PigPen

[PigPen]

Anyone know if it's necessary to be able to access the fuel lines going into the tank from inside the bus?

Our bus has that inconvenient design where the lines came through the inside of the bus briefly. It was covered with a piece of metal. This metal cap was sealed with adhesive and screws to the wall and floor. I'm currently planning on reusing it to make it easy to keep water out of the interior of the bus, but I don't want to seal it up if I'll ever need to open that up for some reason. I can't see any reason it would be necessary, but I've been wrong enough to know to ask!

[Robin97396]

The access hole is so you can get to the top of your fuel tank without dropping onto the ground to gain access.

[PigPen]

Sorry, I did a bad job explaining. This is unrelated to the access hole to get to the tank. I guess it would be called the filler neck? I'm not sure. It's the area where the nozzle goes in when pumping gas. On my bus, this intrudes into the interior space and was covered by a piece of metal that screws to the floor and wall. I've never done work on this area, on any car or truck, ever, but I don't want to permanently seal it up if there is some other reason for it other than they had to route the 'filler neck' inside the bus for gravity to do its work and get the fuel into the tank.

[Robin97396]

They used to do that on pickup trucks too. You should be able to do whatever you want to do with it. Just know that at some time you may need to open that up for some reason yet to be determined. In other words don't weld over it. Beyond that don't put a screw into the filler neck.

You can cover that with a piece of sheet metal or whatever you want as long as you don't pierce the filler neck. I'd probably screw a home made cover down over it and seal it with caulk. That would be easy enough to take out if you need to later.

I've got to say, you've been doing a lot of various kinds of work on your bus. You've learned a lot since you've been here. That's pretty cool.

[PigPen]

Thanks for the advice.

And yes, working on this bus has been very eye-opening and a great learning experience. We're taking it one step at a time and enjoying every moment of it for sure.

[Robin97396]

You've always been very careful and methodical. I remember back when you were searching for the right bus. You looked at a lot of buses.

I think we all reexamine our bus choices, especially when things go wrong. I've done a lot of back peddling wishing I'd have gotten another shorty. I'm pretty sure mine is a bit large for one person. There's hope for next time.

[PigPen]

The progress continues! Take a look at this...



Above you'll see 1 inch of XPS foam covering the entire floor. We thought about going thicker, but ultimately want to save the headroom. I'm about 6'1" and with about a two-inch total floor and a ceiling that extends a 1/2" beyond the 1 1/4" ribs, I'll still have about an inch. Our bus is tall inside, and I'm happy I won't have to stoop. We may need rugs for cold feet in the future, but that'll be good enough for now!

Grammarly wants me to change rugs in the last sentence to drugs. That would help too, I'm sure

Next we have...



After much deliberation, we went with 3/4" (23/32") Advantech by Huber Engineered Woods. It's a special OSB that is made the whole way through with a water resistant glue. We were sold after seeing that every local contractor swears by it for never absorbing water or losing shape. The stuff is solid as a rock. Much higher quality than anything else available at our local stores, INCLUDING the plywood. We wanted something very rigid because we chose not to frame the floor and just lay directly over the foam, inspired by Jazty.

Here's the final product:



The floor is incredibly sturdy. No give at all, and best of all, no squeaks! Unbelievably happy with how it turned out. Mistakes were made and it isn't the best skoolie floor ever, but it is GOOD ENOUGH

One last note, this is how I feel when entering the hardware store now:



We're approaching the point where there is more PL Premium on the bus than steel...

[Robin97396]

No cold feet in you bus. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to work.

[PigPen]

Originally Posted by Robin97396

No cold feet in you bus. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to work.

Exactly. As long as it works, we're happy.

[PigPen]

The last few days have been dedicated to getting the bus running. It has not been going well.

As mentioned elsewhere, we got a replacement air filter assembly, only to find that the resonator box was also shattered the whole time.

In prepping it to get started, the following has all been taken care of:

1. Modified the air intake system to work without a resonator box. This mod is called the resonator box delete and has been performed by many other people, though I don't know if it has been discussed on the skoolie forums before. I'll update this thread with our approach to doing so later when I can upload pictures.

2. Changed the fuel filter.

3. Performed half of a coolant flush, up to the point where you run the engine to continue getting crap out.

You may be wondering why we started the flush before getting the engine running. Our hands were tied because we had already lost half of our coolant when we cut the hoses going to the rear heater. To get to the point where we could even consider turning the keys, we had to take out the 2 t connectors so nothing flows to the unused hoses anymore. The hoses will also be removed.

Side note: Doing any work inside the engine compartment of an e450 w/ a 7.3 powerstroke is nearly impossible. We have more room and access in our toyota corolla!

So we tried to get everything done all at once, but so far, no start.

The starter is coming off tomorrow. We're hoping that it's bad. Beyond that, we'll have to start considering the possibility of a serious compression problem from dirty air making its way inside and messing with seals and what not. I want to do a blow by test, but for obvious reasons, that hasn't happened yet.

At least we're learning.