The Ride:  1964 Bristol Lodekka FLF6B

We found this bus by happenstance. One late night we were chatting about going on the road in an RV and I was feeling discouraged because most RV’s are too small for our family of 4 (plus dog) or too expensive for us too afford. We then turned to the idea of a skoolie (school bus conversion) and I still did not feel it was large enough to fit us comfortably. Along the way of thinking about buses, I said jokingly, “wouldn’t it be cool if we converted a double decker bus into an rv”? Avira didn’t think it was funny but thought it was a joke and dismissed it. As I sat there the thought turned from joke to curiousity. I decided to just, well, search ebay and craigslist to see if their are any for sale. I did that sort of jokingly because I expected them to be very expensive, and they were. The cool thing was that I found a Double Decker Bus listed in Monterey. That was about 2 or more hours away so I called on it just for the heck of it. The funny thing was, the guy told me it was actually out on some property in Paso Robles. Paso Robles was only 45 minutes away, so I got directions and the next day we went to see it. This is what we saw.

It wasn’t running, it was dirty with the smell of animal urine. It looked bad. But of course,  I am a visionary and I thought, if you strip all the stuff in their out and left nothing but a frame, it isn’t in bad shape. What I really loved about this bus is that the stairs were inside which is different than most models with the stairs on the back.  The guy who was selling this was asking $6,000 and that I knew I couldn’t afford. You have to consider that you may have to get a whold new engine and transmission to get it running, plus be able to afford the conversion. It just wasn’t worth all that at $6,000. At $1,000, maybe. I did not think I could talk him down to that though. So we moved past that. We kept looking for RV’s we could afford but as time went on, I kept thinking about the double decker bus. I got more and more obsessed with the idea. A year later I sent an email to the guy who was selling it to see if it was still available and if he would take less, he said he still had it and would sell it for $1,000. My eyes almost popped out of my head. For $1,000 I could probably make this happen. I knew it might take a lot of time, but if I owned it, I had all the time I needed to get it done. The funny thing is, Avira was thinking more about it as time went on and really wanted it too. We went an looked at it again, and again, and again. Everytime we began to fall in love with it more and more. As we thought we were ready to buy it and had made arrangements to store it at my cousins shop, the guy who owned it dissapeared. The one phone number we had was disconnected, he stopped working at his old job and he was not responding to our emails. We began to become very sad.

At this point we decided no matter what we were going to do this travel thing that we always wanted to do (read more about that at the “our story” page). So we started this website and posted our first post letting everybody know what we decided to do. You can read that here http://gonewiththewenns.com/?p=44

We kept trying to hunt down the guy who owned the purple bus and began trying to find others but they were too far out of our price range. With a little google magic I was able to hunt down his mother and contact her to pass a message on to him about our interest in the bus. You can read that post and more on how I found his mom here http://gonewiththewenns.com/?p=53.

Knowing that the bus purchase was now inevitable, we went down to the bus to look at it with greater detail. To grasp the full intensity of the work before us, take a look at this video.

So now you know where we are coming from. LOTS OF WORK and making some pretty bold assumptions about it running. As I said before, I am a visionary. hehe.

So we sold all of our stuff still not owning the bus and just hoping that everything will work out. Our plan was that if the bus fell through, we would purchase a cheap RV and hit the road in that. As fate would have it, we got the bus only a month after we moved in with my family. Here is the video of us towing the bus. I think the true silliness of my personality came through in this video. So please, bare with it long enought to see the bus towed. hehe

I know, I know. Bit over the top huh? That’s just me and you will get used to that. I mean, I am planning to live in a double decker bus ya know. I am a bit of a wierdo. Anyways…

So we got the bus and began ripping the stuff out of the bus which was lots and lots of tedious and discussting work. We found things I don’t even want to type because it is so gross. But we perservered and got it all cleaned out. Here are a few photos of the process.

As you can see, there was a lot of junk in this bus. We thought of recycling it but it just stank so bad and was so covered with bugs and rats, we thought it would be best to just junk it. I am all for recycling but most of this wood had a pile of mouse poop an inch high on it. No Joke! Very gross and no way we would chance smelling that in our bus.

Following our progress here we learned a horrible reality about working in the valley during the recession, there are no jobs. We went broke and sank into a depression thinking that we would not be able to do this after all. We were unemployed for 5 months and sent out more resumes during that time than I have sent out in my entire life. With few calls back and a few job offers for minimum wage, I thought we were totally doomed. Eventually, Avira and myself got a job that I for one like more than most my other jobs. You can read about that here http://gonewiththewenns.com/?p=204

Now we are off and rolling again and we got the bus literally down to its basics all while trying to get this thing running. Here are some pictures of that.

As you can see, the bus is pretty much empty and ready to start building up. First we need to seal it closed by fixing the backend, welding all the holes closed, doing a bit of fabrication work and putting in new windows. That is that stage we are at here. But before we can do that, we have to get it running. Why? Because the bus doesn’t fit into my cousins autobody shop. So he will need to be able to drive it to the front of the shop where the roll up doors are so he can reach with the air tools and welders. So our next big obstical is to get it running.

Theoretically, if the bus is getting enough fuel to the engine and is turning over enough to create compression, your engine should start unless it has any major issues going on. That is how I approached this bus. I first looked at the fuel in the bus which was almost half a tank. It was pretty rusty so I emptied it and smelled like diesel fuel for a few days. Not a good smell by the way. We put in some fresh diesel fuel. I also took out the filters and cleaned them really good with water to make sure they weren’t clogged. I tried to turn it over but no luck. We checked and there was no fuel coming out of the top of the injector pump. So we realized it could only be two things, the fuel pump or the injector pump. I called around trying to find parts and repair people to rebuild either the pump or the injector pump to no avail. Nobody could work on it because they were not familiar with them. Bare in mind that both the fuel pump and injector pump are mechanical. Around this time I started researching to find a repair manual for this bus that might tell me what I need to know to make the repairs myself and found the British Bus Club in America. They had my manual for sale or I could join the club. I contacted Mark, the founder of the club and he has been very helpful saving me days worth of researching with every phone call. It has been an incredibly helful. You can see the club website at www.britishbusclub.org.

After talking with Mark about the fuel pump he gave me some very helpful info, “Bypass it”. I was like huh? He said “get an electronic fuel pump and just bypass the mechanical one, it is cheaper and better than the mechanical one”. I was like, wow. So easy, at least for the fuel pump if that is the issue, but if it is the injector pump I am screwed.

We bought the electronic fuel pump, installed it and tried to fire it up with it being total and complete failure. I called all around trying to find somebody to rebuild the fuel injector pump thinking that it must be that being that the fuel pump did not work. It was during another call to Mark when he asked me the question “did you get the air out of the lines”?

Karl- “HUH?”

Mark-” You have to run the fuel pump until you hear the fuel going back into the fuel tank through the overflow lines”

Karl- “You do?”

Mark- “Yeah, I am sure that is it or your choke is not in the right position or something silly like that. I doubt you need to rebuild your injector pump”.

Off I went to the shop to try it out. I was turning it over and my son yelled dad there is smoke. I thought the damn thing was going to burn down or something when I looked back and noticed it was combusting and the smoke was coming out of the exhaust. I knew it was a matter of time if fuel was getting in the cylinders to fire. I kept turning it over for about 15 seconds straight and wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing started. I was in shock. I let it run for a minute while I tried to figure out what to do next. I thought, I am not sure the condition of the oil, it has no coolant and it probably aint the best time to let it run. So I turned it off and the next day we put in fresh oil. Not only was the oil half of what it should have been, it was pitch black. I also had to change a radiator hose and we started it up. Here is the video of the second time starting it and Avira’s first time seeing it run.

after it died the first time I restarted it and let it run again. After about 5 minutes it went from sounding rough to sounding really good. I also did an interview with the family about the bus running and show the downstairs and upstairs. Here is the vid.

This is was a big step. We will try to drive it a little bit on Monday after I change the transmission fluid and video tape the first drive (wont be much). If we can get it running good, we can hand it over to my cousin to do the body work. After that, we build our new home!