More gauges!

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by Brewerbob

Aesthetics; I don't like the looks of the dog noses. The shorties it's not as important but the flats have the steer wheels behind the driver. Easier to make turns.

IDK, but for how cheap these lil conventionals are, and how USEFUL they are you may wanna try one out sometime. If you can make it to the FL skoolie bbq at yellowXJ's on the 22nd you can drive mine. VERY maneuverable. Cruises parking lots and downtowns with ease.
For what it is, my 40' fe is extremely tight turning and maneuverable too.

But yeah man they make some fairly short flat nosed buses, too, but for a daily driver or frequently used bus having the engine so accessible and all that makes maintenance and repair much easier.

[Dog Rescuer]

I am also partial to the conventional bus - I drove school buses for close to 10 years - and I looked at a lot of flat nose buses and drove several - I think it is certainly a matter of taste. I will always take the conventional bus over a flat nose FE or RE - even though I love how the RE drives.

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

IDK, but for how cheap these lil conventionals are, and how USEFUL they are you may wanna try one out sometime. If you can make it to the FL skoolie bbq at yellowXJ's on the 22nd you can drive mine. VERY maneuverable. Cruises parking lots and downtowns with ease.
For what it is, my 40' fe is extremely tight turning and maneuverable too.

But yeah man they make some fairly short flat nosed buses, too, but for a daily driver or frequently used bus having the engine so accessible and all that makes maintenance and repair much easier.

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

IDK, but for how cheap these lil conventionals are, and how USEFUL they are you may wanna try one out sometime. If you can make it to the FL skoolie bbq at yellowXJ's on the 22nd you can drive mine. VERY maneuverable. Cruises parking lots and downtowns with ease.
For what it is, my 40' fe is extremely tight turning and maneuverable too.

Apr or May 22nd?

Now that I have a bus and the project, if/when I get another, I can wait for the sweetheart deal. The unicorn is out there somewhere; a 5 row flat nose for $1500 with only 57,000 miles on it.

But yeah man they make some fairly short flat nosed buses, too, but for a daily driver or frequently used bus having the engine so accessible and all that makes maintenance and repair much easier.

I doubt I'll ever truly DD a bus. The TDI has more than enough space for groceries and was getting 48 mpg on the way back from WV. Your shorty ain't touching that. The Dakota I have gets 15.5 so unless it's a MOUNTAIN of trash, i'll do the landfill trips. Now when I go buy sheel metal, I'll use the skoolie and see if I can't buy it in 20' lengths. Well, at least two 20's and then get the other precut.

I need to buy a 50' tape measure.

[cadillackid]

For me since the busses are really just toys I don't worry about MPG I go on FPG and the FPG is off the charts cruising a bus around.

The shortest flat nose I've seen is a Thomas 8 window,

For repairs a dognose is awesome, disconnect the spring cable, 2 hinge pins and bam the whole front end is wide open to work on... even just flipping the hood forward I can stand between the frame and wheel to work. But remove the hood and you can get to anything.
The upgrades I'm about to do would be a total pita is in an FE

Christopher

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

For me since the busses are really just toys I don't worry about MPG I go on FPG and the FPG is off the charts cruising a bus around.

The shortest flat nose I've seen is a Thomas 8 window,

For repairs a dognose is awesome, disconnect the spring cable, 2 hinge pins and bam the whole front end is wide open to work on... even just flipping the hood forward I can stand between the frame and wheel to work. But remove the hood and you can get to anything.
The upgrades I'm about to do would be a total pita is in an FE

Christopher

There's a fair amount of room on my RE. I've no idea what you are doing and I wonder at the routing of the turbo on mine but it looks simple enough but then I haven't tried changing a spark plug yet.

[dan-fox]

Originally Posted by Brewerbob

There's a Prius driver somewhere cussing NOT under his breath at you right now. Especially if your grocery store is less than a mile and your bus is more than 35'. But that's ok. I don't mind pissing off Prius drivers.

Thanks! Remind me to bring the Prius when I come help demo out the seats and floor. I'll see if I can teach it to fart electrons at you.

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by Brewerbob

There's a fair amount of room on my RE. I've no idea what you are doing and I wonder at the routing of the turbo on mine but it looks simple enough but then I haven't tried changing a spark plug yet.

im doing cooling system updates and general electronic stuff... so getting at the radiator and front part of the motor..

an RE is a whole different animal from an FE.. the RE's look like they are generally friendly to work on.
-Christopher

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

an RE is a whole different animal from an FE.. the RE's look like they are generally friendly to work on.
-Christopher

Again without having changed teh spark plugs, I'd agree with that. Maybe teh turbo side would be a problem but you're likely to be pulling the cooling away for that kind of work.

I think the school guy gave most of my paperwork to that damn houston guy who drove up the prices. The one thing I got that the girl didn't is the owner's manual to the engine. It reads as a FSM not owner's manual. I also have the FSM for the rest of the bus.

The terms don't seem to carry over from the car world tho. Blue Bird has an 11 page pdf for the engine. That's an operator's manual if that. The Cummins book is 200 pages and adjusting valves, etc.

[cadillackid]

the terms in deisel are different for sure... im guessing its on purpose.. but I dont know that.... though the basic operation of an engine is pretty much the same...

compression-fuel-air-ignition. in the case of the diesel the ignition is the heat generated from the compression.... timing is the fuel shot instead of a spark plug..

lots of differences of course but still similar concepts... of course in the diesel world much more work is done on the fuel delivery since it is in effect the fuel and ignition.. so most work and theory revolves around that portion...

compression is compression... opurely static mechanical.. I suppose a RADICAL misadjusted valve could cause compression issue but its basically a static thing.. compression is non adjustable.. air is just a tube... no butterfly, no valve.. just a tube... add a turbo and its a pressurized tube....

so that leaves the fueling system as where the magic happens..


-Christopher

[EastCoastCB]

Bob- you're joking about spark plugs, right?

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

compression-fuel-air-ignition. in the case of the diesel the ignition is the heat generated from the compression....

Lies. You can't have fire without a spark Pretty sure there's even a song about it. It's black magic I tell you.

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

Bob- you're joking about spark plugs, right?

Kinda. Yeah I know there are no plugs in diesel but the first bus I saw in person I was looking around the engine thinking about the plugs and whether they would be easy to replace or not. It was 5 or 10 seconds before I remembered I was looking at a diesel engine.

Doesn't really matter tho. The fuel rails, injectors, and glow plugs are where I expected plugs to be.