Eagles International Forum

and im an Eagle addict.

(now everyone in unison: hi kyle.....) lol


i finally got a few minutes in front of the computer to get on here and say hi and i just want to say that this board is such an awesome resource for advice, instruction, ideas, and stories and it is pretty neat to have all the collective knowledge here from people who have built and rebuilt these buses from the frame up at our fingertips. we all have to agree that songman and co. have done us all such a huge favor.

ive met a few of you in person before(Songman, Dreamscape, Basil, and talked dan lenz's ear off more than a few times, haha), and for those of you that i havent, my name is kyle and i live in northern ca(sacramento, specifically). busless at the moment, but have been a proud owner and caretaker of a few Eagles and just parted ways with the latest one last month.

i have tons of questions on a plethora of Eagle topics that i want to ask, but i figured ill fill my first thread full of pictures, because i know how much we all love pictures.

this was my first bus that was all mine and nobody else's. its a 1980 Eagle 10 #30223. built in April of 1980 and delivered new to Seattle Gray Lines(Evergreen Trails) as fleet number 301 i believe. i cant remember for sure. it had a 6v92TA and Allison 740, Wrico 8KW diesel genset, and was just an all around great coach. it was converted bit by bit by a blugrass family band from oregon and finished in 2002. i bought it in June of 2006.

Hey Kyle,

Thanks for sharing the pics!

Now where the heck did Blue go?

Are you looking or dreaming for another one?

I know lots of questions, but I haven't seen you for a while and just wanted an update.

Glad you're here even if you are busless!

and this is the one that was sold last month. its a 1981 Eagle 10 #30605. bought new by a nevada charter company who ran it until 1989 when it was purchased by garth brooks as his very first bus. the raised driver and the roof raise were done by a guy in TN, and the 12 bunk interior was done by Kline Brothers Coach in Nashville, and it was managed by Nite Train. her name was "The Blue Rose"(thanks to songman for tracking that info down). it has a 6v92TA and an Allison 740 as well. from what i could figure, it was used by garth and his band at first, then he sold records, got his own, and it became the band bus. at some point it was sold to B&B Leasing out of Madison, TN (out of business, now) and they ran it till about 97 i think. then it went through a succession of gospel groups and chruches before landing in the hands of my friends band an abused, sad mess of what it was. i was their driver and boy was that an adventure. we nicknamed her "brokedown blue", because it wasnt a matter of IF the bus brokedown, it was WHEN. this bus is the prime example of WHY TO GET AN INSPECTION BEFORE PURCHASE. they paid 57K for it initially (about 47 too much, ha) and in the first 6 weeks of ownership they dumped an ADDITIONAL 30k into it. everything from voltage regulator relays, to batteries, to brakes, to a complete overhaul of the engine. it was an experience, to say the least. the band knew NOTHING of buses, and while i knew quite a bit, im not a mechanic and had never done my own repairs, but i had to do it anyway. from learning how to pull the axles, cage the brakes, and changing the governor on the compressor, all on the fly.

then to top it off, one day after fueling the bus wont build air, so we get towed to springfield, mo. and the band rents a van, takes the trailer, and keeps on going, and i think i can meet them in a few days in detroit after they fix the compressor.

WRONG.

not only does the main line off the compressor have a HUGE hole in it and it burnt out the compressor, but the engine is totally FRIED from a band member insisting on driving while i was sleeping and tried to climb the grade into flagstaff, az on interstate 40 in D, and it got hot, i mean hot. like 230 or so for quite a few minutes, and the auto shutdown was not hooked up.i knew it was toasted, but it ran and i was just hoping to get through the last dates of the tour and get it worked on while we had a break. but, the detroit dealer suggested an out of frame, and that they did. they yanked the motor out, pushed the bus out of the shop with a forklift, and i just waited as the ordered parts slowly trickled in. i was stuck in a town i had never really been to, living on a dirty brokedown bus in a diesel shops yard. for 23 days. it was an.....odd experience to say the least.

i kind of became the shop cat, and they let me wander in and out as i pleased and hang out in the shop itself. made a few good friends out of it, and one of the coolest parts, was that i had the opportunity to watch an entire 2-cycle detroit stripped down and rebuilt, day by day, and would just sit and ask the mechanic any question i could think of.

after the band depleted their funds they put blue on the market, but had nowhere to keep it. after 2 tows by the cities of huntington beach and corona, ca they called me and i offered to help them sell it, and i brought it up here to sacramento, and she kind of became mine, even if she wasnt on paper. i knew her inside and out, through good and bad and really $h**ty times. then they finally just sold her last month after a year of living with me, and its still weird not to have her around, or to have an Eagle at my disposal whenever i feel like driving one, but there are birdies on the market everyday, and when i have a place to keep one you better believe ill be getting one.

enough rambling. pictures:


this is where i lived in MO. haha.



taking out the motor:





LOOK AT THAT NASTY TURBO. haha







heres Blue posed for a few shots with Basil's 15-45:








and heres my favorite. get 'em while they're young! you best believe shell be my little driving partner.



kyle

oh, paul, arent we all ALWAYS dreaming of buses? haha. yeah, ill get another. maybe next year or shortly after that. wait till i have a place to put it, and the $$ to use it. lol.

kyle

Welcome Kyle. Man you have some kind of eagle history. Glad to have you around .

Here is the graphic I found from when they raffled the Blue Rose off for charity a number of years back...

We need to talk. You are one bus short and I am one bus long. I need to get my current bus sold before we get the new one finished. The one I have for sale has a cummins M-11 Celect Plus 450 with an Allison 740. It will run uphill all day long.

Hi Kyle. Concerning Garth's bus, it just goes to show you that shiny paint ain't all there is, eh? The serial on my bus is 30665, just 60 off from that one and born in late 1981. I got her from the original owner, Long Beach Transit, as well as her identical twin sister. No, they were not transits, but 44 pax non restroom VIP coaches. For almost 20 years they mostly sat in the yard doing nothing, but going through the PM maintenance schedules just like they did roll. I doubt they ever left the LA basin. They would take VIP's to the Rose Bowl and other activities occasionally. When I got them, mine had 146,000 mi and the other 143,000 mi. I fixed the other one up and sold it to a school in Montana and converted mine. They also had just out of framed the engines and transmissions and put new interiors in. I also bought their entire new spare parts inventory ($4K worth) for $400.00! LBT replaced them with two brand new 2000 Prevost H3-45's. My friend Dan Wiltgen, who is now national used coach sales mgr for Prevost sold them to LBT when he worked for Eagle.

Your red bus looks real nice. I know David Beagle who is in charge of Grayline Alaska/Seattle and oversees their huge 300+ fleet. Any one who gets one of their old buses is getting a good bus, they get great care. Don't know how many MC-9's they have left up in AK, but they are sure nice ones. Most of them only work May-Sept and putt around Juneau, Skagway, etc. Far as I know they are still running the 17 H5-60's they have had for years too. They used to run Anchorage-Fairbanks-Skagway over the highway.

Where are your two Eagles now? What happened to them?

normajean:

i would LOVE an Eagle with a Cummins, but alas i just dont have the space or funds really for a bus at the moment. hopefully in the next year or so ill be able to get another, but until then, a bus would be more of a financial drain than anything.

Boomer:

the paint wasnt even that great either. she looked like a million bucks from about 50 feet away though. lol. Blue actually belonged to my friends' band, and i was more of the "custodian" i guess. they sent it to live with me, and it ended up being a year. it was their bus on paper i guess, but that was every inch my bus. i was actually really sad to see it go, but now its up in OR with a guy who owns a trucking company, and he has the "labor of love" mentality along with the resources to put the time into her that she so badly needs and i think deserves.
Red was another story. i ended up losing that bus in a shady deal with a "friend" who preyed on my tight financial situation at the time. ill tell that story another time. its been a few years but it still kinds stings, ha. i miss that bus like crazy. it pops up for sale on craigslist from time to time, so if any of you come across it let me know. the guy never responds to my emails.
youre definetly right about Evergreen taking care of their coaches. Red was in tip top shape, really. the family who converted it bought it straight from evergreen in the late 90's, and they travelled the country in it singing at churches and converting the whole thing slowly entirely on donations as they had the money, using it the entire time. when they had the funds they would add things like windows, genset, tanks, etc. it turned out really nice and she had almost no rust and was straight as arrow. from what i was told it spent a lot of its time shuttling around Holland America Line passengers, never really venturing much past vancouver. i even had her original insurance cards and everything. im moving to seattle next year and would love to drive for evergreen at some point, for the sentimental value and the well kept coaches.

kyle

Kyle, how are you doing?

Where did Blue end up going?