RomaniGypsy
Senior Member
2004 International CE300, DT466E, Allison trans (not sure which), 72pax 12 window, front-engine dog nose. ~155K miles, 7700 hours.
I'm attaching a picture of a "Spiracle" filter unit that I found attached to the engine. What the heck is this thing? Never heard of it before. (Mechanic said that it is no longer necessary and can be removed. He said it had to do with some old EPA regulation - it was a sort of air filter.)
Gearshift read RND421. My guess (let's see how much I've learned) is that that makes the transmission an AD2000 series. Correct?
Mechanic said that the buses in his stable (this was a school district in a rural area, but not TOO rural) have been returning 12-16 mpg regularly on stop-and-go runs, and the newer buses have hit as high as 22 mpg on longer trips. Those numbers seem incredible... but he swore up and down that the fuel reports showed those numbers. Claimed that even an "older" bus like this one should return 16-22 mpg highway at 55 mph. (He said it was governed to 67 mph or so.) Do you think this is even close to feasible?
The bus had rust underneath - I would call it "moderate". It was enough, at least, to require replacement of two unusually large horizontal crossmembers in the frame structure, though I saw no holes. I asked him what is usually the first thing to "go" when a bus gets too rusty... he said that the rust issues make it not worth their while to get it up to the point of being able to pass the state inspection, but since buses are "overbuilt" for safety's sake, it takes a lot to get them to rust out. He said "this bus should serve the purposes of someone like you for the next 25 years" and "you could remove every other rib from underneath and it would still be perfectly safe". (Bear in mind, the bus isn't even for sale yet, and the mechanic wouldn't be getting any money from the sale when it goes... so I don't see why he'd have incentive to lie to me.) Does this sound like a ludicrous pair of assertions or are they accurate?
And - what is the difference between "marine grade plywood" and the regular plywood (CDX) that you can buy at the lumber yard?
I'm attaching a picture of a "Spiracle" filter unit that I found attached to the engine. What the heck is this thing? Never heard of it before. (Mechanic said that it is no longer necessary and can be removed. He said it had to do with some old EPA regulation - it was a sort of air filter.)
Gearshift read RND421. My guess (let's see how much I've learned) is that that makes the transmission an AD2000 series. Correct?
Mechanic said that the buses in his stable (this was a school district in a rural area, but not TOO rural) have been returning 12-16 mpg regularly on stop-and-go runs, and the newer buses have hit as high as 22 mpg on longer trips. Those numbers seem incredible... but he swore up and down that the fuel reports showed those numbers. Claimed that even an "older" bus like this one should return 16-22 mpg highway at 55 mph. (He said it was governed to 67 mph or so.) Do you think this is even close to feasible?
The bus had rust underneath - I would call it "moderate". It was enough, at least, to require replacement of two unusually large horizontal crossmembers in the frame structure, though I saw no holes. I asked him what is usually the first thing to "go" when a bus gets too rusty... he said that the rust issues make it not worth their while to get it up to the point of being able to pass the state inspection, but since buses are "overbuilt" for safety's sake, it takes a lot to get them to rust out. He said "this bus should serve the purposes of someone like you for the next 25 years" and "you could remove every other rib from underneath and it would still be perfectly safe". (Bear in mind, the bus isn't even for sale yet, and the mechanic wouldn't be getting any money from the sale when it goes... so I don't see why he'd have incentive to lie to me.) Does this sound like a ludicrous pair of assertions or are they accurate?
And - what is the difference between "marine grade plywood" and the regular plywood (CDX) that you can buy at the lumber yard?
