the trigger on a bus today. It's an 01 international 3800 6 window, DT444e, Allison 2000, 95K miles, rear handicap door and lift, 6 new tires, new batteries, 4:44 gearing on the rear axle, the heat a/c and radio even work and it was only an hour or so away to boot. Its my first bus and first diesel so I got a local medium/heavy diesel mechanic to come look it over and give it the all clear before I bought it to make sure I wasn't shooting myself in the foot. I'll get some pictures up later tonight when I get back from work. Thank you guy's for all the advice/input. Merry Christmas Y'all!

[Rwnielsen]

Sounds like you did very well. Merry Christmas

[HighNoone]

It needs a bath but here it is. It was pouring while I was checking it out and there was no window/door leaks.

[Frochevy]

Originally Posted by HighNoone

It needs a bath but here it is. It was pouring while I was checking it out and there was no window/door leaks.

Congrats on your purchase and welcome!! Looks like it's in pretty good shape. Merry Christmas!

[Oscar1]

Merry Christmas and Congrats on the great looking bus.
Stay safe out there!
Cheers

Oscar

[EastCoastCB]

Sweet bus! Merry Christmas!

[HighNoone]

So it's been awhile, but I've been holding off posting more til I figured out how things were gonna shake out with our bus. We bought the bus on Christmas Eve day for $1,900! The catch being that it was on a salvage title and couldn't be legally driven until the title was cleared, which requires an "enhanced inspection" here in PA. I've never bought a vehicle on a salvage title before so I was hesitant, but I figured this bus had enough positives going for that it I was willing to take the gamble. Got word Friday from the inspector/mechanic that it needed a new fuel tank cap, but was good to go. Yesterday (exactly a month after we bought it) I drove it the 2 hours home and now its in the driveway, Woot woot!! The drive home was really pretty fun, it ran and drove great. It is governed at 65mph so I'll have to get that removed and the wheel chair lift sounds like there's a a pile of pots and pans clattering around the back, but that's my only complaints. I've been itching to start working on this thing, so the next day I have free I'm gonna gut this thing like a trout. I've got a fresh pack of cut off wheels for my angle grinder, I'm hoping I can get all the seats out in one day. Really I'm just happy I've got a good platform to start the conversion and I didn't have to pay through the nose for it... All hail the bus gods!!

[RolesvilleMarina]

What were your Revs at 65mph?

peak power on the T444E is 2300 rpms, or 2350 I forget exactly so lets say 2300.

Anything after that you are just pushing her harder than needs, trying to get a mile or two per hour extra. you ideally want to be right in her sweet spot at 2000-2100 revs... This is where they are happiest.

Also be careful not to lug the motor (under 1700-1550 revs and with a hard load, like uphill.) CadillacKid can go into more better detail on the lugging aspect and heating up exhaust and how it is not beuno.

If it is limited then when you reach 65mph you will literally feel it "cut off" so to speak... the throttle input will do nothing and it is very noticeable in the way it behaves.

If however, you are peaked out in the revs and 65 is all she has then it's not that. There is no "governor" in the mechanical sense on this motor. It's called a speed limiter and it's changed by plugging in the laptop/scan tool and changing the limit or turning it off. Same thing with the cruise control if you have it. A quick pop into the IH dealer and they can do this. They charged me 1 hour labor for a 4 min plug in but hey is what it is.

Call your IH dealer with your Vin and they can tell you your rear end ratio... that's what we really need to know to determine what your top speed is.

Ideally though cruise set at 64 mph and the revs at 2k ish depending on your ratio, I have 4.78 and also smaller tires than most, but you find you are in the sweet spot, going fast enough to keep up with traffic yet just slow enough you can set the cruise and chill and you are getting your ideal MPG

congrats on bus

[HighNoone]

I appreciate the info! It pulled strong right up to 65mph then just "cut out" like you said. At 65mph I was running a shade lower than 2k RPM. I called IH with the VIN before I bought it, they said its governed to 65mph and has 4:44 gearing on the rear. I didn't know that the cruise control could be turned on/off via the computer... mine isn't working currently so I'd be interested to see if its turned off in the ECU. I'd be pretty happy if it was that EZ a fix. I'm not trying to turn it into a speed machine, but it'd be nice to have the ability to do 70+ briefly when/as needed.

[HighNoone]

Here it is back home in the driveway... still needs a bath, but it's been too and cold. We've been kicking around names.. the current favorite being "Otto" after the school bus driver character in the Simpson's series.

[Rwnielsen]

That's a good-looking Little Bus

[RolesvilleMarina]

65 mph at 2k revs is perfect

yes IH will raise the speed limiter and enable the cruise control easily with just a few strokes on the laptop. And they will still charge a full hour for the 4 min job


those are good numbers... like I said 2k revs is right where you'll get the best MPG, and I find that going 64mph is fast enough to keep up fine, but makes every one else go around me, so I can set the cruise... if I set the cruise faster I keep running into slower folks and have to turn off, go around, reset.

64 at 2k is the best for both mileage, and no hassles

[HighNoone]

Had the afternoon off. Got the stop sign and lane swatter off. Pulled all the seats as well. (edit: I'll try and figure out why my pictures post sideways)

[kcblkeeley]

Looks just like my bus did when I started. Good luck on your Christmas "gift". Attached is a pic of a forklift ready to remove the wheelchair lift.

[HighNoone]

The wheelchair lift is next on the list. I want to be gentle taking it out incase it can be used/sold/donated down the road. Got the front wall 1/2 seats out yesterday before the snow started. Ended up with 15'8" from the back wall to the white line and 7'8" wide, so that will be our useable interior space. I still can't figure out why my pictures post sideways. Any advice?

[kcblkeeley]

I have found that my pictures taken with my phone in the upright position post sideways. Look at my shower pic on my bus pics because it posted sideways. Just take them with your phone in the landscape position. Good luck.

[musigenesis]

Open your JPEGs in a picture editor of some sort, make sure they're rotated the way you want them, and then save them in PNG format before uploading them. JPEGs sometimes contain a piece of metadata that says what orientation they were taken in; phones often set this value while also swapping the x and y axes of the bitmap, which results in a sort of double rotation when displayed on this forum. PNGs don't have any orientation property so this problem is always avoided (they're a bit larger than JPEGs, however).

My build thread is all-PNG, no rotation problems.

[rossvtaylor]

For those of us old folks...I find it easiest to just open the photo in Preview or something on my desktop then take a screenshot of it. Maybe not elegant, but it works...

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by rossvtaylor

For those of us old folks...I find it easiest to just open the photo in Preview or something on my desktop then take a screenshot of it. Maybe not elegant, but it works...

How long does it take to mail it to skoolie.net after you print it out?

[rossvtaylor]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

How long does it take to mail it to skoolie.net after you print it out?

Usually, I just fax it after I mimeograph a copy.

Thanks for the chuckle! And...now...back to the original thread.