Quote:
Originally Posted by rossvtaylor
That's a nice bus, indeed!
Inside joke alert... "Crown, Crown, Crown"
Stand by for a visit from the Crown guru shortly!
We have a Gillig which looks similar...but I'm looking for a Crown like that to add as a sister (brother?) bus. That's a nice find. We look forward to seeing where you take here!
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I'm BAAAACK.
Yep, I've read all the posts but replied to this as quoted, for obvious reasons. Cute. Not even just, "Crown, Crown, Crown"...
but just like Arnie the "T"...... "II'lllll be BAACCKK" ...on Crown threads.
I'd say from the initial looks that you got a very nice Crown to start building on. All the Oregon liquid sunshine promoting moss and other things are just surface insults to the underlying Crown. The few all steel body parts will no doubt need attention, like the rear window/escape door. That thing rusts if you just think about it. My Tandem came from a desert District and when I tried opening it one of the handles came off in my hand.....there was the obvious surface rust in all the usual spots due mostly to atmospheric condensation and standing water, but the rear hatch had lots more plus the shaft inside had managed to corrode almost completely away, flaked away actually. Steel. It's what for dinner. For the rust at least. Have fun.
I'd suggest when able to do a really deep clean with a straight strength de-greaser like I do, sprayed on, scrubbed a bit then sprayed off with a hose. You should have the engine running when you hose it all off. It keeps any water from getting into the engine and filling a cylinder if there are any leaks not discovered. Make sure you also open the floor hatch and do the top of the engine the same way. This will give you a clean start and can then see any leaks and where they are coming from. All 6-71's will leak a little but the key is to keep it to a minimum and fix any obvious problems like gaskets or loose hose connections.
The 6-71 block is positively pressurized by the Roots blower needed for engine operation, so any oil that can find a way out, even as a vapor, will exit and then coat the outside of the engine. Also the Air Box drains on the underside are designed to let any accumulated oil in them to drain out and not get re-ingested into the intake air for the cylinders. This will fall to the ground and either leave the typical spot, or when underway hit the road and then get splattered and sucked up as the bus passes onto the rear of the bus. The rear of all buses is a low pressure vacuum area and anything picked up by it's passing will be eventually pulled onto the rear body panels of the bus. That's why all Detroit Diesel powered buses, Coaches, or Crowns, are forever looking dirty and covered with oil and dirt on the rear. All part of the Charm.
I'd caution you to remove, and keep safely close to you, both front and rear Crown emblems if you plan on storing it somewhere the insidious metal thieves and others interested in Crown specific parts might gain access. Re-install them when ready with stainless rivets to discourage those folks.
Try not to store it anywhere that doesn't have really good security measures and video cameras. Even that's not enough to get anything stolen returned. Crowns are definitely attractions that some folks can't resist. Of course, if you can, the best is to have it on your own land near you and able to work on whenever you want to, I'm so jealous if you can do that, it's fifty miles one-way for me, but at least they're both totally safe and secure. Yes I have two. A 35ft 2-axle turbo'd 6-71 like yours with a 10spd Roadranger, with the more common, and easily repaired, all flat windshields, I don't want to worry about them like I do with the Tandem.
One other thing is to understand that those magnificent curved one piece windshields are totally Unobtanium and need to be protected as well from the vandals who sometimes can't resist breaking windows. I also have them on my Tandem and love them to death, BUT, I live in constant terror of rocks and other highway hazards, and the random as*hole vandal breaking or just damaging one bad enough to need replacement. I'm ALWAYS on the hunt for a pair I can have on hand against the day I might need one. Protect and cherish those and enjoy the cool look it gives the Crown.
I worked for the very best Charter company here in Pasadena that had a tight relationship with Crown and they ordered a lot of their Crowns with the curved one piece windshields because they looked so good. At the time they were still available and no big deal to get replacements for. The curved windshields have always been an extra cost option available to anyone who wanted them. Even back in the days of the small windshields of the pre-1960 era Crowns. I drove many pre-1960 Crowns of theirs with the curved windshields. Look up online and you'll find the older short windshield style and maybe even a few with the curved ones, but not often since it was an expense most customers just didn't want to pay for.
At this point with the info you've presented I'd say your plan to demo and start over is truly the best course of action. I've seen and taken trips in the type of conversion in place right now. It's minimally functional as a rolling tent and provides enough for a decent experience while not damaging the Crown underneath much at all.
I applaud it actually, and I also intend to do something this Spartan initially in order to make mine minimally useful once I reach a travel destination. I will continue to work on and improve it as time goes on but the main thing is to be able to drive it and keep it on the road as much as possible and get the use out of it. My goal is the driving experience mostly, and having a Crown to take on the road and travel around IS the reason for owning it.
I'd strongly suggest that once you've accomplished a good clean up and checking of the batteries, fluids, belts and filters and such and make it solidly road-worthy again, I'd plan on driving it, at least, about 50 miles or so every month to keep the batteries charged and the air system and other seals and components exercised as it were, this will prevent air and oil seal leaks from developing and make the Crown MUCH more reliable and enjoyable to drive. I can't emphasis how important it is to drive and use the Crown. They thrive on being driven, lots, and lots, because they were designed and built with the heaviest duty drive-line and other equipment for million mile service lives. I find mine gives less trouble the more often I drive it, as do others with Crowns of their own. Letting them sit around while the conversion is being done, for years sometimes, creates real problems when it's time to take them on the road again, expensive repair problems.
One thing I should mention about driving technique is to NOT BABY the engine or transmission. The engine needs to be driven like you're mad at it and what I mean by this is to FLOOR the accelerator pedal while accelerating the bus, where you have the highway room of course. All Detroit's need to be driven hard in order to keep the rings seated and burn all fuel in the cylinders and not build up carbon. This is easier with a manual transmission where I tell everyone to FLOOR it after every shift until ready for the next gear, but there is a tendency to baby the Allison's and drive it like a car. Do NOT do that. The Allison also needs to feel the engine torque to sense where and when to shift properly.
The transmission will most likely be an Allison MT64x (x=3,4,7) and is about as bullet proof as you can get. These Allison's are all purely mechanical with hydraulic brains in the transmission and they are matched perfectly to the 6-71 engines. The transmission will lock up in 2, 3, and 4th gears, and what you feel and sense may be a gear change is actually the next higher gear with the torque converter still engaged then it locks up and feels like another gear change. Give it full throttle so it is able to properly sense and shift at the correct point into the next higher gear.
You should also be prepared to manually shift to a lower gear as you climb hills in order to keep from lugging the engine. Keep the engine in the 1700 to 2200 rpm range and if you notice that you're pulling a grade and the engine is down around 1600 or so and still pulling and the transmission hasn't downshifted yet, you must override it and pull it into the next lower gear or you WILL overheat and cause damage to the engine. The Allison is extremely good for most all driving conditions, BUT, you the driver must always be monitoring and take control of your Crown to ensure that the engine is not stressed inadvertently in a situation that the transmission isn't programmed to deal with. I see this all the time and tell everyone to watch and drive your Crown as if you had a manual transmission when required.
Two things you should never do to your engine is to get it HOT or lug it down at full power below 1600rpm. You can do this as you shift as long as the engine is picking up the load and the rpms are increasing, but don't keep it here in a situation where the engine is pulling, but not increasing speed, which will eventually lead to excess heat in the radiator and engine due to low water flow and inability to reject the heat from the radiator, very bad indeed. High power demands at low engine rpms is the definition of lugging, and leads to getting it overheated and damaging the heads, and cylinder liners. As long as you keep your rpms up and best case in the 1800 to 2200 range all the time and watch your temperature gauge you will get years of trouble free miles out of it. That's the secret to long life for the Detroit 2-strokes, and don't forget to drive it like you're mad at it.
Also make sure you ONLY use Delo 100 straight 40wt oil in it, Delvac 1240 is also OK, these two are the preferred primary choices, with Rotella T1 40wt as an OK third choice. The most important thing to know is that these are all the mandatory CF2 rated, very low ash content equivalent oils, that's the key, and ONLY to be used in the 2-stroke Detroit's. They are all usually very hard to find anymore in retail outlets due to the lack of these engines on the roads anymore. You will need to look around for a local source and buy a case of oil and keep it with you at all times, 6 gallons or so on hand at all times, since you will be adding a gallon of oil 4-800 miles or so. Using oil is normal and 4-800 miles or so is very typical.
You should consider an oil change, to make sure that's what's in it, as soon as you can. Ask your friend what he used and be polite if he says he used some kind of common multi-grade oil. He may not have known or been told. If it has multi-grade, 15-40 usually, you must plan on changing it as soon as you can first thing. If not it will leak, and slobber oil out of all kinds of places, as well as blowing blue smoke out the tail all the time, that's the wrong oil at work.
Planning ahead and having key parts on hand is a very good idea. The belts are something else you should carry with you too. They aren't hard to find, except when needed on the side of the road in Possum Breath somewhere in the Great West, you'll be happy you have a set with you.
Fuel mileage can be anywhere from 7-10 miles per gallon and depends more on how the engine was set up by the district. Most fleets are looking for the most mileage they can get so they compromise performance for good MPG. Hopefully as an Oregon Crown it avoided the horrible Kalifornia smog crap inflicted on the Detroits at the time, but then again maybe not, since that's the only engines they could get, and they had them on hand. I've seen out of state Crowns with the same crappy performance of the CA units all due to Crown putting the smog engines in them.
This will be one of your tasks to find a GOOD and Experienced 2-stroke mechanic and find out exactly what is installed in your Crown. Also be sure to check ALL your fluids, engine oil, Power steering, Transmission, Rear-end, front wheels if they have the windows on them, Coolant and the coolant filter/conditioner. Give the whole bus a lube job and DON"T forget the check and lube the Hidden Zerk fitting on the radiator fan hub. This thing is missed by many and it can cause REAL trouble if neglected. If the bearings get worn and the fan is loose on the hub, even a little, it will make vibrations in the engine speed ranges and is telling you it needs service. This is something you shouldn't forget about.
Top speed on the road for MOST Crowns built for school District bus service was about 63mph at about 2200rpm. This was more than enough since 55mph was top legal school bus speed. But when empty the drivers could go a little faster, HAH, still not much. I was spoiled at the charter company because they had all of theirs geared for about 73 or so since we did very many non school bus charter trips and needed the highway speed.
In order to increase the top end speed for a Crown the fix is to replace the rear-end gears with another set of gears. The common ratio is 4.10:1 and so very common on Crowns in school service. I did a Crown, exactly like yours by the way, for a lady who lived in Bolder who needed better highway speed where we changed hers to a set of 3.70:1 and clocked her at an honest GPS verified 80mph now. This thing was incredibly awesome on the road and cruised with no stress, or fuss or muss at a nice comfortable 73 or so at around 2100rpm, right in the engines' sweet spot. I suspect you can easily do this to yours when the time comes for those long highway trips. The cost is only about $1800 or so with a shop doing the work and charging labor. The actual gear assembly is only about $8-900 or so and easily found, the labor is the main cost, even though it's a simple job.
I'm curious too about that generator and it's installation. It looks to be a gas, or maybe propane??, since I spotted that propane regulator in the engine bay.....maybe not the best place to be routing propane it you can help it. So where is the fuel tank, if it's gas, and also if it's propane. You should definitely plan on re-doing that rats nest and check out other options, maybe a diesel one if possible. Many good threads here on how to do the electrical builds and the choices are all yours. Have fun. That enclosed spare tire compartment it's installed in is a nice extra cost option not found in all Crowns by the way. That goes along with the curved windshields and tells me the original Customer spec'd their Crown with a few very nice extra goodies for extra curb appeal as well as an enclosed luggage space when needed, unless of course they kept a spare in there....
Sorry for the length I got a little carried away, but it appears you have a very nice example and will only need some TLC to clean it and taking it back to bare walls and doing your own build. As long as you don't drill and cut holes everywhere, or compromise the basic vehicle integrity you'll get decades of sublime enjoyment out it, but more if you drive it a LOT.
Fire away with questions and such as you progress and I'll answer what I can and help point you to where you can find help I can't provide. Also feel free to contact me direct and we can talk and I'll fill you in on things way too many to do here.
mikemcc2k@yahoo.com
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