[vintageray]

Thanks, My tractor is an '81 359 and the cab and sleeper are not air ride, but mounted on rubber bushings and the boot between the cab and sleeper is not an accordian type, but solid rubber without pleats. I'm planning on incorporating the front wall of the sleeper with the opening, into the new front wall of the coach. I'm seriously worried about putting too much weight on the steering axle and will have to find a way to determine what's going to happen there before I start cutting on anything. Unfortunately, I'm about six hundred miles away from where I have the coach parked and will have to wait until I go there in May to measure anything. Here's what I do know. The coach is 31' long and the drive axle is I'd roughly guess about 10 ft from the rear of the bus. The bus weighs 20,900# and carries only about 11,000# on the drive axle and a little less than ten on the steers. I should drop off a bunch of weight from the front of the bus when I remove the engine, transmission, front axle, steering sector and the face of the bus. How much at this point could only be a guess. The tractor weighs around 17,500 and if I remember right about nine something on the steers, but I want to say ten. It's got a 3406B Caterpillar engine and a 13 spd. Front axle is rated at 12,000#. Roughly guessing, after removing all that stuff from the bus and the drives, fifth wheel and sleeper from the tractor, I'll end up with around 30,000 gross for the components. That's enough weight to put the max on each axle and be OK, but I don't know how that weight is going to distribute. Looking at the Kingsley conversions, it sure looks like there's got to be a bunch of weight on the steers, but they appear to use their standard axles and tires. They have tandem drives, but are ten feet or so longer than mine. Trying to put tandems under my coach's body would displace the entrance door and bathroom, so is not an option. I'd like to lift the bus off the frame, back the truck chassis to it having cut the frames in the desired location, splice the frames and set the bus body back down. I would use the rear drive axle from the tractor. It's an 18,000# Eaton on Peterbilt Air Leaf. All I'd have to do there would be extend the air lines back to the axle and install the parking brake from the front drive of the truck. The drive axle of the bus is Rockwell 5.80 with hydraulic brakes, so needs to be out of there.