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Old 04-06-2010, 08:45 PM   #1
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My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

I have a 1990 Ford E-350 with a Goshen Coach bus body on it. Has a 7.3L non turbo. And surprisingly gets 25mpg empty! has 66,000 miles on it to!






Been working on getting her going nice and solid like lol. Gonna set it up for the front couple windows to be the passenger/ tables area and have the back part the kitchen/sleeping area.

Front part:


Back part:


So far we figured out how to turn on the fluorescent lights. Either a relay went bad or the switch in the dash. So i bypassed it with a 25 amp fuse. each light has its own switch so that helps! There is one at the front and the back of the bus. Not sure if i will keep them where they are, but I can easily move them.

My nice drivers compartment


A nice hatch on the back of the bus for a genset! W/ plug to go inside if I wish to wire it up!




My current problem is the bus doors! the header unit over the doors has some sort of problem. In the picture there is a black bar part. It seems to be a dampener bar and it has lost its spring. So I need some suggestions on what to do. I wanna try to fix it but if I can't maybe I will replace it with a large windowed RV door?


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Old 04-06-2010, 09:35 PM   #2
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

Way cool Shortie! Wow-25 mpg? My Powerstroke gets 11. I'm betting you must have 3:55 gears in it.

I used a linier accuator for my doors. I just welded a tab to the cross bar that goes between botth doors--works great. Door opens from either a hidden switch outside-or from a switch either driver or passenger can reach. Door opens or closes in about 5 seconds.

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Old 04-06-2010, 09:39 PM   #3
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

hmm i will have to see what i can do....


ya 1000 miles and about 300 bucks for diesel. it sure cruises nice on the highway but wont beat grandma off the line!
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Old 04-06-2010, 10:29 PM   #4
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

Sweet bus. And you dont even 'have to' paint it or anything! That is amazing mileage!
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Old 04-06-2010, 11:50 PM   #5
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

love your bus sdwarf! i went through your webshot album lol
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Old 04-07-2010, 05:21 AM   #6
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuff
love your bus sdwarf! i went through your webshot album lol
Thank you. I got bus envy looking at yours.
The main reason I changed how the door opens so I could run a passenger seat + get rid of the regular door opening stuff.
1st place I would look at once you start tearing apart the interior is around the wheel arches-mine were all rotten.
I notice your bus has some windows "flipped over"-I actually did that to one of my windows-so the dog could stick her nose out.
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Old 04-07-2010, 09:25 AM   #7
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

hmm well they are not really "flipped". there is 2 kinds of windows on there. not sure if they have been swapped order from front to back or what not. What I would love to do is to take the best sets of windows and move them to the front then take out the last 2 or 3 windows for the bedroom area!

on the passenger side the second last window is hinged at the bottom and latches inside at the top as an emergency window. oh yeah, all the writing for exits on the windows are right side up to.





so I take it your bus is a goshen to? did you leave the industrial flooring or did you strip yours out?
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Old 04-07-2010, 11:12 AM   #8
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

No--mine is a Champion (Challenger? I think) It looks like your body is glass all the way to the bottom-mine has steel from the trim strip down. I have to fix the rot-where the wheel wells allowed water to build up on the outside tin-i got the inside fixed already. It seems that when they build these things, the floor pan + wheel arches are already done-and are nice + square-but the (glass) body is rounded-and they just fill the gaps with spray foam. It break down and stores water after a while. Didn't notice till i started pulling up carpet-noticed it was wet-and all the little aluminum trim pieces were coroded.
I just put down carpet on the original wood floor.
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Old 04-07-2010, 12:04 PM   #9
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

ya my body is 100% fiberglass. not sure if i like that or not but as long as there is no rot im happy lol!

gonna have a look at her this weekend underneath and hope for the best. it passed provincial safety in November so it should be good. Think the plugs are shorted out or something cause its sure hard to start her when she is cold!!

Im not sure how much for interior panels I want to remove. I kinda like having a carpeted wall lol! Just need to clean them really good. when I got the bus the windows were in horrible shape.. probably had been opened a few times (used to be a Richie brothers auction van one time) and had not been sealed correctly. So last fall here I opened them all, and put a bead of silicone down inside the frames of all the windows. Got a friend of mine to get on board with me and we hit the highway. Not one window rattled or whistled!! only thing i have is a couple of the windows with the large sliding windows need the part that goes on the sliding glass to hold onto the window and seal between them and the fixed window in the middle of the whole thing lol. so in the mean time foam will work fine lol.

Oh and a video buddy Troy and I made the other day

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Old 04-10-2010, 10:21 AM   #10
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

so I took some measurements and so forth. now I saw on here someone had used some google tool to mock up their bus. can anyone point me towards that?
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Old 04-10-2010, 07:17 PM   #11
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

ah. well ms paint for me then
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Old 04-11-2010, 12:11 AM   #12
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

Got some sketches on the computer now. gotta figure out how to put it all together now lol!

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Old 04-12-2010, 01:22 PM   #13
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

don't know offhand really. I will have to check it later in the week. woke up to snow and rain today so its super wet out and i dont feel like getting under it lol.
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Old 04-15-2010, 02:33 PM   #14
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

So, ya trying to sell her perhaps... I know ive asked allot of money for it but its "craven" season up here and pos campers with no appliances are going for a couple thousand bucks.. so lets see what happens here.

http://regina.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles ... Z198808864 <-- link if you guys are interested for S&G's lol.
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Old 04-15-2010, 06:47 PM   #15
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

i know its extremely cheaper in the usa. but allot wont import like that. 3 day notice to the usa customs, broker fees, environmental fees, federal and provincial safeties.

biggest thing is i think ill see if i can cash in on the craven craze and get a real skoolie going.
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Old 04-20-2010, 11:49 AM   #16
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

she might be rolling down the highway tonight. here is to hoping!
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Old 04-28-2010, 09:09 AM   #17
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

Apparently they need it for transporting children for a church. He said something about 15 passenger vans are deemed "unsafe to transport children". I personally have never heard of something like that before.

The guy in question is in charge of a large church in the province. He is sending a local guy to come check it out this weekend. makes sense to do that rather then to drive 4 hours and probably 2 of them in the dark with my work schedule lately.

And timmy, if it was in the USA, ya that would be too much of an asking price for sure. This bus passed federal and provincial safeties already. I did all the hard work and loop holes lol. And of course I do not expect to get what the opening price is. I just set it high to get seriously interested people and not every tire kicker in the province. Also then they will offer me more of a price that i am looking for and will be happy with it. I could put it up for a ton less but I dont want to loose lots of money on this deal
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Old 05-18-2010, 05:51 PM   #18
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

Well all that work and it got shot down because there is no seat belts for the passengers! So it going to get the conversion and going to NOVA SCOTIA! Got a guy my father knows lined up to get the plugs glowing correctly and I should be good. Got another machinist friend of mine working on a new "thing a ma bob" for the door to.

Also after going over the window seams and vents with some clear caulking she is eerily quiet on the highway (minus the bus door because of the missing part).

So according to SGI I need 2 thing permanently mounted inside. 1 being a bed and another being either a fridge, sink (that works lol), or a stove. And so far with the Craven thing still coming up there is really nothing for junk campers! I still need a donor for the appliances out of it.
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Old 05-18-2010, 06:46 PM   #19
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

I seriously doubt you are getting 25MPG. Maybe high teens. I don't see how that is possible. I have owned many 7.3 diesels and none of them came close to that unless you are driving down the freeway at 40MPH.
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Old 05-18-2010, 06:48 PM   #20
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Re: My 1990 Ford E-350 Goshen Bus

i counted up the receipts for diesel on the way home and used the mileage to come up with the total. I converted liters into us gallons at 3.785l - 1 us gallon.
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