We just bought a 1961 MCI 2 converted bus in September. The bus was a tour bus on Vancouver Island, British Columbia till the late 70's when a doctor in Fort St John did the conversion. The roof was raised 10 inches, redid the interior, painted the bus with airplane paint and rebuilt the 6v71 Detroit diesel. I will start with this as I am trying to resize my pictures to post on the forum. We live in Westerose Alberta
Here is a picture of the expansion tank for the antifreeze. It is stainless steel with three compartments that are connected reduce the back and forth splashing inside the tank. It also has temp gauge, a sight gauge to show the level of antifreeze. There is also a drain and a modulating valve to open and close the radiator louvers
Here is some outside pictures for the passenger side and back of the bus.
I am using paint to resize my pictures, its working. One more picture of the front.
Welcome to the forum.
Nice looking bus.
Wes
Welcome.
Quote from: goldgiter on November 22, 2015, 10:34:32 AM
Welcome to the forum.
Nice looking bus.
Wes
Ditto from me, on both counts ...
Welcome and nice set o'wheels.
There are a few utilities around for windows that make image resizing a snap. One I remember for XP was Power Tools, that added a line that showed up when you were to right click on an image, very handy. Not too sure if it works with 7, 8, 9, or 10 but if not there is possibly something out there for them too.
Good to see that I am no longer the newest member to join. Welcome from a fellow Canadian and that bus looks good.
Ryan.
Welcome from Northern California. Good looking Bus. Not many 2's left eh!...
Dave
Nice looking bus! Once you get tired of the lack of power from the 6V-71 (used to be all right, but now even big rigs will pass you) it is an easy swap to move up to a 6V-92TA. The engine is virtually identical on the outside. About the only thing you'd have to do is find room for the turbo, run new intake and exhaust and increase cooling. If you're running N65 injectors now, you would go from 228hp @ 600lb/ft torque to 350hp @ 1,000lb/ft torque with 9G90's on the 6V-92TA. Think that would get you down the road? Good Luck, TomC
The great thing about the 6v71 you can enjoy the scenery and the different colored rocks along the road,a 454 Chevy gas burner will get you about the same ft lbs of torque
Nice unique bus. Welcome to the board.
We have a 1995 C2500 Chev PU that has a heavy-duty truck 454 in it. It even has an oil cooler. Rated at 230hp @ 3600 with 385lb/ft torque @ 2600rpm. While having the same horsepower as the 6V-71, torque is considerably less. Our pickup and 28ft fifth wheel weigh in at about 16,000lbs. It is a bit lacking up the hills, and gets about 6-7mpg. Good luck, TomC
You need to do a little work TomC those engines are not hard to boost the hp and torque on,the cubic inches are there
Everyone talks about how great the 6v92 is but my 32,000 lb 9 is slooooow. Turbo too. I need more power. I'm embarrassed how much little hills slow me down. Seriously.
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Scott,
I just scaled my 4905 for the first time this summer, and it came in at 23,900. The 8V71N manages to push it pretty well, but when I add the 4000lb toad, I can definitely tell it is back there. The difference between my rig and yours is that I never have any place I need to be in a given time, so slooooooowwww is just fine!
Steve Toomey
PAbusnut
Quote from: Scott Bennett on November 26, 2015, 04:25:01 PM
Everyone talks about how great the 6v92 is but my 32,000 lb 9 is slooooow. Turbo too. I need more power. I'm embarrassed how much little hills slow me down. Seriously.
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400 hp Cummins ISM would resolve that problem - I know you're upgrading to your new bus with 8v92 so this doesn't really apply to you anymore
The 6v92ta I had in my bus before the Cummins was slow also, got poor fuel mileage, and always had to be watched for over heating in the summer. No more!
Quote from: Scott Bennett on November 26, 2015, 04:25:01 PM
Everyone talks about how great the 6v92 is but my 32,000 lb 9 is slooooow. Turbo too. I need more power. I'm embarrassed how much little hills slow me down. Seriously.
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You never heard me say how great a 6v92 was but they have their place it is a good engine for a 35 ft bus lol you should drive a 45 ft Eagle with a 6v92 then you would know what under power is ;D Scott what hp is your engine I don't recall MCI ever setting the 6v92 over 288 hp,330 hp was the Eagle setting and were ok in the 40 ft model 10's,15 and 20
My 6V92TA is a lot better now with a few improvements I have done over the last few years. 9G90 injectors timed at 1.46", TV7512 turbo, Ecco air filter 1200 cfm, straight exhaust with resonator, bigger squirrel cage fans with smaller pulley from an MC9. That is, in theory, 350 hp and 1020 ft/lb of torque. I take the covers off once a year and run the rack, and make sure everything is right. It pays off in the satisfaction of a good running machine. Even pulling the car on this trip, (guessing 31000 lbs), we go up the hills with the trucks, passing half of the loaded ones. Not all 6V92 engines are the same. If mine broke, I would probably just fix it. No room for a 4 stroke in a MC5.
JC
That is true JC I have set a couple to the 400 hp fire truck settings they do good but the fuel mileage took a big hit
Quoteit is a good engine for a 35 ft bus/quote]
Yes it is. In a 4106 it makes it a different machine, even more so at 10,000 feet.
My fuel mileage is not bad at about 7.5 m/USgal.
JC
JC your gear change helped you a lot you set a 6v92 @ 400 hp with 3:73 they drop to around 5 I bet it would be less than 5 mpg with 4:10 gears
Thanks to everyone for looking and welcoming us to the forum. This is the best conversion forum out there by far. The previous owner had over 30 copies of the bus conversion magazine in the bus. Also they left every thing except their personal items. The cupboards are full of dishes, pans, coffee pots, etc. Now the good things they left are cases of fuel, 4 new air filters, 2 cases oil filters, cartridge and spin on and a spin on oil adapter. Three new belts.Wheel chocks, ramps, 4 new 20 ton jacks, tow strap and all the parts that were stripped off the bus before the roof was raised. Numerous tools, stainless steel fittings, gauges, bar b q and stand. All the electrical cords with different amp connectors, water and sewer hoses. All the engine hoses were replaced with new ones, new stainless steel fittings and gauges. There is 2 new starter batteries and 2 new RV batteries. The previous owner had a leveling valve not working so he replaced all 4 and even bought a spare. This is an example of how the bus was maintained and was one selling points for us to have confidence driving down the road.
There is also a manual for everything that that is on the bus including the bus, engine and transmission. The manuals stack almost 2 feet high. I also have a photo album from the time the it was a tour bus, to the complete roof cutting, welding, interior work, the final painting and camping pictures. Things that we really like besides the raised roof there is a 26 foot awning and individual window awnings. The 2 air conditioners/heaters. A fresh air vent on the roof at the back of the bus for helping cool the engine. the large back up lights at the back and one on the side built in under the awning. Just cant wait for this snow to go away and start camping in the spring.
Here is a couple more pictures of the inside. All the wood work is 1 inch teak.
Another picture of the inside.
I have never bought my fuel by the case.... ;D
How many of the MCI 2 were ever built anybody know for sure I thought it was just prototype,I did see 1 of the 26 MCI 1 that were built
From the MCI 1 to the MCI 4 they made a total of 196, all of which were sold in Canada.
I don't have an exact figure for each model, but i think that i have seen at least 2 or 3 MCI 2s.
I don't know how many were built, but when I was driving for Brewster's in the '70s, we had MC1s, 2s and 3s. All built in the late fifties early sixties, before the MC5s.
JC
Our MC-2 serial number 611 bus was sold in 1961 to Vancouver Island Coach Lines. It was a tour bus that drove the island to places like Nanaimo and Gold River. I have pictures with those places on the destination sign in this photo album. The unit number on the bus is 601 (still on the hinge by the door of the bus). 46 MC-2 were built in 1961. There is a web site Angelfire that shows history and serial numbers for Motor Coach Industries. In late 70's the bus was converted for camping by a doctor in Fort Saint John, British Columbia. In 2000 a friend of his bought it in Wetaskiwin, Alberta and that is who we bought if from in September 2015. It is nice to know the history or our bus.
I would vote for a mechanical 6V-92 at about 300 hp, sure would make a nice puppy.
Dave M
ps, tired of the fancy coach, so thinking about another bus, MC5 would do.
Quote from: wg4t50 on November 29, 2015, 01:06:17 PM
I would vote for a mechanical 6V-92 at about 300 hp, sure would make a nice puppy.
Dave M
ps, tired of the fancy coach, so thinking about another bus, MC5 would do.
Giving up a top of the line Foretravel for a MCI 5 no way Dave ;D
I find more happiness with my memories with the MC7 than with this pretty coach, actually it's the people. I had enough of the owners that are clueless but think they are so bright, a bunch of phony jerks who think they are better & smarter. Should add that most folks are good level headed, but enough are mechanical & technical losers.
After 8 yrs I have had enough.
Hope to make Arcada again this year.
Dave M
hey Dave want to trade for a 102c3 ?
dave
Hi Dave, would.a 12V71 turbo fit in a 102C3? tom, lvmci...
if you through enough money at it ....... anything is possible
dave
Quote from: lvmci on November 30, 2015, 06:22:03 AM
Hi Dave, would.a 12V71 turbo fit in a 102C3? tom, lvmci...
Am told the chassis after the mc7do not have the structure to handle the weight.
The base 12V-71 is in the 3,500 lb area. Have played those games, best setup, 8V-92 9200 injectors turbo from a 6V-92 450 hp @ 1800 generator, was wild.
The fancy ism500 is 18 mph slower on my mountain test
No joy with a store bought, the home brew is more satisfying.
Dave M
Also wanted to mention that the MC7 is about 2500 pounds heavier than the four travel with the 500 Cummins the 8V 92 will run 18 miles an hour faster on afton mountain I-64 westbound going up to the hundred mile marker.
This is using the voice reader the new iPhone 6+
Dave M
Hi Ed yeah you know I meat fuel filters Just shows to me that you an everyone all reads these forums and understand what we are saying about our buses. There is so much more I could tell you about the bus but we are waiting for spring to use it and enjoy it. Like I said before this is the best forum for information about all of our buses an hopefully I can put some in put into my experiences with stuff that is related to the buses we all have no matter what brand it is. Just wishing you all a safe journey, that's what it is all about.