Bus: The Sequel - '91 Thomas 40'

[BuSmith]

It's about time I started this! We bought the bus a little over a year ago — a '91 Thomas pusher with an 8.3 cat — and now I'm working on it full time. There's a long-winded intro here.

It has:
- 8.3 Cat
- Five speed Allison
- 136k miles
- 2 through-and-though storage bays
- 40 feet of length
- 6 foot 4 inches of interior height




We got going pretty quick but stalled out a bit over the first winter. Not too long after that I left my job and spent most of the last 7 months either working for myself on a software project or doing a fair circuit with some friends who sell kurly fries. So after 4 months away from home, I'm back to work full time on the bus.

I've neglected to start this for a bit so some things are missing.

We've:
- Removed the seats
- Removed the windows and external trim Pic 1
- Re-sided the bus with 16ga panels Pic 2
- Removed interior ceiling, floor, walls etc.
- Removed the chair rail
- Cut holes in the floor and re-routed the interior heater hoses so they run through the storage bays Pic 3

Yesterday I added a strut to help brace the ex-emergency-exit, planned how some rub-rail modifications will work out, and added the final patch over said exit.
Pics 4 & 5

I'm currently in the process of planning our skylights, moving the fuel filler cap a few inches (more on this to come), and prepping the floor for Rustoleum.

Pics:
Gutted Trim and Stuffs:


Re-siding:


Re-routing heater hoses:


Patched and Braced Exit:




Here are a few current pictures. Yeah it's messy while I'm working.





And Here is the basic design we're working off of.



Thanks for reading and I'm looking forward to advice or questions!

[Rusty]

Dang, looking real good. You have it buttoned-up nice. I bet you are tired of holes and rivets.

Are you going to splurge for sprayfoam? It makes a world of difference.

Keep the pics of progress coming !

[Johnny Mullet]

Looking forward to the build.

[PNW_Steve]

Good looking rig!

I am curious regarding the engine. I have never seen an 8.3 Cat.

I am familiar with the 7.2 Cat and the 8.3 Cummins but not the 8.3 Cat.

Could we see a picture of the engine?

[EastCoastCB]

I'm interested in this drivetrain too.
Allison 5 speed in 91?

[PNW_Steve]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

I'm interested in this drivetrain too.
Allison 5 speed in 91?

Not certain but I think that the MD3060 was available in '91.

I remember looking at used rigs around 1995 that had the MD3060. Been 22 years so I don't put complete faith in my memory.....

[BuSmith]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Dang, looking real good. You have it buttoned-up nice. I bet you are tired of holes and rivets.

Are you going to splurge for sprayfoam? It makes a world of difference.

Keep the pics of progress coming !

Not as tired as I could be, the ceiling panels were screwed. Lucky us! With a little chooch they mostly came out easy.

No spray foam inside. I think it'd be about $1400 for the interior of the bus and we have leftover rigid foam for free so... I can't figure out how to justify it when it's so much more for us.

[BuSmith]

Originally Posted by PNW_Steve

Good looking rig!

I am curious regarding the engine. I have never seen an 8.3 Cat.

I am familiar with the 7.2 Cat and the 8.3 Cummins but not the 8.3 Cat.

Could we see a picture of the engine?

I could get you a picture but this is better.

I pulled the engine and tranny straight out of my intro post because the old man and I had just been playing with the engine and we checked what they were back then. We looked again today and we were wrong on both accounts. 8.3 Cummins and 4 speed. Dunno what we were thinking.

[BuSmith]

A TREE FELL ON THE BUS!

Ok so now I got you interested I'll explain.

So today was mostly a bust; lurked around here in the morning and pooped around the hardware stores a bit this afternoon. I did, however, get the bus cleaned up and OSPHOed so I can paint next week.Yesterday however, I finished patching a hole from the aforementioned tree.

A while back it was winter and I had just gotten up early. I did my morning thing (coffee and all that) and was standing in the kitchen of our current bus when I heard the most louddenist, crunchinest, crashinest noise I've heard since that time my Dad dropped a log on me. I'm having an epiphany that I might just want to stay away from trees. How do busses do in New Mexico? Anyhow, luckily, my wife had been awake for all of twenty seconds so I didn't have to explain through the calm doze of waking up during the crash that something very bad and wooden had probably just happened to our roof. Oh no! I got to explain to a very awake and intensely interested wife that despite the ground rocking all over the place and using the heck out of its suspension the world would probably not end quite yet. So we went outside and you will probably never guess what we saw.



So that got her all riled up again for a minute.



But seeing as that particular limb had probably come to terms with gravity we decided to move the thing and tarp it over until it was a convenient time to do some repairs.





So it turned out surprisingly tame. The hole was in the bathroom and it hit right on a structural rib which appears to both have taken the hit well and helped shear off one of the panels cleanly. It also explains the loudness as my wife and I were about 4 feet apart and the limb hit dead between us.



We drug the thing out with the telehandler and waited.

Yeah, I know it took me a while to get to it, go nag someone else.









So not my best work but it's passable enough for the old bus. And do you think it was a bugger getting that little booger of a panel bent and wedged under all those other plates? You betcha it was!

Oh and I OSPHOed the current project today. And that patch was made out of spare 16ga from that bus. That's how it's related to this thread.

See ya'll tomorrow.

[Rusty]

Holy cats ! I'm glad you guys are ok. That is crazy.

I bet you are glad you didn't have a sticks-n-staples motorhome instead of a steel bus.

Wow.

[BuSmith]

Today I did some minor work, cleaned up the OSPHO powder for painting tomorrow and finished my move of the fuel filler cap.

The cap used to come up through the floor at an angle so it would have poked up through the living room floor to intersect the wall. I assume this is a fairly normal arrangement. If not you can see it in the lower left of the second image in this thread. This wasn't something I wanted so I moved to a point where it would barely not intersect the level of the finish flooring.



I had to take off the lower rub rail on that side and I'll need to modify it (see where it'll intersect things in the pics). I also had to cut down to the lowest I could without cutting a rib at flooring level.

Had to rip out the previous filler cap. This was an angled doodad with a mounting bracket and about a 45˚ bend in it. So I cut out the offending bend, ground off the bracket and in doing so shortened up the whole assembly. Guess I needed new hoses to compensate.



Then, the previous door wouldn't do as it was way too short to cover the new hole and I didn't want a big patch there. So I got some leftover 16ga and made a new one. The old henge fit perfectly once it was welded on and with a little modification the old lock went right in too.




Lastly, I wanted to mount the filler end of the hose to that rib that I never cut through so we came up with an ingenious little system using both halves of a U bolt separately. After custom fitting the top so that it would pull down on one end and leverage the cap up a little — yeah it's as tight as it looks in there — I welded the bottom half of the U bolt in as a support. Clever no? I once heard that the Indians used every part of the buffalo, I like to think that I channel that when I cannibalize my U bolts for things like this.





So that's over and my skylight is almost ready to go in.

Cheers

[BuSmith]

Did some planning and a little painting today.

[Rusty]

Bus is coming along real nice.

I'l be curious to see how your filler-neck mod works out. I have the exact same set-up and hate that intrusion triangle piece because that's where I'd like my shower to go.

You may have to pump a bit slower to prevent splash-back, but otherwise don't see a problem.

Where is your fuel tank- is outside the rails or between? Mine is located between the rails and has a squished flex hose over the frame rail to fill, so I don't think it'd like me lowering the fill neck. Raising the floor for the shower *could* work, but hate to give-up headroom.

Keep the pics and updates coming. You seem like you try to get some work done every day on the project- me too ! It's daunting, but I hope by chipping away, it'll be finished in my lifetime.

[BuSmith]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Bus is coming along real nice.

I'l be curious to see how your filler-neck mod works out. I have the exact same set-up and hate that intrusion triangle piece because that's where I'd like my shower to go.

You may have to pump a bit slower to prevent splash-back, but otherwise don't see a problem.

Where is your fuel tank- is outside the rails or between? Mine is located between the rails and has a squished flex hose over the frame rail to fill, so I don't think it'd like me lowering the fill neck. Raising the floor for the shower *could* work, but hate to give-up headroom.

Keep the pics and updates coming. You seem like you try to get some work done every day on the project- me too ! It's daunting, but I hope by chipping away, it'll be finished in my lifetime.

I'm a bit apprehensive about that. I have the same setup as you. I managed to get the hose so that it's slightly angled down towards the tank but it may be an issue. My backup plan is to just make an attachment out of pvc or some such that screws onto the threads for the cap and angles up the 6 inches that the old one used to. Don't really want to do that but I may have to.

I don't plan on driving it for a bit so I dunno when I'll have a report on how she fills but I'd be glad to answer any other questions you got.

[BuSmith]

Put in the first skylight today. Much thanks to david.dgeorge07 for the advice on how he did it.

26½"x26½"x⅛" lexan with some aluminum strips to help distribute the stress. The holes are drilled waaay too large in the lexan so it has a lot of wiggle room. The aluminum we ripped from an old sign we had laying around with the table saw.

I'm going to clean up a bit and calk around the perimeter tomorrow but I gotta stop working and do be social right now.

We'll probably add a few more after seeing how good david.dgeorge07's looked http://www.skoolie.net/forums/showthread.php?p=228338... But we wanted to see how the first one turned out.

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[Twigg]

Concord's windshield was made from Lexan, it's tough stuff.

Lexan is also simply a brand name for polycarbonate. It resists yellowing well but scratches easily, so go easy when you clean it.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by BuSmith

The aluminum we ripped from an old sign we had laying around with the table saw.

Pretty loud sound they make, amiright?

[david.dgeorge07]

That looks great! Are you happy with how it turned out? Good call on using aluminum strap instead of washers. I think that is probably both easier and better!


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[BuSmith]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Pretty loud sound they make, amiright?

Yeah! It's not the scariest thing I've done but it wasn't fun. Pretty damn loud and some big chips.

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[BuSmith]

Originally Posted by david.dgeorge07

That looks great! Are you happy with how it turned out? Good call on using aluminum strap instead of washers. I think that is probably both easier and better!


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I don't think it could be easier. It was more effort than it was worth I suspect. I like the look and I'm really pleased overall. We immediately decided we're doing several more skylights, we like it so much. But I'm not looking forward to doing the straps for the other ones.

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