Schoolmaster in a Cocoon

As luck would have it, I have stumbled upon what I deem as a treasure, although luck is something I normally dont believe in.

For the past 15 years, a 1603 Loadstar factory converted school bus has been sitting in a barn, slowly rotting. Until now.

Ok Im gonna cut the novelist bs and say that Im very excited about this bus I have and think I have found the right place to address the many questions and few issues that are in front of us.

This particular mission began as an attempt to find a suitable ride to explore the many skateparks of the West as my teenage soon is an avid skateboarder. So we looked and after 3 months we found this International Harvester 1603 a few hundred km West of Edmonton in the borealis on an exceptional section of ranchland. The owner of the bus, a bigger than life character, helped tremendously by replacing the drive shaft and brake lines. The engine was serviced somehwhat and now what remains for me to fix is quite minor.

Of all the buses out there I think I may have found the one that truly will make the image of the dream a reality.

not even sure what year it is but I think its a '69.

My priorities currently are:

to find out what year the bus was built,

to obtain a wiring schematic to get the brake lights/ running lights working and to isolate deprecated wiring / re-wire if necessary,

to repair a broken shock mount on the rear axle,

to troubleshoot a suspected faulty parking brake,

to replace the tires.

Diesel? Transmission?
An old school bus seems somehow appropriate for this adventure.
If you are passing through this area, let's do coffee.

Almost 100% that it would be a gas 392 or 345. The only diesel would have been a Perkins. Even if it had air brakes it should have a driveshaft type E brake.

Interesting, I saw one just like it a few days ago. It was at a shop near my house. This shop specializes in anything old and junky, rusted out Toyota Land Cruisers being the apparent favorite. This bus was done up as a University of Utah tailgate party machine.

If you purchased this bus in Alberta and hope to register and drive it, there must have been some transfer and registration papers with the bus. There will be a year and other important information on the registration that goes with the bus.
You suggest that the bus is a factory conversion. What does that mean? Are you suggesting the "factory" did the conversion to a bus or bus to something else?
The "factory" conversion may not have been done at IHC. IHC supplied thousands of rolling chassis to factories like WAYNE who set their bus body onto the International chassis.
These busses can use a lot of fuel because they were geared quite low and not designed for speed. 55 miles per hour or 90kmh may be as fast as it can go. You should count on 4-6 miles per gallon or around 20-25 litres for 100 kilometers. The public funded school boards that owned these busses were less concerned about fuel economy and more interested in reliability and easy to service. Your cost for gasoline from Edmonton to Vancouver could easily top $250 and possibly more.
School busses often had small fuel tanks designed for daily filling after the school run. This is something you may want to check out. The bus may need fuel every few hours and more often if the engine is being pushed hard to maintain highway speeds.

@nikkinutshop We looked for over 3 months in the 3 western most provinces, plus I looked in the states to see what folks were building. I had another bus selected that was a BB 2003 cracked cowling half the seats still in.
Then we found this and it was love at first site.
Yes its a small tank and the fuel economy is very bad and the bus was delivered here by flat deck and got a broken shock mount when was offloaded. My plan is to have the bus only do one or two trips a year and short ones at that. So we will be sending her to the coast on a trailer.
The interior of the bus is so well done with decadent solid plywood construction and laminate counter tops with other tell tale signs of a commercial retrofit hints that the interior was built around the time the chassis was made in a production line style factory.
Its a 345 5 speed manual gas engine.
where u at ? will drop in maybe

@cornbinder89 it has hydraulic brakes. Im certain that it is a driveshaft brake and that is indeed damaged.

There are 2 basic types of driveshaft drum brakes. External drum with internal expanding shoes. These are similer to mechanical car brakes. The other uses an external band on a internal drum. On this type there is a set adjustment procedure to follow. There are two adjustments to be made. One can be considered a "course" adjustment to fit the band to the drum and the 2nd the fine adjustment to compensate for wear.
Any good medium truck shop should be acquainted with both types.

I am in the Vancouver BC area. PM me through the forum when you are in the 'hood.