Itinerant Air-Cooled

So I was blowing down I-5 glorying in the heat on my way to Covelo call, when suddenly!



So I stopped and looked more closely:




I could imagine why this tour company didn't quite take off for the guy:


Then, emboldened, I snooped around a little:


and spied this iconic beauty:


The things we have learned since this:


Even this one was once considered the latest and greatest technology. . . :


. . . but those long and floppy belts always made me nervous. Here's a two-cycle diesel from the early 60's. It blew in the intake charge with a blower (supercharger) at the bottom of each and every downstroke of the piston:


. . . and had to remove as much of the exhaust charge as it could on the beginning of the compression stroke:


. . . using a four-valve cylinder head!


These 2 cycle diesels had excellent torque with a power stroke on every single down movement of the piston, but it ran out of horsepower quickly at high rpms (high? try 1,500 rpm) and sounded a lot more frantic and busy than it actually was.
to be continued

Hiya Colin,

Very interesting about the Busses.

But that is a 49-51 Ford squeezed in there among the heavy artillery. Flathead heaven.

So what and where is this particular place?

All four of those valves in that head are exhaust valves in Detroits. No intake valves. The intake were slots in the piston liners. Awesome engines.

Id still love to find an old international harvester school bus to customize like this.
awesome vehicles.

what is MCI? Mid central interior?

Birdibus wrote:what is MCI? Mid central interior?

Motor Coach Industries. They make a lot of motor coaches like Greyhound uses although most of the pictures in Colin's post are of non-MCI buses. Flxibles, GMC's and the like. Yeah, I'm a bus geek, VW or otherwise!

Great pics all along, you've been an artist this summer. Must be the shimmering heat inspiring you. And all those clakety miles, MAKE YOU STRONG LIKE BULL.
Urban/industrial decay is very interesting. Also interesting that, although we have learned a great deal technically, our estetic is slowly slipping to Eastern Bloc.