Photo of the Day

Page Eleven

September 8, 2006: The photo says it all...

Today, the Crown returned to the road.

The image shows my friend Mark (who found the bus for sale in Portland back in 1995) walking back into my driveway after guiding me out to the street. It's 9:45 in the morning and I'm on my way to get the rear tires checked and replaced.

Someone followed me in a pickup to give me a lift back while the tires were worked on, and to serve as a chase vehicle in case of problems. He actually got some good photos through the windshield.

This was just before I exited the freeway and missed a downshift, leaving me coasting, as I couldn't find any gear to get it to go into. Good test of the brakes....

The engine performed very well, but there was a lot of light blue smoke, probably the result of 11 years of starting the engine, but not getting the exhaust gas temperatures hot enough to burn off the diesel oil film in the manifold and muffler. The drive of the chase truck is still complaining about his sinuses after following me. It really did lay down quite a cloud. By the time I reached the tire shop, it had lessened to a light haze.

I was amazed at how quickly I got used to the steering. I was kind of phobic about getting out in traffic with the bus, as I couldn't remember anything much about driving it before, and was concerned that I'd get in a situation where I'd have to back up to complete a turn, or get penned in by cars waiting for turn signals, etc.

No problems there, in this shot, I'm actually entering the tire place, squeezing between a pickup truck leaving the lot and the curb.

At the tire shop, I checked in and left them the bus, parked in the shop building. After a few hours, they called back and told me that I had five new used Michelin tires. They removed all of the tires from the rims, checked them internally for problems, and put new tires on the wheels that needed them. Total bill was $489.50, a bargain!

On the way home, I was in 4:00 PM heavy traffic. Nerve wracking, but no problems. The blue smoke was gone too.

Now for the bad news.... It looks like the bus has some power steering problems from sitting for so long. I noticed that during left hand turns, there is a strong pulsation in the steering wheel. It's also there when going straight down the freeway. The pulsation is there when the bus is stationary and the wheel is turned, so I don't have suspension problems. If you turn the wheel to the left when sitting still, the steering wheel takes off by itself and if allowed, will crank itself all the way around until it hits the stop. It's quite scary to drive this way, so the bus is going into the shop Tuesday for a checkup. Several sources say that the valve assembly on the tie rod has either gotten gunked up, or it needs adjustment. In either case, it's going to get fixed before I attempt to drive to my new property on the Coast.

For now, the bus is back in the yard, backed in a few feet from it's former parking spot so that I can begin packing it for use as a moving van.

September 10, 2006: So, what do you do with a 12-1/2 ton giant diesel housebus once you get it able to go on the road? If you're me, you use it to go to the grocery!

This afternoon, we needed to get some food, but the only vehicle that was available (due to a half-loaded trailer clogging up the driveway) was my Ford Ranger. A friend wanted to go, and so did our helper. Three in the front seat is a cram job, and mighty uncomfortable, so we took the bus, housebus that is. I decided that it wouldn't hurt to have some more practice driving it, and since it's all ready to pull out without any obstructions, it wasn't any more difficult to get into and drive away than the pickup.

At the market, I took up a block of about twelve parking places, just pulling across them at what seemed like the most convenient angle. All the time we were shopping, I expected to hear the store's public address system call out "Will the owner of the big yellow school bus please come to customer service".

Returning to the bus, there was a small family van with a guy who has Roger's book who had pulled alongside the bus and waited for us to come out so he could talk. Eventually, we had to break it off as we were hungry from loading back at home and wanted to eat.

Moving the bus through the Sunday traffic wasn't any problem, but returning from left hand turns is difficult with the shuddering of the steering wheel, and it seems that the power assist is not as strong as it is during right hand turns. Oh well, all that will be corrected Tuesday when the bus goes into the shop.

September 12, 2006: Today, I had to take the bus over to the big truck service shop to have the power steering looked at. Since I'd be out on the street, I left home early and made a trip over to the local DMV to finally get a title for the bus. All these years, I've just been holding the school district's signed title, so all that time, I didn't legally own the bus!

Arrived at the DMV office and took a number from the machine. #01. "Now serving: 65". I settled in a seat with a book, figuring I'd spend the last of the morning, if not the lunch hour waiting. Looks like a lot of people must have lost patience before me, as the clerks at the counter were having to call 3, 4, 5 numbers each time before anyone stepped forward to claim their place in line. I waited a total of maybe 10 minutes.

After explaining my transaction to the nice lady clerk, we went out to the Crown in the parking lot so she could examine the serial number (My bus is too old to have a "VIN" number. She wanted to know the purpose of the bus, at which point I launched into a lot of practiced arm waving, telling her all about the Crown Corporation and showing her a copy of Ed Hass' Crown Firecoach History, turning to the page with my bus on it and telling her convincingly that that photo in the book was the same bus she was standing in. She wanted to know if there were any sleeping or cooking facilities in the bus, although it was obvious that there were none. She also wanted to know if it weighed over 26,000 pounds, at which point I reminded her that the seral number plate she had just read said that the unladen weight of the bus was 23,000 (apparently vehicles over 26k have a higher title fee).

Back inside the office, she consulted with her supervisor about what to call the bus. It's not an RV because it doesn't have living facilities. Not a truck or trailer, so I guess we'll leave it a bus for now. Paid the $66 title fee and skipped out before they could change their minds and decide that it's a motor home and hit me with the ~$400 fee for registration. Titled as a bus, I can apply for standard passenger registration at $30/year. I'm also investigating registering as a "Special Interest" vehicle, that is, one that is over 25 years old and used for exhibits, parades and club functions. The registration fee for that one is $15 and is a one-time fee, no renewal, ever!

After leaving DMV, I stopped by Roger Becks cabinet shop and ate my bag lunch in the back yard where he has a picnic table and a nice lawn. Before I drove away, Roger snapped a photo of the Crown and his Federal house truck together:

Then it was off to the truck shop, where they adjusted a tie rod end, changed the power steering fluid filter, tightened the belt on the pump and charged me a paltry $54 for nearly an hour of two men's time. Turns out that the shop was the same one that the new owner of a local house bus had do the necessary repairs to get back on the road, so the office staff was very interested in another housebus showing up.

After the repairs, the steering was much improved. On the way to DMV and Roger's shop, I noticed that the pulsation problem was much less, like the problem was "healing". I drove around the block doing multiple left-hand turns and didn't get the wheel to shiver at all.

To finish off the day, I drove out to the scales on Clear Lake Road to weigh the bus. On the way home from Portland in 1995, I weighed the bus and found that it had 10,000 pounds on the front axle and 15,000 on the rear. After cutting the original roof off, building the new raised roof, insulating, doing the 7" boost in the floor, and all the other modifications, the weights are now 8,900 on the front and 15,220 on the rear! The bus weighs nearly exactly what it did before I began any modifications!!

Drove home and backed the bus expertly into the driveway, parking against the 2x4 lumber that I had laid down to mark the rear wheel position on the ground. This trip has made me more comfortable driving the bus, I'm beginning to get a much better feel for the size of the bus and it's turning radius, and I find that I'm having much less stress worrying when making turns. I also got to play around with the exhaust brake a couple of times, it makes a gnarly rumbling sound when it's on.

September 16, 2006: For the last two days, I've been emptying my shop, putting my tools and materials into the bus. To economize time, I moved the bus up to the front door of the shop, backing it up the driveway and putting the rear bumper nearly against the deck:

No, the camera isn't being held at some crazy, artful angle, the bus really is parked on an incline that is this steep. The amazing thing is that I didn't have any problems backing it up into this position. I didn't spin the wheels, fry the clutch or even have to touch the accelerator. The bus simply backed up (with some effort) as though it was no big deal.

I put a ramp from the front door steps of the shop and now have a level runway to carry things into the bus:

The shop is nearly empty, the bus is absorbing the contents of the shop with a lot of floor space left over. We're not even stacking the stuff we put in, simply covering the floor with a single layer.

Working inside the bus with it all tilted and inclined is messing with my balance. even sitting here in the Housetruck, I feel off-balance and as if the desk is off-level. Putting my feet up on the desk gives me a mild form of vertigo and I feel like I'm back in the bus with a fun-house anti-gravity weirdness that's hard to shake.

September 21, 2006: Today was moving day for the bus.

Roger came over at about 9:30 AM to serve as my chase vehicle and to give me a ride back afterwards. Of course, I wasn't ready, and by the time we were set to go, it was about time to put some food down. We went over to the local Tacoria for burritos, then got the engine started and set out.

Before leaving, I dug some old CB walkie-talkies out of storage and found cigarette lighter plugs and cord sets for them so Roger and I could keep in touch. Testing them in the driveway worked fine.

On the freeway out of town the bus was ripping along at 55 MPH, and I didn't hear any of the load packed in the back shifting around. Out on the open road, the steering performed without a hitch, and I was making some good time The radio in the bus was nearly useless, as the alternator was putting out some hash that was interfering with the reception from Roger's radio, so I had to turn the squelch up so high I couldn't hear him. Oh well, onward.

After getting into the first foothills, and before the first major grade, I sensed a loss of power in the engine. On a slight uphill incline, the bus lost speed, even though I had the accelerator floored. There was nowhere to pull over before Badger Mountain, so I hit the bottom of the hill with as much power as I could muster. Shifted from fifth gear to fourth. Third. Second. I was crawling up the hill in the slow lane at about 15 MPH and losing speed all the way.

At the crest, the bus picked up speed rapidly, and I engaged the exhaust brake to hold it back, regulating the velocity to a reasonable level.

Back on the flat, I was back to 55 MPH in no time.

Pulled out at the Walton Store to tell Roger what was going on. I had a sinking feeling that the fuel filter was getting clogged from sediment and particulates from the 11 year-old diesel fuel in the tank. I was carrying a new spare filter that I purchased just for this possibility, but we decided that opening up the bus' fuel system was a bit risky. Any air introduced to the system could end up grounding the bus until the injection lines could be bled. We decided that there was only one more significant grade, the one before the tunnel, and that I'd just have to take it slow. Back on the road.

A few miles further west at the rest stop, I pulled over to let some traffic pass, then couldn't get the bus to govern out all the way in third, meaning that I was probably only going 35 MPH or less (the bus speedo wasn't working any longer by this time).

I pulled off the road at Richardson Road, determined that I couldn't go any farther under those conditions. Richardson Road is a short connecting road that joins highway 126 to Stagecoach Road, which has few residences along it, and nearly no through traffic. I crossed the railroad tracks, turned the bus around and then parked on the opposite side of the road with the engine bay door facing out into the center of the street to change the filter.

Inside the bus, I had everything I needed to change the filter, ratty clothes, rubber gloves, rags and absorbent mats specially designed for sopping up oil spills, and most importantly, an oil filter strap wrench. I'd need a length of some sort of hose to siphon diesel from the tank to fill the filter so that there would be a minimum of air in the system. Looking around the inside of the bus, I found one of my pneumatic tools with an attached air hose, which I cut free with my knife.

Outside, I spread newspapers under the bus and back by the fuel filler, and put the absorbent mats (nicknamed "diapers") down to catch spills. I shut off the fuel supply from the tank using the installed gate valve. The filter was quite tight, I had to climb under the bus and sit upright inside the engine compartment so I could throw some weight into the filter wrench.

The old filter spilled black gunky fuel when removed. The new filter spun on and I started the engine, which didn't even sputter from the procedure.

Here's a view of the operation. It looks like we are working in the middle of a busy highway, but the whole time we were there only one car came by, which you can see turning left onto the main highway in the background:

Cleaned up the papers and rags, stuffing them all into a plastic bag. I found a 3 pound coffee can to put the old filter into, then stowed it away in an empty side compartment under the bus.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, I ripped up the road on the level and slight inclines, and lost only a little speed on the last steep grade before entering the tunnel.

At my new properties driveway, I parked the bus on the narrow county road and opened the gate before driving in under the trees that I trimmed up for height access yesterday.

The next challenge was getting across the bridge, as it requires some maneuvering to get the large vehicles lined up so that they can cross without rubbing on the guard rails. Unfortunately, a utility pole prevented me from getting the correct swing onto the bridge the first time, so I had to do a back-and-forth a few times before I could clear both sides of the bridge with the sides of the bus:

Eventually, I did make it, but now I wonder what getting out of the driveway will be like, maybe it's time to ask the utility to move the pole:

The bus had little problems getting up the steep, rutted part of the driveway, and I parked it a short ways from the house, in a sunny part of the yard.

Roger mugs for the camera.

We finished up at the land, then drove into town on our way back to the city so I could satisfy my coffee habit. We then got on the highway back to the city and were just coming into Mapleton when something Roger said reminded me of something that made my heart sink. I had left the plastic bag with the oily rags and newspaper from the filter change in the bus! Although the weather is fairly cool now, I was worried that the diesel on the rags might begin to oxidize and spontaneously combust, turning my Crown project and all of my packed belongings into a ruin.

Roger offered to turn around and drive back the 26 miles so we could correct the problem, but a simpler solution presented itself. We continued through Mapleton onto highway 36, and took the back way over the hill, saving many miles as well as quite a bit of time. The rags weren't even warm, but I spread them out in the rubbish dumpster and took the coffee can with the old filter and drained diesel out of the basement compartment for safe keeping as starter for scrap wood piles later.