My first "real" bus trip was a success

[belfert]

After 18 months of work, I finally got to use my bus for a "real" trip!  Myself and five friends left Minneapolis enroute to Reno at 8 PM Sept 25th.  We stopped to pick up another friend in Des Moines, IA and headed west towards Reno.  We arrived in the desert near Reno at around 10 am Thursday morning Sept 27th.

There were many long hours of work on the bus in the weeks prior to the trip.  I worked on the bus up until about 7 PM the day of departure.  We found out about 8 hours before departure that the plumbing leaked in numerous spots.  A trip to Menards bought enough fittings to take care of the biggest leaks.  At the time of departure, the GPS speedometer, rear view camera, and shower didn't work.  We never did fix the shower, but got the camera and speedo working about 1,200 miles into the trip.  In the rush to leave, we forgot to bring an electric heater as the bus has no heat yet.  (We also forgot to get a heater the two times we stopped at Walmart.)

The bus gave us a whole new perspective on a trip we had previously made in vans or large crew cab trucks.  We could move around, use the restroom, sleep (in a bed!), or work on small projects all the while traveling down the road.  Everyone loved the bus even with the flaws.

We did have one breakdown on the way out in Rock Springs, Wyoming.  A hose from the tranny cooler to water pump wasn't clamped properly.  We wanted to get a proper repair done, but repair shops in small towns close at 5 PM.  We ended up putting another hose clamp on the hose and went on our way after a two hour delay.  A proper repair will require loosening all of the clamps and recentering the hose.  The cooling system was way too hot to remove the clamps without dumping a lot of coolant.

The whole purpose of the trip was to fly large (and a few small) rockets in the desert.  Our group including two others from MN/Wisconsin flew a total of nine rockets, but only one rocket had a good flight with full recovery.  At least three rockets are now just holes in the desert after parachutes didn't deploy.

The first part of the trip home Sunday evening was exciting as we almost hit a cow twice in a free range area.  We like to not travel that stretch at night, but we got a late start leaving the desert.  We pulled off in a rest area shortly after hitting the interstate to sleep for a while.  We only got maybe three hours sleep as my friend was cold so he got up and started driving again.  (Next time I will bring a heater or have heat in the bus!)

The rest of the trip home was uneventful and we pulled into my driveway in Minneapolis about noon this past Tuesday.  We got just under 8 MPG for the trip.  I was hoping for a bit more, but we did have 7 people in the bus, probably 1 ton of luggage/cargo, a 600 lb trailer, and 40 hours of generator use.

All in all it was a great trip.  There are some changes and fixes to make, but they'll have to wait.  I have a neglected house that needs some serious cleaning before winter.

[steamguy56]

  Brian.
Glad to hear all went well on your trip, only a few bugs to work out. Have followed the progress of your bus on this board. Real encouraging the thought of all this hard work put into one of these buses pays off. Hope to carry mine on a few hobby related trips before long. Congratulations on your success!!!!                         Danny

[NewbeeMC9]

Awsome Brian,

Just what you were trying to use it for.,  sureley you were expecting to rough it a little.

Glad you hung in there.


those little oil filled radiaters ar cheap and put out plenty of heat on the lowest setting.,  alot quieter than the cubes.  can also use to prevent freeze in the winter.

Glad to here a win for ya!!

[Dallas]

Way Cool Brian!

We new that if we kept at you you'd go ahead and have a usable coach.

Now, Aren't you glad you didn't sell it months and months ago when you were fed up with everything that was going wrong?

It sounds as if you only had little problems to deal with on the trip, which is a good thing. They keep you on your toes. Remember, even the space shuttle is still in the testing stages, and you don't have to worry about an O-ring blowing out and the whole bus exploding in 93 seconds.

Glad to hear you made at least one good run and one good rocket shot! Now, get ready for the Next trip, after you clean the house up and get it ready for sale.

Dallas

[Busted Knuckle]

Brian that is great to hear that all the hard work has paid off, and ya actually got to practice rocket science after all! Now take a break from the bus spend a couple week ends on the house, then get back to bus stuff! By the way have you ordered at least one of those stupid molded elbows for the trans cooler, that I suggested? If not you should do ASAP! I can tell you right now that if you blow one of those babys, it'll be a couple DAYS, not hrs delay if you aren't carrying a spare! I just had another of the same short funnel shape straight hoses like it (At least Setra made it a straight one instead of 90*, but they are still impossible to get over the counter anywhere! SO GET SOME SPARES!), blow on me of Friday and at least I had a spare to replace it with!
FWIW   BK 

By the way be glad you didn't get one of Rock Springs local service trucks to come out and help ya! Those boys are all rip off artists, they don't come out with out making sure they pocket at least a couple $100 for just a minor job! And lord help ya if it's a major one! I know I got ripped several times back when I was truck'n!

[belfert]

Brian that is great to hear that all the hard work has paid off, and ya actually got to practice rocket science after all! Now take a break from the bus spend a couple week ends on the house, then get back to bus stuff! By the way have you ordered at least one of those stupid molded elbows for the trans cooler, that I suggested? If not you should do ASAP! I can tell you right

No, I didn't order one of those molded elbows yet.  Can you refresh me on the part number and where to get one?

We stopped at a truck repair place in Rock Springs, but it was around 3:30 and they closed at 5:00 so they wouldn't look at it until the next day.  The funny thing was they have an after hours emergency number on the front door and I bet we could have gotten a repair after hours, but not during business hours.  We ended up repairing the leak in their parking lot.  We gotta remember hand cleaner for cleaning up after these roadside repairs.  The bottle we had was empty.

[johnjem]

reading about these success trips makes this board keep going ,it helps the rest of us out so we can take that first voyage out and have a successfull trip!!!!! thanks guys

[superpickle]

Sounds like a Great reward for a Lot of hard work.. Im Jelous 

Hope for MANY more trips for you.. 

[ChuckMC9]

The bus gave us a whole new perspective on a trip we had previously made in vans or large crew cab trucks.  We could move around, use the restroom, sleep (in a bed!), or work on small projects all the while traveling down the road.  Everyone loved the bus even with the flaws.ouse that needs some serious cleaning before winter.

I don't think I've posted on one of your threads because I've had nothing to add, but know that there are those out there who were rooting for you thru the ups and downs.

It's great to hear of a successful milestone and renewed enthusiasm...and congrats.

Thanks for the writeup.