92 Thomas International Navistar

[Tango]

Excellent. I need to send you my specs!

[BurlKing]

it was a lot of specs tango, lol but a lot of fun to build. if i were to do it for someone else, i cant promise you I'd get it done anytime soon.

went out and finished the battery bay today and got random supplies, and made some more welds to the wheel well area, almost done!
in this picture: Rust-oleum oil-based protective enamel gloss black, great foam big gap sealant, an off-brand ospho they carried at home depot ($15 on the right) as well as a couple test tubes of sealant adhesive that is polyurethane based, some typical PPE, and yet another spool of welding wire.


There were three spots where it had rusted through so i grinded, pounded and welded it back to normal.


The outside hasn't been re-done with grinding or wire-wheel and paint but you can see the make-shift patches from the back here.

[Tango]

Just remember that "Great Stuff" has zero tolerance for UV. But as long as it is out of the sunlight, it should be OK.

[nat_ster]

Originally Posted by Tango

Just remember that "Great Stuff" has zero tolerance for UV. But as long as it is out of the sunlight, it should be OK.

And if the chemicals don't cure properly, they are corrosive to steel.

Nat

[BurlKing]

thanks for the advice, the great foam wont be hitting light though. i did not know that it was corrosive to steal. will, put a coating of something down first.

The welds are done. now there will be sealant/adhesive to go over them after for good measure.




Pressured washed the interior twice, had to use the wet vac a couple of times.





Using the rust converter/etch liquid in a hand pump sprayer, worked perfect. Not sure why it foamed so much in the front. We will come back tomorrow and rinse it off, then give it a coating of rust inhibitor.

[BurlKing]

So the end of our weekend off has come to a close, working about 12 hours each day. our goals of what we laid down thus far have been met, and we are very satisfied.

The $15 gallon of phosphoric kleen-strip was well worth it. We sprayed it on around 8:00pm just after pressure washing it at 7:15pm. We arrived the next morning at 9:00am and it was just drying up. it worked so well there was literally no rust at all, it turned what was there to black. It had also etched everything else, for the paint to adhere better. It looks and feels like new metal after pressure washing it off and letting that dry and sweeping a chalking substance off 10 times.




All the holes in the floor were also welding up, again the wire-feed welder was perfect, took maybe 10-15 seconds a holes.





We ended up using 1 1/2 gallons of the rust-oleum that you see in the picture above. it goes on pretty thick but works great.

[EastCoastCB]

Man, thats beautiful. Well done.
And great pics, gracias.

[Tango]

Solid foundation work there!

[Albatross]

Oh, that looks fabulous. Well done. A proper job like that should last another 25 years, if not more.

[The Nebuchadnezzar]

Nice work, now the fun begins.

[BurlKing]

Thanks for the compliments, feels great to hear that after all the hard work and money spent on this. it really does look nice now.


quickly redoing the stock pedestal for the captains chair so we can safely drive it around again.





a little dirty from being walked on, but oh well wont be seen once we cover it. The ceiling is in great shape so there is no need to repaint that. now we are on to the build stage.


Still a side panel left unpainted, because we need to do a little bondo work and a tiny metal weld patch.

[BurlKing]

Since we wanted to have this thing warm enough to work in during the winter months we began preparing for the hearth and hearth walls to block the major heat from getting to things that should be near high temps. On the side i am slowly getting the equipment together for the control console. We also got a cast iron wood stove from my parents for pretty cheap that will heat the bus real nice when needed.

Switches i bought on amazon: 12v rocker switches green LED On/Off. We got five of them for $15.



Here is the wood-stove before and after. Used a high temp paint made for grills and wood stove restores, only cost $3 to do this.


Fired it up outside the bus a bit to get rid of any paint fumes that may occur during the first couple burns.


laid out some painters tape to get a feel of how big the hearth needed to be.

Framed up the hearth floor with 2X4's used a mixture of laying them vertically and horizontally as well as ripping some of them, since i went and bought a bunch of wood to metal screws that were only 2 1/2" long. they were all glued with adhesive and screwed together, pretty damn solid. The insulation around this hearth is this: https://www.menards.com/main/p-14444...73250734350818



After going home and thinking about the design some more, we knew what we had wouldn't work, we skimped too much on the angle iron so we came up with another design which was very sturdy and didn't even budge and was nice to look at. There will still be enough room for a hand rail to get up the stairs too, also leaving a huge air gap in the back and sides, it should work out great.





got chilly one morning (only 45*F but very eager) so we tested it out using the old heath pad just for precautions and it warmed the bus right up and were able to work in it nicely.

port hole to another world


here is where we left it for the weekend. There is concrete board there, with a wire lath on it for the picture but not currently attatched. We will also cut out some more concrete board for the two triangle sides and the bottom too, all will get the wire lath with a mortar mix that will have minnesota lake superior rocks on it that we hand picked for hours. had leftover high temp paint so we just used it up.

[nat_ster]

Looking forward to more pics of the stove surround.

Nat

[Tinyhousebus]

That stove looks smokin ;) Looks just like our new one from L&M fleet supply. Do you happen to know if it's the Vogelzang Lil Sweetie? I think ours has a 20" firebox

[BurlKing]

Thanks nat, pics coming soon, took a week off of work starting monday to insulate it before the snow stays on the ground and the real cold starts.

Tinyhousbus - it is the vogelzang 26e model i couldnt find a smaller size but i admit i didnt really look for something smaller but once we tested it in the bus it wasnt too big but definitely wouldnt get a bigger model. The lil sweetie model sounds perfect! We are gonna make some beef stew on ours this next week while we work to test it out more. Not sure where our woodstove came from since my parents had it for many years, our local fleet farm did carry it for around $150 though. Also ours has the 26" box so your 20" will be perfect!

[onemanarmy]

Did you treat and paint all the areas under the bus where you cut and welded? That is way more important than the interior. The underside will be a rusty mess after one drive if not protected.

[BurlKing]

yes we did, thanks for asking though! couple pages ago you can see one shot(only a view from the top though) where it was all painted with a rust inhibitor paint/primer they are white not the interior black color. wish i could find some more tar coating though, that'd be sweet to put some there.

[BurlKing]

The Hearth and surround is now pretty much finished, now all that's left is for a railing to be attatched when the stairs gets completed and some nice trim wood when it comes time for completion of everything else on the inside. We have also decided on another big milestone on the build as well, we were not originally going to do a roof raise but after much thought we will be doing one, so that is next on our list since we are pretty much at that stage.

concrete board and wire lath up. one sheet of wire lath pretty much covered it all but was a touch short so we spread it out and it worked on the bottom since gravity will do the rest of the work. We also shelled out the extra money for mortar color, we chose charcoal color and was only about $6 for every bag 60lb bag of mix, very happy we picked it out.



Sides being done.


Finished. now it just needs to harden.

[nat_ster]

Work of art.

Glad to hear you will be doing a roof raise. You wont be sorry.

Nat

[BurlKing]

thanks nat, i'll be stealing your work of art of the vaulted ceiling in your roof raise in the four season prime.