There are a ton of helpful bus motorhome builds on RU-vid,just take your pick after you put bus motor home builds, lol nice 2012 bus, thanks BigAl California merry mighty bus home that would be a good kool name , 466 can be hot rodded real easly, thanks BigAl California
There is a button in there somewhere that lets it Neal downd to load passenger now your needing a wife to help you make it a home , good job thanks BigAl California
That beautiful coach looked familiar and I matched it to a company named Dattco and their Activity Transport Coaches. It looks like they take great care of their equipment, she was a great find. Good luck with your build.
A mini split ac unit works well on Rvs and campers I installed one on mine when the rooftop unit stopped working and it works way better and super quiet
This is awesome !!!! What a beautiful bus and even more beautiful cat !!! Lol 😂😻❤️😻 I’m going to be glued watching you transform this !! I think you should name your bus after your cat 😻
Never climb under a air ride bus without blocking it. And don't forget to blow down your air tanks. As for the dpf delete, you may cause some serious issues with the engine. Never mind the DOT pulling your road worthiness.
Looks good condition for its age think you got it just in time before corrosion takes hold . Look forward to seeing the resto/ clean up and conversion .
Just found your channel and I have been dreaming of doing a conversion like you’re going to do . And it looks like you have a great platform to start with. Can’t wait to see the progress.
That's the style of bus used by schools for transporting student athletes to competitions, so it is a school bus, just not a route bus, but an activity bus. You will want to disconnect the emergency exit switches. You keep opening them and it will not close back correctly. When the alarm is going off, the motor will not start. It's a real pain with a bus full of kids anxious to get to something.
That is a seriously cool bus. I for one, will like to ride along (in YT). You might want to think about possibly removing some windows for privacy. Of course you can get window coverings that you can get the kind of drape material that will keep the light out/in. That would be a big job to seal it up good and repaint after removal. You didn't say what the plan was there. Given your ability to get free or cheap RV trailers, you have a great source for the materials you will need for the build for cheap or nothing. That could source your tanks, appliances, couches, tables, cabinets, etc. That bus does look very well made compared to the framing junk put in RVs. You might want to make your own cabinets though out of some cabinet grade plywood and just use the cabinet drawer and door faces so you don't have pressboard junk that also weighs a lot. For your partitions, maybe you can use some foam core with glue bonded wood paneling or cabinet grade thin wood for insulation properties, and light weight. I would try to be weight conscious in your build. Tile weighs a lot. I might go with synthetic materials. You can get vinyl flooring that will hold up to water, is cheap, and installs quickly via interlocking and it does a decent job of looking like wood. The roof is a lot of real estate to put solar panels. I would try to make it capable of being off grid. The basement storage will disappear quickly with diesel generator, all your tanks, and battery banks, as well as tools, sewage equipment, etc. What kind of mileage can you get with the DT466 empty? I might permanently take out most of the shelves to avoid headaches and just box out the ventilation ducts. Should be a fun project, but a lot of work.
Hey Mike Use to drive one of those If it has the interior heaters inside like a standard school bus, watch the hoses, they can leak and make a mess Also should be a shut off valve for heater coolant either under the front or inside by the dash A few I’ve seen were back in the engine compartment. Just follow the hoses, you’ll find them. Their good buses. Congrats
The one thing with converting old transit busses is the gearing. They are geared for city driving, not road driving. Also, I imagine the Allison transmission from what I saw when you put it in gear is a 5 speed, and probably a direct drive, not a overdrive. Not sure with out knowing the model #. My 3060 Allison in my Monaco is a double overdrive 6 speed, so it can roll down the road 65/70 all day at 1600 rpms and get 10 mpg. You won't know for sure till you run the #'s and do some figuring! Looks like the bus is very well made, and will be a very good platform for you! Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Second posting in a week, OUTSTANDING !!!!! Keep putting them out, push those numbers up, check THUMBS UP AND SHARE !!!!!!!!!!! Good subject...Nice looking Bus...............................
If memory serves me correctly, I believe those stickers on the door to the electrical panel were proof that a recall was completed. It's been eight years since I worked for international so things are a little fuzzy. Of the Maxxforce engines, you got one of the better ones BUT it's still not perfect. Be careful and keep an eye on your coolant. The egr coolers go on these often and they have a nasty habit of hydrolocking and bending rods. The egr valves like to get gummy and sticky and put up a huge fight to remove (there's a special puller and even with it they break).
These engines run a ton of egr so if the valve sticks, especially in cold weather, you'll get a no start. Also these use engine oil ramped up to a pretty high pressure to help with fuel injection. There's a huge cast oil manifold under the valve cover, the "pucks" that connects the manifold to the injectors leak often. Also the IPR valves/wiring for them are cantankerous and will give you a no start
For the extra storage on the passenger side, I think you have to be careful for the load on the front axle, I have seen those overloaded on converted buses in Bus Grease Monkey YT channel
Watch those maxforce motors lots of dpf issues and ecm issues. The old dt466 was a great one. I'd delete first sign of issues. That dt will won't be soo chocked up
I am just finding you for the first time. Can't wait to see what ur going to do. I would say at least make sure you do lots of sound deadening. But I cant wait to see what ur going to do.
Howdy Mike long time viewer. I was stoked when in last week's jolly green video you said you were doing a bus/RV conversion because I have a pipe dream of doing this. My family and I travel New Zealand in a Ute and caravan and we our outgrowing the caravan. I get the seasonal depression because that's why we chose our current lifestyle to get away from bills, mortgages and cold weather. You'll have a great time traveling in that bus. Traveling around is an awesome chilled lifestyle. As others have said that DPF filter in the exhaust might be pain in the ass down the road. Our Isuzu Dmax Ute diesel (small pick-up) that tows our van has a Dpf that has shat the bed. We are looking at getting it deleted and then in NZ at least we can get an emissions test and get it certified legal. The rules might be different in the US. I heard you say about a generator on the bus. Have you thought about a solar/battery system at all? Bus RVs are usually a good candidate for solar because of the large roof area and you can have plenty of batteries to run inverters. If you are going to somewhere sunny it's free power aye. I know here we throw as much solar at RVs as they will take. Anyway looking forward to your future videos on this machine. Should be cool and envious because we don't get solid buses like this here in NZ. 👍
Hey! Yes I would like to add a solar system at some point but it's definitely not in the budget right now! I am going to delete the engine and or replace it with something else like an older DT or a cummins if i can find one. The delete cost $2800🥵. There is no emissions testing for RVs in the USA as far as I know so it shouldn't be a problem. I'm happy to see people as excited as I am for Big Bussy! Thanks for watching I appreciate ya!
I'll let you know when I have it insured as an RV. My guess is around $500 a year if I add it to my existing policy. I will go over the entire cost of everything including registration, insurance, inspection and taxes at some point.
oh man....mike. i cant tell you how much i hate to say this. you bought a maxxforce dt engine. before you get too far into this conversion, look into the issues that the maxxforce dt series engine have. many of their common catstrophic failures have bankrupted many companies that had them in their fleet. i only buy maxxforce engine trucks for parts. i refuse to sell one to anyone as it isnt a question of if it will have a major failure, just how many times during its short life. usually trucks or busses with these engine can be bought for pennies on the dollar compared to similar ones with a 6.7 cummins. the maxxforce series were so problematic that international started offering their medium duty trucks with cummins 6.7 (i think 2011) to try and regain market share..
Sounds like its gonna be a bus load of youtube content if she pops! They did switch to cummins in later years. It was cheap that's why I bought it lol I'll keep an eye out for a older DT 466 and keep it on the shelf!
@@NOT_FOR_HIRE tow companies around me charge $300. per hour to tow that size bus. plus $150. hook up fee. the charge starts from the time they leave their shop, tow to your bus to your its destination and get back to their shop. a tow less than an hour away from home can easily run over $1000. if it were me i would swap the engine before i had a problem. cummins makes a swap kit to put a 6.7 right in there. a 2007 and down dt is always nice as well.
If it’s a Maxxforce engine like everyone is saying it is including JC Smith the first thing i would do is sell it because those engines are junk and almost made international go bankrupt. or delete the emissions crap asap , i’ve heard there ok not great but ok if you delete them. I personally would take JC Smith advice and sell it before something happens
If you come to California,,and need to tow this bus out here , the new engine in the crate would be cheaper then a 300 dollar and hour towing land all ride back to your hose, lol that’s what I’ve done for years tow all kinds of road vehicles,lol pretty pricey, lol thanks BigAl California praise Jesus Christ grace grace amen
That's a Maxxforce DT, and not a DT466. I'd be leary of it, as it was what killed the reputation and production of the DT466. Any of the International 2008+ Maxxforce engines were ticking time bombs with their EGR and constant failures.
Thanks for the info! Do you know if a old dt466 like the one in my 83 dump truck work with a newer transmission? I would like to get one and swap it out. It doesn't look to hard to do and there won't be much wiring afterwords. That would eliminate 99% of the worry and it would be good content.
