Driving the 1986 GMC Blue Bird Bus without transmission cover on.

Just for a treat, I took the transmission cover off and drove for a little bit. But it gets really HOT without the cover on so I had to put it back on.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Driving
• 1986
• GMC
• bluebird
• school
• bus
• Allison
• AT-540
• 366

[logicbam]

What with the vibration with audio Very laggy video

[kaiyoshi2243]

@logicbam Well, you see these old buses are very bouncy. No fancy air bag suspension and such.  And the poor little camera I used in this video just did the best job it could. The road was also not the smoothest. As far as your laggy complaint, I see no lagging on my end, must be your connection?

I do have other videos where I was able to use a separate "professional recording device" This was just a still camera that had a video option. Hence the poor audio.

[stcbenz83]

They don't make gas buses here in the USA anymore... because of environmental concerns, only diesel buses are now produced.... Here in IL school district near Chicago.. we have a fleet of around 130. We traede in about 5 or so buses every year to get the new cruddy IC CE200's (we don't use air brakes) but most of our fleet still consist of the GMC bluebird gas buses with the 6.6 Liter with the vacuum controlled Allison transmittion and the 8.1Liters with the electronic controlled Allison's.

[kaiyoshi2243]

@stcbenz83 You should do a video of those older buses before your school district gets rid of them. 'cause they just don't make'em like that anymore.

[MrWill1985]

@stcbenz83 Plus another disadvantage to gasoline school buses is also the fact that when gas prices are high people would be siphoning gas from school buses to get out of paying the high price. Many did that during the 1970s oil crisis and I have an uncle who used to do that when he was a teenager. So if school buses were still gasoline powered gas would be getting stolen from the buses regularly. So thats a second reason for diesel buses.

[Stickymajorwow]

dude i love the seats

[540allison]

allison 545 baby!

[MavsFan1982]

I remember when my school district (Midlothian, TX) had a ton of buses with "standard" transmissions (their entire 1980s fleet) before switching back to automatics (their fleet of 1976 and 1977 model year buses--Loadstar Wards and Carpenters--were automatics) when they purchased the 1991 Blue Birds. All of our bus numbers corresponded to the model years of the buses; for example, while 77-A and 91-B were automatics, 81-A and 87-B were standards. The standards felt really jerky in my opinion.

[cleosimble]

@stcbenz83 hey im a yankee i live in pennsivanya for a year and we have you beet by 200 more buses

[kaiyoshi2243]

@nyconnjersey Thanks! I remember the old standard shift buses way back when I was in kindergarten. My bus was a 1972 IHC 1700 loadstar, and the spare bus was a 1967 Chevy.

But, My school district started buying automatic transmissions in 1974 with the Allison AT-500 first. So, where I lived the standard transmissions were quickly phased out a long time ago.

[nyconnjersey]

@jminnesota I'm a big fan too. We had International Bluebird's with Gasoline engines and 5 speed standard transmissions. I can't find those sounds anywhere. The sound of this bus reminds me of the few automatics we had when we had a substitute. I couldn't wait to get the regular bus back. Not that this is bad. But I really miss the gas/standard sound.