Every vehicle needs regular maintenance to function property and keep you safe. Our schoolie is the same. After putting a bit over 9,000 miles on the vehicle since starting our road trip, we have had quite a few projects to complete.

Our maintenance situation is a bit unique considering my husband is quite handy and has become a diesel mechanic over the past year. There isn’t much on the bus that he isn’t able to fix himself, and even then, all he needs is the right tool. For this reason, we haven’t had to outsource much of the work completed on our bus.

Knowing Your Vehicle

One of the most important aspects of choosing the right vehicle to travel in is making sure that you understand some key points:

• Know if replacement parts for your vehicle are readily available at automotive supply stores.
• Know if mechanics will work on your vehicle or if you will have to find a specialty mechanic.
• Be prepared for things to go wrong. Research some of the common failures on your vehicle type and budget for at least one of those things to go wrong.

In our case, a 1996 Chevy G30 with a 6.5L diesel motor is definitely a dying breed of vehicle. We are lucky that most auto stores (typically autozone or O’Reilley’s) carry our parts since Chevrolet made many vehicles using similar parts. Especially considering most mechanics refuse to touch our vehicle due to the fact that it’s an old diesel or because it’s a school bus.

My husband has had a lot of luck in learning about our motor and other aspects of the bus by following along on reddit forms and facebook groups dedicated to people that have similar vehicles.

The dreaded problem – An engine failure

If you’re following along with our instagram account, you’ll know that we had to replace the engine in the bus.

In October of 2022, we were driving down the road in Raymond, ME after doing a hike around Sebago Lake when Jacob and I smelled burning oil and noticed that our oil pressure gauge was on zero. We stopped the car immediately and quickly saw that the entire underside and back of the bus was covered in engine oil.

As it turns out, one of the oil cooler lines failed. This was a known failure point on these vehicles and we didn’t replace the lines before starting our trip. After getting a tow back to Steph’s house, we spent the next few weeks attempting to diagnose the engine. We quickly determined that the engine needed to be taken out and worked on by a professional.

Thankfully, Jacob had always wanted to rebuild an engine and he was able to remove the engine from our vehicle so that we could take the engine to a repair shop. We soon learned that a bearing had spun and we would either need to find a junkyard motor to rebuild or purchase a new motor. The cost difference between the two was significant, so we went with the junkyard motor rebuild option.

Between November and the end of December we were able to find a motor, have the engine builder combine the two to make a whole working engine, and get the “new” engine into the vehicle. We started it up and began the break-in process, but quickly realized something wasn’t quite right. It took all of January, a trip up to Bangor to meet with some fueling specialists, and bringing the vehicle back to our engine builder twice before we realized there was a problem with the valve train. We had a bent push rod that had caused a bit of damage.

Thankfully, the engine builder was able to get it fixed and we were on the road in the first week of February. It was a long, difficult process, but we got to spend a lot of time with our friends.

Other Issues We Have Had With Our Schoolie

We have had a total of 4 other issues with the bus since the engine rebuild. They seemed to happen in pairs, which is odd.

The first two issues occured only days apart from each other while we were in northern New Mexico.

• First, our alternator siezed while we were 40 miles north of Taos in a nature preserve on the Rio Grande. Luckily, we have our motorcycle and were able to drive into Taos, stop at an O’Reilley’s, and get a new alternator (they had it in stock!). We ended up completing the replacement quite late at night, but were able to enjoy some amazing views of the stars.
• Second, on our way to Chaco Canyon National Park our tire started making an awful rattle noise while driving on a rough dirt road. We thought that one of the ball joints in the suspension may have failed, so we took our time leaving the park. Luckily, we were still able to enjoy the park on the bike! After doing a full replacement of both the upper and lower ball joints, we realized that they weren’t the issue at all! In fact, we had a clip on our brake calipers that broke in half. Simply replacing the clip fixed the problem.

The second two issues happened just a few days ago while we were in Los Angeles, CA.

• First, when driving in the crazy LA traffic, we had to slam on the brakes after being cut off by someone. Everything was fine until we got off the highway and the brakes felt soft. We stopped in a parking lot and jacob checked the brake lines. He quickly found that the back passenger side line was leaking pretty quickly. Thankfully, we still had use of the front brakes so we could get to an auto shop for repair materials and to a safe place to complete the repairs.
• Second, our motorcycle rack was a bit crappy and had been floppy for a little while. When parallel parking, we came across a curb that was much taller that usual. The rack hit the curb a bit too hard and was bent beyond repair. So, we got a new one!

I hope you enjoyed the tales of our bus misadventures and if you’re interested in reading other articles I have written about the bus, they can be found here.