The weather finally turned cool enough for Barry and I to take the bus out for a drive. Other than the drive to Georgetown and back for repairs over the winter, this has been it's only trip in almost a year. Most would not call this a trip as we only drove from Lexington to Berea and back. We stopped at a small independent truck stop at exit 78 for some fuel and lunch. I bought $80 dollars and at $3.91/gal that only netted me 20.4 gallons. I am not sure how low is too low for this tank so that still keeps me around 1/3 tank. Lunch was good. Barry had fish and two sides and I had a BLT and two sides with tea. The trip there and back was approximately 77 miles. The bus appears to have used an excessive amount of fuel, but I think my methodology of dipping the tank is not quite right. I certainly need to perfect this a bit. Having the bus lean one way or another makes a big difference in fuel level when measuring. Most guys report that they get close to 7 MPG in these MCI's of this age and configuration so I hope to at least get the same.
Any time the bus sits for a long time I start from the rear just in case anything goes wrong. I am glad I did, because when I first started her up the governor hung and she tried to wind up too fast, so I immediately grabbed the fuel shut off and pulled the rack down. I did that several times and worked the throttle before the governor loosened up and took control correctly. After that she was fine. Just goes to show that these beasts don't like to sit a long time. Other than that, she ran great to Berea and back with absolutely no problems. This was also my first chance to really get the feel of the steering since I had all the front end work done in Georgetown over the winter. It still required work to keep in a lane but it is markedly better than before. All in all I was pleased. Barry and I plan on taking the bus out every week or two if possible for small runs. At some point I'd like to drive down to the Tn state line and back, but we'll see.
