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Old 04-17-2008, 10:17 AM   #21
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Bus shirt

My mom brought this bus shirt back from Guatemala for me. Bluebird has their South American factory there out of Antigua I think.


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Old 04-17-2008, 10:35 PM   #22
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Re: Xtevan's bus

congrads on nailing a big time job down xman looks good!
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Old 04-18-2008, 07:13 AM   #23
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Yeah, very nice, Xtevan. Getting the paint out of the way has to be a nice feeling. What's next?
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Old 04-18-2008, 09:16 AM   #24
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Getting the A/C units on the roof is pretty high on the priority list, It will make the interior work more pleasant as summer sets in(Houston humidity). I'm going to check out the Habitat Restore Saturday morning, I'm looking for a pair of old closet doors and base cabinets. I needed to create templates for the outer and inner roof profiles last weekend. If I had got the outer roof profile done , I would have cut out the ribs for the roof deck here at the house.

I did get a chance to crawl under the bus and think about black water tank placement. Thinking through where the toilet & shower will go, while disturbing my under body storage as little as possible.

Heard some great music last night at Old Settlers, would have been great to walk back to the bus and call it a night rather driving back into town in the rain.

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Old 04-22-2008, 12:42 PM   #25
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Re: Xtevan's bus

I was not planning on getting out to the ranch to work on the bus, but I ended hauling my folk's riding lawn mower out there for them Sunday afternoon. I struggled in the coastal prairie winds to make a template for the roof contour, took a couple of tries to get close.



I should be able to knock out a deck rib or two on the band saw here to test fit next trip. I am planning to shoot more white paint below the windows, lots of poor coverage in the groves of the side rails and areas of orange peel textures arhg...

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Old 04-22-2008, 07:10 PM   #26
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Having lived in the Clear Lake at one point for 10 yrs. I understand wanting to get AC installed. That's actually high on our list as well. I'm glad you got this bus. When I saw it for sale, it looked like a good find. Looking good, Xtevan. Keep the updates and pics coming.
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Old 05-06-2008, 12:14 AM   #27
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Hit the ranch Saturday- looks like I'm done painting for a while - the kissing bugs were not satisfied with kissing and were swarming all over the bus so very little painting was possible. Started to mix the hammer tone silver in HF detail spray gun- didn't mix well looked like it was reacting. It does not like acetone- reread the directions- thin with Xylene. I could not find Xylene in Columbus,TX on a Sunday so I bought two more rattle cans to finish the wheels/bumpers. Fought with starting the generator for a bit will need to completely clean the out tank and replace the fuel filter next time. Would go for a few seconds with starting fluid.



Things are coming together anyhow, I cut the hole for the front AC with a demolition saw and got the AC in place while retaining all of my fingers!!




I need to fab up a radiused shim to allow the inside control boxes to sit flat below the roof curve so that the inside cover will slide over the switch shafts and attach properly



Sunday afternoon- masking removed mirrors, & antenna replaced





Photographs better than it looks close up. Still just a bit of black graffiti on the windows and a fair amount of white over spray.
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Old 05-19-2008, 08:42 AM   #28
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Re: Xtevan's bus

After a couple of false starts not related to the bus itself, I drove the bus into Austin last night. I'm on a deadline to get things ready for Flip Side this weekend & Kerrville the next two weekends. I need to get the generator to start and finish hooking up the AC. I'm fabing 2 18" long radiused pieces to get the interior AC part to sit flush so the pots/switches will line up. I bought a 3 door wall mount cabinet at habitat last Friday that looks like it will work(30tx17d just under the windows in height but not as deep as kitchen or bath base cabinet), I'm thinking about buying a few more and stacking a pair of them to make a temporary wall between living and sleeping spaces.



When the compressor tipped over it took out a gallon oil container so I'll be cleaning before I can start anything tonight. I didn't notice last night, It had slowly seeped from the back door to the engine cover

Hoping the neighbors don't have a fit before I leave Thursday morning. Oh, there is about 3" of clearance between the house gutter and ladder on the bus!

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Old 05-19-2008, 02:25 PM   #29
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Don't worry about taking someone's spot if they are really 'oldtimers' they bought their stakes and were in line for Landrush yesterday(the sunday before). The friend I usually camp with was third in line, at this point I'm gonna head over Monday and hope to find a place for the bus in the meadow as folk are leaving. This will be the first time in 19 years I've missed the 'big' weekend. The last two weekends are a little less crowded unless a big name is booked. I attended two evenings of the Old Settlers Festival at Camp Ben McCullough across from the Salt Lick in April, will take the bus and camp next year. The cooler weather compared to Kerrville was great, though sometimes the best part of Kerrville is afternoon soaks in the Medina/Guadalupe.

Where is Paleface Park?
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Old 05-28-2008, 12:00 AM   #30
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Threw together a temporary interior on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and most of Thursday last week. Bought the 5 cabinets and bar sink at Habitat for Humanity. Camped at Flipside the regional Burning man event for the weekend. Chatted with a short bus owner from Austin that had a great little rig.

Then I moved the bus over to Kerrville on Monday for the music festival. I think there were 4 other skoolies in the meadow and another one in the RV hookup area.



Living Area from the front- The lower cabinet opens to the living area. The upper cabinet opens to the sleeping area. I've relocated that inverter on the floor into the cabinets.



Living area from rear



Rear Sleeping Area

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Old 06-30-2008, 11:20 AM   #31
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Xtevan's bus

Have not posted in a while.

The three weekends of camping at Flipside & Kerrville went well. While I don't have a baseline for the orange roof before the paint/ceramic bubble mix, I was pleasantly surprised, I typically slept till 11 or so and was awakened by people rather than the heat. My tent camping friends were cooked out of their tents by 9:30.

One of my friends with a lot more small engine experience came up Saturday and helped me get the generator to run. We ended up disassembling the carburetor and carefully reaming out crusty mineral deposits that were sealing up the jets. The two days of soaking in lacquer thinner had done nothing to the gunk built up in the jets. I'm wondering where the last tank of gas run through unit came from, I have never seen a carb gunked up that bad so quickly.

I was really glad to have him there, it's been over a month since I removed the carb and had no idea how the governor linkage was hooked up. I thought I had photographed that part of the assembly oops.

With the AC(Dometic 13500btu) running full blast, the throttle butterfly looks to be about just under half of the travel. That would give 18 hrs with the 6 gallon tank if the specs are true.

The cheap Harbor Fright clamp on meter was reading ~ 16.5 amps high ac/high fan.

I build a simple plywood shelf on the frame rails to place the tank on top of(it was ratchet strapped on top of a cross member). I picked up a spool of 10/2 romex to run permanent connections from the breaker to the AC, but ran out of time to hook things up before we need to get on the road. We took the bus out and camped at Decompression that evening.

Oh almost forgot the tire adventure, looking at my left tire when I moved the bus at Kerrville I noticed that steel belt fibers were coming through the thread. Further inspection of the right front tire showed evidence of the belt slipping. I bought two new front tires in Kerrville before heading home. I knew the left was going to need replacement soon, but was not ready to do both quite yet.

I have bought a heated oil fitter mount and will buy the transfer solenoid valve this week for the SVO conversion.

I think I am going buy one of these Aqua Magic Style "Plus" China Bowl Toilets http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...246028922&rd=1 any bad experiences with these?

Looking forward to the holiday weekend ...
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Old 07-01-2008, 05:43 PM   #32
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Re: Xtevan's bus

I have no personal experience with Thetford (other than a Port-Potti), but if you scroll down to Nick Russell's blog for February 27th http://www.gypsyjournal.net/February%202008%20blog.htm you'll find one 'unhappy camper.'

As always, YMMV. Cheers!
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Old 10-01-2008, 10:50 PM   #33
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Re: Xtevan's bus

It has been eons since I posted a progress report. The last two weeks before Burning Man were nutz. I did my regular day job and worked on the bus/burning man projects most nights till at least 11. Things that got done:

Battery isolation for new house power batteries
Hardwired the AC-rewired all of the wiring from the generator.
Built a new footer and mounted the cabinets that the divide the bus on the wheel hump.
Added door to bed room
Shortened the kitchen counter by a foot for clearance for the bath room
Fab-ed up a bathroom room using doors from habitat
Mounted a 100 gallon black water tank under the bus
Drilled and mounted the closet flange
Changed the oil & filter, trans filter, air filter

I could not find the right size hole saw to cut the inlet to the black water tank before we left. Oh well

There were six of us for the trip. We had 10 bicycles on the roof and hauled camping gear for 5 other folks to bolster the diesel budget. We drove 3698 miles out and back we used 455 gallons of diesel (8.12 mpg). Other than a buzzer going off when we hit orange section on the temperature gauge during long climbs the drive was mechanically uneventful, I need to check if the thermostat is stuck only half open.


Texas Canyon in AZ on the way home

I met Elliot and got to see Millicent and his human powered creations. My crew was equally impressed with his creations.



Jay on Elliot's trike with Millicent in the back ground

Our Home for the week


The dust storms were much worse than last year, though the heat was not bad at all for us Austin natives. I did not use the AC in the bus at all once on the playa.



Pirate Ship themed Art car in dust storm
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Old 10-01-2008, 11:17 PM   #34
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Black water tank- I attached unistrut to the bottom of the bus with a lot of 1/2" bolts (and #14 sheet metal screws to stiffen things) then hung the tank with 1/2" all thread and more unistrut



Changes amid ship, bath room enclosure, door to bedroom, dividing cabinet moved back over wheel wells



I cut the cabinets down by 10" or so to create more room for the door..

Will need to resecure the bath walls to the ceiling, may have to radius a piece of 2x6 to go inside the hollow core section

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Old 10-01-2008, 11:20 PM   #35
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Thanks for sharing the pctures of Burning Man and your (& Elliot's) bus(es).
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Old 10-06-2008, 12:41 PM   #36
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Cool.... Thanks for the pics
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Old 12-09-2008, 04:50 PM   #37
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Winter update

Hey Kids,

I took the bus out over the Thanksgiving weekend to a burner camp out on Canyon Lake. I was in a pretty down mood loading up- but when that diesel fired up & I got on the road It was amazing how I perked up- my body knew I was headed out on an adventure for a change. Had a great weekend, though it was really chilly for early morning runs out to the bushes- need to get busy on the plumbing.

The propane radiant heaters I bought from Harbor Freight were not a winner I took them back.

I have been really burned out from work stress this fall so I have not completed any thing major on the bus since the burning man prep week. Have not been thinking about bus stuff recently until I stumbled upon Elliot's thread over at Eplaya.http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=27783

I started replacing the rear shocks I was only able to replace the right one, I even borrowed a good 1/2" impact gun from work, It won't budge the top left nut.

I started on the toilet project again, bought a spool of pex and yet more plumbing fittings. Only to find the center hole where I mounted the closet flange in the bathroom is centered right over the unistrut slot on the top of the black water tank. The tank position is pretty much fixed by the end of the leaf springs on one side and the fuel tank on the other, so I will need to drill another hole in the floor six inches further back and redo the rear wall.

Jimmy- I have the bus parked behind a friend's house in east Austin where it's less visible to the neighbors. I plan on taking it to freezer burn in January so It may not go back to the ranch this winter. John has been reminding me we need to get to work on the plumbing, If we schedule a work day when we will be at the bus I'll pm you.
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Old 04-28-2009, 12:24 AM   #38
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Updates

Hey Kids, Its been a while since I posted here or have done much bus stuff. Work absorbed way too much of my life this fall. Got laid off in March but still have not slowed down enough to make much progress on the bus. We took the bus out to Old Settlers Music Festival last weekend and had a great time even with the rain. The girlfriend was ecstatic to be way above the mud in a real bed during Friday nights showers. Though she is now motivating me to get on with the running water and bathroom.

I met a pair of skoolies at Old Settlers and sent them this direction. It was great looking at their rigs.
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Old 06-28-2009, 07:39 PM   #39
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Hey kids,

It's been a while. I have running water and the toilet works now! Not that Mr Murphy didn't but in...






Moving the outlet over means I'll need to adjust the right wall out also. I filled the extra hole with plywood and used adhesive tiles to re-floor. The pump is still sitting on top of one of my 20 gallon water barrels with the aid of tie-wraps. I ran 1/2" pex down the chair rail on the left side. The girlfriend is really happy with the running water.

We had three great weekends on the bus between the regional burn & Kerrville folk fest. I had Clint Gamble a Kerrville diesel mechanic tune my injector pump up a bit. He was very reasonable. Ended up having him replace the throttle cable after it broke also. Had really good experiences with guys at the bluebird dealership getting the cable in San Antonio- not at all like my car dealership horror stories. Now I need to work on the speedometer

I scored complete 6 pairs of these commuter bus seats- which completely scrambles my layout plans.



These were mounted down to short sections of T-slot rails inlaid flush with the floor, any idea where I could find it by the foot?
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Old 07-12-2009, 08:32 PM   #40
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Re: Xtevan's bus

Finished for now bathroom...



the tiles look far better than I excepted, am tempted to buy a full box and do the rest of the bus
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