My wife and I looked all over the area and couldn’t find it, so I arranged to go in late to work Friday so I could go to the courthouse and get a replacement tag so I could go to the dump Saturday and get the bus weighed so I could go to the courthouse next week and title the bus with an accurate weight.

I just happened to have a little extra time Friday morning before the courthouse opened, so I dropped by my brother’s house to give him a heat gun he had asked for that it turns out he had already bought himself. (No problem; I expect I’ll be going through several in the near future.) And it also turns out he found my tag, saved it for me, and forgot to mention it. Thanks, bro!

I reaffixed it this morning, using washers to keep the paper from tearing off again.

Only One Leak???

It’s raining again. (Oh will my heart ever mend.)

Found this on the console by the driver’s side window, and no other leaks. Of course, the bus still has enough filth and spills inside it’d be hard to spot more leaks right now; but if this is all there is, it seems pretty manageable.

To the Dump, to the Dump, to the Dump-Dump-Dump

Jonathan and I took the bus to the dump this morning to dispose of the worst couch and chair. I confess that there may have been slightly more celebratory rolling of furniture out of the back of the bus than was strictly necessary in order to get said furniture over to the big green dumpster.

We arrived early when there weren’t many other people at the dump yet — apparently the second load of the day — and the attendant seemed amused and chatted a while about my plans for the bus. Good conversation starter.

With Jonathan in the bus and me on the scale outside the bus, the total weight was 14,700 lbs. Figure 200 lbs each, so 14,300 lbs for the bus itself, including a full tank of gas (400 lbs) and no water (as far as I can tell) in the tanks.

Two different gals at the courthouse were looking up similar VINs for me and coming up with 7,200 lbs. I think they must have been looking at short buses. My family’s 1969 Ford Galaxie weighs 3500 lbs; I can see that a short bus could be two Galaxies and the long bus could be four.

More Cleaning

After returning from the dump, Jonathan and I unmounted and unloaded the cheap stereo speakers that were screwed to cabinets and walls, pulled out and discarded cheap speaker cable, and did general litter patrol. Big yellow bag for trash; small bags for recyclable plastic and metal. We left it ready to sweep and mop.

Here’s the forward view through the back door, with the floor in its full grotesquerie. The bright windows you can see through are the ones we opened to get a cross-breeze. Most of the dome lights work; those that don’t appear to have bad bulbs rather than bad wiring.

Forward half of the bus. The cabinet on the right needs to go and make way for a passenger chair (with seatbelt); but it’s bolted down and we didn’t have the right tools with us. The sink cabinet on the left needs to be replaced with something a little nicer, but it’ll do for now.

The interior looking rearward from the front, with the back door open.

I haven’t figure out yet whether the cutout in the counter was for a stove or refrigerator. The gas line inside it doesn’t necessarily answer the question — I’m learning that RV refrigerators can run on gas (or 12VDC or 120VAC).

The back end with the door closed.

Easy Window Repairs

While I was fetching a nut driver for the speaker mounts, Jonathan took apart a window frame. He had it back together by the time I returned; but apparently the two screws come out, the adjacent frames lift off, and the windows lift out.

That’s encouraging to think of the ease of replacing the glass in broken windows and the ease of (eventually) replacing the windows with something that seals better and has a double pane for better insulating value.

Expenses

It’s home!

“Neighbor Dan” and I left at 5:30 this morning to go up to Manhattan, rig the split shifter, and bring home the bus. Dan pulled the split shifter off the differential, decided the shifter motor was just old or gummed up, and got the shifter engaged into high with some electricity and some thumping. The drive back was pretty uneventful — in particular, the shifter did not drop back out of gear.

Dan thinks the split shifter motor may just need lubrication or new brushes. He described how easy it is to remove from the differential; so I’ll start by taking it off, drilling out the three motor-mount screws off of which I broke the heads, and seeing what I can do with the motor. I don’t want to do a short-term fix like lubricating it with a lightweight oil that will just burn off, so I don’t know yet whether this will be a rebuild or a replace.

Turn Signals and Schoolbus Flashers

While Dan was working under the bus, I was looking for a bulb I could use to replace the burned-out rear right-turn signal light. Thought I might be able to pull one from the schoolbus flashers (which I don’t need), but it turns out they’re sealed-beam units.

Ended up borrowing one from the back-up lights, since I wasn’t planning to do a lot of backing on the highway.

Fuel Economy

The fuel gauge started on empty and I put in a little over 40 gallons in Manhattan, so I know the tank is at least a 41-gallon.

I refilled in Newton, adding about 22.7 gallons after about 108 miles, so I got about 4.75 mpg, a little less than I was hoping for. Dan thinks a tune-up may get me a little more.

Parked By the Shed

My brother is indulging me and letting me park the bus behind his shed by his stick-hauling grain truck, for now, anyway. He’s already warned me not to get too comfortable with that — but I’m sure once he sees how charming the bus is, his heart will warm to the idea of keeping it nearby.

Today’s Expenses

For five and a half hours of his time, plus 220 miles in his pickup, Dan only asked for $125. I gave him $149 — everything I had on me at the time. A bargain.

Monday Retrieval Plans

I scheduled Monday off work and found that Lawrence’s daughter Mary could drive me to Manhattan to pick up the bus. Monday morning I went to my insurance company and got a liability policy. The $125 annual premium seemed low, but they explained they don’t expect the bus/RV to be driven every day so they have limited exposure.

Next I went to the courthouse to register the bus. I had already confirmed that I could register it as an RV, but there’s a matter of getting the correct weight on the title. The previous owner had registered it as a 3500-lb vehicle, and that’s obviously absurdly low. The vehicle department clerk (Ron Tozier’s wife Sandy) looked up other vehicles with similar VINs and found people registering them in the 7200 – 9000-lb range. (I love the helpful attitude in a small town.) She said she’d be happy to average them and call that the weight.

I wasn’t quite comfortable making up a weight like that, though; and I know I’ll be making a trip over the truck scale at the dump when I dispose of the ratty bus furniture anyway. So I got a 30-day tag and I’ll go back after I know the actual weight.

It Doesn’t Drive

Mary and I headed to Manhattan, I found out Mary listens to Fleetwood Mac (well done, young lady!), and Mary admired the lovely purple bus. I started up the engine (runs very smoothly!), ran through a pre-flight checklist (right rear turn signal doesn’t light; all others are okay), and then put it into gear and eased out the clutch.

Nothing. No movement.

Already bad. But I’ve seen manual-transmission vehicles that had a single gear — often a low gear — broken, so I tried it in 2nd. Still nothing. Tried several combinations of high and low on the split shifter with 1st and 2nd gears and couldn’t get it to do anything.

Went inside to ask how it had got to the auction site, and the front counter folks didn’t know but the folks in the back ALL KNEW THAT IT HAD BEEN TOWED IN AND COULDN’T BE DRIVEN. In fact, the previous owner had been driving it to the auction site when it broke.

I think that would be something I would mention pretty loud and clear if I were selling a vehicle.

“I Make Problems Go Away.” (Does That Mean Me?)

While they looked for a manager, I went back out, fumed, and pondered. My brother’s neighbor is a fleet and heavy equipment mechanic for the state, and I figured “Neighbor Dan” could easily fix the problem in his shop; but two hours from home in a parking lot, with probably not a lot of local options to buy parts for something that big?

The manager who came out was very helpful and indicated that just to get things started, he’d give me more time to explore my options without charging the “storage fee” for not having removed the bus from their lot yet. He almost offered to refund my purchase price — but if the problem has an easy fix, I do still want the bus, and I have no illusions that it’s in perfect condition and will never need maintenance. I just thought it was drivable, since I explicitly asked that before the auction and was told yes.

Driveshaft

I rejoined Mary in the SUV, explained the situation, and agreed to get lunch in town before heading home. Over lunch, I ran through the list of things I had tried with the transmission and wanted to tell Dan about. While doing so, I realized that just to be thorough, I should go back and see whether the driveshaft was spinning while the transmission was in gear. We went back to the bus, put it in gear, and indeed the driveshaft was spinning.

Ah, that changes things!

Split Shifter

I don’t know much about split shifters and I’ve never (knowingly) driven one before, but the idea is this: In addition to the transmission at the front of the driveshaft having different gears that vary the rotational speed between the engine and the driveshaft, there’s also a two-gear (in this case) selector inside the differential at the back of the driveshaft that varies the rotational speed between the driveshaft and the axle.

The split shifter is worth maybe half a gear of transmission; so when you shift 1L, 1H, 2L, 2H, …, it’s like shifting ½, 1, 1 ½, 2, …

Since the driveshaft was spinning but the rear axle wasn’t, it sure seemed there must be a problem with the split shifter. (I can’t picture a differential problem that would allow the driveshaft to freewheel.)

So where along the way was the problem with the split shifter — at the front of the bus by the switch or relay, in the line from the front to the back, or at the shifter in back? The split-shift switch on the stick shift had to be connected to the split shifter mechanically, electrically, or hydraulically, and just my luck — it’s electric.

I rolled under the bus and got into position, where I could actually sit fully upright. With the engine off but the ignition key in the run position, I had Mary toggle the split-shift switch back and forth. We could hear a relay click under the dash, but no whirring or clunking at the split shifter.

Electrical Testing

Neither of us had a voltmeter along (oh, the unbearable shame!), so we ran to Radio Shack and I bought what seemed like a nice pocket meter (in grey, not yellow). In retrospect, the battery compartment lid bulges almost enough to pop loose, it’s very hard to get the probe cables tucked away so the case closes properly, the lid is very hard to close properly anyway, and the way the lid folds back when open makes the whole tester very floppy and precarious. Oh, and the auto-ranging function — although it seems like a good idea — is incredibly slow, so it takes several seconds to take even the most basic reading.

Right, split shifter.

As Mary moved the switch back and forth, I could see (after waiting the requisite several seconds) 12V appear on the wiring harness connector at the green or yellow wire — so the signal was at least getting to the back of the bus.

I pulled the cover off the electrical panel, noted the differently-colored wires inside than out, and poked around the circuit board. I should have got a picture of the other side, but the short wires made it awkward. There are two (large) microswitches that align with two bumps coming out of the mechanical housing.

It looks as though the switches are NC and act as endstops. The 12V from the front powers the shifter gearmotor or solenoid until it fully engages the desired gear, at which point the “bump” pushes out to engage that direction’s microswitch and remove power from the shifter. Then the whole thing sits idly by until told to shift the other direction.

With the lid open, I was able to see the 12V on the appropriate traces on the circuit board — but still no action from the shifter. With this newfound information, I closed up and we went back home.

Monday Expenses

Repair Plans

“Neighbor Dan” thinks (as I do) that the problem is with the shifter, not the differential; that he has enough information to order a correct replacement part by the weekend; and that he can go up Sunday, fix the shifter in the parking lot, and let me drive the bus home.

More over the weekend.

Of course, in order to persuade friends to take weekend trips with me, it should also have good audio and enough room to plug in a few guitars and a keyboard to sit around and jam.

Barring prohibitive circumstances to be described later, my dream appears to be taking shape in reality. Last week I won an auction for a half-converted former schoolbus previously owned by a university athletics fan and used as a tailgate bus. It already has the seats removed, potable and waste water tanks plumbed, and many other interesting “features.”

For starters, here are the pics from the auction listing. They’re not all interesting, but I’ll just be thorough.

First, a walk around the front of the bus:

Then working back along the right side:

The schoolbus stop sign has been removed.

Battery compartment revealing original schoolbus yellow paint. I’m still optimistic that the purple paint will come off easily and I can drive a yellow bus for a while before I repaint.

The wheels are dirty but the tire tread is in decent condition.

The rear of the bus has numerous scars and dents in the sheet metal, this being the worst. Hopefully I can get someone to, as my brother would say, “put a little weld on that.”

The decal peeled off easily, immediately increasing the value of the bus.

Various damage to taillights. I’d like to replace them all with bright LED signals to help keep my intentions clear and noticeable while driving. Don’t know whether the LED lights will come with new lenses or whether I’ll get to go salvage-yard hopping.

Blackwater dump hookup. There’s a “blast gate” (wonder what they’re called in this context) under the bumper to open and close the pipe.

Hitches for towing vehicles and stumps.

The rear door has been converted to fold down. Unfortunately, it only latches from the outside, it has no way to lock, when latched it has no way to open from the inside for emergency egress, and it’s currently the only way to enter the bus when the passenger door is closed. These things will need to be remedied.

Leftover paint cans, so I can see what was used and figure out what it’ll take to strip the purple paint.

Working up the left side, random dorm furniture, RV cabinetry with sink and cutout for stove, and lots of TV antennas. Also lovely purple window tinting.

Working up the right side, a couch and chair that need to go ASAP, a futon-like couch that may stay, and more purple window tinting.

Accessory control panel. Fans and heat but no AC.

The title lists the mileage on 08/22/2008 when the previous owner purchased the bus as “0101627.” I wonder whether

• it was at 101,627 miles a year ago and they’ve put on 99,745 miles in the last year, bringing it to 201,372.7
• it was really at 10,162.7 miles a year ago and they’ve put on 91,210 miles, bringing it to 101,372.7 (or 110,162.7 → 201,372.7)
• “0101627″ is a complete fabrication, like the title’s “empty weight” entry of 3500 lbs

And for completeness, the pre-sale disclosure statement:

Looks pretty good, maybe some minor work that needs to be done; nothing that would suggest the vehicle couldn’t be driven off the lot. I even called prior to the auction to confirm, and the woman answering the phone at the auction house’s published number assured me that yes, the bus could be driven away.

A separate phone conversation yielded that it runs on gas (not diesel) and has hydraulic (not pneumatic) brakes.

Total spent so far: