This weekend was the big weekend! We realized that we better get Bustar to his new home before T and I headed off to the interior for a week and then entered nearly a month of saying we would buy the bus without handing over any cash. As trustworthy as Bustar’s previous owner seemed (and we had all of his manuals!) we didn’t want to tempt fate.

Since Bustar isn’t an RV yet, and therefore classed as a commercial vehicle, and because we don’t have our air brake tickets yet (and it’s a bus of a certain girth so we need one by law), neither of us are actually able to pilot our new steed.

Enter the lovely husband of one of my co-workers, who has driven for transit and various other large contraptions, and was ‘voluntold’ by his wife to help us out. We are so very grateful to both of them (and super dog Coogan) for taking the better part of their Saturday to drive up-Island with Toryn, check the bus over, get it insured, and drive it down to the farm, despite only having such reassurances from us as ‘well, we were told it drives.’

From what I’ve been told, there were a few minor issues, including some incredible blue smoke coming off the poor diesel that hadn’t been driven for around three or four years, an inability to start the bus without a battery charger, and a certain reluctance to leave reverse (I’m glad I wasn’t at that fuel stop!) but all things considered, for a 42-year-old bus that’s got a few years of retirement on it, it did very well!

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November 21st, 2014

At long last, we start

And the password is 4905-A

The first project

our 1972 GMC 4905A (Buffalo Bus)

November 21^st, 2014