Eagles International Forum

Thought you might enjoy seeing this bus. We caught these pics at the Bussin 2008 Rally in Arcadia. We never did get to meet the owner, maybe someone out there knows who he/she is, but it's a great idea for hauling your bike. The whole floor lowers to the ground to load and unload the bike. Our friends Joe & Susie (Harley owners) really got a kick out of it. They own a 1982 Eagle 10. He goes by Eagle 1 on another board. I need to get him hooked up on this board.

OK, since no body has said anything about these pics let me pick your brains...

As I recall that whole floor goes up or down to load and unload, and when the floor is in the up mode he locks the floor with receiver pins and clips (like on a trailer hitch). I was wondering, since that part of the floor was cut out, how structurally sound is this set up on an Eagle (or any bus for that matter)?

KY Steve, maybe you might have an idea since you have re-done your whole frame.

Manny, The main frame is above the door. There are some forces that transfer for the front to the back of the buss throught the members that hold up the floor.If the cut out does not go all the way across the bay and some reinforcement done I think it will work. It is amasing what you can do to the eagle bus. Thank You for the pictures.

Wayne

Manny/Darleen,

I saw these Pics Friday and it scared the devil outta me....lol... I didn't want to be the first negative one though.....thanks Wayne. As Wayne stated the floor is structural to the integrity of the whole bus. I'm sure it could be done but it would/should be as big a project as a slide out. In my world I would have to redesign the whole bay (all three) area in order to achieve this feat. It would involve transferring the stresses up and over that area where the missing bay is. After what I have been through with my slide outs I can assure you I would dismantle the bike and just put it in the original bay in boxes and then reassemble it at my destination. No matter how many times I have to haul it. Different strokes for different folkes though. It is a pretty cool ideal. Thanks for posting the pics. It helps us grinder happy guys to know we aren't the only crazy ones out there.



...................Kentucky Steve..................

I too, about fainted.

It would be possible to tie the floor back together with a pin system when the bike is raised. Still a bit iffy in my opinion.

The only way I can think that they keep the bus from getting a bit sway back when the bike is in the down position, is to have the four vertical columns mounted in very close tolerance bushing and use them to hold the bottom beam together. Even then, there would have to be a tight tube-in-tube system for the vertical extension (verticals could not go into the house level) and then run them through a bushing at the floor level.

You see a lot of hydraulic bike lifts on the back of motorhomes. That puts a pretty heavy load on the rear axle and our "rubber band" springs might not be happy.

Jim

It would be great if we had a special place to put all the pictures of Eagles that are spotted. That would make it easier to do a search too!

That is one unique Eagle, not sure if I would tackle that kind of project though.

What say you guys?

Wayne, has it right I saw one of Dave Galey 05 Eagle buses years ago that didn't have a floors in any of the bays from rust and he drove it home and you see rusted out Eagles that have a pc of 1/2 square tubing holding up the floor that is the ones you run from.

Clifford

The Eagle Coach is designed so that you could remove the entire baggage bay floor and still drive the coach down the road with no problems. If you look at the original baggage bay floor tubing, it is not very stout, in fact, it was only designed to carry the weight of the baggage, about 1,200 lbs. per bay. It is also possible to strip an Eagle down to the frame and still drive the coach down the road, I know because I have tried it and the coach road as smooth as it did when it was complete. The Eagle Coach does not rely on the the side skins and roof skins for structural integrity, in fact, unlike other coaches, the frame of the Eagle Coach would handle everything and relied heavily on the curve in the car line just above the side windows for structural stability and gave the Eagle the best test results in case of a roll over. If you are adding frame work to your Eagle Coach thinking it will add strength, it may not serve any purpose other than adding unnecessary weight to your coach. The Eagle frame was considered the strongest on the market as designed. A frame needs to be stout but also must have flexibility to endure the millions of miles they were designed for. This is all done through finite analysis, which is done by a certified engineer, which measures the stress loads and cycles that a frame is subject to on a computer program.

see, I told ya we coulda put the vette under there!

SmoothJazz wrote:It is also possible to strip an Eagle down to the frame and still drive the coach down the road, I know because I have tried it and the coach road as smooth as it did when it was complete.

I can vouch for that!



As a matter of fact, Don said that my Eagle in this shape actually drove better than his Country Coach Gillig conversion. That says alot for these buses.

I never would have guessed that you could take an entire bay out though. As cool as it would be to have a motorcycle down there though, I am already fretting over bay space as it is. Guess I'll just have to pull a trailer if I want motorcycles with me.