Our second bus build, WanderLounge

[PNW_Steve]

I have a thought Josh.

Maybe you could find someplace with a mild climate to spend the coldest part of the Winter.

Perhaps St. Petersburg Florida?

Just a thought......

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by yfrank14

yes,i know the bus is insulated.
the question is, is that enough insulation to keep you warm below 19F, or is this a 3 season bus and you will be avoiding places that are below 19F.

They've lived in a Vista with curtains as insulation for at least a couple years now. I think they'll be alright in a bus with actual insulation.

Metal tent to insulated RV is a big step up.

[brokedown]

I was thinking we might spend the winter somewhere not Florida this year. As for now we are really suffering with the heat while building! I really want to be in Montana or Ontario right about now.

Originally Posted by PNW_Steve

I have a thought Josh.

Maybe you could find someplace with a mild climate to spend the coldest part of the Winter.

Perhaps St. Petersburg Florida?

Just a thought......

[Dog Rescuer]

Originally Posted by brokedown

I was thinking we might spend the winter somewhere not Florida this year. As for now we are really suffering with the heat while building! I really want to be in Montana or Ontario right about now.

I think Montana really wants you here, too.

[yfrank14]

Originally Posted by o1marc

How is yours set up? There's no info in your profile here.

if i had a bus i would already know if the insulation he has would work.


i live in CT. all i would have to do is put some insulation in my bus, then spend the nght in it. if i got cold, add more insulation until i found what worked. i could also try different types of insulation.
then, i could drive it to a colder part of the country and see how the insulation does . then i could tear the bus apart and add more insulation or add insulated curtains or a wood stove or just decide the bus was a three season bus and drive someplace warm when it got cold.
but, i find it a lot easier to ask a guy who has insulated his bus and has decided to avoid cold climates, about insulation and living in cold climates and avoiding cold climates.
that way, i can decide what i want to do before i buy a bus.

[o1marc]

Originally Posted by yfrank14

if i had a bus i would already know if the insulation he has would work.


i live in CT. all i would have to do is put some insulation in my bus, then spend the nght in it. if i got cold, add more insulation until i found what worked. i could also try different types of insulation.
then, i could drive it to a colder part of the country and see how the insulation does . then i could tear the bus apart and add more insulation or add insulated curtains or a wood stove or just decide the bus was a three season bus and drive someplace warm when it got cold.
but, i find it a lot easier to ask a guy who has insulated his bus and has decided to avoid cold climates, about insulation and living in cold climates and avoiding cold climates.
that way, i can decide what i want to do before i buy a bus.

Sounds like you're trying to reinvent the wheel. Do you think your plan will yield any different results than what's discussed here in detail? If done properly, which means fully gutting the whole shell and insulating everything. Floor, walls, ceiling. Spray foam seems to be the desired way, but I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the cost. 2" of just about any of the insulation types can get you an R10 value. You can get better R value by adding more insulation, but it comes at the cost of available space. If insulated this way, sub zero temps should not be a deal breaker.

[yfrank14]

i dont know where this went south, but, all i wanted to do was ask if he thought the amount of insulation was sufficient for below 19F or did he plan to avoid cold weather.
that was it.
the only answers i expected was " yes" or, "no, i intend to avoid the cold".
i never planned on hijacking this guys thread.

[o1marc]

Originally Posted by yfrank14

i dont know where this went south, but, all i wanted to do was ask if he thought the amount of insulation was sufficient for below 19F or did he plan to avoid cold weather.
that was it.
the only answers i expected was " yes" or, "no, i intend to avoid the cold".
i never planned on hijacking this guys thread.

It went south in your first post here when you ragged on the lack of insulation in his "fully insulated" bus and buses in general here. Both incorrect observances. Insulation is probably the number one thing discussed in building a Skoolie. I see a small percentage of builds where they lacked this step. Your question is like me asking you if your glass of milk is cold?

[yfrank14]

i dont see how a guy who joined two days ago asking if that is enough insulation for below 19F is ragging.
i have never seen a properly insulated house with only 2" of insulation. many houses are built with 2x6's so they can fit even more insulation.
i am so sorry i bothered you.
i swear i will never post in this thread again. i will even clear my browser history so i cant find it again.
then, i will whip myself with a stick, 100 times, as punishment.
if that is not enough for you, i will give you my street address and you can come up here and kill my pets.

[plfking]

Originally Posted by yfrank14

i dont see how a guy who joined two days ago asking if that is enough insulation for below 19F is ragging.

You're not........he's just our resident Richard Cranium. Don't let him stop you from asking your questions.

There's an Ignore User button on your control panel, if you're so inclined.

[brokedown]

It's hard to compare insulation in an RV with insulation in a goose. Houses have the luxury of space to for more, and typically they use inferior materials. Your average fiberglass roll is r13 in 3.5 inch depth which works out to about r3.7 per inc., Spray form is r6 to r6.5 per inch, XPS is around r5 per inch.

At the depths I have my walls will be r18, ceiling r13, floor r5.. not counting whatever the plywood gives me. Very respectable for a mobile structure.

[brokedown]

So the order of steps has changed but I've been making some progress.

Hillary is still healing, but she's back up here with me again. To make that a reality we had to build a functional bedroom. I built our bed frame with 3/4 inch plywood, 2x4 legs, and some brackets. It's super strong and connects to the chair rail on one side and the wheel arch cover on the other side. Initially, we used the mattress from our futon, but yesterday our Tuft and Needle mattress arrived. I'm going to sleep on it for a week before I say too much but so far it seems nice.

Since we're stationary while we build and have access to power, I went ahead and picked up a plug-in AC unit. Paid more than I wanted to pay for one of course, but after throwing up some terrible partitioning we're able to maintain livable temperatures.

I found some brackets that I can use to mount my solar panels to my roof rails. I'm getting more of them today and will probably move the whole system over on saturday.

Next step should be walls. I still don't have walls!

[brokedown]

Wow it's been a while since my last update!

The weather her in Florida has been a major issue. We've had maybe 3 days without precipitation since June. It's pretty hard to work on the outside of a skoolie when everything is constantly wet!

So we moved back into the short bus, being in the new bus was making it too hard to keep working on it. Since we're plugged in for AC it's not much more of a burden to run a few other things from AC as well, so all my electrical stuff stayed in the new bus.

Speaking of electrical, after carefully monitoring my typical solar intake, I saw I was rarely breaking the 300 watt mark with my 400w of panels, and so I added panel #5. Now in a moderately sunny day I can actually max out the 30a controller. It's not optimal but it is getting the job done!

We also added a 12v rv refrigerator that someone posted a on here. It was clearanced at 75% off list and that's music to my ears! It works very well so far and is way more organized than our freezer, but forces us to use some strategy as it holds about half as much stuff. It will fit nicely under the counter when we have a counter.

I finally got all my new market lights mounted. I'll post more about them after they're wired up and I can show them in action. This took a lot longer than anticipated as it required drilling some new holes.. Not what you want to be doing when its about to flash flood! The old lights used incandescent bulbs and produced enough heat that the lens covers had holed melted through them...

I've put gallons of paint, multiple different ways, and in some places multiple times. We're still doing touch-up.. The tractor paint doesn't dry as fast as the Rustoleum and the rain of course did its best to screw it up. Now we're sanding our new paint to smooth it out so we can roll on even more of it! But the areas we finish are looking good. What started as a 50/50 job (looks good at 50 feet at 50 mph) should get to at least a 25/25 finish!

Tomorrow I'll be doing some wiring inside. Once I have the marker lights wired in and the wire loom secured, It's time to start the inner shell! I'll be using 1/4 Polyiso and then I'll start screwing in 1/4 plywood for the ceiling and walls.

Now that the next several steps are all interior work, I hope to keep a much faster pace on progress.

[brokedown]

Photos

[Tango]

Like the colors! Lookin' good!

[Ninjakitty]

Paint is looking nice!

[brokedown]

LED marker lights fully installed!

[brokedown]

Drove the bus for the first time in a few months.... to the gas station so I could keep running the AC while I work in there!

It's got a 60 gallon tank and I put about 42 in.. I didn't try to top of off but the gauge was reading empty. Mysteries of the universe! Do I really have 10+ gallons left at E?

Anyway, one thing I noticed today is that the transmission (AT545 of course) is in 4th gear by about 22mph. This shifts even earlier than my short bus. It doesn't seem to change much based on throttle position either, so I'm gonna have a look underneath one of these days soon and make sure the modulator is hooked up. it's all mechanical so there should be a cable running to it from the throttle assembly.

[Tango]

22 in 4th does NOT sound right at all. The 545 in my old 40 footer didn't clunk into 4th until about 50-55 (?).

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by Tango

22 in 4th does NOT sound right at all. The 545 in my old 40 footer didn't clunk into 4th until about 50-55 (?).

thats normally foot to the floor shift..



the 545 when fully unmodulated in my DEV bus(foot OFF the pedal). (11R22.5 tires and 4.78 gears) would shift about 23-25..



when floored it would shift about 45-50



when floored they should shift at input shaft speed (not engine speed) somewhere just below the redline of the engine.. on mine calculated input shaft shift speed with a DTA360 is somewhere around 2600 RPM..



on a 5.9 im thinking its similar? I diont know the redlines on the 12 valve..


its not uncommon for the modulator cables to stretch or break completely.. there is some adjustment capabilities on those cables but not alot..



-Christopher