I've managed to locate a 1956 Flxible Visicoach... This is the coach I had originally looked for before I bought my first bus, and have continued looking for ever since... Now I've found one for nearly free...
We'll be leaving to get it either tonight or in the morning (most likely the latter). It's a 1200 mile trip up to the Great White North (I'm from there, btw) to go acquire this truly beautiful piece of history. She's been sitting in a barn, covered up and protected for 16 years. According to the current owner, she ran perfectly and everything functioned when she was parked.
The purchase price is less than what it'll cost just to get the remaining glass for my poor burned out 4905...
98% of the rust is all surface rust. Easily repaired as long as I can get to it quickly before the elements do... (I can do that!) The only thru-hole rust areas are the bottom edge of the panels on both sides... Also easily repaired with some welding and sheet metal.
So... Assuming I can get the attachment working... Here she is!
-Mac
Mac,
Glad to hear that you are getting another bus. You are getting a little bus yard set up. You should put your heads together with Kyle, and see if you can get a few more ;D. At least it should be able to drive out on it's own power.
Hope it goes well.
God bless.
John
So where in the Great White North is it?
It looks in great shape.
John -- Heh... The 4905 will need to be going away pretty shortly... I'll move it up to the storage yard once the ground dries out enough to move her without sinking in the muck... I think I'll end up parting her out, but... I'm hopeful that I can find SOMEONE willing to take her on and restore her. I think she's worth saving, and she can be saved... But... My choices at this point are save the 4905, or get the bus of my dreams... I've carefully considered it, and although getting this Flxible is a much riskier proposition, it's the bus I've always wanted, and so... I simply MUST take the risk of failure... She's a nice bus, and granted... there are some obvious rust issues to address pretty quickly, I think overall, it'll cost a lot less to get the Flx back up to snuff and livable than it will for the 4905. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think it's worth the risk at this point... :)
Storm -- She's in South Dakota. :)
-Mac
MacGyver
What part of the north are you coming to
I think there are a couple buses like the one your looking at up here for sale cheap
If you interested let me know and i will check it out
Lonnie
Lonnie....
QuoteStorm -- She's in South Dakota.
;)
-Mac
I think the gmc bus i looked at was around a 1966
Wow, Mac, She's beautiful!!
Good for you.
Dennis
Thanks, Dennis. :)
To someone who can see beyond the surface, at what she CAN be... She's absolutely gorgeous... When I'm done, she'll look similar to the next pic, but with a number of changes in the paint scheme and colors to make it my own... I'll figure it out in Photoshop and post the results when I finally decide on the paint, but... The first time I saw one of these old Flx's in a picture, it was very much like the one below... Which, of course, is why I fell in love with them... I think this pic is a Clipper... It's one of the best examples of a beautifully done Flx I've seen.
I will say that this will be the first one I've seen in person... And I'm thrilled! :)
Until now, I simply couldn't find/afford one... The price for this one is right for me, albeit the condition isn't pristine... She will be eventually. ;)
Oh yeah! What would these buses really be classified as? A Highway Coach, or are they really more similar to Skoolies? Everything about the undercarriage screams skoolie, but everything else just screams Koolies & Cream! ;D
Another thing... Will the Alcoa rims on my 4905 fit on my new-to-me Flx? Can I just swap them around? She currently has the original rims... original everything... And I really want Alcoas on the front, and I have a pair on the 4905 if they'll fit...
-Mac
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage42.webshots.com%2F42%2F0%2F20%2F93%2F308002093TiCAZM_fs.jpg&hash=7bac3332b05a1cdbb13bb6beea53429052bbd560)
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Dallas,
Do you have any of the "before" pictures?
More info!
Model: VISICOACH
Model #: 218B1-53-29IC
Serial (VIN): 30684
Engine #: 7021292
Original Purchaser: JACK RABBIT LINES, INC.
City: SIOUX FALLS
State: SD
Date: 10/6/53
If that one doesn't work for you a friend of mine passed away and the kids are selling his, has a new 366 Chev engine needs a tranny as they stuck it in sand and broke the 400 tranny,A AZ bus not much rust but like most of those it has a cooling problem also
good luck
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I remember seeing these same photos (but none of the before pics) on Flickr yesterday when looking around at various folks' buses...
I couldn't find any history on exactly what happened to this poor coach to cause this damage... Can you give us some insight as to what happened?
Seems like an awful lot of damage... Did she get repaired? In the process of repair?
-Mac
Dallas, I be darned if I can get busconversionstuff.com to load. A search does not find a site with that name. What am I doing wrong?
Jim
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:o
Wow... that had to be one of the scariest "OH $#!%!" moments he ever had... I'm sorry to hear of his passing. :(
Gotta be careful when working with brakes... They are your life... It's the one system I've always hated working on, regardless of the size of the vehicle. Hydraulic brakes actually scare me much more than air systems... I've had hydraulics fail on me, but fortunately never had an accident because of it.
I remember driving an old bookmobile I had purchased back home... The brakes were iffy to begin with and were hydraulic. The wheel cylinders on all four were really old, and leaking, but I didn't know this. I tested things before driving, and everything worked fine... I took my time, drove slowly and made sure I had lots of room in front of me and escape routes if something went wrong.. That plan was wise.
Halfway home, I went to stop at a stop light... Hit the brakes, they engaged... Then all of a sudden the pedal went soft... The rear brakes had just failed due to a ruptured line and wheel cylinder on the right rear. I pulled in to the walmart we were next to and found the wheel completely covered in brake fluid. Because it was a dual chamber brake system, the front brakes still worked just fine. Fortunately, it was only an 80 mile trip... Broke down 40 miles from home and had to leave it for the time being.
I came back with with a new cylinder, repaired it and finished the trip. The brakes on that bus are all brand new now, as is the vacuum assist... I still have that bus and it's now sitting in a field as a storage unit. heh... It could be driven and used still, but I decided it just wasn't worth continuing the repairs and retired it permanently. When I clean it out, I'll probably end up selling it to one of the local hunters for them to pull/drive into their hunting spot as a cabin.
But yeah... Brake systems scare the hell out of me...
-Mac
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Dallas,
Still didn't work for me....
God bless,
John
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Still nothing. Refresh, control F5. Nothing...
God bless,
John
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Oh, well. Every other website works for me, but not yours. Bummer. I even tried getting to it from google, but it just comes right up with the "server not found" error.
I was looking forward to the pics, but I guess I won't be able to see them.
God bless,
John
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Nope, I don't see the pic in your post.
I have firefox, and it still doesn't see it. Hmmmm. I wonder what it is.
God bless,
John
I just tried it works fine for me and i have explorer 8
Lonnie
That is interesting. I just tried pinging Dallas's server, and it couldn't do it. I pinged this place, and worked great.
Must just be that our area doesn't like Dallas's stuff ;D ::) ;D
God bless,
John
It comes up fine for me too Dallas.
Sometimes a router somewhere in the path between the browser and the server goes down. Only those connections via that path are effected. The web will usually reroute it within a few hours or the router will get replaced/rebooted. Either way the problem usually clears up within a few hours.
Mac,
I was going to chime in here and say that that I think you're nuts........but then I remembered that we're all nuts or we wouldn't be here.
So, good luck with your new endeavor.
Hey all... We have begun our trip to the great white... We will be stopping overnight so... We should be there on Wednesday.
For your inet problems... Type this command at a cmd prompt...
Ipconfig /flushdns
Then try again. If that fails, it's not something you can fix and is upstream from you.
Time to go. Needto turn the phone off to conserve battery power.
Cheers and wish us luck! We'resure as hell going to need it on this trip!
-Mac
Quote from: MacGyver on October 26, 2009, 10:24:06 AM
Ipconfig /flushdns
Then try again. If that fails, it's not something you can fix and is upstream from you.
Still didn't work. Too bad. I will try again tomorrow.
Mac, hope your trip goes well. What route ya'll taking.
God bless,
John
Mac,
Good luck with your dream bus... On the change of plans from the 4905 you were looking at, by chance was it in NC? From your description, it sounded just like one that is for sale here.
Yes, the 4905 was NC.
We are home with the "new" (really old) Flxible Visicoach! BTW... It's a 1953, not a '56. :)
Going to rest now.
-Mac
Hey Mac,
Glad to hear you made it safe and sound. Here is a Flxible link you might be interested in. http://www.flxibleowners.org/ (http://www.flxibleowners.org/)
We had four of them at our TBR rally this year, what a bunch of great guys and gals with gorgeous coaches!
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi363.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Foo78%2FDreamscape_Eagle%2FTexas%2520Bus%2520Roundup%25202009%2FTBR2009031.jpg&hash=b8c9bb618d482f98264e6528a156973fd838bad2)
Paul
Paul, thanks. :) I've been looking through the site and it's got a lot of useful info... I'm still just wiped from the trip... It'll be a couple of days before I'm back to "normal". lol...
-Mac
Quote from: MacGyver
... It'll be a couple of days before I'm back to "normal". lol...
-Mac
Uh, did he just say normal? Normal, is he kidding? ? ?
None of us are NORMAL! We're NUTS! BUSNUTS!
;D BK ;D
Why ya think I "quoted" it? ;) However, in this case, I mean physically and mentally back to "me". ;D
I'm going to bed now I think. My body is rebelling against such a grueling trip... Before I make another long trip in her... I'm definitely getting a comfortable seat! heh...
-Mac
Quote from: MacGyver on November 10, 2009, 07:35:40 PM
Before I make another long trip in her... I'm definitely getting a comfortable seat! heh...
-Mac
Mac, So ya mean that the five gallon bucket didn't work out very well? lol
How did the trip go? Did you break down at all? At least this one is converted. Now you can "get outa Dodge" and find some pay somewhere.
God bless,
John
Ok guys... I know it's been... well... a long time since I posted...
But... :)
It looks like I'm going to be moving forward on this pretty soon. I've located a donor bus... I don't know the year of the bus, but it has an IH 7.3 engine. Not sure if it's turbocharged or exactly what tranny is attached to it... I'll be heading out to look at it sometime between tomorrow and this coming Monday.
If I get it, then I'll be moving the engine/tranny from the donor over to the old girl... From what the owner has told me about the donor, it's in pretty good condition, the engine runs like a top and the tranny shifts perfectly. I'm *hoping* that the rear end components can fairly easily be swapped over from the donor to the old Flx. If everything goes smoothly (no real plan, since plans never work for me)... Then hopefully, in the next couple of months... My bus will be back on the road.
I have to rewire _EVERYTHING_... all the lights need replacement and the dash will need a complete overhaul as well as the circuit panel... But, on the flip side... This is the bus I had looked for for several years but could never find... Now I have it. So... It's time to get her going so I can get back on the road and back to work.
I'm going to have to do almost everything myself and on the cheap-cheap since the donor bus will kill the little bit of money that's now left after claiming some tools and equipment against the insurance... I'm hoping I can still squeak a little more out of them (still need to replace my welding rig and some much needed tools)... But I'm not going to count on it.
Hopefully I'll be able to find someone around here that will let me use their welding rig and tools that I'll still need in order to get the next phase of the project completed. We'll see.
Anyway, just thought I'd give a little update... I know it's a bit vague, but... it's the only thing to really happen since I drove the ol' girl home, so... it's SOMETHING! Yay! ^.^
I'll keep ya'll updated as things progress...
-Mac
PS
I've updated the topic to reflect the correct year of this coach... It's a 1953, not a 1956. :)
Cheers!
That donor bus has the posibility of donating dash wiring too . . . . .
I tried and its asking for a user name and password.
But I dont see any place to sign up.
Kevin
Oh, I know... I'll make use of the wiring... but all the existing wiring is just toasted... it's 60 years old and all original stuff. I had to bypass a lot with "patchwork wires" just to get her to drive home... Very little worked when I first started... So, she needs all new runs from front to back...
I'm sure I'm going to have to create a custom dash to accommodate the new gauges and such too. :)
But... Sweeney... Huh?? User name and password? Place to sign up? You sure you got the right thread? o.O
-Mac