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Old 03-23-2006, 12:13 PM   #1
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holding tanks and storage bins

I have a 66 passenger bus and wonder if there is any problem placing a 40 gallon fresh water tank and grey and black water tanks behind the rear wheels. Does it cause any handling problems? Any tendency to pop wheelies? Also what kind of straps are used to hold the tanks securely and where does one find them. I am not a welder.

Also my bus has no undercarriage storage. Any ideas for a spot for propane, extra battery, generator etc?

Tim

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Old 03-23-2006, 12:59 PM   #2
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I was a little leary at first when I was thinking 120 gallons of "stuff" behind the wheels, but then I got to thinking. Basically you will start out with only 40 gallons worth of fresh water. I suppose you could have something in the other tanks, but conservation of mass comes into play here. Basically...what comes out of the fresh tank will end up in one of the other tanks. That means on 40 gallons of water plus whatever other waste you generate. In theory you could fill the fresh tank twice and only then have to empty the other tanks, but that's just theory and not the least bit practical. What it comes down to is you having about 335 lbs of weight from the water (if a gallon weighs 8.36-not sure on that factor). That really isn't that much weight in my humble opinion. Certainly you'll be adding some waste to it, but how much can it weigh?

I'm not sure on what material you might want to use to secure your tanks. My grey tank (no black on the bus) is just a 55 gallon plastic drum. I plan to build a simple drop down bolt on bracket out of some angle iron I have to support it. The solid supports will be capable of holding it, but will really just have the purpose of lateral stability as I plan to "cradle" it in some old seatbelt material. Seat belt material is rated for a 500 lbs static load and some incredible dynamic load so I think it should be fine. It will be chaf-free and more than capable of holding the weight. Should the belts ever fail, the metal bracket will be able to hold it. I know it sounds a little extreme and a little booty fab, but I don't want to lose that tank or have problems with it so I'm just taking every possible precaution. If my idea doesn't work I'll try something else.
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Old 03-23-2006, 04:25 PM   #3
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Jason has his entire hot tub sitting behind the rear wheels & it holds over 400 gallons of water + the weight of the tub, pumps, metal pieces from his lift project. I've never seen his bus do any wheelies, & I don’t think it effects handling, although it is much slower on take off & gets fuel economy with the tub full.

On the up side his bus drove much better in the sand than mine did (to a point) I was spotting him while he was parking on the beach last week & he was driving through some pritty deep beach sand and the rear tires never even lost traction. My bus on the other hand was terrible in the sand; he had to pull me out several times. I think it has to do with all the extra weight he has over his back axle.
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Old 03-23-2006, 07:40 PM   #4
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I made my grey-water tank (no black-water tank 'cause I have a composting toilet) from a 10' piece of 8" PVC drain pipe. I attached it to the bus by installing eye-bolts in the transverse beams, and then lashing it in place with 5/8" nylon rope.







I wish I had used a larger diameter of pipe, as it would hold more water (my tank has a 25 gallon capacity).

I don't plan to travel with the tank full, so there won't be a lot of weight swinging around under there, and it really can't swing anywhere because other frame members block it in place.


http://www.skoolie.net/gallery2/HoldingTankConstruction

I need to paint it black. Then you couldn't see it at all.
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Old 03-24-2006, 09:48 AM   #5
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Re: holding tanks and storage bins

Quote:
Originally Posted by shaggy
I have a 66 passenger bus and wonder if there is any problem placing a 40 gallon fresh water tank and grey and black water tanks behind the rear wheels. Does it cause any handling problems? Any tendency to pop wheelies? Also what kind of straps are used to hold the tanks securely and where does one find them. I am not a welder.

Also my bus has no undercarriage storage. Any ideas for a spot for propane, extra battery, generator etc?

Tim
You won't have any touble with that amount of weight behind the rear axles. As an aside my 65-passenger bus has 4-windows (and had 8 seats) behind the axle. That could have been 23 kids (the very rear left seat was only 2-wide) or 11 adults; something between say 1925 pound for eleven 175# adults (those are FAA folks) or 2300# for twenty-three 100# kids. Not very scientific but you get the idea. No bus I've ever been in has been labeled to not allow everyone to sit in back and you know the feds would have required this if it was an issue. If anything it probably just makes it ride better (like you can tell in a school bus!).

There are lots of ideas for storage and such but one bus I refer to all the time is in the photo gallery on this site; it's called BruinGilda and he's done everything you're asking about with regard to propane, genset, storage, etc.
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Old 03-25-2006, 09:22 AM   #6
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Hi Shaggy--

I too thought of consolidating my fresh & waste water tanks in the rear of the bus...but one of the realities of it killed the idea (for me). That reality being that the wastewater will have to drain from it's point-of-use via gravity to the tank.

The freshwater can be moved via pump so there's a lot more flexibility with tank placement.

Water pipe needs 1/4" drop for every foot of horizontal travel for poper drainage. This didn't seem like a big deal to me until I had drawn a detailed layout and realized that the water has to drain from the *bottom* of a point of use (for instance, a trap on a shower drain) to the *top* of the wastewater tank.

Anyway, just sharing my $.02 since I've dealt with this in the past week or two & it's fresh in my head. Here's what we did.

Hope this helps--
Sean
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Old 03-28-2006, 09:33 AM   #7
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I totally concur with SeanF; my response was only with regard to the weight of the tanks and water not the practicality of it depending on what your floor plan is and where the tanks are located.
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