Buster the '05 Ford E450

[roach711]

Originally Posted by mattbus

@Rusty Definitely a bit OCD, haha. I take all my tools back in and clean/organize things every few days. I'm not sure if it wastes more time putting everything back, or looking for them when I don't put them back... haha.

I used to do maintenance at a home for abused kids and we had to account for our tools whenever leaving a cottage to prevent the kids from using them as weapons. When the place closed the habit stayed with me.

[mattbus]

Drilled the drain hole and installed the shower pan/drain, used shower/tub adhesive to keep things in place


Had to bump out the wall 3/4" of an inch here to be flush with the shower base, and leaving a space for the old chair rail left a perfect place to run my toilet exhaust fan power cable


Still fits where it's supposed to


Installing the flooring. LifeProof "Fresh Oak" from Home Depot online, wasn't sold in my store


Overall it's a bit darker than I expected based on the sample peice I picked up from HD, but I like it. This photo is a bit dark anyways


I slightly under estimated how much I would need (trying to be cheap...), so one more box of flooring is on order to finish it up

[jtgt25]

Haha the more you finish the more it looks close to my plan. I am going for a bit longer counter though and no garage.

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[jtgt25]

Hey did you not have wheel wells in yours? Already jealous that you didn't have the a.c. to remove.

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[Rovobay]

Hey great build. I joined today and I am really enjoying the information I am getting... I am getting excited to start my own build. I am really interested in how your plumbing will go. I still have soooo many questions but forums like this really help answer a lot of these questions because of quality posts like yours. what brand of toilet do you have? it looks like it has its own black water tank. was it your internal height? keep those quality posts coming!

[mattbus]

@jtgt25 No wheel wells in mine.

@Rovobay Toilet is a Nature's Head composting toilet, so no black water/tank to deal with. Internal height was around 74"-75" I think when everything was gutted. It's right around 73" with the ceiling and floor in, so it's a bit close for me at 6ft tall but it's honestly been fine working in there so far.

[Jtred006]

So, maybe a stupid question, but is this one not a 10 ft height? Looking at one that's 23ft long and showing 10ft height...

[Whywalk]

Originally Posted by Robin97396

Nice shorty Dude. It's not often one can say that to another guy.

Hahahaha

[lovetofly65]

GREAT looking bus my man!! I am starting my next build in the next few weeks. picking up the new bus a week from today! Does anyone have a measurement of the side windows? I have a 6 window bus that i bought and I am trying to figure out how long it is from the front seat to the back wall. Been working on layouts and what not. I think its 15'. Anyway.... Really enjoying this build. Love the wood and layout. Keep the pics coming!!

[Rovobay]

nice. looking at a 5 window thomas. sub'd for reference

[chasingsunshine]

Any more updates on the build? Loving it and would love to see more pics

[JustBunny]

Hey Matt! I’m here in Rochester myself. Just joined this forum today and found your awesome conversion.
As much as I would love a short skoolie, I really start to have my doubts when I see exactly how much work is involved. LOL

Looks like a bunch of us would love to see some updates and if it’s not out of line to ask, I would love an in person tour!

[gzimmerman372]

What are the floor dimensions of the bus before you put the bathroom in?

[Adamk89]

Love this build! Hoping for some updates soon. Curious what the dimensions of the bathroom area are?

Thanks!

[CLEW]

This looks interesting. What are the inside dimensions of this bus with everything removed?

[mattbus]

Sorry for the long hiatus, I'm back with a quick update. I haven't made much more progress on the interior yet, but I finally painted the bus! And to be honest, I never want to paint any kind of bus/car/whatever every again, haha. Between the prep, rain, wind, a dirty/dusty parking lot, and working on this after work every night for a couple weeks it turned into quite a project that, for me personally, was definitely less enjoyable than working on the interior.

A lot of time was spent getting the reflective strips off all sides of the bus first, sanding and priming rusty areas, and wiping the whole bus down with de-glosser. The first coat of paint (1 gallon Rustoleum) I did with brush and roller, which took a long time and really just didn't cover all that well or get into the cracks and corners well either. For the second coat I went out and bought a Wagner sprayer (~$100), which went super fast, but there are definitely a lot of runs. Honestly, I've never painted anything like this before, so whether it was the wrong kind of sprayer, the paint was too thick, or I'm just not that great of a painter I'm not sure, haha. If you get within 10ft of the bus you can definitely see all the paint runs, but from a distance, it looks pretty good and more importantly it's not yellow anymore!

I put a final coat of Bus Kote and Clear Coat on the roof as well. Only things left to do on the exterior is to paint the rims black and apply a black pinstripe to cover the seam where the grey meets the white roofline.

[SpencerVDS]

I think it looks great! Glad to see an update from you, this is one of my favourite buses on here and you've done some great work. Please keep us posted when you can!

[spwath]

Looks really good. Where did you buy your bus? I live in Rochester as well, and am looking into getting a short bus.

[mattbus]

@spwath Don Brown Bus Sales, www.buscrazy.net, it's about a 3-hour drive from Rochester but they have a huge selection. I'd recommend them for sure.

Small update from the weekend, built a small shelf for my fridge and stove. Added some wheels to the bottom of the fridge as well so it can slide right out. Overkill? Probably. But they fit perfectly and screwed into the existing feet threads easily.

[Whywalk]

Ohhhhh! Which model fridge is that? I’m looking at Engels, too.
Nice work!