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Old 07-29-2011, 07:58 PM   #101
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Re: skoolie days

We were very surprised to have a mother and daughter come up to us to ask how we converted a school bus in to a motorhome. After the tour the daughter said she would never see her school bus the same way again

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Old 08-08-2011, 06:55 PM   #102
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Re: skoolie days

well we made it back yesterday, 33 days in the bus total of 8748 kms driven, $2918.13 spent of fuel, (cdn) the bus ran like a champ, never had to add any oil or any other fluids. the 7.3 was a champ, up and down all the hills etc. we did get lots of looks and had to give a few tours of the bus.
we took some real bad roads that felt we were going to shake apart but all is good.
what did break on us just on the last few days was the grey water tank cracked in the center, to much flexing it was a new tank too, I will repair and add more straps, the hotwater tank mount cracked, so will renforce it, also my new electric converter packed in, its a wfco, this is the 2nd one to crap out on me, there s a surge procter on the bus so I dont know whats wrong, but I will be talking with best buy converter where I got it from, Ill keep you posted.
my wife will be posting some pics shortly
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Old 08-09-2011, 10:50 AM   #103
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Re: skoolie days

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Originally Posted by gbstewart
Can anyone find ours??
I've got one of those too!
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Old 08-09-2011, 10:58 AM   #104
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Re: skoolie days

Peggy's Cove Nova Scotia? if so i got a buddy here from there lol
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Old 08-09-2011, 11:40 AM   #105
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Re: skoolie days

Quote:
Originally Posted by gbstewart
well we made it back yesterday, 33 days in the bus total of 8748 kms driven, $2918.13 spent of fuel, (cdn) the bus ran like a champ, never had to add any oil or any other fluids. the 7.3 was a champ, up and down all the hills etc. we did get lots of looks and had to give a few tours of the bus.
we took some real bad roads that felt we were going to shake apart but all is good.
what did break on us just on the last few days was the grey water tank cracked in the center, to much flexing it was a new tank too, I will repair and add more straps, the hotwater tank mount cracked, so will renforce it, also my new electric converter packed in, its a wfco, this is the 2nd one to crap out on me, there s a surge procter on the bus so I dont know whats wrong, but I will be talking with best buy converter where I got it from, Ill keep you posted.
my wife will be posting some pics shortly
gbstewart

Glad the trip went well. Sorry to hear about the inverter crapping out and the tank cracking. Could be possibly see some pictures or maybe you can explain how the tank was mounted? Just so we can possibly learn a bit from it.
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Old 08-09-2011, 03:13 PM   #106
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Re: skoolie days

Wow ! thats is awesome pictures. I have a few questions tho. What is the time frame from start to finish? Did you insulate the windows between the wood and the window frame? Is there a particular wood you should use compare to pine vs like cherry or does it matter( I ask this because of fuel consumption )
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Old 08-09-2011, 03:20 PM   #107
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Re: skoolie days

I like the "Motel" two rigs to the right in the pic!
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Old 08-10-2011, 07:19 AM   #108
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Re: skoolie days

Just a few more pics from this years adventure.
Attached Thumbnails
vacation pics 075.jpg   vacation pics 120.jpg   vacation pics 240.jpg  
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Old 08-10-2011, 10:42 AM   #109
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Re: skoolie days

how is the bus handling the hills and roads out der? I plan to one day get mine out there to Sydney, ns
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Old 08-10-2011, 04:23 PM   #110
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Re: skoolie days

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how is the bus handling the hills and roads out der? I plan to one day get mine out there to Sydney, ns
the hills where no problem at all, it wasnt the fasted up the hills, but it was no problem at all, would do it again.
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Old 08-13-2011, 08:57 AM   #111
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Re: skoolie days

Glad the trip went well. Sorry to hear about the inverter crapping out and the tank cracking. Could be possibly see some pictures or maybe you can explain how the tank was mounted? Just so we can possibly learn a bit from it.[/quote]

the grey tank is 41 gals, I made a frame out of 2x3 lumber, mounted it to the bus, the the tank has a lip on it I screwed it to the wood frame. the I made 2 steel strapps that I bolted to the frame and wrapped around the tank to the side of the bus and bolted it. its not going to move. however , what I should of done was added one more or 2 more strappes in the middle of the tank to give it support from the water bounceing around, the bottom of the tank was flexing to much from the rough roads, and weight of the water, live and learn, I got the stuff to repair the crack today,its a ABS polymer you mix with acciton. Ill try to take some pics.

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Old 08-13-2011, 11:27 AM   #112
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Re: skoolie days

Quote:
Originally Posted by gbstewart
... what I should of done was added one more or 2 more strappes in the middle of the tank to give it support from the water bounceing around, the bottom of the tank was flexing to much from the rough roads, and weight of the water, live and learn, I got the stuff to repair the crack today,its a ABS polymer you mix with acciton. Ill try to take some pics.

gbstewart
Evey one should also be placing a sheet of plywood on the exposed bottom of their tanks and then placing the straps over that. I have a cracked poly tank waste on the class C (can't patch poly) from road debris. Only leaks sometimes.
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Old 08-14-2011, 12:58 PM   #113
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Re: skoolie days

I wasthinking of plywood, my only conseren would be it would rott, we will be using it a bit in the winter and they use lots of salt here, I think im going to look for a pc of plastic sheeting, or mybe thin metal might use wood with some kind of protective coating . will figure something out

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Old 08-14-2011, 03:05 PM   #114
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Re: skoolie days

Use plywood (exterior of course) with a sheet of FRP or metal roofing to protect the plywood. We will just paint the plywood with something... probably that DIY roll on truck bed liner or elastometric roof coating... which ever is cheaper. I would rather sacrifice some plywood than the tank. And that is what the plywood is for (and to protect the foam insulation we are wrapping the tank with as well). We had exposed plywood decking on our 1974 popup. It was 13 yo when we bought the pop-up and I sold the thing in 2005. Ply wood was still good. I suspect it was marine grade plywood. It was painted on the roadside.
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Old 08-20-2011, 11:14 AM   #115
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Re: skoolie days

well I got my new coverter replacement in the mail yesterday and got it installed. this is my 3 one in 1 year. I bought a WFCO 45 amp converter center, this was 1 year ago, had a power surge and it quit, talked to the people at best converter thats where I got it from, and they sent me a upgrade install kit, I put that one in and a new in line surge protector. all good till on the way back from my trip then it quit(stops chargeing) so I got on the phone with randy at best converter told him what happen, guess what ? they have been haveing a few proplems with wfco converters. soooo he recomened another up grade to a Progressive Dynamics Inteli Power. when I got it , you can see how much better built it is then the wfco, you just take out the old 12 volts part of the converter and this one goes right in and you get a new fuse block as well, this has the Wizard Battery charger in it, so far so good,bottem line the wfco modle really is a poor quility, thats why there are in all kinds of rvs,
also got my grey water tank fixed up(crack) and hot water tank fixed up, ready for the next big trip

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Old 10-19-2011, 06:09 PM   #116
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Re: skoolie days

well havent done much on the bus other then dream of going on another trip, but thats not going to happen for a while

anyway today I ran rv plumming antifreeze into the water system, and ptraps, getting ready to park it for the winter, its been snowing on\off for the last couple of weeks, so its tme to park it for the winter 9800kms of travelling this summer was a blast, time now to start gathering more stuff over the winter to finish up things this spring ie;sea levell gauges, satlite dish etc

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Old 11-18-2011, 02:03 PM   #117
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Re: skoolie days

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeScro
Wow ! thats is awesome pictures. I have a few questions tho. What is the time frame from start to finish? Did you insulate the windows between the wood and the window frame? Is there a particular wood you should use compare to pine vs like cherry or does it matter( I ask this because of fuel consumption )
I was just reading over our postings, and Im sorry I didnt respond to you , this may be to late, but here goes ,

its been we as just over a year,14 months that we had the bus, to get it to where it was before we left for the east cost, I worked on it on\off from may till about november(last year) we used it as well. then spring time I went all out till july 1 (2011), and still have lots of little things to do in the spring. over thewinter ill plan and gather stuff, its to cold to do anything.

wood types, it really just boiled down to what ii could buy, i would like to use maple cause of the light colour.other wise its personal choice

where i removed the windows i did put insulation

milage the worst was 10.1 highest 10.8

sorry for the late reply some how I missed you
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Old 03-04-2012, 11:54 AM   #118
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Re: skoolie days

Well saturday I shovelled off the roof of the bus had almost 2.5 feet of snow, I ran the generator and plugged it into the block heater for 3 hours it was only -18c then started up the old girl, let her run for about 3 hrs and rocked it back and fourth to make sure every thing was free. I have been doing this all winter about 1 once a month, I think its good to do this. anyway the itch has started to get back to camping and travelling, as well as some more work. I look at some of the pictures that have been posted here over the winter and see no snow!! wow that would be nice. anyway spring is around the corner and Im getting excited

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Old 03-04-2012, 12:10 PM   #119
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Re: skoolie days

We have a high predicted of 70°F today. Mon-Wed is supposed to be a high of 77°F.
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Old 03-09-2012, 07:25 PM   #120
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Re: skoolie days

picked up a used VuQube satellite dish frist on I seen for sale used(around here) so I jumped on it, just right for the bus.

http://www.canadasatellite.ca/PhotoDeta ... table-Dish

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