We looked at a 78 bus today. A guy had had a sign in the window of his
porch for at least a year. I ride my bicycle past the house everyday on the
way to work, and finally we decided to give the owner a call. The bus is in
pretty good shape all around: no rust-through, very little surface rust,
all cylinders at 160-165, steering good, shifting good, working gas heater,
cv boots intact, heat exchangers good, interior in excellent shape, 78k
miles. The battery pan is rusted out. For a rust belt bus (Wisconsin), the
body is in remarkable good shape. No oil leaks. It hasn't been driven since
1991 (it has the plates to prove it).

The only problem we saw was that it made a noise that sounded like valves
slightly malfunctioning at startup for a few minutes. It starts, but runs a
little roughly. After a few minutes, it runs fine. The seller said that it
did this only at startup for a few minutes, not when the engine was
accelerating or climbing a hill. Also note that the engine has very good
compression. What might this be? Might it have something to do with the
hydraulic valve lifters? Is this a major problem?

Except for this problem, the bus seems to be a go for us. I'd like to tell
Joel to change the stats, but I'd also like to know exactly what this
problem might be before we buy it. Our feeling is that unless this is a
major problem, we're going to buy it.

David Schimpf