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Old 06-15-2015, 07:08 AM   #41
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Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Tomball, TX
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Year: 1988
Coachwork: Blue Bird
Chassis: TC/2000
Engine: Cummins 5.9TA
Saturday my dad and father-in-law came to help me get the wheelchair lift out. My father-in-law knows a guy who needed one to put into a church bus. I'd gone earlier in the morning and ground off all the bolt heads for the lift. I also took out all of the little tie-down points for the wheel chairs.

We borrowed a forklift from the guy who owns the storage unit I'm parking at. I'm glad we could borrow one because it was very heavy and wider than the door. It took a little work, but eventually we got it out the door without breaking anything.

We took out some of the sheet metal covering the heater hoses. We found the water bottle for the windshield wiper sprayer, and fixed the sprayer so it points toward the windshield. We also put new headlights and mirrors on it (I broke a mirror throwing seats out of the front door.

I cleaned out all the rubbish that was laying about and swept out the bus. I also used painter's tape to tape off my floor plan and see how it works. It looks like it'll work pretty well. My only concern is the walkway around the foot of the bed may be too narrow. We've got an old memory foam mattress that we're going to cut down to an RV sized mattress. Maybe I'll cut it a little short just to give me some more space to walk around the foot of the bed. I also might make the bathroom just a bit longer. It'll make the bedside storage/closet/table area a little smaller, but it'll let us have a full sized window in the bathroom.

This week/next weekend I'd like to get all the trim pieces off, get the bench seat/heater removed, and get the heater hoses removed. I'll leave the heater by the driver, but remove the heater pump and heaters in the rest of the bus. Then I'll get it weighed and start tearing out the plywood.
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Old 06-15-2015, 09:38 AM   #42
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Sounds like you guys are making progress. I know you had a bunch of "issues" while driving her home, but she sounds like a pretty solid platform to build on. Best of luck and do keep the pix coming.
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Old 06-15-2015, 09:47 AM   #43
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Originally Posted by Tango View Post
Sounds like you guys are making progress. I know you had a bunch of "issues" while driving her home, but she sounds like a pretty solid platform to build on. Best of luck and do keep the pix coming.
The "issues" haven't been a problem in the little bit that I've been driving it. I've put about 5-10 miles on it every week since I got it home. Just enough to get the engine and transmission warmed up. I'm still gonna get 4 new brakes for it. Took a look at the front passenger side brake this weekend and it looks rusty. The other rotors are clean (I suppose when braking the rust came off). Must be a problem with that front right brake. It should pass inspection as it sits, so that's more of a problem for when I hit the open road. The sending unit for the temperature gauge needs to be changed too, but that won't keep me from driving it.

I might save the brake job for when I get new tires. That'll all be done before I take it out on the highway again.
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Old 06-15-2015, 01:06 PM   #44
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"Rotors"? That big darlin' came with disk brakes all around!?
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Old 06-15-2015, 01:07 PM   #45
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I don't know if it came with them. I'll have to go check the production order again. It's got them now though. Maybe someone put them on later?
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Old 06-15-2015, 01:09 PM   #46
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My bus has big disk brakes all the way around.

Good stopping power and cheap to overhaul.

Nat
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Old 06-15-2015, 01:43 PM   #47
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What Nat said...Love them big disks!!!
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Old 06-25-2015, 06:36 AM   #48
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Time for another update. I intended to take pictures yesterday when I was working on the bus, but got busy and forgot. Here's a picture I sent my wife on Saturday. A little background on text in the picture: my wife used to teach a floral design class at the high school. The kids would learn how to arrange flowers and get an art credit. She had a young man sign up for her class last year, and on the first day asked when they were gonna learn how to install flooring.

Last weekend I took the padded trim off of the walls. I also took the little trim pieces off of the floor. I started tearing up the plywood as well. The front third of the bus was rotted and came up pretty easily. There were a couple of small rust holes, but nothing bigger than the holes for the seat bolts.

After I pulled the first two sheets of plywood out, I got to some plywood that wasn't rotted. It wasn't coming up very easily. It's also nailed to the sheet metal underneath. I'm thinking I'll have to grind off the nail heads to pull it up. Any other ideas for pulling up the plywood?

Last night me and my father-in-law went to check everything to make sure I'm good for the inspection. We took off the front red light covers. Tried taking the ones off of the back, but they're pretty stuck. So I ordered some yellow lens covers for the front. One of the yellow lights on the side of the bus is dead, so I bought a new set of those as well.

I'm a little concerned that one of my tires may make me fail inspection. The steer tires look to be in good shape, but one of my rear tires is pretty dry rotted and has a couple of gouges in it (that's the tire that was manufactured in 1999, when I was in 4th grade). My brother-in-law reccommended armor all or black shoe polish just to get it to pass inspection. I know new tires are in my future, I'm just hoping I can put it off a bit. I'm getting a bonus next week, so I may be spending it on new tires if I don't pass inspection.

So, the goals for this weekend will be to finish fixing the lights/lenses, find a good way to tear up the rest of the floor, and hopefully address removing the heaters.
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Old 06-25-2015, 06:40 AM   #49
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Quote:
Originally Posted by austin1989us View Post
Last night me and my father-in-law went to check everything to make sure I'm good for the inspection. We took off the front red light covers. Tried taking the ones off of the back, but they're pretty stuck. So I ordered some yellow lens covers for the front. One of the yellow lights on the side of the bus is dead, so I bought a new set of those as well.
Screws could be rusted on. You can drill out the heads and replace with new screws.
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Old 06-25-2015, 06:48 AM   #50
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Screws could be rusted on. You can drill out the heads and replace with new screws.
We started to do that. Decided it'd be quicker/easier to just order new lenses for now. They'll have to come off when we paint, but we'll save that problem for another day.
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Old 06-25-2015, 06:49 AM   #51
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Quote:
My brother-in-law reccommended armor all or black shoe polish just to get it to pass inspection
Smear on black rtv silicone, then the armorall, it will fill in the cracks then make it shiny.
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Old 06-25-2015, 07:00 AM   #52
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You didn't hear this from me.


Smear on black rtv silicone, then the armorall, it will fill in the cracks then make it shiny.
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Old 06-25-2015, 11:11 AM   #53
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After I pulled the first two sheets of plywood out, I got to some plywood that wasn't rotted. It wasn't coming up very easily. It's also nailed to the sheet metal underneath. I'm thinking I'll have to grind off the nail heads to pull it up. Any other ideas for pulling up the plywood?
Hmm. I thought I'd written about this on my build thread... but now I can't find it, so perhaps it isn't there at all.

In any case.. another member here proposed setting the depth on a circular saw so it cuts the plywood as much as possible, while avoiding scoring the sheet metal underneath. Use that to cut the floor into smaller chunks, say 2x3 feet or so. Then pry up the pieces individually. I tried several methods before I finally broke down and gave this a shot -- I should have done it much sooner! Worked great.

For a pry bar I used a digging bar about 6 ft long. It's basically a hex-shaped rod with a point on one end and a flat chisel on the other end. Somewhat heavy, maybe 15 pounds. From 18-24 inches back I'd ram the flat chisel end along the steel floor and under the plywood, then use the bar to pry the wood up. The screws and nails either snapped off or pulled through, and after the wood was cleared away I could wind out what was left of the fasteners with vice-grips or cut/grind them off.
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Old 06-25-2015, 11:12 AM   #54
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Hmm. I thought I'd written about this on my build thread... but now I can't find it, so perhaps it isn't there at all.

In any case.. another member here proposed setting the depth on a circular saw so it cuts the plywood as much as possible, while avoiding scoring the sheet metal underneath. Use that to cut the floor into smaller chunks, say 2x3 feet or so. Then pry up the pieces individually. I tried several methods before I finally broke down and gave this a shot -- I should have done it much sooner! Worked great.

For a pry bar I used a digging bar about 6 ft long. It's basically a hex-shaped rod with a point on one end and a flat chisel on the other end. Somewhat heavy, maybe 15 pounds. From 18-24 inches back I'd ram the flat chisel end along the steel floor and under the plywood, then use the bar to pry the wood up. The screws and nails either snapped off or pulled through, and after the wood was cleared away I could wind out what was left of the fasteners with vice-grips or cut/grind them off.
I started doing that, but I think I might need a longer pry bar.
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Old 06-25-2015, 11:44 AM   #55
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Quote:
Originally Posted by family wagon View Post
In any case.. another member here proposed setting the depth on a circular saw so it cuts the plywood as much as possible, while avoiding scoring the sheet metal underneath. Use that to cut the floor into smaller chunks, say 2x3 feet or so. Then pry up the pieces individually.
Maybe it was me? I went that route. It was much easier than struggling with 4'x8' chunks of plywood. I also used ratchet straps to help me out. The windows were out so I connected one end of the ratchet strap to a rib and pried the plywood up enough to get a hook on the plywood edge. With 2 ratchet straps connected I could pull the plywood up and, while keeping tension on it, pry the plywood up with a pry bar. Then tighten the ratchet straps further and continue. It was a bit finicky, but required very little physical exertion.
You might be able to do the same thing by opening the windows and wrapping around the ribs, but you risk breaking the glass when the ratchet strap slips from the plywood breaking in half.
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Old 06-25-2015, 12:40 PM   #56
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I scored some of the wood with the circular saw, but the nails were a real pain in the butt. I quit on Saturday when I ripped the pry bar through the non-rotted plywood.
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Old 06-25-2015, 02:09 PM   #57
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There is a bit of a technique to it, I suppose. Sometimes the bar will tear through the wood. The nearer you can get it to the fastener, the better the chance of pulling the fastener through instead of the bar breaking through the edge of the wood.
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Old 06-28-2015, 01:02 AM   #58
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I scored the plywood with my cordless 20 volt skill saw.

I used two pry bars, one 6 feet long, the other 2.5 feet long.

I also used a few small chunks of 2x4.

I alternated with my pry bars, and used the 2x4 blocks as spacers to get my pry bars deeper under the plywood.

This worked great.

As I got farther along, I started lifting the entire sheet of plywood half inch or so with the pry bar before cutting with the skill saw.
This saved me from cutting the nails as they just pulled through the plywood and stayed in the metal bus floor.

Nat
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Old 06-28-2015, 03:52 PM   #59
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This weekend I put new side marker lights and lenses on the bus. I bought a 70" post hole digger to pry up the rest of the floor. I pulled up the floor back to behind the rear wheel wells before I got exhausted. Betty the Blue Bird Bus also made a new friend (a bird). The bird was pretty confused and it took a while for it to figure out how to get out.

When I was picking up the new lens covers I ran in to some people who own an RV parts and service shop nearby. I asked them if they knew where I could find a 15,000 BTU roof mounted non-ducted dometic air conditioner. They opened the door to their van where they had one new in the box. I'm gonna go pick it up on Monday.

I'm gonna pick up the air conditioner on Monday. I might get the muffler fixed and/or get it inspected on Tuesday. Depending on if I fail the inspection, I may need to get the muffler fixed or get new tires or get it re-inspected on Thursday. If there's time left, I'll try to get it registered on Thursday as well.

I'm planning on using the bus to help some friends move next Friday/Saturday.
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Old 06-29-2015, 10:05 AM   #60
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Two things:
Check out the scrapper used to remove tile from flooring. It is a long bar with a heavy flat scraper end. I use mine for removing the carpet tack strips, ceramic tiles, vinyl flooring, most stuck things.
If you are in a hurry and want a temp fix for the muffler, there is muffler tape. It looks like sticky fiberglass tape. Wrap the muffler completely and the hole will be covered. It will appear that you are wrapping it to keep heat in, water from rusting it out, and may just get you thru inspection. "It is there to help keep the heat away from a future water line". You didn't hear that from me. (nice disclaimer).
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