Our second bus build, WanderLounge

[brokedown]

Originally Posted by peakbus

Ceiling looks good! Question: In you video, I think you mentioned you wouldn't do spray foam again. What was you reason for this?

A few reasons. Comparing it against XPS foam, the cost was substantially higher, it is messy, hard to work with, and honestly the professionals I paid to install it didn't do a great job. And there is no taking it back down to fix it.

It is a great insulator but overall compared to XPS the difference isn't enough to make up for the negatives. I whole heatedly recommend XPS foam board instead.

[brokedown]

Our new bus logo! - Hillary

[jimburke77502]

2 inch dow board, average 37-40$ a 4x8 sheet with an R value of 10. A 1300 sq. ft. foam kit, almost 1600$ off Amazon, R value being 6-7 per inch. The dow board, in equal sq. footage totals out to about 1275$ taking in the fact that if you buy 30 or more sheets at HD the price drops to about 30$ a sheet. Take into consideration that you do some shopping around, you're looking at 4-500$ difference. Now taking into consideration prep work of having to mask off what you don't want foam on, finish work, clean up, and the fact that once that spray foam is in there it's in there for good. To me, it's a no brainer doing the rigid foam board. Cleaner to work with. More forgiving and removable. And in my opinion, a lot less waste. So, R10 or R12??? Another thing to think about is, are you framing your walls/ ceiling out? Let's say you frame your walls and ceiling out 1 inch. You just gained the possibility of adding another R5 if you're so inclined to. An R10-15 in your bus walls is probably better than the average 50-60 year old home.

[plfking]

Originally Posted by brokedown

And there is no taking it back down to fix it.

That was ultimately the deciding factor for me to use board....having an issue, or a need, and not being able to get to it without ripping the foam apart.

Thanks for sharing your real-world experience. In your opinion, is the spray foam's ability to deaden sound greatly superior to tightly-installed board, or just better?

[Ronnie]

I have used both spray foam and rigid board. No sound difference that I can tell. Rigid foam is much nicer to work with. Plus my wife has the patience of a saint so cutting and fitting all the pieces to perfection works for her. I do a bit then let her finish.

[plfking]

Originally Posted by Ronnie

Plus my wife has the patience of a saint so cutting and fitting all the pieces to perfection works for her. I do a bit then let her finish.

Patience is definitely a virtue.....cutting and fitting the foam board was easily the most detested chore during my conversion.

[Sleddgracer]

Originally Posted by plfking

Patience is definitely a virtue.....cutting and fitting the foam board was easily the most detested chore during my conversion.

has anyone used an electric carving knife to cut that foam board - used them to cut letters for a sign out of 4" dense styrofoam - worked like a damn

[brokedown]

Today I made my air compressor connection official by mounting my hose reel. Should have done this months ago but today is my day to work under the bus.

I think I mentioned elsewhere that I replaced out scooter. The Helix barfed up all it's oil and seized up, I decided to get something that fits the bus better instead of taking into it again. We got a Genuine Buddy 125 and I added front and rear racks and moved the top case from the Helix over. The size and weight difference are substantial, but I won't be doing any multi state highway trips. The paint more it is matches our bus too!

Break time is over... More projects coming soon!Attachment 31048

[brokedown]

So it's been a while since my last update. We are officially back on the road! We of course didn't finish everything on our list but the time was right and you have to get while the getting is good.

We do have running water and drains and a working sink and shower now... With the caveat of not having hot water yet! Also got the stove installed, upgraded our dollar charger controller, and a bunch of other stuff.

I installed one of those big Master lock hasps, it will do the job but I hate everything about it.

We will be sleeping in Mississippi tonight, having spent a couple days in Alabama and Florida visiting with skoolie folks we have met along the way. Outside of a little fuel leak (return line) it has been smooth sailing so far.

Once we get to St Louis I have a few projects to tackle. Need to finish the walls, redo my electrical panel, the previously mentioned hot water.. I will be adding another 100w solar panel and am thinking about switching to 24 volt house power and all the mess that includes.

We have been getting some publicity as we go, too. The other night we were briefly celebrities with the local high school kids after being spotted in a Walmart parking lot. Since we put our Instagram on the back of the bus we have been getting occasional messages from people who see us on the road. One of them messaged us wanting to know all about our bus and ended up coming by for a tour. I guess we are famous now!

[brokedown]

Here are some pics of the interior. It is about 90% finished but who's bus is ever 100% haha! -Hillary

[Sleddgracer]

Originally Posted by brokedown

Here are some pics of the interior. It is about 90% finished but who's bus is ever 100% haha! -Hillary
Attachment 34911

Attachment 34912

Attachment 34913

Attachment 34914

Attachment 34915

looks homey and comfortable

[HazMatt]

An inviting and comfy space, liveable and lived-in looking.
Mine looks "died-in..." [emoji849]

[brokedown]

Hey everybody, it's been suitably too damn long since the last update!

We've travelled quite a bit since June. We did some camping on the Au Sable river in Michigan, went to the Midwest bus meetup in Indiana, spent some time with friends new and old. Unfortunately, Hillary's broken hip has come back to haunt us and we decided our best course of action was to head back to Florida.

Unfortunately, the drive back was harder than planned. We had a few bus failures to overcome to get here. Twice we fully broke down on the highway and had to do an emergency repair. Now that we've landed, I've got a list of things to do before we go taking off.

Generally the sequence of events looked like this:
. Lost serpentine belt. This drives the water pump, cooling fan, and alternator. We carry a spare because you won't get far without one. Changed on an off-ramp.
. Discovered radiator is leaking. Temporary solution is to leave the cap loose so it can't pressurize and keep topping it off
. Discover radiator fan isn't kicking on. Determine it's because the sensor that drives the fan is up too high and our coolant level is likely below it. It's a different sensor from the one that drives the temp gauge. Fix was to splice into the output side of the sensor and install a manual switch. Start to smell diesel but can't immediately identify the source.
. Source of diesel smell identified as it went from a small leak to a fully severed hard line between the fuel filter and the injection pump. Unfortunately it seems we also pumped the remaining contents of the fuel tank onto the ground. Temporary solution was to use some 3/8 and 1/2 inch hose and hose clamps to repair over the break to get to the next town, permanent solution was to get a new revised part for a dodge pickup.

Is there a moral to the story? Not really. Other than pointing out that spares and supplies and tools being on hand and a little bit of know-how can really save your ass. Having a super common motor helped.

Now that we're likely stationary for a while, i'm working on a list of repairs and upgrades to do. Since my radiator seems to be leaking I'll yank it for repair, and that's a great time to pop the front cover off and remediate the KDP. While I've got the front opened up I may go ahead and swap the water pump, may go ahead and rebuild the air compressor, may even swap the front main seal that's been a bit drippy lately. And when I go to put it all back together that's a great time to replace all the radiator hoses and clean up the elimination of the removed heater elements.

Cadillackid happened to have the bushing I needed for my transmission pan to install a temp sensor, so that's off the back burner. If I can find a suitable sensor I'll run it to a microcontroller, step 1 of my digital dashboard project?

Inside the bus I've got a lot of improvements I can make. The walls above the windows were clearly a rush job to do before a show and need some attention. Replacing our futon with a purpose built booth that converts to a sofa so we can both work on our laptops is high on my list as well. And I've been tweaking the driver and passenger seat, getting close to happy with them.

Water system has been working pretty good but I have a new, much quieter pump to install. I'll also upgrade the remaining clear plastic hose with braided plastic hose as the vacuum on the supply side is enough to pinch and restrict it.

Going to build a revised toilet based on what we've learned with our existing one. It works great but it's too big! So taking some cues from others on ways to make it smaller.

Insulating window inserts are going to get painted or covered in something. They work great but sure look like crap!

I'll write more as we get these projects started.

[brokedown]

Some photos!

Fuel line, new vs old and rigged

Finally seeing the dev bus!

Getting the second air conditioner working, albeit briefly.

Hanging out with Jim and Nora!

Full porch with Jim, Nora, Debbie, Jimmy, Sandi, and Nick

4th of July Waffle House

Boating the au sable river

Finally found a microcenter!

[StatTarget]

Love the trip logs.

I've spent (more than) a bit of time hacking on Raspberry Pi bits. What are your plans for it ?

We're planning to use one for the core of our bus control system... WiFi, MQTT, ESP8266, NeoPixels, and various white LEDs.

[brokedown]

i've just started using ESP32 instead of arduino. The built-in wifi and bluetooth should simplify a lot of things. Ultimately I'd like to have a digital dashboard as well as house power and water stats, wireless door lock, and lighting controls. Seeing @somewhereinusa's bus made me feel like I'm behind on these projects!

The Pi 4 should replace the low power laptop we're using for a wifi router/file server/etc, as well as drive the before-mentioned stuff.

[StatTarget]

Nice. Having a single pane for bus status is a our goal too.

I'm working on setting up all the web bits so that I can share the code/schematic/ideas for our bus.

Have one of these...
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0769TD8TV
...in our MiniVan. Works well for Wifi and storage. Have tinkered with USB Cell modems a bit. Something else to build/share some info on.

[brokedown]

We have been parked for a while now due to Hillary's injury coming back to haunt us. Unfortunately that ended our travels for this year, and ultimately led to me buying another bus to build.

However, out retreat back to Florida was more even than we would have liked. We earned my nickname 4 times in 5 days, and now I have some repairs to do.

The problems we have remaining are related to the cooling system. We started losing coolant at some point, and discovered that the sensor that triggers the fan clutch was just higher than the sensor the drives the gauge. I had to wire in a manual switch to engage the fan to finish the drive home.


So today, I pulled the front of the bus apart. I figured since I was pulling the radiator and that's enough of a hassle that I should do some preventive maintenance behind it. KDP fix, new water pump, new front crank seal, new front cover seal. That also works out to a coolant flush and an oil change.

I haven't looked for the coolant leak yet, I will look closely tomorrow but might end up taking it to a radiator shop next week for a test and hopefully a fix.

[brokedown]

Took the radiator to the shop to get it leak tested. It doesn't leak... So that's good, but also means I don't know where I'm leaking. Tomorrow it the next day I will replace all the radiator lines and inspect the overflow bottle. If I don't see an obvious problem I will borrow a pressure tester from O'Reilley's.

So raise your hand if you have ever carried a big ass radiator in your motorbike.

[plfking]

I once carried a new radiator for my Mustang on the back of my KZ900, but it wasn't nearly as awkward as your trip.

When I visited Taiwan back in the mid 80s, I regularly saw families of 4 or 5 on scooters the size of yours.

WITHOUT the luggage rack.