Bork in America - Page 4

BizarroSkunkBus · 07-30-2018, 04:23 PM

Great posts and great pictures!! I am a new owner to a very similar piece of machinery, just starting to clear her out and was curious if you had any issues unbolting your drivers seat to replace it? I can't wait to see some travel updates

Bork · 08-02-2018, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BizarroSkunkBus

Great posts and great pictures!! I am a new owner to a very similar piece of machinery, just starting to clear her out and was curious if you had any issues unbolting your drivers seat to replace it? I can't wait to see some travel updates

Our seat came out easily, they have some star head bolts and nuts that hold them in, not torque, the invert of them. You dont need the special socket, I think a 17? mm fits over them nicely. Just keep spraying penetrating oil on them for a day or so and try to get as much crud off the threads with a wire brush as you can. If you strip it out with a normal socket, get a cheap set of 12pt from the horror freight and hit a smaller one of those onto it with a hammer and try again. Heat is your friend so get out the blow torch if they look bad. Heat until there is a color change.

Bork · 08-02-2018, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BizarroSkunkBus

Great posts and great pictures!! I am a new owner to a very similar piece of machinery, just starting to clear her out and was curious if you had any issues unbolting your drivers seat to replace it? I can't wait to see some travel updates

Congratulations on the new bus! Feel free to ask away or send me any messages, I will try to get to them when I have Internet.

Frochevy · 09-04-2018, 08:39 PM

Great job on all of your fabrication work! I'm thinking of builind a rear platform like you did. I hauled a small generator in the back of my bus last week for college football tailgating and left the rear windows down. It still stunk up the whole bus! So I'd like a rack to carry generator. I may also use your idea of a spot to hold propane tank! Is that just an under mount tool box mounted on the side? Is your on demand hot water heater always be outside? and is it plumbed inside as well or just for outside showers? Sorry for all the questions!

Bork · 09-16-2018, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frochevy

Great job on all of your fabrication work! I'm thinking of builind a rear platform like you did. I hauled a small generator in the back of my bus last week for college football tailgating and left the rear windows down. It still stunk up the whole bus! So I'd like a rack to carry generator. I may also use your idea of a spot to hold propane tank! Is that just an under mount tool box mounted on the side? Is your on demand hot water heater always be outside? and is it plumbed inside as well or just for outside showers? Sorry for all the questions!

questions are great, do not be sorry for them. Thank you for the kind words. The box for the propane is just an under-mount tool box. I think it came from ebay at $75 or something. The water heater is always outside and it is plumbed into the sink on the inside of the bus as well as the outside shower. I got it at home-depot and it works great. The settings are on as low as they go and its still almost too hot.

To everyone else, I apologize for not updating yet, the real world has been keeping me so busy since we got back I hardly have time to do anything....

Frochevy · 09-16-2018, 07:56 PM

Thanks for answering my questions! I made end up doing a setup like yours. I shamelessly copied your idea of the rear platform. I really like how you made your wood flush with the frame so that's what I did with mine. Made it a little more of a pain to build, but I really like the look. One more question, what brand is your hot water heater and does it require 120v to ignite? If so, are you running off of an invertor? Thanks!

Rovobay · 09-16-2018, 08:45 PM

nice metal fab work. do you have to reroute the brake and turn signals? seems like they are not visible with the propane housing in the way...

Bork · 09-17-2018, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frochevy

Thanks for answering my questions! I made end up doing a setup like yours. I shamelessly copied your idea of the rear platform. I really like how you made your wood flush with the frame so that's what I did with mine. Made it a little more of a pain to build, but I really like the look. One more question, what brand is your hot water heater and does it require 120v to ignite? If so, are you running off of an invertor? Thanks!

I got the Eccotemp L5 Portable Point-Of-Use Gas Tankless Water Heater from home depot. It is ignited with a couple of batteries that are housed in it so you dont need 120v ac for it to work. I highly recommend it, comes with everything you need and if something fails on the road you can just bring it back and get a new one.

Bork · 09-17-2018, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rovobay

nice metal fab work. do you have to reroute the brake and turn signals? seems like they are not visible with the propane housing in the way...

yes, the propane housing does block the bus lights. I added two LED lights to the bumper, you can see them In the 4th to last photo. In NY you only need one white backup light so all I needed to do was splice into the wires under the bus. I added a plugin for trailer lights as well.

Bork · 12-06-2019, 12:12 PM

I know it has been years but I finally got back into the site to post some pictures. The last three weeks were interesting for the bus build. We took off from NY and headed south to the carolinas, turned west to new mexico, headed north a bit to get into utah, went to the coast of california, north to washington, then back across the northern states to home. We were gone for 9 or 10 weeks I believe, stopped to see many friends and family and went to 12 national parks and about 10-11k miles. It was truly the greatest trip and experience of my life... so far. Lots of things were done to the bus that I did not have time to document the process of but I will gladly go back and explain anything I can to help out. The only mechanical issues we had were overheating and a fuel pump. Both fun stories, the overheating was the previous owners fault, he didnt hook up the transmission cooler when he put new transmission lines on..... that doesnt help a 13000lb bus get over the continental divide, or cruise through utah at 110 degrees.... fun story short a new cooler, thermostat and two electric fans in a fresno parking lot kept us plenty cool the rest of the trip. The fuel pump was a fiasco in montana... a story for another day but I changed it out in a parking lot. I will post up a bunch of photos, ask about anything you see. Thanks guys!

o1marc · 12-06-2019, 01:39 PM

Sounds like a fun trip. Looking forward to one like it myself.

Frochevy · 12-07-2019, 07:24 AM

Your rig is looking great! And it sounds like you all had a great time!!! I would love to go on a Trip like that some day!

How many Jack's did you install? Did it keep the bus from shaking or moving when camping? I've been thinking about putting some on mine...

leadsled01 · 12-09-2019, 06:33 AM

Fantastic did that trailer hitch scrape a lot?

Bork · 12-10-2019, 05:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frochevy

Your rig is looking great! And it sounds like you all had a great time!!! I would love to go on a Trip like that some day!

How many Jack's did you install? Did it keep the bus from shaking or moving when camping? I've been thinking about putting some on mine...

Thank you, I put two jacks in the back. This bus was so loaded that it didnt sway much just being inside of it, especially since most of the human movement is in the center aisle. They did make it stable when down and if that is a concern for you I would put two in the front as well. make sure you bolt them on instead of welding in case you drive off and forget to put them up.... The second reason I put them on there was so I could lift up the back axle if I needed to change a tire. luckily i didnt need to do that but it did help when I had to change the fuel pump.

Bork · 12-10-2019, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leadsled01

Fantastic did that trailer hitch scrape a lot?

The hitch did take a few scrapes. anytime there was an inclined entrance or exit we had to go across it at an angle so it didnt hit. but inclines that were large enough to worry about weren't that common. typical driving was no issue

TheArgobus · 12-17-2019, 01:07 PM

That kitchen set up looks great. How deep are the overhead cupboards? It kinda looks like our busses have similar "shape" for the above window curve, and we weren't thinking on putting cupboards up there because it didn't seem like there'd be much volume... any pics of them open?

Bork · 12-23-2019, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheArgobus

That kitchen set up looks great. How deep are the overhead cupboards? It kinda looks like our busses have similar "shape" for the above window curve, and we weren't thinking on putting cupboards up there because it didn't seem like there'd be much volume... any pics of them open?

I can get some picture of them open next time I am up near the bus. They were actually just standard kitchen cabinets so they are 12" deep and I just took a two door cabinet, cut it in half where the two doors met and put a new board on the "bottom". I made three of these and screwed them together in a row, then I had to cut out the top back corner of them all to get them to sit kind of flat against the wall with the curve.... hopefully you could follow that, I will get some pictures to help explain....

I would highly recommend putting in as many cabinets as you can fit. If I had more of these I would have put a matching set on the opposite wall.
Storage is a wonderful thing and we had these full. One was everyday stuff like lights, toiletries and the such, one was all of our food that didnt need to be refrigerated, and one was bulky clothing overflow.

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