What will hail do to these old buses???

[Rick59-4104]

  My '59 4104 and the '52 4103 have no evidence of any hail damage, I know sometime and probably many times since 1952 and 1959 they have been in several hail storms. How tough are these old girls when it comes to hail?? I was going to take the 4104 on a couple hundred mile run tonight but backed out due to weather. I am amazed that I see no hail dimples on either bus.

Rick in NW Arkansas where yes it is hailing     (pea size right now)

[artvonne]

  I would say they are pretty tough. The roofs are about 1/8" high grade aluminum, which is very strong on its own. But being curved makes it much stronger. I think it would take hail over grapefruit size before you would start seeing damage to the roof. The windows are another story, lol.

[challenger440]

My bus (MC7) has been through a few hail storms (PO).
Either  that or someone took to it with a really big hammer.  My home town has had a few hail storms with 2 to 3 inch hail.  If my bus was in town during those storms, it held up ok.  Dents look like a softball hit it.  The good news is I don't think any made it inside. Houses in the area had hail going through the roof.  JM

[luvrbus]

The right hail storm will do a lot of damage we were at a FMCA rally in South Dakota about 10 to 15 years ago and the hail destroyed 8 new Prevost at the show along with the other makes and model made of metal.
I was amazed how the low end fiberglass sticks and staples survived only thing happen to those were a few broke windshields,tv antennas and the roof Ac shroud were destroyed,the buses were a mess even broke the side glasses  


good luck

[Stormcloud]

My MCI-7 took a beating in a hailstorm here about 1 1/2 years ago. The roof faired well, except the rearwardmost panel ( lighter guage aluminum I think) The drivers side received plenty of small dents from golfball size stones. Even dented the factory stainless in a bunch of spots.

Our government-owned insurance declared it as a write-off with damage in excess of $30,000.

We still own the bus; the fuel/repair account is fattened up considerably, and when anyone asks, I tell them it 40+ years old. It's gonna have some scars.

[artvonne]

  I wouldnt have believed any of what I just read, but it is what it is I guess. OTOH, I wouldnt have thought 3 inch hail would penetrate the roof of a house either. Weve had two days of hail come through here (NWA), some as large as softball sized, and while they have shown some shingle damage, I havnt heard of anything that penetrated. But maybe if its wind driven? Who knows, when its weather anything can happen. Just read an article some place had worms come down in a heavy rain, cant recall where.

  There was some grapefruit sized hail came down near Monticello MN a couple years ago. I saw some cars that had litteral crush damage, way beyond little hail dents, all windows out, couple houses had the one whole side completely bashed. That did a lot of damage. IIRC, yesterday they were saying baseball size could kill cattle.