Jacuzzi Bus III

[Ryan Grimm]

OK, you were loking for a wood-fired hot tub, Google 'Snorkle hot tubs'...while "conventional" wood tubs, the tech is adapatable to others.

Heat up FAST, easy to clean out (relatively, that is), and can be used without power.

[oldog12]

Jason,

GREAT JOB on Jacuzzi Bus III.... Will the next one be "Son of Jacuzzi Bus" or "Bride of Jacuzzi Bus"?

Anyway.... I really found your conversion(s) to be quite interesting and your posts really informative. I just need a little information... What type of rivets did you use to re-attach the roof, and what type/brand of sealant did you use and would you use the same stuff again. Oh... and also, about separating the roof sheet... What did you use to cut the old sealant with? Is there another way you would suggest to try?

[lapeer20m]

my best advice when it comes to rivets: GUY A RIVET GUN!!! it's a bargain at any price.

this is actually the first time i've ever done rivets. I purchased a large box of rivets from a guy a few years back. they have a little rubber washer on them to help seal out the elements so i thought.....it became obvious after i put a few of them in that each of them had a hole in the center. To seal the roof panel, and ever single exterior rivet i just used plain ol regular silicone from home depot. the kind that fits into a standard calk gun. Before i even started the bus i told the client that i've never dissassembled the roof on a bus before and there is a possibility that it will leak. I think it's very unlikely that there will be any leaks unless the silicone breaks down over time. We did some leak testing with a garden hose, plus it rained a couple days after we did the roof and couldn't find any leaks at all.

as far as removing the roof panel....GRRRRRR. I still haven't really come up with a good method. To cut the black tar like substance we used mineral spirits. It would be interesting to see if acetone would work better or not. We used some wooden shims to separate the 2 pieces of roof slightly, then ran a sawz-all with about an 8" blade along with lots of mineral spirits between the two pieces of roof metal to try and separate the glue. I seemed to help to separate the two pieces, but not to the point that we could actually get them apart. The problem is that the piece of metal we were removing was the middle piece of a sandwich. It was glued on the bottom to the bus skeleton, then glued on top to the piece of metal directly in front of it...they overlap about 4 or 6 inches. I had pretty good luck removing the glue on top, but had no way to access the glue on the bottom. maybe i should have drawn a diagram....anyhow....we tried welding a couple of metal straps to the roof and pulling with a come-a-long tied off to a tree. The come-a-long generated enough force to overcome the parking brakes on the bus. So i put the bus in gear and drove foward which destroyed the steel straps. We made tougher straps, welded them on, heated up the glue wit ha 500,000 but torch (which caught the wooden shims and the paint thinner on fire....it was reasonably amusing!) still couldn't pull it out with the come-a-long. Frustrated i got back in the bus, put her in drive after saying to jimbo, this isn't gonna work! stepped on the go pedal and BANG! the roof panel came loose.

much wild jubilation followed.

[lapeer20m]

i don't know why i didn't post any photos of the dinette set. That was actually really cool. It was a table and seating that folded down into a bed.