VW inspired skoolie... the long story

[scootie]

in the beginning, I was 15 and wanted a ice cream truck for my first car.... I think I planned on putting a couch in there and running a tv and mini fridge off the already available power and driving my friends around skatebaording, roadtripping ect. !!

It never happened. I would end up with a gold 89 honda accord hatchback completly covered in stickers, literally. bumper to bumper. I remember the flip up headlights are what sold me. and the price tag, of 700.00

fast forward to when I was 20 years old, and I found this on craigslist for $1,100.
This, I think is where my skoolie adventure starts.



... so that is my first bus! I loved it. I worked at a wood shop at the time and I remember my old french, all day drinking heineken boss let me have bits and pieces of scrap wood from which I build a quarter sawn oak table and dining area. I drove around in it everywhere I could until it only ran on three cylinders and I limped it to the local VW garage where I took whatever cash the mechanic offered me for it.

Several years and several busses later, I had cross country trips, countless breakdowns, and lots of experience fixing, building, and living in busses.

[EastCoastCB]

Very cool, man. I started out on VW's as well.
My first was a 70 bay window I pulled from under a tree for $400 and got MANY miles out of, then a 71, then a 67 westy.

[scootie]

All in all I must have owned 10 or so VW buses and trust me, it comes in later on... or maybe not that much, but it's my story, so read it if you want,...
Fast forward a couple more years and I'm 30. I've been off of buses for a few years, having had to grow up and drive a fancy truck to fit in, in my industry ect. ect. boring....
That and prices of the VW buses have gone through the roof! seriously!!!?? WTF?
So I found myself drooling when I see them, but too financially obligated with a mortgage and truck payment to actually fork out for another.
Once again, the working man gets pushed out of something due to the all mighty $$$.

So anyway, I was driving down in South Georgia with a friend ready to fill my truck on the worlds longest yard sale... About 50miles of yard sales one weekend a year... pretty awesome, when I saw this tiny bus on the side of the road, and I stopped...



I went home, sold a scooter and went back and bought that 2002 Chevy 3500 mid bus for $1,900!!!
I tore out the seats, build some bunk beds, stero, it already had A/C and only 99k miles, so I drove it all around the east coast with the dogs and g/f and did a couple things to it, awning, blinds ect.





pretty standard build for a first timer with more excitment than dedication.
I had a blast and then...

found you guys!! started reading, reading and reading...
I started wanting a diesel, big tires, and all the space of a big boy bus.
so, I sold it to fund my current and 2nd school bus.
a 93 bluebird TC 200



and that is the day after I drove it home. Dec. 19th 2015.

[scootie]

That is awesome EastCoast, from where I sit, Skoolies are the new VW!
-affordable
-easy to work on
-can live in them
-turns heads everywhere you go
-slow
- one million smiles per gallon! (actual smileage may very)

[scootie]

here starts the real fun. going much bigger this time as far as build goes,... keeping in mind, that I am used to living in a VW bus or much less when it comes to camping.
So although this turns out to be pretty nice, it's not intended to be a RV with slides and a movie viewing room. Atlhough that's cool, it's not my style. I will be keeping as many windows as I can, and keeping the school bus look as much as possible.

moving on.. standard demo process...

seats out..




PS: I'm a contractor, so Ive got material I have been hording for the build in the photos I often never wind up using.
i.e. wire in photo, I never use, if anyone wants this(for there bus) it's free in ATL.



removing rivets, I used a method I'm calling grind and twist which was faster than the air chisel grinder combo alot of people talk about.
in that method, I use a grinding wheel (not a cut off wheel) and make a vertical cut through the rivet, then turn the grinder 90 degrees grinding off the entire head.
Just the way I do it....



note, this bus came out of service in 2015 due to having the wood sub floors starting to come apart along with the rubber around the wheel chair entry.

[scootie]

walls off..


grind off glue, made a good surface for rubberized undercoat
I put some good flex caulk on all the joints inside the panels just for good measure. 25 year from sherwin williams.

If there is anything I learned from driving around in my tiny short bus, it's that it is LOUD at 70 MPH! like so loud, so I really wanted to not only feel good about going the extra mile, but aslo to dampen the road noise as much as possible.





oh look, that caulk is even pictured in that photo...
I think it was a reasonable 37.00 a case. (on sale)



ok, much more to come, but I am tired of uploading photos for now.
It gets better, hang in there.

[Robin97396]

Nice progression over the years, but where did your hair go? Same place as mine apparently.
Buses are a lot more fun that a VW. About ten times as much work too.

[Cjb52215]

I've never owned a VW, but I worked my way through A&P school at a VW shop restoring bugs and busses. One of the best jobs I've ever had. I would love to have a split window bus, but they go for crazy amounts of money these days

[scootie]

I still have all my hair, I'm just not keeping it all on my head these days.

[Robin97396]

Roger that. Nose, ears and other weirder places.

[scootie]

roger that Robin!

Next comes the legal parts of the Bus. insurance ect.
So I have been round and round with these issues for a long time and my 2 cents goes like this.
1. go to DMV with proper paperwork in order
2. be polite & smile
3. don't say "school bus" call it what it is, in my case a Bluebird TC2000
4. call it a custom motorhome, if you call it anything.

Instead of going downtown (my nearest DMV) where customer service is really bad and lines are long, people are trying to pull something over on them to avoid taxes ect... I went out to the burbs, and got turned down for a tag, then instead of leaving, I asked to speak to the mgr, and joked around with her expaining that it was infact an rv, and that I had it insured as such. Which is true. She was able to change some stuff in the computer, and just like that, in the condition shown in the above pictures, I got my tag and title.
WHen the title came in the mail, it read Motorhome!!!!
That was a real high point for me, b/c I was not sure how this whole thing would go..

[scootie]

out comes the roof vents
the day I took them out, I cut up some ceiling material to cover from the outside. this got a good bead of silicone and proved to be enough to hold out rain until I got it properly welded shut and framed out from the inside to receive a rooftop A/C unit.
14.5"x14.5" is the standard rough opening for A/C
I think the roof vent holes were 2'x2'
so there is some fabrication to be done inside and outside.

[scootie]

here is once I have removed the sub floors and found a pretty good amount of surface rust. ceilings and old insulation also mostly gone.







thats about the worst of the rust....

here is some photos ofter a good scraping and sanding.





Once I washed all the loose stuff it looked much much better.

Oh, did I mention I am doing this whole build at my parking spot, so no local power, water ect.
I am reduced to what tools I have battery powered, or running off one of two ryobi whispering generators 2k watt ea.

[scootie]

also, if you are wondering what the white stuff on the ceiling is, its rattle can as seen on tv sealant stuff. you know the one where he turns some screen doors into a boat. I bought it on a whim at home depot and thought I would go ahead and seal the rivets from the inside as well... Don't know that this will actually do anything, but If I never know, thats b/c it isn't leaking....

[scootie]

the above photo also shows just how many holes are in the steel floor after removing the sub floors.
a million.
I next get out the grinder and really go nuts. wire brushes, flap disks, naval jelly, rust dissolver, probably spent 4 eight hour days preparing the floors for welding up...

I can still feel the back pain and smell the rust boogers. what a PITA.

here is a close up after all that of seat holes that need to be welded.


just count those holes...

[Robin97396]

Looking good. Your floor looks great. Yeah, I have memories of the backache.

My first bus was worse than that over the whole floor being deeply pitted, but luckily it was a shorty. That's the one I used blackjack roof repair on before putting down new 3/4" ply. It plugs the holes at the same time. Didn't smell either.

[REDD]

Lookin good so far!

VW Beetles, 2 buggies 10 bugs....no buses.

Still got hair down to my arm pits, startin to get a beanie at 53 years old.

[scootie]

Do you tow your bugs dingy style behind the bus?
I've been doing some light research on finding a cheap tow car to have behind us on long trips, and the Bug just dawned on me! Like, light blub above the head!

I was looking at the smart cars, because prices on those have dropped like crazy. there are several in my town for sale for 4k ish.

But, the vintage Bug! what an idea

[cadillackid]

Smart cars tow very easily.. and because the transmissions are effectively manuals with an actuator, you dont have issues with flat towing like you do with auto transaxle cars..

I love my smart car.. its a blast to drive and has a lot more creature comforts than an old beetle bug..

-Christopher

[cadillackid]

I surely shouldve had my smart car behind me now though.. it wouldve made this now 4 day breakdown in the middle of absolutely nowhere georgia much easier then relying on incompetent mobile service companies..

-Christopher