I got the bus out for my first drive today! As you can see from the video, it starts up fairly well, and it looks pretty awesome. The tires were a little squeally, but the thing runs. The end of the clip makes you think I kept driving off into the sunset!
What actually happened was a loud clunk clunk clunk was soon heard potentially coming from the front passenger wheel. I pulled into an empty section of parking lot to turn around, and the bus promptly died every time I let off the clutch to go into reverse. I’m now stuck halfway in a parking spot, Wifey is miffed, neighbors are gawking, and the stupid bus won’t shift into gear! Finally, after putting it in neutral and shifting back to reverse, it shuddered backwards and I was able to shift into first and head back to the garage. I killed the engine again while turning into the garage. Again the engine stalled every time I let off the clutch (and applied gas – I’m not that dumb). Finally, after putting it in neutral again and shifting back to first, it engaged and I was able to pull back into the garage and shut off the engine.
Whew – pretty much a total failure for a first drive, but I feel like I learned more about the bus today. I’m going to jack up the front to see if I can better understand the loud clunking noise. I’m going to keep messing with the shifter to see if I can figure out why it won’t always engage. I’m also going to figure-out how to connect the e-brake cables. Even though my first drive in the bus consisted of driving 100 ft down the parking lot and limping back to the garage, I was happy with how the engine started up and ran. If I can fix that, I can fix the rest of this thing!
