NEW BUS !! David is on the way home .

[davidbrady]

Introducing SpongeBob!



2004 Prevost H3 Vantare

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It was quite a trip.

I flew into Kamloops, BC on Sunday the 13th. Met up with the seller on Monday morning to complete the transaction. I then drove the bus to Vancouver to have a complete chassis service done by Prevost in Richmond. Pretty routine, but they noticed tight bearings on the fan hub, so we put in a new hub, they also spotted dried and cracked suspension control arm bushings on the tag and drive, so they installed 14 new bushings. Other than that, it was routine, fluids, filters, and grease, but instead of one day planned for service it stretched into two. I left at 9:00pm on Wednesday heading to the Blaine Washington border crossing. I had every piece of paperwork imaginable. When I arrived I filled out two additional forms, gave them everything I had, they inspected the coach, they were happy with my 3520-21, and HS-7 forms, my letter from Prevost, and my certification from Detroit Diesel. Ultimately the coach was imported as a re-importation of a US vehicle - simple as pie and only two hours at the border.

From there I took a quick drive to Bellingham Wa for an overnight stay at Walmart. In the morning I made a 200 mile drive to pick up Dad at the Portland Or airport. There was no way of driving the bus up to the arrival terminals so I parked at a local Target that had MaxLine tram access to the airport. My Dad got on the tram and met me at Target, and we were off to Marathon Coach in Coburg, Or where we spent the night.

At Richmond, BC the mechanics failed to properly tighten one of my drive axle tophats which soon departed from the coach. On Thursday morning I spoke with the parts manager at Marathon, showed him a pic of my tophat, he reached for a tophat off a nearby shelf and said, "like this one"? I said, "yup", and asked how much. He said, "free of charge"! Yippee! Great folks up there at Marathon in Coburg.

We left Marathon and took a ten minute drive down to Superior Tire in Eugene, Or where I had 8 new tires and 6 Centramatics installed. (I had previously arranged for Centramatic to drop ship my balancers to Superior Tire. After 2 hours, and $5400 later we were on our way. Now we're were ready to make tracks.

First CG stop was on the Sacramento river in Redding Ca after a beautiful day of viewing Oregon and Mt. Shasta. The next morning I took 44 east to Carson City and picked up 395 south at Reno for a scenic tour down the east side of the Sierra Nevadas. We camped a Lee Vining, Ca just at the base of Mono Lake. Snow capped mountains to the west and desert mountains to the west. I wanted my Dad to see Death Valley so at Mount Whitney we descended from 8000 ft to 200 feet below sea level in about 5 miles! Truly spectacular and worth the effort. We then continued on thru the Mojave desert and arrived at a KOA in Needles, Ca for the night.

Now that we were on I-40 we needed to make haste for my Dad's doctor visit. We blasted 700 miles that day and camped in Santa Rosa New Mexico, the next day another great drive with a layover in Sallisaw, Ok. We caught a great country music radio station around Little Rock, Ar and decided to make a few videos! I then noticed that my S60 temperature gauge was swinging wildly, 150 deg F to 230 deg F in a 2 second interval and then back to 150. I new the engine wasn't sourcing and the radiator sinking that quantity of heat power so I called Prevost service in Nashville, Tn to schedule a service. They installed a new temperature sensor and we were on our way home. Arrived in Asheville, NC this past Friday evening at 10:00pm after covering almost 4000 miles! The bus performed flawlessly. My Dad said he'd do it again in a heartbeat!

The next day my wife and kids saw the bus for the first time and loved it!