1987 Thomas International Twin Stick School Bus

Replaced 7.3IDI with International DTA360 from a donor bus\r
Eaton Fuller FS-4205 5-speed Direct (formerly Allison AT545 Auto)\r
Custom Retrofitted 4 Speed Spicer 7041 Auxiliary transmission (gives granny low and overdrive)\r
Rear-end swap to from a 6.14 geared Spicer axle to a newer 4.78 Geared Rear Axle\r
6-speaker Stereo with 10" sub, LED lights all the way around

I drove this bus for 5 years (for a school district) and had fun with it before I bought it in late 2009. The 7.3IDI was fresh, however the pump seal on the AT545 was bad, so has that fixed. I wanted to go faster on the freeway, and a Spicer Auxiliary transmission came up for sale on Craigslist, so I bought it, and got steel to make crossmembers to mount it, and shifter linkage for the shifter. It was fun to drive shifting the aux after the auto would shift up through the gears. I also added stereo, removed seats, and made it a fun party wagon (which was out almost every weekend with my friends). Then motor mounts started coming apart (due to no lockwashers on the bolts), and led to a destroyed flexplate so I had to fix the motor mounts, and sourced the Eaton 5-speed off of craigslist (originally out of a 5.9 Cummins powered UPS Truck). Somewhere in the mix, I straight piped the bus as well. After fixing the moto mounts, the torsion from them being broken eventually sheared the crank and killed the motor. That was also the time I graduated college. I ended up finding a 1990 International Thomas for sale that had the DTA360 engine (I originally wanted a 466, but the 360 is just as awesome), and bought the donor bus in Summer of 2013. Thanksgiving (end of November, 2013) we swapped the engine out at the RV storage with a Cat mini excavator. About a month later, I was gettitng the bus to move on its own again with the new power plant, and it was even more of a beast than it was with the 7.3... I thought the bus was pretty much complete until a burned up 1998 International bus with a good rear end fell into my hands in 2018. It just so happened that rear end had a 4.78 ratio that would let my bus cruise the freeways faster than with the 6.14 gear. I gave the burned bus to my scrapper buddy, and he cut me a deal to swap the rear ends. We were going to swap the third members, but the newer axle was a different size, and it had fresh brakes on it, so he swapped the entire axle out. My top speed went from 64ish MPH at 2800RPM to a theoretical 85MPH. The fastest I have had it since then was 75MPH at around 2500RPM, but I usually cruise on the freeways around 65-70MPH at around 2300RPM, which is where that engine makes power. It's been a ton of fun, and the swaps have been pretty cheap, considering I did most of them myself. Oh yeah--REAL BUSES DON'T SHIFT THEMSELVES.