CONVERSION DETAILS
This is a pretty detailed page of how we did things. I've tried to
put in in order from the front of the bus to the back, but it may not stay
that way! If I were you, I'd just scan through for some key words or something.
ENGINE
Naturally, this is in the front of the bus. The first problem we had to
fix was the bus was not running. We determined this to be due to two things,
first, and most importantly, bad gas. We drained the tank. Since we couldn't
undo the drain plug, we put a hose in there, and sucked the gas out. We then
disconnected the fuel filter and turned the engine, thereby pumping more gas
out. Once that was done, we added another 1/4 of a gallon as "rinse water"
and drained it too (through the fuel pump by turning over the engine.)
This got the bus running, but then we had to mess with the coil wires to
get a better spark. The best way to do this is to change the wires on the input
voltages of the coil while you watch the spark jump from the plug to some part
of the engine. Eventually, you will find the right combination. This stopped
the engine from back firing.
We also had to replace the horn (easy enough, I'm not going to tell
you how to do that) and the windshield washer motor. That is a little more
tricky. The wiper motor unscrewed from the bottom, but the part that you
can see inside sticking up stays in there. Its easiest if you dont' knock
it out of place. If you put a small pair of pliers on it or press down on it
with a screw driver, it will stay there. You can then screw the new motor
assembly into place.
The engine also had a miss after we fixed the coil and gas. To stop that
we gave it a mini-tune up. This involved changing the oil (9.5 quarts), oil
filter change (1 quart of oil there), air filter change, fuel filter change,
and changing the plugs. We could only find the filter at a NAPA store, so
we had to get it there even though they are over priced.
The alternator is a 55 Amp alternator, not big enough for a motor home.
We have decided that we'll need the 110 Amp Alternator. Keep that in mind
when you are looking at busses! 55 Amps is just enough to drive all the
factory installed devices!
DRIVER'S SECTION
We did quite a bit of work here too. First of all, the dash lights didn't
work. If you go to your local Radio Shack and get some contact cleaner to
spray on the headlight switch, that may fix the dash lights (if they were
intermittent). If not, you'll have to troubleshoot it.
We added a CB radio and a car radio to the bus. The CB we mounted to the
left of the driver under the window. The car radio went in the dash just
behind and above where the stick shift is. The hardest thing here is wiring
the speakers and power. To get your power, I'd recommend opening the switch
panel (usually on the left side of the driver) and finding the device in
there that provides power when the key is turned on. Hooking up to this may
save your battery.
To connect the speakers, cut holes in the metal where you are going to
put the speakers at, and then run your wires. Keep in mind the bus can be
noisy, so you'll want the speakers where they are easy to hear them from!
We also added a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide detector. These
were mounted just above where the stairs are, on the front wall. When you
mount these, make sure that you can remove the battery easily. This will
help save money if you disconnect the battery & sensor when its not in
use (CO detector). We accidentally mounted ours so it cannot be opened
because it is to close to the roof.
We though it would be good to have a digital clock and an indoor/
outdoor thermometer. You can get a pretty good one from
JC Whitney for only 14 bucks with all
those features.
We put a switch in to turn the buzzer on and off. We wanted to know
if any drunks were messing around back there (opening the emergency windows or
the back door), but we also wanted to quiet the buzzer when we wanted to
keep the windows open.
We ended up replacing the ammeter. One word of advice - disconnect the
battery before working on anything in the dash. We tried to take out the
temperature gauge and Steve ended up shorting out the wrench he was using.
It was actually pretty funny to see him jump and all the smoke go rolling.
Anyway, its to to hard to replace the dash instruments if you have a little
patience, and the new part. It also helps to have smaller hands!
A small inverter would be nice up here too, so we added a 140/peak
200W inverter. That will allow the driver to run some small household
things, such as mabye a scanner or a small fan or light or whatever.
CO-PILOT SECTION
This is the first row of the bus. We have two parts to this, the sitting
area and the bathroom. The sitting area is just one of the original bus
seats mounted right behind the driver.
The bathroom is on the other side and is just a walled in area, the size of one
row. The light in there is one of the exterior marker lights off of another
bus with a switch on the outside of the wall so the driver can reach it (with
a strach) to turn if off if the drunks forget!
The plan for the toilet is to build a seat with a door under which we can
put a bucket (larger than a 5 gallon bucket, but small enough to fit through
a 19" door. We also want to put a urinal of some type in, but that will
take some planning.
Behind this is the sound reducing wall. All we did was cut three pieces of
plywood one for each side and one for the door in the middle. We then put
carpeting on one side (the cabin side) and that seemed to reduce the sound
quite a bit. We also used four hinges on the door. Make sure the door is
about 1/4" to 1/2" off the floor to allow it to swing good.
We have yet to put rubber or something in the gaps to stop the air from
flowing forward into the drivers area. The reason for this is because we
have declaired the drivers area non-smoking and non-drinking. No exceptions.
TABLE AREA
That's Steve in this old picture!
Row two has the original bus seats facing backwards. We used the existing
holes in the floor of the bus, but had to redrill the holes on the side wall.
The easiest way to do this is to take the seat bottom off (there are usually
four connectors. Two will slide sideways and then the seat will rotate up
and off.) and drill down through the holes that are in the seat. This will
make sure the holes line up good. I'd put the bolts through the floor first,
then drill the side holes and put those bolts in.
The tables were simple to do. We put L brackets into the wall just below
the window area and screwed the plywood down to that. Towards the isle way,
we put a 2x4 brace that was connected to the ground using two small L braces.
This 2x4 won't take a lot of abuse, so it doens't have to be strongly attached
to the floor, but just enough that it won't move.
Row four has original bus seats, in the original holes, facing forward.
We ended up doing it this way so we wouldn't have to redrill the holes, but
I won't do it like that again - the tables are to big and take up to much room.
But, that's something I can change later.
You will most likely need more light in this area. The best way to do
this is to have switches controlled by the people at the table. If they are
low wattage lights, you may want to take the power directly from the battery
so you can run the lights even when the bus is not on. (Make sure you don't
drain your battery). We are using some of the ceiling lights we ripped out
of the other bus, mounted in the walls above the window level.
Eric (me) on left, Steve on the right.
We put more lights in above the tables. To do this, we used masking tape
to show where the lights were going to go. We then drilled holes in opposite
corners of each light and used a metal blade on a jig saw to cut out the
square area. We took out one of the original lights and spliced the power
for the new lights directly into that wire. We used a torn apart coat hanger
to fish the wire to the new holes. As long as you make sure the original
light and the new lights are in the same area (and not baracaded above by
a support beam), you'll be ok here.
We also changed the way we did the above tables. This plan works great
if all you want to do is use them as tables, but we decided we also wanted
to use them as sleeping area. We left the L brackets on the wall, and put
two machine screws through the table top with washers to hold them in place.
These, then, lined up with the holes in the L brackets and the just slip
right in. We then use wing nuts to keep it in place.
Down lower, we mounted
a 2x4 to the wall and rested it on the metal lip that existed for the seats.
We drilled two 3.5" holes into this and lined it up with two four inch
bolts that we put in the table top, about 3 inches away from where the L
bracket screws are. Now we can have it up high, resting on the L brackets,
or down low at the seat level, resting on the 2x4.
Near the isle, we
mounted a gas pipe connector to the floor. This looks like a flat piece of
metal with a receiving tube that is threaded. We then screwed another piece
of gas piping into this that is just high enough for the lowest level. These
pieces will always stay. When the table is in bed mode, it will just rest
on this pipe. When it is in table mode, we have another pipe, smaller than
the gas pipe, that fits inside the existing piping and is just high enough to
provide support for the table.
KITCHEN
By using a cheep icebox, all we learned was they break easy. We didn't
even have it in there before all four conners were cracked (and we didn't
even bump it against anyting!)
LOUNGE AREA
We did a couple cool things here. First, I'd recommend buying some calk
and put that in the holes that are left in the floor from the seats. Then,
you can be really safe and put duct tape over that. This will prevent water
and gases from coming in the bus.
To mount the couch, we drilled four holes in the floor, put down a
2x6, and shot screws up from the bottom of the bus into the 2x6. This holds
the 2x6 in place and we then bolted the couch to the 2x6 using a combination
of small and large L brackets. We wanted to be able to unmount this quickly
also so we could remove it to haul other stuff.
The futon was mounted over the wheel well. In order to get it to fit
correctly, we rested the back of the futon on the lip that the seats attach
to. We then built a box out of 2x12's (bottom, and two smaller sides) and
plywood (front and back of box). This was bolted to the floor in the same
manner as the couch 2x6's. One warning here - if drill into the floor, you
may not be able to get to the holes from underneath because of either stuff
being in the way or the reinforcements under the bus. Keep that in mind.
We attached the the futon to the box by, you guessed it, L brackets.
We also had to attach it to the wall. For this, we made our own square
S brackets out of pliable metal. These brackets were attached to the bus
walls with two screws and one to the futon. We used two of these S brackets
on each side of the futon (for a total of 4).
We also put the carpeting down in the lounge area. The only bad thing
about the carpeting is that it can slide around. We tried to put down carpet
tape, but it doens't stick to well to that floor. A better method of securing
the carpeting would have been either glue or screws into the floor, but then
you would have to drill more holes, and the screws might not look to nice in
the carpet.
It just so happened that a heater ended up in the lounge area. We
found a few useful things to do to the heater. First, we cut up a seat using
a cutting torch and mounted the bottom of the frame to the bus and the heater
to keep it in place. We then took a piece of metal shelving with holes in it,
painted it black, and attached it to this using metal straps and bolts. This
now servers not only as protection to stop people from kicking it, but also as
a drink warmer.
The other useful thing you can do is make the same type of table that is
up front (but smaller!) to put over the heater. This will make a nice place
to set drinks or books or lights or things.
Since the bus is kinda loud, we decided also to put speakers in the back
of the bus under the storage shelf. To do this, remove the screws holding
the sheet metal to the walls, and then ply it away a little (about 1/8")
using screwdrivers. You'll then be able to jam some 20 or 18 gague speaker
wrie in the gap. We found it easy to drill another hole in the sheet metal
to bring the wire back out through so it doens't get pinched.
REAR STORAGE AREA
The only thing I can say here is make sure its not to small and not to
big. We wanted to store skis in there, so we have ours the whole width of
the bus, and about two feet deep. We have the couch against one side of the
bus and we can squeeze though the other side. This is nice so you can get in
and out of the rear door.
We decided we didn't have enough room, so we built a shelf all the way
across the bus, and about 38" deep. This is supported on all sides by
4 L brackets, in the back by 5 L brackets, and in the center by 2 1x4 supports
that are L brackets to the ceiling. (Can you tell I like L brackets?!?!?)
We mounted it at a level just above the windows. Now we have to figure out
how to get in and out of the bus without using the rear door (incase the
storage area is full of stuff!)
EXTERNAL
GENERAL
If you really want to be prepared to do everything on the bus easily,
I'd recommend making sure you have the following tools and supplies readily
available (only things you might forget or not know about are listed!):
TOOLS:
nail puller
good set of drill bits and spare bits
SUPPLIES:
Plenty of 2" L brackets (we used atleast 40)
A few 4" L brackets (we used 2)
200 Sheet metal screws (1")
200 Wood screws (1-1.5")
Good wire (10 guage, flexable, 100')
Good wire (16 gague, flexable, 100')
Oh, and if you didn't already know, its much easier to work with phillips
screws than with flat heads. They just grip better when you are turning them
into that sheet metal.
THINGS TO LOOK FOR
When you get your bus, make sure you think about these things:
ALTERNATOR - Ours has a 55 Amp alternator. This means we can run the heaters,
lights, the engine, and that is about it. We need the 110 amp
alternator to run the power inverter. We really ought to have a 145 amp!
BODY - Look very good at the frame and the body. To much rust and the bus
will break in half!
SPARE PARTS - They are easy to come by if you have a common bus (such as a
school bus). In fact, if you have the time (about 2 days), equipment, and
money, buy a second bus a few weeks after you've bought your first bus. The
second bus can be striped of many useful parts and then taken to a scrap
iron yard to recoup some of your money. Take everything you think you will
ever need and then some. Especially the lights. There are always uses for
those lights!
Also, rumor has it there is a bus junk yard with all kinds of busses in
Central Ohio. Take 75 South from Columbus about 30 minutes to State Route
56 and go east towards Mt. Sterling. It'll be on your left. If there is
interest, I may be able to find a phone number for them too! (Thanks to
Steve Ondreck for the directions!)
TIRES - They can be expenseive, from $80 for good used tires to over $180
each for new tires, and that doesn't include mounting and balancing!