Door names on the buses

[1964 Carpenter]

I heard that some people called the "inward-outward" door the "scissor" door. But I like the inward-outward" better. The jackknife door is what some people would call it the accordion door as it folds up like an accordion. Then there is what Carpenter called was the "Panic-free" door. The final version was the "sedan door". From what I have heard from another guy who owns a 1968 Chevrolet Ultraramic Carpenter bus, that with the jackknife or the inward-outward door, you have a little bit of draft coming up from the bottom step. My view also with the jackknife or the inward-outward is when you are trying to sweep your stepwell, and you open the door, one or both leafs are going to swing in hiding part of the dirt. An easy fix to that if keeping the inward-outward door with the bus would be to vacuum the stepwell. The plus side to inward-outward doors is that when it comes to cleaning the outside of the rear leaf is that you can open the door and you would be standing on the step within easy reach of the full height of the door. Gillig built a bus with the panic-free door but they had a custom design to where both leafs on their panic-free door swung inside the bus. Sedan doors I see that you can easily install an exterior latch just like you would on a house door.

[Iceni John]

Crown used one-piece doors on almost all their buses: their school buses' doors open inwards, but can be opened outwards in an emergency by lifting a handle that disengages the door from the air cylinder; their tour buses such as the Atomics have outward-opening doors that were usually manually operated. The only Crowns with two-piece doors were the few transit buses they built for some California towns and cities, and the Ikarus bendy-buses (but they were made in Hungary). I like being able to have the door open while I drive if it's hot weather, and if I also have some rear windows or the rear roof hatch open the air will blow forward and out the door, taking with it any dust and dirt. Crown school drivers used to call that the 50MPH sweep!

John

[UFO pilot]

Can confirm my HPO has the manually operated open-outward single door. Low tech compared to the coaches but its me proof.

[cadillackid]

the bottom door sweep typically didnt last long on jacknife and scissor doors.. souble outs have the ability to put a strip where each panel sloses against the stepwell...

the sweep on alot of busses was a combination of a hollow soft rubber and a brush (like a broom), which together curbed most of the drafts.. but they opf course didnt last more than 5-10 years at most being opened 30 times or more per day running routes..



in most cases it was no big deal as busses up north generally were bought with rioght WS defrost units that included a stepwell heater and / or door defrost which absorbed the draft...

I get a pretty decent draft in my superior with jacknife from the door that I need to fix. (will help my A/C)

[Crown_Guy]

Ahh yes. We called it the Embree Sweep. Very efficient at 65-70 mph. Embree had a custom inward opening double door design on most of their Crowns. They liked it because it offered a shorter first step tread and they could add an extra step so the little old ladies on charters could step in easier without the taller standard Crown step height. I've attached some examples of the Embree Crowns with the Double doors.

Notice that 63 and 67 are the Rear Engine 6V-53 with Allison 6spd, full air-ride suspension, full underfloor luggage bays, super custom Embree designed units. Only seven of these were ever built, and they were all used exclusively by Embree Buses until they were retired. When I bought them all, except for 62, while 61 was scrapped before I could get it.

47 and 54 were also heavily customized Embree specials but had the standard mid-engine placement. Embree bought Crowns in flights of three at a time and they were all spec'd the same. Fleet numbers 53, 54, 55 were all full air-ride suspension with originally Hall-Scott 590 (2600 rpm) gas engines. Later they re-powered them to 6-71's and literally doubled the range of the buses since the 6-71 got at least 7mpg compared to the normal 3mpg for the gas engines.

47 was part of a flight with normal leaf spring suspension and originally had the, standard at the time, larger displacement Hall-Scott 1090 (2100rpm) engine, and it was also re-powered to the 6-71. Made it an awesome Crown, as were ALL the Embree fleet Crowns.

I was totally spoiled from the very beginning by starting my career with such an exceptional company, who, by the way, had a very, very close relationship with Crown for their own buses, as well as engineering innovations that Crown adopted for their own production under license. For instance, the Crown side mounted radiator setup was originally an Embree design that Crown adopted and licensed on all their buses. Embree had so many innovations and original designs it's hard to know where their stuff started and Crowns' own engineering took over. They were very tight that's for sure.

[Jackula]

I like that cool bus, mine was like that for a short time