The Dieselfication of FMC #1046

Golden_HVAC wrote:

WOW,

That is one long belt!

I was looking at all the pictures, and wondering when this will be back on the road?

I once road in a FMC bus! It was at Portland Airport, in Oregon, and transported people to the rental car area. I recall it looking like the FMC motorhomes that I saw in Midway City (I used to ride my bike by a place that restored them there years ago, they closed up shop back in the 90's). The Portland bus had a diesel engine conversion too. It sounded like a big inline 6.

Did FMC keep making busses after motorhome production stopped? Or could this have been a factory built bus, or a motorhome conversion of some sort?

Thanks for the interesting pictures!

Fred.

Fred,
FMC made 1050 production coaches (mine is #1046 - one of the last ones!) plus 2 prototype coaches. Both prototypes are still on the road! Out of the 1050 production units, approximately 150 of them were Transit models of one configuration or another. There was the city bus model, the rental car model (mainly Hertz) for airport duty and a few city bus models that were specifically set up for handicapped/elderly use with two doors and a wheel chair lift.

There were also some specialty layouts made such as the several units that NASA used as mobile comunication units at landing sites. One of the most widely known units was the one used by Charles Kuralt for his On The Road series. That one is in the Ford museum in Detroit.

Most of the transits were powered by a Chrysler 440-I coupled to an Allison 540/545 4 spd tranny. A few were powered by GM 4-71 diesels. Later a number of motor home units have been converted to the DD 8.2 diesel when that engine became available. The Allison 540/545 tranny was used with all of the diesels. All of the motor home units used the Chrysler 727 Loadflite transmission as did most other gas powered motor homes of the era.

Production started in early 1973 and ended in spring of 1976. Mine was built in Febuary of 1976.

As units came out of transit/rental agency use they either were scrapped or purchased by individuals and converted to motor homes. I have seen a couple a very good conversions. There also are some still "in process"!

It is estimated by knowledgeable people that approximately half of the units built are still either on the road or still driveable. My neighbor just saw one the other day heading East between Florence and Eugene, Oregon. For someone wanting a solid older coach, they are a very desirebale unit.

My own engine conversion project is running behind schedule, but should be done before long. All mechanical stuff is done and all but a little of the rear wiring is done. Electrical cables are pulled for the front to back connections.

The main thing left is the wiring of the front end body control module and the dash cluster. Some health issues in the family of the person that is doing the electrical has delayed things at the moment. I will be posting here when it is fired up!

Thank you for your inquiry. Here is a link to page 28 of 29 pages of pictures with explaintory commentary.