Seeking leads to 40 ft Bluebird front diesel on West Coast

[captainkf]

A challenge with raising the roof behind the drivers area may be when it comes time to insulate. You will not be able to carry a consistant thickness from the front to back of the ceiling and floor. This may cause the already cold drivers area to become very cold with minimal insulation. Also you may have to create two floor heights.

Just a thought.

-Richard

[Les Lampman]

Originally Posted by Elliot Naess

I don't understand why people tear out the old floor. That has to be a ton of work! Unless it is that the plywood is rotten like on my first bus -- the floor was actually soft in many areas. On Millicent (my new TC2000) I will leave the floor alone. Mind you, we are not trying to make Millicent into any kind of Wanderlodge. Everything will be crude and simple and functional. Drag pounds of mud in on our shoes and hose it out with the garden hose.

I'll try to chronicle the roof lift here.

I have to laugh! Here's a guy about to raise the roof on a 40' long bus saying that pulling up some rubber and ply from the floor must be a ton of work! [You're quite likely right but my goodness, in comparison I think the floor is a piece of cake. ]

I want (no, make that feel I need to, since I don't really want to do it) to pull the floor for a couple fo reasons; one is that I want to make sure, since I am going for a Wanderlodge result, that the floor is in good shape and secondly, I'd like to attempt to get some insulation in the floor without increasing its height. For instance, if it's 3/4" ply now and the rubber mat maybe I can do 1/2" rigid foam and 1/2" ply and only lose 1/4" of headroom but end up with much better insualtion.

The theme here is that I don't really want to raise the roof if it isn't absolutely necessary to maintain sufficient headroom. I suppose, in the spirit of converters everywhere, I should look at it as a fun and interesting challenge and just go for it but I don't know the first darn thing about welding or metal work and that tends to make it look like an intimidating process. Hmmm...maybe I should wait for better weather in the spring and in the meantime I can take a welding class during the winter quarter at the Community College (it's about 45 minutes from me). I still have lots of work inside (like taking out all the seats and interior panels, and at least the rubber floor), and some mechanical work (upgrades, etc) that will keep me busy over the winter at any rate. Decisions, decisions!

[Les Lampman]

Originally Posted by captainkf

A challenge with raising the roof behind the drivers area may be when it comes time to insulate. You will not be able to carry a consistant thickness from the front to back of the ceiling and floor. This may cause the already cold drivers area to become very cold with minimal insulation. Also you may have to create two floor heights.

Just a thought.

-Richard

Hmmm...you lost me on this one. Really I'm just mimicking what the Thomas factory does on their tall top buses; they come back about 20" from the front of the roof and start a transition to the higher roof level, which starts at the frame ahead of the forward most side window (at the aft end of the entry door). The interior ceiling does the same thing, it just follows the contour of the outside and maintains the spacing between the outer skin and the inner ceiling (about 1.5" or so).

Most of the road bus (Eagle, MCI, GMC, Prevost, etc) conversions are done like this only on a much more extensive level. It amazes (and scares me! ) to see those conversions with all the side skin off, the roof raised, and the coach frame all but totally rebuilt. Ye gads! What a tremendous effort that must be.

[Elliot Naess]

Les:
Aha, that makes sense. Wood is only a fair insulator; and worse if it is saturated with water. 1/2 inch of polyiso would probably be an improvement. And you are going for a "Wanderlodge". I think about that, but it is not realistic for me. So I'm going for the "Mobile Command Post" look -- spartan and functional.
And I have some experience working with metal; No problem.
Pulled all the seats over the weekend. And stripped the de-commissioned bus of everything including the kitchen sink -- and one fuel tank and both storage compartments.

[Les Lampman]

Ok...this is "general chatter" for your new thread...'cause I didnt' want to be the first to mess it up over there!

Good luck! And I'll be watching intently to see how it goes.

All the best...

[Elliot Naess]

Yes, I made it official: Millicent the Mobile Command Center and Tea Parlor will be chronicled in the Conversion Projects section. See you all there!