Testing Fate. My $800 Bus

Calibuslife · 05-30-2018, 10:49 PM

Hey everyone

After 2 years living on my '95 G30 Micro Bird, I've decided to take a leap of faith and get something bigger. My current bus has a 5.7L Chevy 350 Motor and the 4L80-E transmission.....and I get 8mpg. EIGHT. It's been absolutely insane as I've traveled from California and made it halfway across the country already. I hate the fact that I'm spending so much on gas for such a cramped living condition (Two adults and a husky😅) Early this week I bought a '96 International 3800 with a Thomas Body on an auction site.

From what I was given, the bus seemed like a "good decision". My bid was $675 and after fees my invoice called for a grand total of $782.75. 🤣

The bus is in Texas, and I'm in Louisiana. It works out to about 400 miles back. If I make it back home without problems, this may be my new home in the very near future. It could also crush my dreams after the first 10 miles....but what's life without a bit of risk right? Let's see what happens.

The goal here will be to keep our final price of this initial ordeal under $1000, because that's about all I have!!!

$0782.75 : Bus
$0084.00 : Greyhound to get me there
$0155.00 : Diesel @ $3.75/gallon (hope it's enough lol)

$1021.75 : .......already failing my one and only goal!!

Let's hope the needle isn't too close to the "E" on the fuel gauge! Could give us wiggle room for oil or coolant or other unforeseen problems in my future.

Does anyone know if these will take to a 3 ft raise nicely? Any opinions on my power train? I'm going into this with very little knowledge of what I'm getting. We'll be there in a couple days, so I'll try to get some pics and video up when I see it!

oricha1984 · 05-31-2018, 01:28 AM

thats kind of my way of thinking sometimes.
let me buy something cheap and if i make it home in one peace then Wohooo!
if not, only wasted about 1k.

Good luck, keep us updated.
thanks for sharing

gadawg9 · 05-31-2018, 06:00 AM

Looks almost like my 97, I had to drive it 1440 miles to get it home. The Thomas body will make it easier to remove ceiling panels. Keep us posted on your progress.

Johnny Mullet · 05-31-2018, 06:15 AM

That is a good price for that bus. Best of luck!

cadillackid · 05-31-2018, 07:03 AM

nice lookin bus!! a 3 foot roof raise on a bus like that is going to put you in pretty dangerous territory as far as legalities.. you will end up over the 13 foot height which may make you an oversize load in many places.. I would go 2 foot raise Max.
-Christopher

Rovobay · 05-31-2018, 09:44 AM

3 foot raise? wow, are you Yao Ming (7'6")? lol

good luck on getting it home

Calibuslife · 06-02-2018, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gadawg9

Looks almost like my 97, I had to drive it 1440 miles to get it home. The Thomas body will make it easier to remove ceiling panels. Keep us posted on your progress.

1440?!?! That's a serious journey friend! My last long haul was 2300 from California to New Orleans, I had to stop for sleep twice on that one. Normally I try to power through and get it over with but after 1000 miles my attention to the idiots on the road fades a bit.

I noticed the screws in the ceiling today when I picked it up today, that's going to save a bunch of time.

Calibuslife · 06-02-2018, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Mullet

That is a good price for that bus. Best of luck!

Thank you! The worst case scenario was being stranded on the side of the road. Now that it's in my driveway I'm feeling a bit more secure with my impulse buy.

Calibuslife · 06-02-2018, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cadillackid

nice lookin bus!! a 3 foot roof raise on a bus like that is going to put you in pretty dangerous territory as far as legalities.. you will end up over the 13 foot height which may make you an oversize load in many places.. I would go 2 foot raise Max.
-Christopher

Good to know, thanks for the head up. I'll aim for the final height to be around 12'8" (I'm hoping solar panels are in my distant future)

Calibuslife · 06-02-2018, 07:59 PM

So FINALLY, the bus is home. I didn't have any trouble at all on the way back, which was more than I could have hoped for. My one and only gripe is the 55mph limiter....I've never been passed by so many tractor trailers in my life! As terribly slow as it was, the bus was obviously powerful enough for the "micro hills" Texas has to offer.

The motor spun at 2400 on flats, and 2500 any time an incline occurred. The temperature remainined at 185 for the entire trip. I was a bit sad to find that the fuel gauge is not working at the moment....it spins as far to the right (FULL) as possible as soon as I start it. It always makes me stressed to not have an eye on my fuel, even when I know there's pleanty lol. (I was lucky to find my bus filled to maximum diesel capacity!) No idea on the size of the tank, but I drove 424 miles on it and it's not empty yet! Very excited about this as my short bus required fueling every 180 or so miles.

Here's some pics, I apologize in advance for not cleaning anything first. Way too tired, that's tomorrow's adventure.

Calibuslife · 06-02-2018, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rovobay

3 foot raise? wow, are you Yao Ming (7'6")? lol

good luck on getting it home

Not quite that bad, but at 6'2" I've got my head on bus ceiling many many many times!!

Thanks for the luck, I needed it and I like to think it helped

o1marc · 06-02-2018, 08:26 PM

Glad your trip was uneventful, I have a 2k mile trip next week. I feel ya on the trucks passing you. I'm a race car driver and basically no one ever passes me when i'm driving.You can't get there any faster than I will. It was strange driving Christophers Big Red and actually getting excited because I passed truck or 2.

Calibuslife · 06-02-2018, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by o1marc

Glad your trip was uneventful, I have a 2k mile trip next week. I feel ya on the trucks passing you. I'm a race car driver and basically no one ever passes me when i'm driving.You can't get there any faster than I will. It was strange driving Christophers Big Red and actually getting excited because I passed truck or 2.

Right?! I don't mind my bus being a bit sluggish, I just don't want to be the slowest thing on the highway! A cruising speed of 68-70 would permanently shut me up about it

o1marc · 06-02-2018, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calibuslife

Right?! I don't mind my bus being a bit sluggish, I just don't want to be the slowest thing on the highway! A cruising speed of 68-70 would permanently shut me up about it

I just don't want to be on the side of the highway.

Calibuslife · 06-03-2018, 08:51 PM

So we were able to remove all but one seat today! It was a bit time consuming but definitely not as bad as I was expecting. I started out by trying to tighten the bolts until they snapped. It worked well on the first three but slightly stripped a bolt on the forth. I would have been happy if they all came out like that because it would have meant I didn't have to climb under the bus but I didn't want to risk damaging bolts. I don't currently have the means to cut them off. The rest of it was accomplished with a cordless impact and a pair of vice grips.

Tomorrows goal will be to get the ceiling panels and side panels down. The ceiling is solid steel sheets, does anyone see a reason why they couldn't be used to skin the bus after the roof raise?

o1marc · 06-03-2018, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calibuslife

So we were able to remove all but one seat today! It was a bit time consuming but definitely not as bad as I was expecting. I started out by trying to tighten the bolts until they snapped. It worked well on the first three but slightly stripped a bolt on the forth. I would have been happy if they all came out like that because it would have meant I didn't have to climb under the bus but I didn't want to risk damaging bolts. I don't currently have the means to cut them off. The rest of it was accomplished with a cordless impact and a pair of vice grips.

Tomorrows goal will be to get the ceiling panels and side panels down. The ceiling is solid steel sheets, does anyone see a reason why they couldn't be used to skin the bus after the roof raise?

As long as your raise doesn't exceed the width of the panel, they are reused as outer skins here often. Since I'm doing a full wood ceiling I think those panels will wrap the whole window section and save me a ton on sheet metal bill.

Calibuslife · 06-03-2018, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by o1marc

As long as your raise doesn't exceed the width of the panel, they are reused as outer skins here often. Since I'm doing a full wood ceiling I think those panels will wrap the whole window section and save me a ton on sheet metal bill.

That's good news, there should be enough for the sides then. Shouldn't cost to much if all I have to worry about is sheet metal for the back end.

Calibuslife · 06-30-2018, 08:49 PM

It's been a long demo process. The majority of the ceiling screws came out very easily. The few rivets that were there were taken care of with a hammer and a junk chisel I had lying around. I definitely destroyed the tool by the end of the job but I feel it was worth it. Around 6 strikes with a hammer sheared the head off each rivet with minimal damage to the panels. After the panels came down I went over each hat channel and punched the rest of the rivet through.
My floor came up very easily. It was rubber laid directly on the steel. I was worried it was going to be a labor intensive process but in all I believe I spent 15 min peeling it up. I was lucky and it didn't flake apart very much at all. The rust underneath seems to be minimal, no patching required.
My rear heater is still in the bus, which is starting to get in the way. I'd like to remove it for now but I'll eventually use it to heat the front of the bus while driving. In the next day or so I'll close the valves at the heater (and the ones under the hood if applicable) and remove the two hoses running to the back heater. Hopefully I can accomplish this without making too much if a mess.

It's nice to see progress, even if it's coming slowly. My initial hopes were to have the roof raised and the bus reskinned before the hurricane season starts getting serious (we're half an hour away from New Orleans). It's starting to look like that might not come to fruition, but we'll continue to race against the clock.

brokedown · 07-01-2018, 07:24 AM

That rust is going to get a lot worse really fast now that it's exposed to air. When I did mine, I gave it a good sweep twice, used a big scrub broom to wash it with simple green, squeegee out as much as possible and big fan to dry the rest, then 2 treatments of Ospho 8 hours apart before putting primer + 2 coats of paint on it. Oil based enamel only!

dbhost · 07-03-2018, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brokedown

That rust is going to get a lot worse really fast now that it's exposed to air. When I did mine, I gave it a good sweep twice, used a big scrub broom to wash it with simple green, squeegee out as much as possible and big fan to dry the rest, then 2 treatments of Ospho 8 hours apart before putting primer + 2 coats of paint on it. Oil based enamel only!

What he said! Especially here on the Gulf Coast!

I am thinking that a 36" roof raise might be a bit, uh... overly ambitious... However it's your bus.... I personally, and this is just me talking out of the vent in my head.... would go with an 18" raise. Most Thomas Built busses I have looked at have a 72" interior height, which means at 5-11.75" my hair scrubs the top of the roof of the bus in stock form, any insulation flooring added makes me stoop. But I digress. With 18" added you would have a 7 and a half foot interior height on that bus. Plenty of headroom, and height for overhead cabinets if desired. Plus the more volume inside the more you have to heat and cool....

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