1959 GM 4104 Bus. Driving/Shifting

so this is a 1959 4104 bus so you can see here 1959 um it's got a Detroit Diesel in it also has a four speed unsynchronized manual transmission and we are about to start it up so I'm gonna make sure she's in neutral so start this thing [Music] to turn the voltage on for just the starter just turn this from right to left and hold that button and she should go we do need our fuel pump see if she fires so these are our airbags here and sometimes it takes upwards of 30 minutes for the bus to air up so while I wait for it from figure I'd talk about the bus a little so this is my first manual actually my first diesel is my first any big vehicle operation and it's intimidating man it's 26 000 pounds and it's also an unsynchronized manual which means it's not just yo you want second all right bring it back to where second should be no no you got to plan your shifts and you'll see what I mean in a second when I explain double clutching and stuff but it's intimidating and I think I'm finally out of at a spot where I can safely operate this but what's crazy is you don't even need any sort of commercial license for this and it's 26 000 pounds it's 35 feet it's old as hell six over 60 years old 69 years old I mean I don't know that seems kind of crazy to me why would they let some idiot like me drive it I don't know but I'll try and take or I do try and take as much safety precaution as possible um yeah so I'll give you a quick walk around um obviously this is the back side the left side is definitely the prettier side right side has some window issues cracked windows are impossible to find on these old buses the glass goes out and there's just no way to replace it so that's going to be like it is yeah the front's pretty cool unwrap in route as you can see um Colorado there's you should be a giant uh DMC thing here but I don't know what happened to that it's too bad um it's been just some truck shows American Truck Historical Society might actually inherited from my grandpa and he drove one of these um for Greyhound and when he retired he bought one just drove around to bring a truck show so that's how I fell into my hands and today I'm gonna take you for a drive see this big Detroit ride I'll give you a glimpse of it okay so our air is finally at a spot where we're gonna be able to take off right here see they're all hovering around 20 to 30. that's all right they'll level out these are actually self-leveling air systems for the suspension so yeah we'll take off here in a second all right so probably the hardest part of this is backing out solo I mean it's a big bus I do have mirrors but you'll probably see me I'll probably end up getting out to look at least a few times all right so obviously this is a four speed here's your clutch it's actually a pretty heavy clutch take some effort but so first second third fourth but it's not that easy when you're actually driving because they're unsynchronized oh to get to second I mean to get to reverse go to First press this button drag back to second but you're actually in Reverse right now so I'm gonna lift the brake oh that wasn't even on nope it was you're gonna see me maybe that wasn't second I mean reverse let's see here we go all right so all I'm doing is I'm not giving it any gas we're not supposed to feather this particular clutch with the gas just letting it out very slowly letting it grab I could be the wrong way to do it that's just believe I read on a forum somewhere that's what you're supposed to do with these old clutches again I don't know much of anything about diesels and especially this diesel It's very rare there's not many of them around so it's just been trial and error so we'll see if we can get this done here just looking at my mirrors Gates opening behind me should be able to just keep going this way waiting to see the other side of the gate all right that should be good here one thing this does need pretty badly is a backup camera because I just have no idea what's behind me but I guess most trucks don't so all right first breaks off I don't know what this dude's doing one left means we're good to go so as I was saying before first is a very short gear see I'm already at the top of first but this is not a synchronized manual transmission so to get to second I'm gonna clutch in and hold it in neutral for a few seconds and then lightly bring it back see how it's grinding it's not good back to neutral there we go there's second so it's like when I'm when I say it's not synchronized it means you can't just go first back to Second and expect it to stick because the gears have to line up they're not synchronized for you at 60s technology it kind of sucks all right we're gonna try for third here same principle punch in neutral wait a second it's gonna grind a little bit third I shouldn't have shipped to the third there because now it's lugging but that's all right I just wanted to demonstrate actually it's a good time to downshift here so I'll show you how downshifting works so you got to go we're in third right now keep that in mind three out of four we're gonna clutch in neutral rev the out of it because the second gear has to speed up clutch in bring it back to second that's double clutching ladies and gentlemen and it took me a while to learn it so we're back in second now and with a bus like this you should really be driving it in whatever gear you're in it should be redlining because the two-stroke Diesel and it doesn't have the best brakes it's not like a modern truck so engine braking is your friend not a 26 000 pound bus like this I'm gonna clutch in neutral over to third wait a little bit feel it out we're in third I got some speed here so we're gonna come up to a stoplight here we're in third and we gotta hit second so I'm slowing down a little bit I'm in third now I mean I'm in neutral now grab the piss out of it clutch back in reach back for a second got it watch out you can feel the engine break really stop you there we're gonna go for first so I'm gonna hit neutral rev the out of it back to first I hit first and that'll really slow you down until the bus reap that's no brakes the goal should be to never touch the brakes in a bus like this sometimes that's just unrealistic oh so I'll show you how short first is again first gear top click I'm already passed out I'm going maybe 10 15 miles an hour so I'm gonna clutch in wait a second slowly bring it back a second in second now I didn't grind that one at all second I think I might just stay in second there's nobody behind me I don't want to get going too fast on these windy roads it's right here I'm gonna go into first if I can hit first but this is always a bit of a challenge taking these wide turns [Music] cars come in and try not to stall all right we got some time right now so you gotta take the turns real wide [Music] there we go stay in first all these trucks pass second so we're first top it first move for a second slowly reach back towards second got second I'll hit third here in a second let's go to the car behind me all right we're top of a second let's get to this build down slope clutch in neutral over the third and fourth forward a little bit no grinding look at that now a lot of people when I posted a video to a forum on Facebook about this bus they told me I should be when I do something like that I should be in second clutch in in the neutral clutch out clutch back in and then over to Third and I found that whenever I do that it just doesn't work I always end up grinding so I don't know if it's something about this bus Maybe wrong but on the upshifts I hardly ever double clutch or I don't film a clutch downshifts however though you most definitely need to double clutch only to bring the revs up because it's not synchronized so we're moving pretty well right now maybe I shouldn't hit third it's kind of lugging but I don't know if you look behind me there's about a 12 car pile up and I'm going a little bit under the speed limit but I know there's a big downhill right here and I just don't want to risk Shifting the third and I'm gonna lose a lot of engine braking there if I do end up going to third so they're just gonna have to wait a little bit at this light here I'm going to take a left slowly creep down in second and then I don't think I'm gonna have the ability to get to First and since this is a pretty damn steep grade so I think this is going to be an engine Brake Plus brakes which is not ideal but I just don't think putting the clutch in to try and get to First would be the smartest idea right now I'm gonna get in this left lane and throw my blinker on oh I hate touch the face this much she handled though clutches in I'm going to put it in first and then I'm gonna throw the air brakes on actually I'm gonna throw in a neutral for now slow game first here and I'm actually gonna stay in first because I'm gonna get this left lane right here to turn now this is [Music] first Papa first already clutch in wait a second or two neutral pull it down to second question neutral over slowly up to third Don't Force It boom no grinding and I found that just to work better or in this particular bus I found that to work better double clutching on the outfits a lot whenever I try and double push on the option it just grinds it doesn't make sense to me but you get something with the maybe it's something with the transmission linkage or something I don't know but for trial and error I found that it does not work well when I double clutch on the upstairs however we're gonna have a good second year as I know this is its height s should not have been third but that's all right foreign there we go so see how I was in neutral during that and it wouldn't grab second because the engine was going too fast or too slow so I had to put it back into neutral and I had to let the clutch out because if you keep the clutch in and you rub it it doesn't spin the input shaft but if you look the clutch out when you rub it it spins all over here won't go into gear holy all right we finally got seven see that'll happen within it that's what I mean by an unsynchronized translation you can't just throw it in the third it's not gonna do it you gotta understand how fast your input shaft's moving compared to where the gear is so you can spend I don't know what was that five or six tries trying to get it back into gear on a Mischief like that it's not entirely uncommon here

Channel: RossTheBuilder

Views: 156,290

Keywords:

Id: NK6sm-gXhRg

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 25 2022