James O'Donovan has kindly undertaken her restoration to schoolbus configuration from CIE days.

He has managed to remove the pipe stuck in her rear end which was the vent for the cooker. The civil defence had used her as a mobile office and field kitchen and had stripped out the seats.

James then took off the interior panels and we were pleasantly surprised to find she is in remarkably good condition underneath.

We are going to take seats from one of our scrap VS buses and will get cushions wherever we can, possibly an M which in turn would get its original type seats.

There is no mechanical work to be done other than deal with a slight handbrake problem which may only be adjustment. However, she will get a repaint job.

So James is making great progress and we are thinking of taking the SS twins to Mogeely this year.

One interesting observation. 702 has less power than 737. Has anyone reading this any idea were there power variations between different SS machines.

Equally does anyone know where both 702 and 737 worked?

We will keep you posted.

Michael Grimes

All Van Hool and CIE 'SS' have the same Bedford 330 engine - no difference in horsepower. Check fuel filter for blockage this is probably why its slow.