Category: Bus Updates

The table was missing one thing. A place to set my beer. So I cut out some holes and dropped in some cup holders. The kids may also use these for sodas I guess.

Time to update the look of the table to match the kitchen counter. I bought a Formica laminate sheet at Menards that matched the kitchen counter I bought a couple years back. I used Contact Cement applied to both the table and back of the sheet, waited till very tacky and laid it down on the top and pressed it down. After a couple hours I used my router with a flush trim bit to cut around the edge. Then I painted the legs black using some left over gloss black tractor paint. I bought a fancy aluminum bracket designed for RV’s to hold the table in place, so I’ll have to put that in later as well. I then replaced the ugly brown T Molding with new 3/4″ T Molding in Grey to match.

Next bus project. Replace the bench seats I built with a pair of the original seats retrofitted with seat belts. Safety third! I bought some TRW Aftermarket Federally Approved seat belts. I went and got some grade 8 bolts and attached the seat belts to the pre-dilled holes. I think they were originally designed for seat belts.

It took a couple days but the seats are in. Now that they are in that ugly table is bothering me. See next project.

Quick project today. New ignition switch, the old one was sloppy and wouldn’t start the bus over half the time. New one works great!

It took longer to rebuild than anticipated. They said they’d have it back around July 8th, got it back July 21st. Then I had to find time to drive the 2hrs to go pick it up. So I finally got it back and installed today. I had already cleaned up the bolts, painted them and applied anti-seize so the install went very quick. I started the bus up, and added in almost a gallon of Aw32 hydraulic fluid. The steering is much better! at least in the driveway. I’ll have to take it for a spin later since it was getting late.

Welp, I removed the steering gear box from the bus. 2 miserable hours underneath. Dang those big ass bolts were rusted on. Thankful for that Harbor Freight down the road for the cheap big ass impact gun. Next step is to send it off for rebuild.

So I’m guessing this is too much shaft play in the steering gear. I’m just twisting the steering shaft back and forth with my hands. Also it’s so dang hard to find parts for this thing. After finding the part number stamped on the Steering gear box was on the bottom I had to get creative and figure out how to read it since it is bolted to a large metal plate and that plate is bolted to the front axle. I could only find one of these for sale anywhere and that was on eBay and I wasn’t about to take my chances. So I called the local International dealer since that is the most common application for this gear box and they referred me to Weller Truck parts. They wanted $645 to rebuild mine, with $120 shipping. They are only 2hrs from my house so I drove it down to them to avoid freight charges.

I finally found someone to help me bleed the brakes. Took all of 10 minutes. Afterwards I couldn’t get the bus to start, turn the key and nothing. Well it helps if it’s in neutral, it somehow got bumped into drive. I started it up and let it run for the last hour in the driveway and it got up to temp and ran very well. I think when the temp drops a bit I’ll take it for a spin. The rear AC needs a charge and the front AC can’t keep up with the heat.

Later that Evening….

Drove around for about 40 mins tonight and it did very well. One big thing that needs to be addressed is the play in the steering wheel. It is all over the road, I can turn the wheel back and forth nearly half a turn before it turns. Soooo much play in the wheel. I had it up to 55 and that’s about all I was comfortable taking it to. So next up is to figure out where the slop is in the frontend.

I also need to replace these cheap LED headlights I bought off eBay. There is no cutoff and they spray light everywhere. They are nice and bright, but I feel like I’m blinding people and I DON’T want to be that A-Hole.

Since my neighbor is on vacation, kids are out of town and I can’t find anyone to help bleed my brakes. I decided to finally install the shocks I bought 3 years ago. I also bought a beefy new electric impact gun since my little baby impact didn’t even tough these bolts. Replaced all 4 shocks. Then replaced the brake switch as well since it used to be seized and the rubber waterproof coating was gone.

After a trip to O’Reilly’s almost every day for the last week and a half I think I finally have the other caliper and the rear brake hoses. They don’t make the exact ones anymore so I had to get creative and find ones that would work.

In the mean time I had these nasty dirty wheels off and have been watching all these Car detailing videos. I found they use phosphoric acid to remove rust from paint and wheels, so I found this stuff at the parts store and tried it. I used a brush ball attached to my drill to really scrub it good since I didn’t care about the “finish”. It worked very well!