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Old 01-26-2011, 11:56 AM   #21
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Quote:
What doesn't kill you only makes you... stranger.
I like that.

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Old 01-30-2011, 05:30 PM   #22
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Quote:
Originally Posted by crazycal
Quote:
What doesn't kill you only makes you... stranger.
I like that.
Gotta love the Joker!

I'm doing a little work on the bus today, trying to get those galvanized panels taken out that are under the windows inside the bus. They are being a real bear! On my old Bluebird, they were easy. But on this Thomas, it almost seems like the tops, just under the windows, are attached to the body with some kind of fastener, but I don't see any screws or anything. I even took out a window to make sure, but nothing. I really hate to have to use brute force and rip the metal and then have to deal with a jagged piece of metal waiting to rip into an arm or something. Maybe I'll have to do a search later and see if anyone on the board has a description of how they got them out...
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Old 01-30-2011, 05:52 PM   #23
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

I wanna see more pictures of the deuce and a half.





PLEASE!
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Old 01-31-2011, 11:45 AM   #24
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Strangely, I don't have many pictures of the deuce. Most of what I have is from when I was building it right after I bought it, so mostly they are more technical pictures.

This is what it looked like when I bought it. It was an Air Force truck, and it had this HUGE drill in the back of it for drilling telephone pole holes or something. When I bought it, there was only a bit over 18,000 miles on it. A monster-drill truck just isn't a vehicle you have much occasion to use!



The truck originally had the huge gas straight 6 motor in it. Got terrible mileage, and so underpowered it could barely get out of it's own way! I got a good deal on a 1987 Ford F800 that had a 429 gas V8 in it, so the swapping began! The first picture is the original Continental gas 6 cylinder, the second is the new V8 with the Spicer 5-ton tranny behind it. This was a rather complicated swap. I had to modify quite a bit of stuff to get this new motor to work.




The old radiator on the left, new one on the right.



Steering box swapped in from the F800 with the drag link from a mid 80s International.



Seats installed from an Isuzu Trooper.



Painted the truck right before a trip to North Dakota. Obviously, this was before the single axle conversion.



About a year after the last picture was taken, I decided to make the truck a single-axle. This is the big pivot suspension setup that I removed.



This is what the truck looked like last time I took a picture of it. I still have lots of work left to do on it, including putting the bed from an M105 trailer on the truck.



This next truck is what I plan to have mine looking like, minus the camo paint job.




I'm really not sure of what I'm going to do with the deuce. The engine in it has major problems. I've actually been thinking about selling it. If it turns out that I keep it, I'll probably be swapping in a 5.9L Cummins with an Allison auto tranny. We'll just have to see how things go. Right now, the truck is sitting at a storage about 150 miles from where I'm living. It would be great to get it down here to do some work on it, but towing such a big truck isn't very cheap or easy. What I might end up doing is building a huge towbar and towing it here with my new bus!
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Old 02-04-2011, 09:52 PM   #25
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

I used to own an M109A3 Deuce box. It was handy for many things. However, the air-over-hydraulic brake system was a royal pain in the a$$ and VERY expensive to maintain. I finally got rid of it because the brakes died on it. I had the D turbo multifuel engine that ran very strong in it from Continental. I'm happy with our bus. The hydraulic brakes are much easier to maintain. Now I'm looking for an M932 five ton tractor - a pure air brake system and much easier to keep up as well.
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Old 02-05-2011, 10:57 AM   #26
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

thats what iam looking for ,,i been wanting to swap my bus for a m35a or a bobb but no one has one here in my area to swap.. Iam GA
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Old 02-20-2011, 02:12 PM   #27
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Hmm... I thought I replied about the deuce brakes already...

Ya, the brakes on these trucks is kind of a nightmare. I like the hydraulic over hydraulic brakes on the bus much better than the air over hydraulic on the deuce. At one time, I was thinking of putting an M109 box on my truck and converting it into a camper but those boxes are only 12 feet long and I couldn't think of a floor plan that would fit in there so I eventually abandoned the idea.

I was talking to my older brother a few days ago about the bus, and with him being a diesel performance enthusiast, he was telling me about some stuff that I could do that would double the power of the Cummins without having to sell my soul. Of course I would like to do it, but the thought of hotrodding a bus seemed funny to me, so I decided to do a drawing of what had come to mind. So here's my hotrod bus! It's not done yet though. Still have a little more detail work I want to do on it. That and clean up all the graphite that's smeared all over the paper!

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Old 02-20-2011, 05:10 PM   #28
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

i still want your rig,,,selling my bus to get one....have more fun with that,,lol
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Old 02-27-2011, 08:39 PM   #29
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Things have been going slowly because of the weather and trying to get stuff taken care of after my Dad's funeral. But there is progress.

This last week I spent tearing out the plywood and rubber flooring. This was a chore on the last bus, but with this bigger bus, it was even more of a nightmare. Thankfully, there wasn't too much rust. Mostly just in the center where the seats were bolted down.





Some of the junk that I hauled off to the dump. Plywood, rubber flooring, bags of insulation, etc. The guys at the dump looked at me a little funny when I pulled up in the bus asking where to dump off this stuff. It's funny how people look at you a little strangely when you are driving a school bus for personal use. :P



Right next to the door, the floor was rusted quite badly. I'm going to cut part of this section out and weld in new metal so I don't have to worry about it later.



I went through all the wiring, taking out wires that are not needed and eliminated about half of them. Now if I have a wiring problem in the future, it won't take forever to track it down. The wiring that I zip tied back up is much smaller now! The third picture also shows my little speakers I have hooked up to the JVC deck for some tunes while working in the bus.







This is the heater that was under the switch console on the driver's side. I'm going to be using an aftermarket heater in front so I will be building a subwoofer enclosure in the space that it took up. Until I get the new heater, I'm just using the heater that is by the door. I took a drive to my brother's house about a week ago, and it seems to warm the bus up just fine for the time being.





I caulked up all the seams in the bus and everwhere that sheetmetal was attached to a rib in the ceiling. The reduction in resonant noise is amazing. I learned this trick from an aircraft mechanic when I lived in Alaska.



Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the sub/amp enclosure built and installed. Not sure if I will have time though. I have to put a clutch cylinder in my Mom's Wrangler and a coolant tank in my sister's truck tomorrow too so I guess we'll see how that goes. Guess you can't do everything in one day...

I'm getting to a point where I'm running out of stuff that needs to be done before the roof raise needs to happen. The problem is that all the metal that I will need to do that, plus a new door and everything else is going to cost around $700. I don't have that much cash at the moment so I don't want to start on something that I can't finish right away. So unless I can find more little stuff to do for a while, the bus project might end up being put on hold for a little while. That sucks, but I don't have a choice.
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Old 03-07-2011, 12:05 PM   #30
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

My deuce is now up for sale on Ebay. Hopefully it sells right away and I can get back to work on the bus!
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Old 03-07-2011, 01:36 PM   #31
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

whats the price ?????? iam looking
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Old 03-07-2011, 04:58 PM   #32
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Might want to keep the factory heaters...they're essentially free heat and really keep things warm in the winter!
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Old 03-08-2011, 09:36 PM   #33
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Quote:
Originally Posted by fireman
whats the price ?????? iam looking
The starting bid is $1000 and the Buy It Now price is $2000.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarlaxle
Might want to keep the factory heaters...they're essentially free heat and really keep things warm in the winter!
I'm going to be keeping a couple of the factory heaters, but not the two front ones. They are huge and inefficient size-wise, so I am going to eventually replace them with an aftermarket unit that is about 1/4 the size of the driver's side heater. I'm using one of the front ones, the passenger side one for now, but it is going to come out to make foot room in front of the soon-to-be-installed passenger seat.

The space that was used for the driver's side heater, I've used for my new subwoofer enclosure. This is just a temporary enclosure to give me some decent sound until I get around to glassing up the one that will be permanent. When I make the new permanent enclosure, the switch console will be built into it, but will take up just a small space near the front diagonally. Behind that will be 2 power point for the phone and GPS power. There will also be a cupholder and a small tray for little stuff that I want to keep at hand but not sliding around.

This is the temp sub enclosure I have been building. I don't have a picture of it installed since it is dark outside now that I've finished putting it in. I'll get a picture in the light maybe tomorrow. I know that plywood is not a good material for a sub box because of it's density, but it works for now until I can get the good one built. I just want to have some tunes in the bus while I'm using it for other stuff until the interior construction starts. It's very likely that I'm going to be moving back to Missouri to do the construction since one of my sisters owns a small acreage out in the country and said that I can do my building there. Having a decent sounding stereo system will make the 1600 mile trip actually enjoyable!











Paint is still wet here.


Gasket made from foam camper shell tape. I've been using this for years and it works great! If you look closely, you can see the clear silicone around all the seams inside.


This is how it sits in the bus. The switch console shown in the last picture sits on top of the sub box.


This is the switch console next to the driver's seat after having taken the heater out that was under it. I have also taken out the white metal panel behind the the console. The new sub box covers the entire area that the metal panel covered.
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Old 03-08-2011, 09:56 PM   #34
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

I took a few pics of the sub box tonight, but they didn't turn out so great since it's so dark in there. But at least you can kinda tell what it looks like now.

And it DOES sound good! At least as good as can be expected using plywood instead of MDF.







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Old 03-08-2011, 10:41 PM   #35
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

U gonna rub of on me, I got. Band pass that I could add to my bus.

Looks real nice!
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Old 03-09-2011, 06:37 AM   #36
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

your work on the enclosure looks good - nice job
I question your placement of it (not good for your hearing ability long term) - but that is your deal-your bus

My real question is how long did it take to remove the ceiling panels? rivits or screws?
Have you noticed or do you think you have lost any structural integrity?

Finally, do you plan to reinstal original roof panels, luan or something else?

keep up the good work!
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Old 03-09-2011, 09:42 PM   #37
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

This bus, a Thomas, had screws for the interior panels. My last bus, a Bluebird, had rivets. With my battery drill, it took maybe an hour to get all the screws out and the panels taken down. When I did the Bluebird, I gave up drilling out the rivets after a couple of hours and just used a cold chisel on them.

I really don't think it's going to be a big deal as far as structural integrity. I'm sure that even after taking all the interior panels out, it's still probably 3 times as strong as a typical RV! My last bus, I took all the panels out to replace the fiberglass insulation with extruded foam and I'm doing the same on this one. The R-Value of 1 1/2 inches of extruded foam is around 7.5, probably at least twice what the fiberglass was. I have no plans to put the metal back up. I'll probably be using T&G pine for the ceiling since the wood only adds to the R-Value. Not a huge amount, but certainly more than the thin metal! If by chance I do end up putting the metal back in, I'm still going to use T&G on the ceiling.
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Old 03-10-2011, 02:54 PM   #38
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Quote:
Originally Posted by houskou
I question your placement of it (not good for your hearing ability long term) - but that is your deal-your bus
I've been trying to figure out what you meant by this and the only thing I can come up with is that you have been misinformed about speaker size, frequency response and the db levels they produce. Just because it's big doesn't mean that it's any more damaging to hearing than a small speaker.

It's the sound pressure level (dB) that produces damage. It really has nothing to do with the size of the speaker or the frequency in Hz. A 6 1/2 inch speaker producing 150db at 3000 Hz is just as damaging as a subwoofer producing the same db level at 50Hz. The placement of my sub is no more damaging to hearing than the speakers that are in your car. It just depends on how loud you turn them up and the SPL they produce.
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Old 03-11-2011, 12:04 AM   #39
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

Higher frequencies are far more damaging to your hearing than low frequencies. I have experienced many high powered competition style vehicles that produce in excess of 170db of LOW frequency SPLs and while it may actually hurt pretty bad at the time, I can still hear just fine. Its the higher frequencies that leave your ears ringing.
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Old 03-11-2011, 12:17 AM   #40
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Re: My new B700 Thomas

the speaker placement comment was tongue in cheek, i assumed since it was large you would play it loud...
never mind,forget my comment.

and thanks for the answers to my "real"questions
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