Back in March, I came upon this bus at a local school district warehouse. The ad offered it for "$100 of best offer." I got into a bidding war with some other guy and ended up winning, with a final price of $375! Drove it 45 miles home with no incident, and haven't had any serious trouble since ownership.
The bus itself is a 1992 E-350 chassis, 7.3 navistar diesel engine and E4OD (yuck) trans. With 240,000 miles on it, its been around the block more than its fair share but being that I bought it straight from the school district, and since they have to go through inspections every 45 days, I figured it had been maintained pretty well.
It has gone through several evolutions as a converted bus, but in all honesty they were all pretty ghetto and half-assed. The first stage was simply so I could get RV status from the DMV. As an RV, I only pay $50 every four months through Progressive--and thats for me being a 19 year old male AND for coverage thats more than just the state liability minimums. Still blows my mind how cheap it is when I get my bills.
Then, I changed it around to accommodate more people when some friends and I took a 9 day road trip up to Reno, then through the desert to Vegas, then back up the California coast for the 4th of July weekend (thus the flag paint job...which is also half-assed).
Then, my car was totaled in a theft, and, believe it or not, I daily drove my bus for several months through inner-city San Francisco traffic.
Anyways, pictures speak a thousand words blah blah blah so heres some pictures of it in the past, and below will be pictures of the work I'm doing now. I've decided to finally do it right so I'm tearing up the floor to put in laminate flooring, got a new paint gun so paint will be re-done, and then I'll go from there as far as a floor plan goes.
Us gypsie camping on a friends lawn in Reno
Road-trip crew for the Santa Barbara trip, this past halloween, I'm in the cape.
The set-up for the Vegas trip, big old TV is long gone
Old, pink paint that I slapped on when I first got it
Vegas trip floorplan, basically a poorly built bunk across the back, a couch to one side, and a TV/storage across the other.
And now for the work I've been doing these past couple days. Basically ripping up the floor, to get rid of all the rotting plywood and rust before laying down the laminate
My urban work area....far less than ideal
Alex grinding away at some bolts that we couldn't get to from the bottom
Air hammer with a chisel bit was great for getting some of the tough spots of rubber up
Me grinding some more bolts
This the floor plan I had going before ripping the floor out. Off to the right is a big cozy heated massage chair
In lieu of a friend to hold the wrench, I found it just as easy to use a screw to hold it in place as I got at the nuts from below with a ratchet.
First piece of wood up! Rust isn't too bad, I got a lot of it out with a wire wheel on my grinder. The black stuff near the door is rot from the old wood.
Most of the wood near the rear door up. Rust back here was very light.
ROTTEN piece of wood that was next to the side door. This was by far the worst piece in there.
That pretty sums up my progress up to current. Hoping to get all the rust off the floor and at a coat of rustoleum or two down tomorrow. Questions? Comments?
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