richard5933

Yup - That's what I'm saying. This photo is from when I purchased the bus at the end of the summer. It has a few more miles on it now. The photo of the engine bay shows what a new Detroit Diesel 8V71 looks like complete with factory paint (but the photo was just taken last fall.) Not only is it possible, it's quite common to find older vehicles with very few miles. This is not my first time to find such an old vehicle with very low mileage, but it's probably in the best condition of the many I've had. I've driven all the classic cars I've owned and never treated any of them like a museum piece. In the early 90s I found a '68 Cutlass with only 2000 miles on it, and I drove it for another 30,000 before selling it. I don't collect cars (or buses). I just prefer and enjoy driving older cars. Actually, I enjoy using older equipment of all kinds whenever possible. This bus was personally owned and used by the owner of a charter bus company. It was stored indoors for most of its 44 years. The owner had the luxury of having a full-service bus repair shop at his disposal, and now I'm the beneficiary of the work he put into maintaining things. The person known across the US as the guru on all things related to old buses has personally worked on this bus in his shop in NJ and can attest to the near-stock condition of the bus. I'd guess that they used it more in the earlier years than later on, and it looks like they didn't use it all that much. The generator only has about 980 hours of use total. You are correct about things 'aging out' and needing repairs. Fortunately for us many of those repairs were done over the years as needed on this coach before we got it. I'd say that the majority of issues I'm dealing with come from things not being used enough rather than from being worn out. I've also had to do some of the routine maintenance that would have been done on this coach during the first few months it was first put into service had it been a normal passenger coach. For example, I just had the clutch adjusted and it was probably the first time it had been done. I had a few engine gaskets on the Perkins Diesel running the generator that dried out and needed to be replaced, the windshield washer pump needed service due to the corrosion from sitting (I was able to rebuild the pump though - it didn't actually need to be replaced just opened, cleaned, lubricated, and reassembled), and I had a few other rubber bits and pieces that needed attention. I had a thread earlier talking about how I repaired a nearly-new 44-year-old furnace due to the bearings on the motor drying out, and a few clamps on the coolant lines needed to be replaced and/or re-seated due to age. Overall though, I anticipate having no more problems than anyone buying a brand new top-of-the-line Class A from a dealer today. Might even have fewer problems, based on some of what I've read recently about the lack of quality control at the factories. We do things differently than many with motor homes though. I understand that. For us it is truly about the journey and not the destination, and we really enjoy taking the journey in a classic vehicle like ours and getting to experience history while we travel around. The destination board on our previous coach read "Anywhere" because we really didn't care where we were heading, as long as we were on the road.

Our bus only has about 43,000 miles on the odometer. It was purchased from GM in '74 by the owner of a charter bus company and was sent directly from the GM factory to the coach conversion company (Custom Coach). It's been a private motor home its entire life. I have no plans on running this for the full 3 million mile life and only pointed that out to show how over-built vehicles like this used to be. The difference in being able to rebuild vs. replace is like this. We've got a pump on our bus that circulates hot water from the engine (in the rear of the bus) to the HVAC equipment located in the front of the bus. There is a small seal on the shaft of the pump, along with a few other gaskets & seals that wear out over time. The seal on ours is dripping slowly, but the pump body and main parts are still in great condition. Rather than spending a few hundred or more for a complete pump assembly, all I needed was a rebuild kit for about $50 that came complete with seal, gaskets, new impeller, etc. Rebuilding or repairing both accomplish the same thing, but the older method of rebuilding did it at a much lower cost and used far fewer resources to accomplish the task. In the 'old days' when cars had carburetors, a rebuild kit was about $20. This allowed the carburetor to be rebuilt and put back in service. Nowadays, the shop would simply replace the entire carburetor rather than rebuild. Which one uses more resources and is more wasteful? When my pneumatic wiper motors need attention, I can buy a rebuild kit with new o-rings & seals and just rebuild the wear parts. More modern coaches with electric motors usually just get the unit replaced in total. A couple of years ago I had one of the new Fiat 500 coupes. There was a very inexpensive plastic (nylon?) part in the transmission that failed. The factory instructions for the repair was to pull the entire transmission and replace with a new one. No attempt to repair the transmission was made, as it was not designed to be serviceable. Seemed like a lot of waste to me. I guess the bottom line on these things is that the mindset was different years ago. The product designers intended for their products to be in service for many years, so they tried to anticipate which parts would fail from wear and tear. They then designed the final product so these parts could be either serviced or rebuilt in the field so that the entire unit didn't need to be replaced. Today's method for building most equipment is to use a more modular system. This greatly decreases the cost of production, but it also greatly increases the cost of repairs in the field (if repairs are even possible). A very poignant example of this is how phones are now being built with batteries that are not replaceable by users. Just a few years ago, if ones battery was in need of replacement, it was simple to purchase and install a new battery. Now, the plan is to throw away the phone and just buy a new one.

Maybe I'm not understanding the question, but if the system is operating properly shouldn't there really be no reason for any chemical additives? The odors should be vented up and out through the vents, and as long as there is water in the traps and a bit of water in the toilet over the flush valve there should be no odors inside other than for the second or two during flushing. I've read about some people getting odors inside when driving, but usually that is traced to a poorly positioned roof vent or a P-trap that dried out. Is the reason for the chemicals here to deal with an odor problem or to keep the solids from becoming too solid? We always have enough liquid in the black tank to ensure a thorough dumping, and we wait until at least half full before emptying the tank. There's usually a bit of liquid left in the tank, and if not we add just a bit to be sure nothing solid sticks to the bottom. We don't rinse the tank unless there is something obviously stuck to the sides (our tank is translucent so we can sort of see into it, at least enough to see heavy shadows). Basically, we don't stress over trying to keep the tank cleaner than necessary and it's just never been a problem for us. Maybe this is one more advantage to having a combined black/gray tank?

Of course, coaches like the one we have were designed by the manufacturer to go 3 million miles. Not 500,000, but 3 million. They fully expected to go through a number of engine rebuilds during that time, as well as suspension and systems rebuilds, but the chassis and structure was fully expected to last a loooong time. In fact, the entire drive train (engine, transmission, radiator, exhaust, etc.) are designed to be removed by placing a forklift in place and then removing the four (very big) mounting bolts. Nearly everything on the older coaches was designed to be rebuilt, and believe it or not parts are generally still available. (I just got a rebuild kit in the mail for the heater booster pump, and I've got a NOS water valve on the way.) On newer vehicles, even the high-end Class A models, things are much more modular and reliant on fairly finicky electronics. The plan now is to remove and replace, not repair/rebuild. I wanted a vehicle that was designed to pound the pavement, and I was okay with giving up some of the creature comforts found on a more modern motor home to do this. I'll add some of these as time moves on, but for the most part we're okay with the way things are in ours.

Call me a Luddite if you want, but I agree wholeheartedly. I am often envious of all the new-fangled bells and whistles most of you have on your rigs, at least until I see a twenty-page thread trying to help someone track down some mysterious fault or error keeping the engine from starting. Nothing on ours requires an engineering degree and I like it that way. I do have things fail (struggling with a drip from my over-the-road heater booster pump right now) but overall the mechanical systems on our coach are pretty straightforward. That said, the number of mechanics trained to work on Detroit Diesel 2-stroke engines is getting fewer and fewer as days go on. Given the lack of good apprenticeship programs in most shops nowadays, the days are numbered for anyone driving an older coach like mine that can't do the work himself/herself.

You're asking questions that could not really be answered by comparison, especially between different brands/models/types of coaches. Add on top of that the extra money spent getting the rig up to your standards, and I think that you're never going to get a solid answer. Best advice I could give you is to track your expenses for a year or two while carefully separating maintenance expenses from capital and one-time expenses. Then sit with the service writer where you're having work done and go over the manufacturer's recommendations for the coming years and see what he/she predicts the costs will be. Routine costs for your chassis should not be difficult to predict and pretty much in line with other vehicles built on the same chassis. After the chassis costs are determined, you'll have to factor in the additional costs for batteries, tires, appliance maintenance, etc. for all the house systems. You won't replace them all every year, but they could easily be calculated based on expected life. I could add my anticipated maintenance costs to the mix, but our coach is 44 years old and designed to be in commercial service. The assumption was that there was going to be a service team on hand at every major city to take care of maintenance on an ongoing basis. We are probably at the very opposite of the spectrum from where you should be, as we could spend a few thousand a year without trying just on routine maintenance to keep the chassis rolling down the road, and that's if nothing breaks or wears out. Regarding insurance, we have Progressive and so far don't find them any different than any other insurance company that I've dealt with. We did have a major claim and it went about as well as could be. My thought on insurance is that the same company will be night and day different from one state to the next.

I agree with the thought of a sub panel. That gives you the most flexibility to decide what gets to draw from the inverter and what goes directly from each of the lines. One question though...If your inverter suddenly gets a full load applied to it (starting an a/c, for example) does it momentarily draw more than 30 amps? If so, perhaps that's why it's on a line by itself?

Best way to find out how well it works and how long it takes for the hot water heater to kick in again is just to use it a few times. You'll know pretty soon how long a shower you can take and how much water you use. I'd be surprised if it takes more than a few gallons total to get yourself clean with a modified Navy shower. If you've got a powered vent in the bathroom it shouldn't take too long for things to dry out in there once you're done if you leave the door open afterwards. If this was me, I'd try it out a few times in the driveway just to see how it works and what to expect. I just looked through the brochure for your coach. Nice looking rig inside and out!

The motor aided system is often used when there is also a Webasto or Aqua Hot system installed in a coach. If the heat exchange coil in the water heater was connected to the engine only, then you'd have hot water to use in the shower or sink while driving or however long it stays hot in the tank. If you have a Webasto or Aqua Hot system, then whenever those are running to keep the coach warm you'd also have hot water in the hot water heater. Very handy. It wouldn't be that difficult to run the pipes from the engine of a Class B to the water heater, but I'm not sure that it would get you enough benefit to warrant the expense. Unless you already had a water heater with a heat exchange coil built in, you'd also need a new water heater.

Maybe that's one advantage to a bus conversion that still looks like a bus. We can park in the bus parking areas which are usually found near any tourist area. Otherwise, you're never too far from a Walmart or other box store that will let you park for a few hours. We can drive anywhere a city bus can go since we're only 35 feet long and 96" wide. The only thing to unhook when we leave a campsite is our electric, since we have no city water connections. I think that a smaller Class C would be fine for driving to town if needed - it's not much larger than some of the large pickups being sold today and could probably park just as easily.

We don't have a Class B, but for comparison's sake our 35-foot Custom Coach bus conversion also has a 6-gallon hot water heater. Had the same thing in our previous conversion. It was more than enough for two quick showers if we used the pause feature on the shower head. Easy-rinse liquid soap helps quite a bit as well (we use Dr. Bronners). We carry far more fresh water than you do, but to be honest it doesn't amount to longer showers due to the water heater. Takes only about 15 minutes for the hot water heater to recover. I think that to make the shower situation work in most RVs takes a change of mindset more than a change in hardware. There are lots of things we look forward to when we hit the road, but showers in the bus are not among them. I think back to my days in basic training and take some comfort knowing that even though the shower will be just as quick there is not a DI yelling down our throats.

Have you checked the ground connections? These types of things can be caused by ground connections which are weak or failing. There should be at least a couple of these to check, maybe more depending on how yours is wired. One ground cable usually goes from batteries to a ground post on the chassis. Another would probably be found between your engine and the chassis. There might be another near your starter. If your ground connections are not good then enough juice can flow to temporarily have dash lights working, but as soon as you try the starter the ground connection cannot handle the current flow. Are the connections to your starter and/or starting solenoid clean and tight? Does your coach have a neutral safety which prevents starting when the vehicle is not in park/neutral? If so, is it working? On my GMC if the transmission is not neutral (or if the neutral safety switch sticks) nothing happens at all when I turn the key. Just a few things to double check.

If my information is correct, the code only changed about 20 years ago. Around here many homes are still running 3-wire dryer outlets. There is no requirement to upgrade the outlet when a new dryer is installed, so the 3-wire setups will probably be in use for a long time. Many of the 3-wire dryer setups use a neutral/ground bond. It's good that the connection is working for you, but my concern and reason for bringing all this up is that there exists possibility for safety issues if someone else tries this approach to get power to an RV. My first concern would be whether or not there is a neutral-ground bond installed at the dryer and how that would affect the 120v circuit that is piggy-backed to the 240v circuit. My second concern is whether this setup would allow one side of the dual 30-amp breaker to trip properly if something on the RV side drew too much current or if there was a catastrophic failure (like the cordset being damaged, etc). I'm not saying it wouldn't trip, just that I'd want to verify the safety with an electrician first before trusting this breaker to provide protection.

Shower pan is stainless. Poor lighting and lots of build-up don't help it look its best. I'll post better photos once the project is complete, things are clean, and the lighting is upgraded. The trim in the bathroom is some kind of antiqued bronze thing that was popular in the 70s. I guess it went with the bottle glass windows back then. Not my favorite look, but I'm not sure if replacements are in the budget for this year (especially given that everything is still working). The driver's seat is almost all the way forward since I'm only 5' 2". There would be lots of room for you - you'd be surprised how much adjustment they built into these things to accommodate a wide variety of drivers.

Was the dryer outlet a 3-wire or a 4-wire? If only 3-wire, then where did you get the neutral for the RV 30-amp connection? Do you have a plug-in outlet tester? If you have one of these then you can plug into any outlet in the RV and be certain that the ground is proper and that you have both hot & neutral connected to the proper sides. For around $5, these little devices are really cheap insurance. The volt meter will check for proper voltage, but these devices will tell you much more. Sounds like you're trying to be thorough and do this safely, but it never hurts to have things double checked.

Here are a few more photos of the interior. Other than carpeting, we're not doing any real modifications to the rest of the interior. Maybe some new lighting and updates to the electrical system, but the decor should work once the carpeting is toned down a bit. The drapes are original and in pretty remarkable condition for 43 years. We had them dry cleaned and then held up with only minor damage to the linings. The Venetian blinds in the rear window are electrically operated, and there is a window on the inside of the them to keep them clean. The galley is fully functional, as is the bathroom. The fridge is a 12v/120v Norcold. And yes, that 1st-generation Thermodor microwave over (with browning option!) works and appears to be safe to use. The cooktop is a made-in-the-USA Presto 2-burner hot plate running on 120v. We've also got a portable propane burner for use while boon docking. The whole thing looks very much like the inside of a small yacht. I suspect that in 1974 there were only so many places to get parts and supplies, and apparently Custom Coach pulled mostly from the marine supply houses for their parts. Replacement parts for many of the items in the electrical panel are marine parts. Same for the hardware in many areas of the cabinetry. About the only thing that came from the RV world are the ceiling vents - they appear to be from the Airstream catalogue. I included one photo showing the side couches in the rear made up into bunks. We are taking them out and will reconfigure the two side couches to become twin beds with the center isle. The coach in the very back will remain and is the one I'm going to re-upholster. The long couch in the front can be folded down to be a bed, and the dinette also can be made into a bed. There are two wardrobes in the hallway next to the galley and lots of storage everywhere. The original owner was a bus collector and a bus purist, so the driver's area is bone stock GMC. The seat was covered in the same fabric as the front parlor, but otherwise is stock. Surprisingly it was quite comfortable on the drive from Philly to Wisconsin. The co-pilot seat (not really visible in the photos) is basically a small one-person couch. There is a pneumatic cover for the steps for use while on the road. I'm happy to brag about this coach, so please feel free to ask if anyone has questions. I feel very blessed to be the caretaker of this piece of history and love sharing what I know about it.

I'm about to start doing a re-upholstery job on the 'rear parlor' of our 1974 GMC. The furniture is really in great condition and doesn't need to be done, but the fabric is just not working for us. Over the next months I'll be re-configuring the two side couches into twin beds and re-upholstering the rear couch. The rear couch makes into a full-sized bed if needed. We've got a good friend that is a carpet installer, and he's going to lay new carpeting as well. As much as I'd love to keep the full 70s vibe going, the shag carpet is too busy for our taste and is actually really uncomfortable to walk on barefoot. It's in good condition, but it just is not really well made carpet. I thought I'd start a thread on the re-upholstery to see what others have done and how things turned out. It would be great to get ideas from others' projects and maybe learn something along the way. I've done a few pieces of household furniture including a sofa, easy chair, and an older Barca Lounger. This will be pretty straightforward compared to those, and hopefully the foam is in good condition and can be reused. All that said, I'm sure that I'll still have a learning curve as I start working on this project. Here's a photo of the area as it sits now. More to follow as the project moves forward.

We do use ours differently than you. We'll leave the coach sit until we're ready to use it. The over-the-road heat and a/c work well so we can be at a comfortable inside temp within a short time. However, the stuff inside the coach can take a while to fully be at the same temp. If we leave for a campsite at mid day with outside temps of 40 degrees, the coach will be comfortable to sit in in 30 minutes or less - usually by the time the engine is fully warmed and the luggage is loaded. The mattresses, however, may not be warmed up by the time we get where we're going. Then there are the times we will boon dock in cooler weather and not even bother to turn on the heat till the morning when we're up and around. The temp inside could get down cool enough to affect the mattress firmness. In the summer we don't bother running the a/c while we're not in the coach, since it really doesn't take too long to cool down unless it's really warm. Many nights we don't even run the a/c since it cools off nicely here in the summer most nights. But, if the temp was higher during the day the mattress will be somewhat soft (and warm) when we hit the pillow. Overall we like the memory foam, but there are some disadvantages.

Wow - that's a bunch of money for tags. Here in Wisconsin people are always griping about being a high-tax state, but my tags are only about $120/year. And I registered the bus for being under 80,000 pounds. (We're only 27,700 lbs, but the cost was the same all the was to 80,000 for motor homes so I had them put the max so we'll never worry about being over our registered weight.)

Any mattress that fits should work, but you'll need to keep in mind the weight and thickness. If you have a tilting or lifting bed then you don't want a mattress heavier than the mechanism is designed for. You also should check the thickness to be sure that a thicker mattress doesn't block nearby drawers or doors from opening. We've got a memory foam mattress but there are times when it can be a problem since it's temperature sensitive. Harder and stiff till the coach warms up on the first day out, and it gets softer if the coach gets too warm.

My first call would be to the manufacturer. I can't believe that they didn't build in some type of manual over ride for this, otherwise lots of owners would eventually get locked out. You can't be the first owner that had a a dead battery situation. Have you tried to connect an external charger and plug it in to get the house system operational? Not sure how to do it on your coach, but there should be a way to do this once you get the batteries back in place.

Glad that I'm not the only one awake through the early-morning hours. With only 35 feet in length and a pretty tight turning radius, every time we weighed getting a Class B or C against the coach we just couldn't justify the loss of space and comfort. We don't pull a toad, but so far we haven't found places we either couldn't take our rig or get to by Uber/taxi. Sometimes I have to remind myself that our 35-foot coach is actually smaller than most city buses in use today, and they seem to have no problem getting into some pretty tight spaces. I think that parallel parking and ground clearance are our only two big obstacles.

Our '74 GMC coach has three separate 'basement' a/c units. One of them is the over-the-road a/c installed by GMC that would have been in the coach if it had been a bus. Its compressor is powered by the bus engine and the condenser unit and HVAC air handler fills an entire bay and is run from the 200+ amp alternator on the bus engine. It can certainly keep the interior frigid while on the road. However, it's useless when camping as we'd have to run the bus engine to use it. Many bus conversions delete the over-the-road a/c unit and have to run the generator to keep cool while on the road. I'm glad we have the over-the-road as well. The other two units are 1974 vintage basement RV units which were installed by Custom Coach. They have their compressors in the basement, each one being about the size of a small window a/c unit. There is a condensing unit & circulating fan mounted in the cabinetry in the bedroom and another in the front parlor. They can both be used when on generator or shore power. Not to confuse things, but our shore power is actually set up to run on a total of 60 amps incoming (probably a topic for another thread at another time). I only bring that up because I don't think we could run both a/c units on only 30 amps.

True if you have an older dryer connection. I think that around here code is now a 4-wire connection for dryers, so that would add even more confusion. It gets yet more confusing if someone mixes 3-wire and 4-wire systems together (older dryer with newer outlet, for example). Always best to confirm with an electrician if there is any doubt.

Sounds like this is working for you, but I'd suggest that it would be better to run the 30-amp service for the RV outlet from a dedicated 30-amp breaker in your load center. Piggy backing on another circuit, especially tapping 120v from a 240v circuit like this, just leaves too many possibilities for future problems and safety hazards. I'm no electrician, but I'd place money on it being a violation of the code in your area as well. If it's not possible to run new wiring for the RV outlet all the way to the main load center, then perhaps you can put a small sub-panel where the dryer outlet is currently located and then use that to power both the new RV outlet and the dryer outlet. You're trying to use the dryer outlet as a sub-panel, but it's not designed for this and doesn't give you the ability to place a breaker for the RV outlet. Using a sub-panel instead of piggy-backing would give each its own breaker. You could likely still use the wiring that previously serviced the dryer outlet to power the sub-panel, but you'd have to first check to see the rating/size of the wire. Sorry to rain on your parade.