Am I on the right track? Sealing/Painting Floors and Insulation

[OldBlue]

Howdy! First post so far. Bought our 36 passenger bus from a church about 6 weeks ago. Have only been able to work 1-2 days per week on it as it's located a little ways from where we live but we're movin right along with her!

We've got the seats out and the floors up and have also sanded the rust and I spent extra time on the heavily rusted areas. 40 Grit flap discs worked out great! only used 2 and there's still life left in em.

Now here's where I'm questioning myself. Here's what I've got planned:
Clean the floor up with liquid TSP > Follow up with Prep and Etch treatment
Clean floor again > Roll on Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer
Roll on Rustoleum Protective Enamel with insulating beads
Furring strips/studs > Rigid foam in between studs
Err.. right??

What should be done with the side panels that have rust growth? Grind down and treat with Prep and Etch, Seal adjoining pieces of metal with polyurethane, Spray Rusty Metal primer and be done?

Should the holes in the floor be sealed before top coating the floor or before priming the floor and after the Prep and Etch?

Would it be alright to tape around the edges of the insulation with aluminum foil tape or would that trap and moisture created from condensation?

So many questions!!!

[Mark_In_MA]

Originally Posted by OldBlue

Howdy! First post so far. Bought our 36 passenger bus from a church about 6 weeks ago. Have only been able to work 1-2 days per week on it as it's located a little ways from where we live but we're movin right along with her!

We've got the seats out and the floors up and have also sanded the rust and I spent extra time on the heavily rusted areas. 40 Grit flap discs worked out great! only used 2 and there's still life left in em.

Now here's where I'm questioning myself. Here's what I've got planned:
Clean the floor up with liquid TSP > Follow up with Prep and Etch treatment
Clean floor again > Roll on Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer
Roll on Rustoleum Protective Enamel with insulating beads
Furring strips/studs > Rigid foam in between studs
Err.. right??

What should be done with the side panels that have rust growth? Grind down and treat with Prep and Etch, Seal adjoining pieces of metal with polyurethane, Spray Rusty Metal primer and be done?

Should the holes in the floor be sealed before top coating the floor or before priming the floor and after the Prep and Etch?

Would it be alright to tape around the edges of the insulation with aluminum foil tape or would that trap and moisture created from condensation?

So many questions!!!

I'd say don't bother with the insulating beads on the floor, since you're going to have foam on top. I don't think the extra cost will be all that worth it.

I would do the prep and etch, prime the floor, THEN seal the holes in it. That way, you know that all surfaces of the holes have been treated and given one protective coat. When the top coat is applied, it should hopefully seal everything together and make it water-tight.

What I'd do on the walls depends on how bad they are, and what I'm going to do to the floor. If there's a lot of rust on the wall panels, then I might just go along and treat them the same as the floor. Do it all at once. If the panel was rusty, then it will get treated the same way the floor does. At some point, it becomes easier to just do everything with one set of materials in one process.

If there isn't that much rust on the wall panels, then I'd just wire brush, rustoleum rust converter (The brush-on, not the spray - I don't trust the penetration of the spray), quick top-coat, and forget about it.

[WhiteWhale]

I would highly recommend Por 15 over Rustoleum on the floor. I have dealt with both and Poe 15 is many times better in my opinion. Me, my wife, and my two dogs have been walking directly on the Por 15 coated stairs of our bus for several months and not one bit has scratched off (I havent got around to trimming the stairs out....)

We sealed the floor holes with little pieces of flashing glued on with a heavy duty adhesive caulking. Directly over the painted/sealed floors I laid down wall to wall foam board, with 3/4" structural plywood on top. No need for furring strips/studs if you use a good rigid foam, and structural 3/4 ply should give you plenty of nailing for cabinets etc. I did run 2x2's on top of plywood at edges screwed to walls to help keep everything held down. Oh and I glues foam board to floor and then glued plywood to foam.

[Oldmopars]

When it came to sealing the holes in the floor left by the seats, I used this roof flashing from Home Depot. Nashua Tape 6 in. x 50 ft. Select Window and Door Flashing Tape-1343003 - The Home Depot

It works just like tape, clean the surface, cut a square and stick it down. Super easy, and designed to seal roofs, so should seal a floor just fine.

[Crozz]

I did a fair bit of product review and combined with what I learned this is what I would suggest.

We cleaned as much of the rust as possible and wire brushed all the loose stuff away. Then I used Coroseal to convert the rust which also sealed the floors. Once dried after a week I then painted rustoleum over the floor. I let the paint fall through the bolt holes to help seal them. I then used pennies and epoxy tube stuff to glue the pennies down over the holes.

Once the metal floor prep was finished we layed down r5 rigid foam insulation. Next I put condiut down where I wanted it and ran some of the wiring and plumbing and cut the path out of the foam. One of the last things I did was to use deck stain on 3/4 inc particle board like that used in building house exterior walls. I layed that down on top of everything.

To seal around the doors and up over the insulation I used some of that metal flashing tape that comes from HD which sealed the door areas very nicely. (shown above)

If your floor is bare and since summer is coming I would highly recommend taking the windows out and spraying the inside of the bus. It made a huge impact on ours. While we're moving slow it seems to be solid.

[Robin97396]

That's a lot of work. Keep on plowing through it.