Eagles International Forum

And this is my favorite tool. Nicknamed the "demo saw"!

Sorry I forgot to take a good picture of it, This is really from the back.

Wow Mason! You are quite a craftsman and have a great shop. I love the rear bulkhead you fabricated. Great workmanship and design.

My engine is a pre EGR (1999) 12.7 L set at 500 HP and 1625 ft-lbs

Hope you will continue to post info and photos.

Jim

Hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving!

After looking at the options, I decided to go ahead and rip all the old skin off, so hopefully we will have a smooth skinned bus!
I have also framed in the floor in the generator compartment, (where the air-conditioning used to be) but I don't have any pictures of that right at this moment.

I have a little floor in at the front, but I still need to touch up the area behind the baggage bays before I put flooring above the rear wheel wells.

I will post more as I have more pictures and time!

And yes, I had to hang the drivers side skin on the wall!!

Mason, you are doing this correctly and if you stay with it, you will have an amazing Eagle.

It sounds like you are putting the generator in the rear AC compartment. That is a convenient spot and saves some bay space. However, I have heard folks complain about the noise and vibration if they run the unit when they go to bed.

Please keep posting. Project pages are the best part of this forum in my opinion and very helpful to folks who are doing the same work.

Jim

beltguy wrote:Mason, you are doing this correctly and if you stay with it, you will have an amazing Eagle.

That is what I am going for!

Here are some pictures of where I hope to put the generator. I don't have a generator yet but I am hoping to buy one from Wrico.

Fantastic work! I looked over the photos from start to finish and then again a few more times to understand the bare bones of a bus. I know this project, when finished, will look amazing but is there something about the date, type or history that this model had that makes one want to strip it down like this and replace just about everything?
Obviously, I'm question is related to not having a repair shop or set up as this one but if working solo on this, it seems that it would take years and a lot of money, ie, various metals, tool bits, blades, welding rods, discs, etc..
I realize some people love to fish so they buy rods and reels. Others like guns so they have a collection. I just got my General Ham License so I know that some people eat/sleep radios. Is the bus community like this as well (on the mechanical side) or, as I asked above, this bus a special model for unknown reasons? I see the big picture and I like it but the devil in the details in the photos makes me exasperated.
You are a brave man!

Eric,

I don't think that it is the year (1968) or model (05) that caused the rust, but rather the history. It seems that it ran routes in the north east, and from what I have read and heard, back then and even today, they put on an excessive amount of road salt in wintery weather. After collecting salt in the wheel wells, If it is not washed off, it will proceed to rust away the metal so fast it would surprise you. This even happens in Nebraska, on trailers, and even the machinery we haul on trailers during wintery weather. When we got the bus, it had a couple of extremely faded New York State fuel tax stickers on the left front bumper corner. And yes, you could say all my tools are like a gun collection, but I figure if I buy good quality tools, I will be using them for a long, long time. Also I am lucky enough to have a Miller Wirefeed welder, which makes welding thin metals a snap! And for metals, The company I work for usually gets a big order of steel each week, so I can send in my order and it will come along with the rest for a decent price. Hopefully It will not take years and years to finish. I got the bus in the shop in April, and the inside was the same as your bus, no seats, but everything else. Work went okay till this summer when I got called to work in Texas for 5 Weeks, that kind of put me a little behind. But now I am gearing up for a productive winter!

Hope everybody had a merry Christmas!


I will try to post more pictures soon!

Here are pics of the old wiring harness which I tore out. The last pic is a random end that was hanging under the bus. Might of been part of a failed speedometer experiment!?

The last time it was converted, the converter ran 10 pink identical wires from front to back. By the time I got it, they were a tangled mass under the dash and in the back.

The positive side of this wiring exercise is that you will have a system you understand and have documented.

Be sure to include several extra runs front to back, as you will find that you need them in the future.

I can't recall if I mentioned this before, but be sure to add at least two large PVC pipe runs in the tunnel for future use.

It is sooooo good to see an Eagle get the "full" treatment that they deserve.

In case you had not noticed, your build thread has almost 800 views as of 12/29/18. Folks love a build thread.

Keep up the good work

Jim

Progress!

Over the holiday weekend I got 8 sheets of skin on. After the 2nd sheet or so, we had a pretty good method of putting sheets on, we would clamp it, then put a single tack weld at the top, take the clamps off and heat it up with the weed burner until we figured it was hot enough. Then we would maintain heat with the weed burner and start welding. (did I mention how handy it is to have a wirefeed?) It took about an hour per sheet.

On the passenger side, we had to stop mid sheet because the weed burner decided to quit and it was getting late enough that we decided to head for bed.

I was advised to buy 18 ga. steel, which turned out good, I sure wouldn't want it to be any thinner if I was welding it on.

After the roof raise, the windows were a little big for my liking, so I raised the bottom of the window sills about 8 inches.

And in the first pic you can see the angle iron we used to back the seams.


Yes Jim, I will make sure to have plenty of pipe runs down the tunnel. Extra wires, too!