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Old 10-11-2016, 11:06 PM   #1
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Tepme AZ
Posts: 97
Year: 1976
Coachwork: Crown
Engine: Detroit Diesel 6-71
Rated Cap: 52 pax
The SS Liberty Build

It has begun! Finally! I have been lurking on this site for about a year, got a bus and became a member in January and finally have collected enough parts and done enough planning to start building!



This is her. My 1976 Crown Supercoach. I pretty much traded an all expense paid trip to Greece for a skoolie and unlimited trips around the states. I have all of my kitchen appliances, in white because I couldn't find a chest freezer in black in the size I wanted. I have all of my plumbing components short of the PEX to run the supply lines, so fresh water tanks, grey tanks, pump ect. She is a little loud due to the mid engine design, I don't mind the sound, I quite like it but passengers might find it a bit too much so I ordered a VERY heavy acoustic rubber mat to put beneath the new 3/4" top layer of sub floor. It looks just like the rubber that is on the floor already. To cover the floors, I will be using a glue down vinyl plank floor in a medium grey tone. When I first got the bus, I noticed where the floor and walls meet was round creating a curve that came out about 6 total inches. After removing some of the rubber and finding this curved metal only stapled to the floor and tacked to the all every three feet so it definitely not structural.



Here you can see most of the curved piece is gone. All but one seat gone. Two 50 gallon flat tanks in the background, they will be connected together under the bed in the back.

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Old 10-11-2016, 11:19 PM   #2
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Tepme AZ
Posts: 97
Year: 1976
Coachwork: Crown
Engine: Detroit Diesel 6-71
Rated Cap: 52 pax
Here is a forward facing pic. You can see I had taped out a floor plan, which changed several times over the past 8 months. I wanted to have as big of an open space I can get so there will be no walls running across the bus. The bathroom is a little narrow, due to the fact that the "hood" is in the center of the bus and needs to remain accessible so the bathroom is off to the driver side of the bus, just in front of the wheel well. The Captains Suite is in the rear of the bus up against the rear wall and the kitchen will be along the passenger wall taking up three full windows of space for a nice long counter top. The counter top and all furniture will be below the window line for unobstructed views.



I did not want to add any sheet metal. I'm doing a sort of Restomod, I do not want to alter the outside, I'm going to try and leave it as original as possible. A fresh paint job, tint the windows and add two roof top ACs, and a couple high wattage PV panels. I will have to cut an access panel for the tankless water heater but that's it! My wood burner will got out the window through a removable metal panel. I am going to keep her blue with the black stripes, but Ill paint it Glacier Metalic Blue one day.
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Old 10-11-2016, 11:26 PM   #3
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Music City USA
Posts: 737
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: Detroit MBE906
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Good on you... when you have a classic like that it's good to leave it original (as much so as is possible anyway).

That midengine design does kind of limit what you can do, looking forward to seeing how you get around that.
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Old 10-11-2016, 11:32 PM   #4
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Location: Tepme AZ
Posts: 97
Year: 1976
Coachwork: Crown
Engine: Detroit Diesel 6-71
Rated Cap: 52 pax
I going to build the cabinets myself, they will be an antiqued teal with 2.5" thick natural stained sequoia slab countertops that will waterfall on the side facing the living room. The pulls will be made out of copper elbows and pipe. The walls of the bus below the window will be a stained sheet wood, stained a darker grey than the floors. The base trim and window sill will be a black stained hard wood. The bathroom walls will be the same sheet wood and stain as the wood below the windows. The wet bath, built on a custom made shower pan will be just a simple shower with dry flush toilet so I do not have to deal with other peoples dodo, and it can be removed from the bathroom altogether for an extra large shower. The shower stall will be lined in the same cultured marble as the pan and the ceiling done in sheet copper. the plumbing will be externally run in copper and the shower valves will be copper to act as a design feature. The couches, both located up front will be a natural stain sheet wood with dark stain solid wood trim. The driver side couch will have storage underneath. The passage side couch will fold out to be a queen size mattress with storage underneath. Fabric choices will be made later.
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Old 10-11-2016, 11:38 PM   #5
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That sounds VERY heavy, you might want to rethink some of that to save some weight.... best case your MPG will tank, worst case you'll exceed the designed weight and have all the problems that go with it.

That said, I do like what you have planned.
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Old 10-11-2016, 11:38 PM   #6
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Year: 1976
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Rated Cap: 52 pax
Wow its getting late. I be back on it tomorrow to get the water tanks placed and connected, build their enclosure/bed support. The its time to fur out all of the walls to take the curve out of them. Once that is done its time for ruff plumbing and electrical, Insulate the lower half (I'm not removing the roof panels for reasons Ill explain later) and then Ill start the Kitchen!! Ill keep taking and posting pics as I go. I hope you all enjoy the build as it progresses! SkooliePalooza here we come!
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Old 10-12-2016, 01:37 AM   #7
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The cove flooring was done in an effort to keep down corrosion and make it easier to clean, both with a broom or a mop with a hose.

Make sure you keep access available through all of the floor panels that currently lift out. You may actually want more space left open around the main panel. I can tell you from experience that a fat boy like me has a really hard time squeezing down between the seats to reach down into the engine compartment to swap out a starter. The starter on the 6-71's is on the "top" of the engine in a Crown and can't be accessed very well from anywhere except down through the floor.

You would do well to make a jig for anything that will be mounted next to the outside walls. It is hard to see but the body does actually lean in both above and below the floor line. It isn't a lot but it makes it more difficult to keep things square with the world.

The rubber seals on the inside of the passenger windows need to be intact or you will never be able to heat your bus in the winter or keep it cool in the summer. Replacing them when you could get precut seals was a difficult job on a good day. Taking them out and using them as a pattern to create new ones just makes the job that much more difficult.

The seal at the top and bottom of the service door have the same issue with drafts. Some Crowns had sedan doors that only opened outwards. You may want to consider turning your typical Crown Panic Safety Door into a sedan door that only opens out. By doing so you can eliminate the wide rubber seal that goes top to bottom of the service door and be able to securely lock the door from both the inside and the outside.

If you have any questions I can try and answer them. I have been around Crown and Gillig buses for more than 40-years and these isn't a lot about them that I don't know how to fix.

Good luck to you.
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Old 10-12-2016, 10:10 AM   #8
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I totally LOVE restomods!! give it new life inside and to fit your lifestyle but still keep the classic Coach look and feel...

Kudos and great project!!
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Old 10-12-2016, 09:47 PM   #9
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Year: 1976
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Hey there! It was kind of a short day but I got the rest of the cove on the floor up. I also started placing the fresh water tanks. At first I was going to have them stacked right on top of one another to make it easy to connect the two 50 gallon tanks together that will be under the bed. You can see the blue tape line that will be the edge of the bed. The extra space between the tanks and this line will be drawers for storage. This would have left a huge unusable space in the place that was the rear most seat. I decided to stagger the tanks so I can get two rows of drawers. The bottom row of drawers will be kind of narrow, but now with the tanks staggered, the top row of drawers will be nice and deep.



The space to the left of the tanks is where the water heater and pump will be.
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Old 10-12-2016, 09:58 PM   #10
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Engine: Detroit Diesel 6-71
Rated Cap: 52 pax
I am planning to be building cabinets in the next week or two and need to order sliders so my under the counter freezer turn refrigerator can slide out! I have found some I think will work but need to know where I can safely drill into the frig to attach the slides so I was able to use my infrared camera to locate the refrigerant lines in the frig, look like the are only in the front and rear panels of the frig and are located below the hinges, so about 4 inches from the top. I plan on mounting the slides near the top of the side panels so its all good. I got one of the freezer controllers from Johnson from Amazon, nice and cheap. The frig itself is a GE 7 cubic ft.



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Old 10-12-2016, 10:06 PM   #11
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That is a beautiful bus!
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Old 10-12-2016, 11:17 PM   #12
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Join Date: May 2015
Location: Oklahoma aka "God's blind spot"
Posts: 2,446
Year: 1989
Coachwork: 1853FC International/Navistar
Chassis: 35' Retired Air Force Ambulance
Engine: DT466, MT643
Rated Cap: 6 souls and a driver
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chevydude01 View Post
I am planning to be building cabinets in the next week or two and need to order sliders so my under the counter freezer turn refrigerator can slide out! I have found some I think will work but need to know where I can safely drill into the frig to attach the slides so I was able to use my infrared camera to locate the refrigerant lines in the frig, look like the are only in the front and rear panels of the frig and are located below the hinges, so about 4 inches from the top. I plan on mounting the slides near the top of the side panels so its all good. I got one of the freezer controllers from Johnson from Amazon, nice and cheap. The frig itself is a GE 7 cubic ft.

m


That's pretty cool!
Wonder if the infrared camera would serve the same purpose on a regular refrigerator?
Sure would like to add wall brackets to my fridge, but not sure where to drill
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Old 10-12-2016, 11:33 PM   #13
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Rated Cap: 52 pax
@ Carytowncat, Thanks!
@MilkMania, I don't see why it would work on a regular refrigerator. This freezer was at room temperature, its never been plugged in, I let It run for about ten minutes then put the IR cam on it. After seeing how high the line temps are, I think I'm going to add a computer can near the venter areas of the freezer to help move cool air to it and help it out a little in the hot bus.
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Old 01-03-2017, 08:24 PM   #14
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Rated Cap: 52 pax
Well I was supposed to have a bunch more to report by now but you know how things go. Health and money blah blah blah. Anyway, I was finally able to get back out to the bus and get some work done. I got the sound proofing material down.



The material is 1/4" thick and weighs a 1 pound per square foot. For most people it might be unnecessary and I happen to like the roar of the 2 stroke, but my passenger might like to have a conversation or watch a movie or take a nap and hopefully this will help make those things a little more possible. (ok, even I think its a little loud after a few hours)
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Old 01-03-2017, 08:38 PM   #15
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Join Date: Jan 2016
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Posts: 97
Year: 1976
Coachwork: Crown
Engine: Detroit Diesel 6-71
Rated Cap: 52 pax
I this shot you can see I have started laying the new 3/4" subfloor. It was either tear up the perfectly good floors to cover the sound proofer or leave the existing floors and cover everything. Those who watching their weight, lol, might have opted to remove one of the two 3/4 layers of plywood put down the material and recover, but to me that is unnecessary garbage in the landfill, not to mention a lot more work haha.



Crowns have several access holes that need to be left in a manner that make it easy to get to them. You can see they are left uncovered for now.



The subfloor with soundproofer is done!! No, I did not forget to cut out the "hood" hole to get to the engine. I have the hole drawn onto the plywood and will cut it out when I have more of the interior done. This way there is not a giant hole to fall in while I am working inside the bus. I am now ready to start furring out the side walls to be square from the window sills down. After that its time for rough electrical!

It feels good to finally be able to get some pics of fresh work up! Tomorrow I will also be scheduling the window tint guy to tint the bus limo style!
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Old 01-03-2017, 08:51 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chevydude01 View Post
Tomorrow I will also be scheduling the window tint guy to tint the bus limo style!
Actually took my limousine to DOUBLED 5% film
It was just short of painting the windows black!
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Old 01-03-2017, 10:44 PM   #17
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Thread title makes me think of this song-
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Old 01-18-2017, 09:05 PM   #18
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Rated Cap: 52 pax
Haha! I did grow up and black and white western shows. Bonanza was one of my favorites, not black and white but it was always on at grandmas house... The name came from me wanting a boat. I love big old boats, wood ones to be particular, Chriscrafts and stuff like that. I figured it will be a while before I get one so I decided the bus is my land yacht. SS for United States vessel, Liberty because "Independence" was taken lol.
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Old 01-18-2017, 09:22 PM   #19
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Rated Cap: 52 pax
I also got a little more done that I can share with you guys. Because the Crowns are so round, I had to straighten out the walls. I put a strip of 3/4" ply along the bottom of the windows where previously there was a strip of metal similar to the material that makes the original walls. I could have studed it out like traditional framing but chose to run the furring horizontally. Its is both glued the entire length and bolted to the wall frame between the windows was well as screwed in a few places between each widow. A 2x2 is screwed and glued to the new floor almost an inch away from the walls to get a 90 degree angle between the floors and the walls.



I also got some of the electrical boxes in place
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Old 01-18-2017, 09:28 PM   #20
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Posts: 97
Year: 1976
Coachwork: Crown
Engine: Detroit Diesel 6-71
Rated Cap: 52 pax
I put in a pony wall along the steps. It slightly angles back to make more room in the stair well. I am also putting my AC Panel here. It will be covered with a nice material so the box and all of its wiring will be hidden. The inverter charger will go under the couch just behind this wall and the battery bank will go in the storage compartment under the floor under the couch.

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