Eagles International Forum

Your bus was delivered as either TN 946 or TNE 946. TN/TNE was the letter prefix for Trailways of New England. That means it was primarily used in the northeast. If was a pool bus, it could be used anywhere in the USA where Trailways had routes. It could have also been used as a charter bus and have gone anywhere. In1969, the number was changed to 31507, the 7th 05 Eagle in the New England fleet.

Builder's plates were first used in 1968 to comply with new federal safety standards that went into effect during that year. Before 1968, there were no builder's plates in any Eagle.

Mason, thanks for the photos of the shift linkage. Unfortunately, I can't tell much about the approach they used. If you get a chance to take a picture of the top of the transmission, that might help.

If I had to guess, it looks like they might have used a truck cabover shift tower on the transmission and maybe modified the four speed linkage.

I have been trying to collect as much information as possible on the 9/10/13 speed transmission conversions in Eagles. Those conversions give you a gear for any driving condition. On mine, I "cheated" and used an Eaton AutoShift, so there is no linkage involved (all electronic).

I have a collection of photos of all kinds of approaches. Even a hydraulic system. Many folks used either a cabover cable shift system or a cabover rod system. That said, I have heard of many conversions using Eagle 4 speed shifting components - just not sure how they did that since one of the rods must be fore-aft and one side to side.

Jim

Ok, Jim, finally some pictures. I have been trying to figure out what kind of shift linkage they used, I am 90% sure that it is an old cabover linkage. I do know that it came out of a 1990 or so Freightliner. Since I got the drivers floor out, It is a much clearer view to the linkage at the front. I also got a picture of the top of the tranny.

And yes, those who did the conversion did some modifications to the 4 speed shift linkage which involved replacing the old joints with U-joints, allowing for a twisting motion.(side to side on the shifter)

Mason, thanks for the additional photos. Unfortunately they only serve to confuse me.

The transmission tower photos would suggest that it is a cabover tower. However, I don't think the shift lever tower is a four speed. The Eagle four speed shift tower has two rods (both fore and aft movement). I would guess that maybe the shift tower also came out of a cabover?

This whole subject is driving me crazy (or as Pat would say crazier ), I am pretty good at figuring out mechanical things, but this one makes my tired old brain spin.

Jim

First things first, to make this clear, they only reusedoneof the original linkage rods, and only over the bays, where they of course couldn't get new rod in. From drivers floor level to the main coach level, they used a short chunk of rod and 2 U-joints. So to start at the front, they welded a U-joint to the rod coming out of the shift tower and to a 5 foot or so chunk of rod which then slants up and back to meet the original linkage. They paired it to one of the original rods with another U-joint. Then they went along the rod and took out all of the original joints, replacing them with U-joints where it needed to flex, and welding it straight together in other places.

In the last picture you see the U-joint joining the shift tower to linkage.

In the second picture you see the other end of the linkage you saw in the last picture. The linkage has a yellow star on it. The unused old shifting linkage has a Green circle on it.

The first picture won't make any sense until you look at the last two pictures. I took this from underneath the bus. This is the linkage in-between the last 2 pictures In other words, this is what you can't see from the top. This is the one with the green circle on it. The big shaft below is the clutch, if that helps any. And yes, it does rub on the clutch! The air lines go through the bulkhead to the drivers area, so this picture is looking a little bit forward.

And don't be afraid to ask me for more pictures to help you figure this out!

P.S. I need to ad "a picture is worth a thousand words" to my signature!!!

Hi, Mason


Your bus is a very late 1968 Model 05 Eagle. The original Continental Trailways Fleet Number was TN-946. The TN stands for Trailways of New England which of course means the bus spent a lot of time in the cold northeast. Sometime in 1969 the entire Continental fleet was renumbered into the then-new five digit fleet numbering system. At this point it became 31507, which is to say the 7th Model 05 in New England's fleet. In addition to working in the cold northeast, it could very well have worked on north-south or east west routes as a pool coach. That meant the bus could operate from, for example, Boston to Miami or Boston to Los Angeles over the routes of other Trailways carriers along the way. These other Trailways operators along the route would also have some of their buses in the same pool as well and the system did a good job of keeping things running on the nationwide Trailways network.

Trailways of New England went back to at least the early 50's. I think it was a National Trailways affiliate company that never did that well financially so the owners sold it to Safeway Trails and Virginia Stage Lines so the three ended up under common ownership. National Trailways was afraid that if Trailways of New England wasn't rescued by another Trailways carrier it would go under and the Trailways system would lose important operating rights between Boston and New York, not to mention rights from Boston north to New Hampshire and Maine. Later on Continental bought the three of them out using a stock swap rather than cash, a common practice as Continental could normally expand only by acquisition (buying out another company to get it in the Trailways fold). Stock swaps were an easy way for Continental to expand because little on no cash changed hands.

I could go on and on about the state and federal regulatory systems of the time and how they worked and effected Trailways routes but I'll spare you, at least for today...


Joe//B & C
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working in the cold northeast,

I can tell! It seems like an endless amount of rusty parts, but soon I hope to be done replacing pieces. The worst rust was in the bathroom area... Hmmmmm...

Here are some pictures of the rear passenger side corner, which seemed to be excessively rusty...
Must of been to many gentlemen with poor aim! .....

You are doing the repair by "double tubing" the area. I think this is the best approach. Some folks cut out the bad tube, but that means that the tubing will have butt welds and I am not a fan of that approach.

I would take an ice pick and check the tubing on the other side as well. My guess is that it will need to be repaired as well.

If you plan on pulling a trailer, you may want to beef up the whole engine support system. I have some pictures in my project pages.

Jim

Well I had a whole page typed up but my computer lost the connection so I'll make it simple.

Here are pictures of the rear beam I installed.

And Jim I took my framing hammer and all the tubing on the drivers side is solid, excepting the bottom tube of the last window.


Jim what size is your 60 series?