Originally published at crisis magazine
I was recently examining an old school bus for purchase in the hopes of completing its conversion into a rustic motorhome. Unfortunately, this specimen was not in good repair; a lot of shoddy work was apparent—apparent to me, that is, after a mechanic friend started pointing it out. Various fixtures were messily welded onto the frame of the bus, or inconveniently placed, or broken.
The last straw in my decision not to purchase the bus, however, was opening the hood and discovering not just the empty coolant tank (empty for how many engine hours?), but a thin diesel feed line for a fuel-run heater dangling free under the bus. It was just waiting to get caught in a wheel or snagged by a rock and rupture, spraying diesel fuel all over the hot engine compartment, electronic components, and who knows what else.
This bus looked good on the Facebook Marketplace listing, but once you saw it in person and got your hands dirty under the hood, a different story began to appear. It was an overpriced, poorly maintained, mechanical wreck. Sure, it turned on, but had I started driving it, it would have been a matter of time and chance before
