Older bus style class a? As durable as they say?

Nice but took big. Here in CA I need keep it under 40ft, the 36 better for my house. Esp if I need to pull a trailer. Over 40 ft here keeps you off some roads, roads I enjoy BTW..

Here is another one for a few more bucks.

Thanks for the tip,
The one I am eyeballing has 125k on it. Also recently found out the Allison 754 5 sapped was rebuilt.....by the same servicer that forgot to refill the fluid on a servicing. Not looking so hot unless a real discount. Like the solid nature of it, only 36 ft which is nice so has 6v92..10k generator and hydronic heat.

First off we have been fulltimeing in our converted Silver Eagle Bus,for four years,has a 8v92,the horse power is set at 450 could be set a lot higher but the fuel milage would suffer i average mileage between oil changes get 7 1/2 toing jeep,no leaks or drips in the 40,000 we put on it put maybe a gallion or two in it betwen oil changes, which i try to do at 10,000 miles, read a lot of misinformation about the 2 strokes on a lot of these boards there a good dependable moter if you start out with a good one run the right oil in them sraight 40#, and whatch your engine temps,shift down when your temps get up to the danger zone,dont let mine get over 195, cant just set the thing on cruise and not watch your gauges, heat kills these engines,the thing about buying a used coach dont matter what it is do your research a newer deisel you should be able to have the computer hooked up and see if it been over heated.
That being said as much as i like our bus every time i get a chance to look at a Country Coach Concept i do they got all the goodies avalible at the time they were built, dont think i have seen one with a 6v92, all been 8v92, or s60 and most have been so low miles it makes you wonder why the person bought it in the first place.
and maybe the next bus i buy will have a modern engine in it just for the fact the old guys that can work on a 2 stroke are going away fast.
But if i found a CCC,with low miles, a good price and engine history id buy it in a heartbeat. Good Luck

Lot's of information all over the map here. Much really has nothing to do with what you asked about bus conversion coaches. First off when you are talking Prevost/MCI or "bus conversion" coach these are on a completely different chassis design than any of the "box" motorhomes most of us own. They use a monocoque chassis which is built like an airplane fuselage. Very strong and stable. One drawback is at the rear of the coach it is a little more difficult to attach a traditional hitch for towing. The hitches designed by the coach/conversion company will usually entail a large structure that ties much of the rear of the coach together which is where the hitches strength comes from. The downside is that this usually will interfere with some maintenance procedures. The only production motorhomes that even come close to strength and durability would be the Foretravel and Newell coaches which both fabricate their own chassis and it is very similar to the Prevost in design. Some other production coaches are closer by using a semi-monocoque chassis design which incorporates two large framerails and a monocoque design for the house intergrated into the framerails running the entire length of the coach. Some of these are the upper end Country Coaches (Affinity and Magna I beleive), upper end Monaco coaches (Dynasty, Executive and Signature) and the upper end American coaches which use the Liberty chassis. Don't quote me on the Liberty chassis though.

On to the drivetrain side of things, the older coaches, pre-1995, will be the ones with the two-stroke Detroits. Although they were great in their day and still run strong they are old technology. Also very noisy compared to the Series 60 Detroits. They are not what one would call, environmentally friendly, therefore many states (CA in particular) are making it much harder for these coaches to get re-certified for on-road driving. It is very hard to get these two-stroke engines to pass an opacity test even when the parameters are in the high 60 to near 70 percent range. Even some of the old CAT 3208 engines are getting hard to meet the ever tightening regulations. I would hate to see you purchase something that is a PITA to get smogged and looked down upon each year when you try to license it. Another standing joke we have at work seems to be that one of the things Detroit did when they designed/implemented the Series 60 engine is that they actually used gaskets.:D The two-stroke Detroits leaked like sieves if you looked at them wrong.

I don't want to offend the 2-stroke lovers but personally I would not even consider a coach with a 2-stroke engine at this time with all of the regulations tightening up more and more each year.

The "body" design on these is usaully a glued/riveted stainless steel skin which in itself is very durable and adds to the strength of the monocoque chassis. There were a few years in the Prevost line that had some bonding/disbonding issues but this will require some investigation as I am not certain on the years/models and I don't want to throw out erroneous information. They were having some problems with the skin disbonding and then some corrosion/rust forming on the chassis itself. Again, I would sign up on the Prevost forum and get correct information on this as I don't want to misquote or misrepresent.

As for what you are looking for overall the durability and quality is steps above most anything else most of us on the forum have. That said, as with everything there are pros and cons. One of the biggest cons of these Prevost/MCI bus conversions is weight. They are heavy, no discounting that. The components are heavy truck parts and very readily available so nothing is really proprietary drivetrain/suspension wise.

Based on what you posted in your original post, I would also recommend looking closely at Newells. We have some friends that have had several and they are extremely nice rigs with a long history of lasting over time as well as brand loyalty.

Mike.

erniee wrote:
don't discount 2 stroke engines- tons of them around and they don't need DEF

Yer right instead of adding DEF you keep adding oil. In reading the bus forums they always joked that if wasn't leaking oil it was empty. I would pass on a 8V or 6V. Look for a series 60.

don't discount 2 stroke engines- tons of them around and they don't need DEF

The older Detroit V8s were unturbocharged 318 HP or Turbocharged 350 HP, some say 360. The Turbocharged was/is a great engine. You have to mash the accelerator pedal to the floor and put abrick on it but they will run. Most Greyhound busses had them for power and they were Prevosts. Don't let one sit opver 5 minutes idling becasue the rings were loosely fitted in the sleeve and they oil up. I drove them and we had several where I worked and they would actually drip oil around the expansion joints in the exhaust if you let them idle. Bus and Motor Coach are interchangeable words.

We have about 165k miles on our coach. The Gillig chassis rides very nice, especially after we had a complete chassis renovation done at Country Coach this summer. One burst hydraulic hose two years ago, and a corroded fuse holder going to the ECM were the only two big problems so far. Planning to put many more miles on it before we'll give it up to replace it with a newer Country Coach. It came with a Cat engine, which runs very nicely--as long as the ECM has power!--and doesn't really use any oil (except for the fuel;)).

i have a 1998 american Eagle my brother has 1993 eagle. Other than minor issues niether of us have had any major problems. I did have a raidator issue but I replaced it. We drove it from Texas to California no problem. My brother has had less issues than I have an his is 5 years older. They are a very nice coach and well built in my opinion. Sparten made a good chassis. I feel I will have year of fun in my coach