502 Paintball Mobile Bunkhouse

[superdad]

OK, I'm a little behind the times now. We got a bit accomplished last weekend, but I haven't had time to post about it.

We left off with all the seats loose from the floor. We got them all out.
Here's a pic of the empty bus.


I started with the shop vac while Andy ground off the few remaining screws holding the metal aisle strips in place


When he got done with the screws, Andy grabbed the broom and started getting what the vac missed. The filter in the shop vac was getting clogged, shortly after this pic I took it out and cleaned it. Worked much better after that.


Here you can see the 3 under-seat heaters, some cancer in the wall, and the plate that covers the access hole to the top of the fuel tank. We removed the back 2 heaters, we may re-install the back one eventually. We're going to fix the cancer good enough to be carpeted over. We'll have to cut the carpet around the fuel tank access hole. It's one of those situations where if I leave myself access, I'll never need it, but if I cover it up...


This is what we did to remove the heaters. They are simply attached to the heater hoses with T connectors. After unscrewing the unit from the floor and wall and cutting the wires, you simply replace the T with a suitable straight connector. In this case a 3/4 pipe nipple. The wires were all wrapped in a few layers of electrical tape and tucked back into the raceway. As far as the gaps left in the raceway, they will all end up under or behind something, so we don't think it will be an issue.


Gotta go for now, more later.

[superdad]

As you may know, we got quite a bit of rain here in central Illinois a couple of weeks ago. When it stopped raining I went out to look around my property. The bus had sunk in the mud to the point that the front axle was about an inch off the ground. It was the driver's side that sank, it was close to a building and the mud there got deeper due to the water from the building roof. The bus was leaning toward the building with about an inch of space between the edge of the roof and the bus. I tried to move it, it sank more. It was then touching the building. I don't have pics of it in this predicament, but here's some of the aftermath.

As you can see, it was close.


To get it out, I went to my friendly local neighborhood Harbor Freight store and bought a jack.


We jacked it up by the frame in front and got several bricks and boards under the front tire. Then with the help of my neighbor and his tractor we pulled it out. Some damage.

Lost the center clearance light.


Some more scratches.


And the rear light too.

[bansil]

sounds fun

[superdad]

In other work:

The new tune box and amp are in.


The bus has factory speakers in the ceiling, but we "need" a little more umph. So the above amp drives a pair of 6x9s hung form the ceiling. the RAM mounts and extra wire allow us to point them in any direction we like at the time.




Carpet is glued down.


With a nice threshold edge at the front.


The floor plan has changed, I'll get a drawing of it here shortly. But the first set of bunks is in. The bottom bunk sits on the lower step of the doghouse, so it needed to be built from plywood.

[superdad]

Here's the new plan. One of the biggest problems we had camping with the paintball team in the old bus was dirty laundry storage. You will see some cabinets along the driver's side of this plan, surrounding the side door. These are designed to hold the pop-up mesh laundry hampers available from Walmart. There will be space for 6 hampers, one for each bunk. Also, there will be overhead storage racks and an overhead cupboard above the kitchen, like in the old bus.

[superdad]

Continuing Construction. We left you with the rear bunk installed, here are the other 2.


The refrigerator is in. This is just a household model. We had good luck with the little one we had in the old bus. It will run off the inverter when travelling.


We found these neat sliding door latches at our local building supply store to hold it shut.


Close-up


Then the framing for the kitchen cabinet. The range goes in the hole next to the fridge, the rest will be countertop.



You can see we've already started putting magnets on the fridge!

[bansil]

I agree and mentioned that earlier

[Das Mel]

It's so dazzling I may need shades.



Wait, I'm already wearing shades!

Shades on top of Shades on top of Shades. Shadeception.

[superdad]

I'm a little behind on the updates.

We got the stove/kitchen cabinet done.



It needs doors, obviously.

Got the front seats put back in.

Say hi to my sons.


FINALLY got an un-rainy day.
Masking for the black stripe around the window line.


PAINT






Threat of rain, so the masking needed to come off, we did it in the dark.


Paint in the daylight. Everything that didn't get new black on it will be olive green, except the bumpers.