Did a little work on the bus today. Very little actually accomplished. Discovered the bane of my buses existence is not the seats or even the wheelchair lift, which still isn't out. No the troublemakers are the wheel chair tiedown points. There are four of them for each wheelchair position. My bus was setup to carry 7 wheelchairs and had tiedown points for an eighth under one of the seats. With four tracks per wheelchair that means there are 32 of these little bas$&*%s in here. The fasteners on top are allen bolts, flush mounted. They are not moving. Snapped 2 allen bits and an allen key. At least the ones that didn't round off anyway.
So I present here in all her glory pulled forward so we could use the wheelchair lift Betsy the bus I couldn't think of a better name for.
IMG_20140512_144226 by
orangepeel91us, on Flickr
Turns out the wheelchair lift does in fact work.
IMG_20140512_143537 by
orangepeel91us, on Flickr
Now who mentioned pics of buses with seats no longer attached but still in the bus making people feel all squishy inside I have this.
IMG_20140512_133833 by
orangepeel91us, on Flickr
And this, let the squishiness begin!!
IMG_20140512_133852 by
orangepeel91us, on Flickr
Notice there are NO wheel wells in this bus. A nice little feature if you ask me. I can hang 20" side boxes under the floor and not change the current ground clearance a bit. That said I do intend to go a bit lower between the axles.
The trade off for not having wheel wells is having a crapload of these little sh&$s.
IMG_20140512_163725 by
orangepeel91us, on Flickr
Notice that there are 3 bolts in one and 5 bolts in another of these brackets. It alternates like that with all of them. So half have 3 and the other half have 5.
We managed to cut one.
ONE.
So at least when I call the local Snap On guy for super hard drill bits I have something to show him.
The bottom side of these suckers is a nightmare of another type. Not just bolts and nuts like the seats. There are plates to go with them to keep them from pulling through the floor.
The problem with this concept is where half of them are located. To start with there is an emergency wheelchair escape ramp-like the kind on a moving van mounted in back. Behind a panel with 7 rivets holding it on so it could not be pulled out. Once that was removed we discovered the release handle is so rusty it wouldn't move with a sledge, prybar and penetrating oil. We soaked the crap out of it with the oil. Will see what happens in a couple of days. No pics of this.
Now then ofr those of you who figure they don't need to pull up their plywood because the bus is from a rust free state like Texas, you are probably wrong.
See here is the problem, my rubber cracked in several locations. Besides this everywhere there is a hole, like where a bolt holds a seat for example, water will travel down the bolt from inside. Yes I said INSIDE.
I don't know about where you're from, but schools and private bus operators in my area mop the bus floors on a regular basis.
This is what my plywood looks like. Every sheet visible so far has areas that are fine and fit for use and other areas that are absolutely rotten. Just in case you needed more fun, the rotten parts are also soaking wet.
I made this ppic bigger so you can see just how black and disgusting some of that wood has gotten.
IMG_20140512_163645 by
orangepeel91us, on Flickr