Priming Question

[NJT5047]

Can't help you much with the prime except to say from my reading, if you plan on having a bus an electric fuel pump seems to be a good thing to have on hand.  I would buy one now for future uses.  As far as starting a bus with unknown batteries I'm pretty good at that.  By all means if you can get your car near the batts that will help.  I use my portable generator and a biggish battery charger to help starting in the cold, as well as ether.  I have a NA 6-71 so I think the batt requirements are alot lower thatn a a turboed 6V92.
I can start my 6-71 some ether and one  group 31 on a cold -10 C day if the battery is fully charged.

Don't forget that MCIs have 24V systems.  Gotta have two batteries wired in series to start the bus. 
The bus starter may look like a dead short to a car battery and alternator.   In any event, it would take two vehicles to do the 24V jump...or one 24V bus or truck.   I wouldn't want my car attached to a bus...not that it wouldn't work if the bus batteries are almost charged.   
If the subject bus has been sitting so long that the batteries are dead, a borrowed set of batteries hardwired will be the most efficient way to start it..if not the only way.   Dinking around with a 24V system and jumper cables could make smoke...maybe $$. 
Your 6/71N probably has a higher compression ratio than a turbo 6V92TA.  Still, a 6/71 may turn over easier due to the smaller displacement.  Neither one will turn easily in this crap weather we're having in North Carolina...this 'global warming' is about to kill me!  Alas, I digress. 
JR

[Fredward]

This is getting a little beyond Paul's question, but here is a picture of the plumbing and electric fuel pump i installed on my 871. You can see the filters. It really works great but my DD mechanic buddy tells me its overkill. He primes them with ether.

Good Luck Paul.
Fred

[bobofthenorth]

IMHO ether should be an absolute last resort.  In the OP's case it sounded like he was going to look at somebody else's bus.  No way I'd let a stranger walk up to an engine I owned & start feeding it ether.  I have primed many diesel engines with a piece of inner tube strapped over the fuel filler.  Cut a hole out of an old inner tube around the valve stem such that you end up with a circle of rubber about 10" in diameter with the valve stem in the middle.  Use a gear clamp to attach the rubber to the filler.  Loosen the fuel out line from whichever filter you are changing (really just need to loosen something downstream of the last point you have disturbed).  Put some air pressure to the tank - it doesn't take much - and wait for fuel to flow wherever you have loosened the line.  This system is KISS simple, the inner tube patch will ride along without taking up any room and you are good to go as long as you have a source of air.  I'm always concerned about not putting too much air to the fuel tank and creating a bomb but the likely reality is that the inner tube attachment to the filler tube will leak so much air that you will never get any serious pressure in the tank anyway.