Brill_C-37M_Bus

Thank you all. The more I learn of military history, the more I know that as a civilian, I’ll never really understand what veterans have been through. A big part of my motivation to restore my Korea-era Army bus is to help remind people of how many different things our armed forces have done, and continue to do today.

I second what TerryB said about Wellsboro, although I don’t see his original post. All of that lovely town is a trip back in time, with a vintage diner, grand old hotel, original classic movie theater, and genuine survivor department store. And all that is along just ONE quaint small-town block! When my classic bus is running reliably and ready to travel, running the length of PA on Route 6 is at the top of my to-do list.

Foliage in my area had a very short peak, with about a quarter of trees not changing color much at all. But as I worked on picking up all the fallen foliage in my yard, my Brill bus was actually a big help! Earlier that day, I had dressed her up to commemorate her service stateside in the Korean War: Then got to work raking the lawn until after dark. By bus headlights! As I sat in the driver’s seat to shut off all the lights, I couldn’t help thinking of Linus in the Charlie Brown Halloween special: CHAAAAARGE!!!

That all sounds about right. Frequency and speed of rail service was still reasonable by 1970, though quality was declining on many routes. Rural “branch line” passenger service, though, would have really fallen off after the 1950s, with a couple exceptions where it was modernized and retained. Sounds like your specific case abandoned service pretty early on. The park n’ ride concept is certainly probable, but in the late 1920s to the 1970s, a traveler might very well have started a trip by bus, and transferred to the train in a nearby city. Buses were a fairly affordable business to make a start in at the time, if you could get the legal franchise rights to serve a certain route. And with trolleys and rural passenger rail in decline from the late 1920s to the 1950s, a local motor bus operator might have secured those rights in rural CT for very little cost. Buy a couple coaches (possibly used) and you’re in business, especially with the short distance to major cities in New England.

Pfeil, your comments more closely resemble news shows who profit off of making older Americans afraid of everything. The real world is a lot less uniform, and doesn’t run on one big conspiracy. And the world is full of both younger folks who avoid using oil for solid scientific reasons, and young enthusiasts preserving cars, trucks, trains, planes, and so on. Some of us fit both descriptions!

Thanks kfle, I think you’re exactly right about why the doom-and-gloomers are wrong. Plenty of young folks have time for cars, but not for older social traditions. And if I can add one more point... Electric cars will not kill the hobby, they’ll only change parts of it. Just because some folks can’t understand EVs’ appeal doesn’t prove anything about those that do understand it. Some of us take some pride in helping minimize our waste and take responsibility for cleaning up our own messes. And while some of the coming changes may be scary, the re-emergence of electric transportation doesn’t by default require a matching decline in oil-burning transportation. For example, I would never be here if I hadn’t spent 10 years working on electric trolley cars (the first wave of electric transport dominating over gas). I went from that to saving money to buy and resto-mod a vintage electric bus. Then I saw an antique gas-powered bus whose history meant too much for me to pass up, and spent my trackless trolley fund to buy it. I couldn’t be happier with that choice, and now here I am, learning all I can about pistons, carburetors, and so on. Just because I may look like a scary Millennial oil-hater to some hasn’t stopped me from joining, and enjoying, your hobby. Just please, do my generation a favor and lose some of the generalizations about us? Thanks!

So I have a bit of a winterizing dilemma. My bus may be big, but her drivetrain is much the same as any car— straight 6 gas engine, 2-barrel carb, and she runs OK, but not reliably just yet. I’m wondering if it’s better to leave old coolant in the system, or to drain it and leave it empty for the winter. The coolant was fine last winter, and the engine has run very little since then, but the coolant looks like muddy water, not antifreeze. It was probably put in several owners ago, (likely in 2002, but I have no solid records,) so I don’t know what hydrometer to get to test it. I had planned to drain and flush the cooling system before winter, but with both high and low daily temperatures dropping quick, I may not be able to get the engine to start to get the job done. She was reluctant to fire up on a warm day, so I don’t like my chances after a 40°F night. (Seems like a carb issue, I have the rebuild kit on hand to fix this, but not in time before it gets cold out.) The comments about putting vehicles up on blocking were helpful, I’ll see if I can get the right blocking to get the bus up off her tires for a few months. -Steven

Thank you Paul, I’ll look for a tool for measuring fuel line pressure. My bus’s lines are mostly 3/8 tube, so probably larger than most car fuel line. I wonder if the new, lower-volume pump, plus the resistance of the 20 feet of fuel line, might get me the lower pressure I need.

Excessive fuel pressure due to previous owner installing an incorrect aftermarket pump. This thread has the details.

Thanks to several of you, I’m preparing a fuel pressure regulator to install on my vintage bus. The question that remains is, does it hurt to install the regulator right after the fuel pump? Searching online didn’t get me a clear and relevant answer. The Holley instructions from the regulator say to put it as close to the carburetor as possible, but there is nowhere convenient to mount it in the engine bay of the bus. I’d rather bolt it to the fuel pump mounting rack on the side of the tank. But that leaves about 20 feet of fuel line between the regulator and the carb. Would that cause any problems?

I agree with the idea that fewer aftermarket parts are better. But getting 6v DC on an exclusively 12v vehicle will involve another aftermarket part, so I’m going to go for the pressure regulator. My hope is to someday tear out the modern pump and regulator and put a 2PSI Autopulse in... once I save enough to not be afraid of their ridiculous price tag!

Thanks guys. I’ll admit, changing the carb float setting is totally foreign to me, I’ve never done any work like it. I know my manual goes into extreme detail on carb work, so I suspect I could learn float adjustment when I rebuild the carb. Or do you think it’s worth it for me to look up how to adjust the float and just try that by itself, rather than wait and do a full rebuild? I’ll look for the Holley pressure regulator. So I should set that to the 2PSI that the system was originally set up for? Edit: I think I found a regulator that might work. I wonder if this first one is an actual Holley part. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F173723755033 The second one clearly isn’t. Anyone have any experience with this QFT brand? https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F202605124354

Well, model railroader numbers are declining, but hardly in crisis. Same as any hobby, really. I wrote for the youth section in a model train review magazine during college, so it was a topic of great interest. I’m glad to hear from so many other model railroaders, especially since model trains can be a heck of a good start for future car restorers! After installing teeny little sound computer chips in 1:160 trains as a teen, nothing electrical on my bus scares or confuses me.

I agree with a lot of the comments here. As a twentysomething with a ‘51 bus and no mechanical background, I’m grateful to a lot of older hobbyists. My experiences with older generations are mostly positive, but I have encountered and avoided stick-in-the-mud types who fit every stereotype mentioned in this thread! I think the key to “saving” the antique car hobby is to accept that there is not one all-encompassing body of “car people,” but a massive imaginary Venn Diagram of overlapping special interests. I’m not here for the cars, I’m a bus and trolley car guy. But the folks here care about originality, history, and making carbureted gas engines run right, which is what I care about too. You’d think I’d fit in better on a bus or truck forum, but my interests don’t intersect with the masses of diesel powered camper conversions that dominate the “old bus hobby.” So I keep coming back here, and I love it. Accepting that people who share one of our interests don’t have to share ALL of our interests will help retain new blood. Like me. Also, we can’t act like one hobby is better, or “the original,” when compared to other interests. Even the guy who has tons of the earliest mass-produced cars ever can get out-original’ed sometimes. Just ask any electric trolley car operator... from a certain comical point of view, this entire car hobby is a bunch of 1900s young whippersnappers with their newfangled horseless carriages!

Hello everyone, I have a question before I replace my fuel pump. My bus has a Holley 852-FFG 2-barrel carburetor, which has a problem with its needle valve sometimes not closing, flooding the cylinders and vapor-locking the engine. I know my fuel pump is not original, so I’m wondering if a fuel pump with too high a shutoff PSI could be making this problem worse. I do plan to rebuild the carb, but want to get some road testing done before then, and I need to replace the fuel pump anyway. The factory manual from ACF-Brill Motors lists my original fuel pumps as Autopulse parts, 12v, 2 PSI pressure, 10-15 gallons/Hour. My current fuel pump (from previous owner) is a Facet Posi-Flo 60106, which is also 12v, but 4-7 PSI and 32 gallons/hour. Does that seem excessive? I can get a similar model Facet pump with 1.5-4 PSI shutoff pressure and up to 25 GPH flow. I’ve looked for lower-rated pumps, but I don’t see any that I trust yet. I’ve looked into the original pumps, but the sports car and super car market has driven the prices for Autopulse pumps through the roof, and I’m uncertain about their longevity with ethanol fuels. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! -Steven

I owe a big thank you to 64avanti, his suggestion was exactly correct! I got the replacement horn tested and working this past holiday weekend. Turning the adjusting nut about a quarter turn, test, and turn again finally got me results. Here’s the completed horn installed, just awaiting troubleshooting the horn relay and it’s circuit.

I did try the horn by jumper cables straight from the huge bus battery, so lack of amperage isn’t a problem. The horn didn’t sound, but there was minor sparking when I touched the leads to the ground side of the horn, so it was completing a circuit. I’ll pop off the cover and try moving the adjustment nut. And I’ll check the ohm reading function on the volt meter. Now I’m second-guessing if the coil really is a dead short, or if it’s actually providing some resistance.

I’m trying to replace the Sparton “LO” note horn that came on my ‘51 bus. I got an identical replacement, but I think the coil may be bad on it. It doesn’t sound when tested with the battery charger in 12v supply mode. When I touch a continuity tester to the negative screw terminal, I can get a tone indicating conductivity by touching the other contact to all the metal parts of the horn. Am I right in assuming his means bad insulation on the magnet coil, or is that normal? Short of replacing the coil, does anyone know how to troubleshoot or repair this issue? For comparison, here’s someone who took their horn apart more than me. Mine is similar, but not identical.

Thanks in part to advice from some of you, I got the gauges for my 1951 ACF-Brill Motors bus cleaned up and reinstalled. The dash of the bus is pretty plain, aside from the gauge cluster. The only other features are the switch panel to the driver’s left. There’s a lot of restoration left to do before this will look as good as the other photos in this thread, but it’s coming along nicely.

Thanks everyone, those are a lot of good suggestions. I think I’ll try the theater lighting “gel” idea (it’s actually a thin sheet of colored film, not sure why it’s called gel). I remember working with that stuff in high school. Thanks again for the ideas, and have a great day!

Hello everyone, I’m still working on the gauges for my old bus, and I’m wondering about the plastic-like colored film that lets light in from the sides of some Stewart-Warner gauges. Does anyone know a name for this material, or where to get it? Or any suggestions for replacing it? My bus came with a mix of non-original gauges, probably from an Army rebuild. I bought more accurate 1950s gauges off eBay, but they all had different colors of this plastic film, and different overall condition. So I’ve removed all the colored film, and want to start from scratch with something that matches on all the gauges. I do want to drive this bus at night, so good backlight for the gauges is a must. If possible, I’d prefer to imitate the function of this material, but avoid opening up the gauges to replace it directly. I considered sandwiching blue seran wrap behind an acetate-like plastic sheet, but I’m wondering if that might melt from the nearby 12V light bulbs. I’d welcome any suggestions!

Thanks for the NAPA tip, there still is an old-school downtown location near me. I’ll see if they can cross-reference these numbers. I don’t think these would be specifically bus parts, especially the speedometer sender and temperature parts. But I am a member of the bus museum in Hershey, so if there’s evidence that these aren’t regular auto parts, I can try various bus connections. Can anyone suggest any good introductions to the different types of temp sender units? Even Stewart-Warner alone made so many different kinds, let alone everyone else, so I’m not sure what will work.

Hello AACA Forum folks, this is my first post here. Hope you don’t mind a twentysomething with an obscure old bus asking some amateurish questions! In my project to get my 1951 Brill bus roadworthy, I’m troubleshooting gauges and replacing ones that I know are not original. I have the factory parts manual, but ACF-Brill Motors part numbers seem pretty useless today. Most of the parts were commercial off-the-shelf parts from other manufacturers, and in this case, I’m looking for Stewart Warner parts. I found that a previous owner wrote the S-W part numbers in the manual, but so far, I can’t find any way to look up these part numbers. Google, eBay, and this forum don’t return anything for these model numbers. Can anyone help narrow down what these parts are? Description, photo, or a link to a sale or auction page would all help. Or general guides to S-W gauges, since I only know the basics of how to tell apart “wings” gauges, small logos, large logos, etc. The gauges used in this bus would mostly be WWII vintage or early postwar gauges. Air gauge: 409454 Speedometer “sliding bar and ball” sending unit: 417499D. (What even is that, and is it an electric sender?) Temp gauge: 442225 Temp Warning Switch: 438031 Temp Sender Unit: D362D I have found similar sender units to this temp unit, but I’m uncertain how precise I need to be. I found a D362DA, but I have no info from which to judge if this is equivalent or not. Can anyone recommend a guide to S-W temp senders? The non-working temp gauge is my top priority to fix before I do any more test runs. I appreciate any and all suggestions, especially since I’m new to all things related to automotive restorations. Have a great day everyone!