1977 Argosy 24' Shuttle Bus

[77 NASA BUS]

I have one of 3 if the 1977 24' Argosy's originally ordered by NASA. They changed their order when presented with a turbo diesel option and argosy shipped the busses that were 90% complete to their coach department for conversion. What I ended up with is a motorhome that matches nothing I find anywhere online, etc. You can see where the double door was removed and filled in and covered with skins and the correct single coach door installed. You can see the bus windows covered where there are none. You can see where the same hardwood cabinets were installed and modified to fit around the shuttle bus lighting (which is really kind of cool having lights inside and outside the cabinets). The destination board was left intact and there is an air conditioning or radiator of some sort above and behind it on the roof. It seems to sit much lower and handle much better than a friend's 1978 24' Argosy by far. It is like a sports car compared to his yacht of a motorhome. The dashboard is loaded with switches like the space shuttle itself. Luckily labelled but unluckily not any seem to work. There is cooling fan, fuel pump, gen set on, gen set start, comfort fan 1, 2 and 3, rear floods, front floods, right side floods, left side floods, water pump.... But none of it functions at all. The gauges all work even what seems to be aftermarket temp monitors for everything possible and battery front and rears...

Next the 12 volt system is dead. I thought it was batteries but I now know there is no charging current coming to the batteries. Nit sure if there is some place I have to switch it?

Next the air conditioning was fine for the last 3 weeks... But today it started killing the in motorhome breaker. It doesn't partially kick it it full on kicks it over to off which I have never seen. It rubs fine pumps cools for a couple mibutes then the compressor seems to kick off a minute then it kicks back on and the load kills the switch. I noticed the circuit breaker sounds like a transformer from the 50s crackling and stressing from load.. Could it be the breaker failing? Also it's the original unit does it use r22 or?

The generator tries to start..I checked for spark and fuel which it has both but when you let off the start switch it doesn't keep going. I noticed there is an hour reader back in that area that is a jet brand. The wires come out of the jet and are broken. I can't figure out where they go. Could that be the genset issue? It is a onan 6.5.

The rv has under 15000 original miles. The 454 that was in it was replaced with a brand new one about 8000 miles ago. It was parked in a storage facility for two months when I went to start it; it would not start. Opening the engine compartment I noticed someone took the aircleaner, distributor cap and spark plug wires. I bought replacements but am having a heck of a time with vacuum lines. It starts and idles beautifully...lobbed like a good stroker should. Put in gear and feather it and it is fine. But a little pressure and as soon as it get put under load it backfires pops and loses power. If you turn it off it diesels and doesn't want to stop. It will try to keep running for about a minute! Anyone have this issue? Maybe distributor not vacuum? I am no mechanic.

Thank you much for your help.

[martin300662]

Welcome to the forums, please make sure you introduce yourself to the Argosy MH forum (http://www.airforums.com/forums/f310/) as you will get most of your questions answered there.

Quite an interesting story you have there and I would love to know how you have those details. I would have some concerns if the story isn't documented as you actually have a 1976 model year bus, with the original ABS grille replaced with a custom grille and lights. Also the diesel option was not offered until 5 years later by which point the motorhome were badged as Airstreams.

My first reaction was, you have a 1976 bus (Argosy made buses and motorhome) that was later converted (many are, for example http://www.viewrvs.com/motorhome/arg...gosy_bus_c.php), but the buses normally have windows all around. So it does look you have a bus that was changed to a motorhome before the bus windows were cut at the factory, but as no two of these units are the same anyway they are all unique!

[77 NASA BUS]

I have the title which matches the vin and says 1977. It has all the original books and paperwork as well as a build sheet with notations below saying to repaint the trim outside to cover the NASA Blue and to remove all three NASA logos. I was told by the original owner that argosy approached NASA with the diesel option that had not been released as a production option so they could in a sense beta test them. The original owner actually purchased two of the diesel units when NASA had finished their commission and retired them. The 3rd one he said had been wrecked. He owns one of them still today and said the other one was sold back to argosy and argosy international still has possession.

Mine was titled as a motorhome on the original title; never as a bus. It was titled in 1977. So maybe it was a 1976 but having to rebuild it into a motorhome caused it to be released late? I do know that the one I own was sold to a NASA executive originally and he states the other two were also sold to NASA execs. I imagine they were written in to the new busses cost and gifted or something. I know how sales work. I'm guessing having your bus being used by NASA in 1977 would be like a superbowl commercial today. And keeping that position was probably important. The original owner said they had been pushing for diesels for a couple years because they needed to have these shuttles idle on the tarmac for hours at a time.

I have been trying to get any info from argosy but they seem to have no historian. So any info on where to turn would be very helpful.

I have unbolted some trim and found a NASA Blue under the current trim color.

[martin300662]

There are a couple of members on the forum that were working at the factory at this time (one of the regional sales guys, one in the paint shop); maybe they will read your thread and be able to comment.

[Gretchen1977]

This thread may be dead, but to the OP--do you have any idea what the original colors of your bus were? We have a mystery 22' 1977 shuttle bus that is titled an "Argonaut Limo" and has what appears to be NASA blue on the lower half and white on the top half, but no other clues to its original purpose. Of course it could have been from anywhere, but your post made me wonder it ours is one of the three you wrote about (even though it is 22' not 24').

Do you still own yours? Any updated photos?