About
This Eagle conversion was originally built by Traditional Coachworks, and was completed in 2002. A few years after David died, the family sold it to a Canadian lady who used it as a winter home. When she decided to sell it, it sat on a consignment lot in Apache Junction, AZ for nearly a year before I found it. All together, it was only driven a couple of times over a 10 year period, and therefore needed a lot of work to make it road worthy.
It smoked like a chimney, leaked like a seive, had tires that were 9 years past their expiration date, both the bus and house batteries were completely shot, and a lot of work had to be done to the HWH hydraulic leveling and slide system, and so on... However, the interior was still in good condition, so after negotating the price down to nearly half of the original asking price, the rebuild process began.
I took on the task of finding a local mobile mechanic to service all bus and hydraulic systems, and do an initial in-frame overhaul of the engine. I also found Dan Lenz, a former employee of the Eagle Bus Company and all around great guy. He travelled to Phoenix and spent a day teaching me how they built the buses, what kinds of things typically need to be serviced, and most importantly how to drive it.
In addition to basic mechanical service, I installed a new auxillary air compressor, had the electrical system updated, added network and AV cabling, and generally brought all bus and house systems back online and up to date. After getting the bus road worthy and driving it from Arizona to Texas, an HWH dealer replaced the inflatible slide seal, and we replaced the washer/dryer. We then made a trip to Montana, and ended up having a complete out-of-frame engine rebuild performed while there.
It has been a big project full of a lot of unknown unknowns, but has been a great learning experience.
See Photos for details about the bus, and My Story for the motivation behind the website.