After giving up the restoration project on the 1977 Gillig tandem axle, I decided it was time to take a brief hiatus. That hiatus ended up turning out to be a three-year long stint away from GilligCoaches.NET. During the hiatus, I felt like I would never find a Gillig that was a suitable replacement for the tandem axle, mainly due to the fact that many sellers were unable to either come down on their price ($3000 for a thirty-year-old bus is excessive, especially since they' have literally no market value), or were unwilling to work out a reasonable payment plan.
However, that all changed in the summer of 2008. In July, a 1966 Gillig showed up on Craigslist. The original listing just listed the engine (advertised as a CAT3208 Diesel Engine for sale) but noted that it came with a '66 Gillig. Thinking the engine and the bus were separated, I decided to check.
The rest, as they say, is history.
As for details about the bus, not a whole lot is known about its service life. It should be noted that its last year in service, according to the WSP (Washington State Patrol) inspection sticker in the driver's side windshield pane, was somewhere in the whereabouts of 1999. It is also known that it is a former Enumclaw School District unit. It was originally powered with a Cummins C-180 diesel engine that at some time was repowered with a Caterpillar 3208. According to the couple I purchased it from, the bus (which had been bought solely for its engine, which was to go in a dumptruck they purhcased along with the Gillig) had just had its engine rebuilt shortly before it was retired, and that the district had done a considerable amount of other work to it. |
