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Old 07-09-2017, 03:50 PM   #1
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 3
hello from Chicago

I’ve been lurking through skoolie.net for some time. Now I finally have the bus and am ready to say hello, so: Hello.

My bus is a 1993 Ford 350 - 7.3L Diesel shorty with a lift bumper to bumper it’s about 20 feet long. Inside she has about 12 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 6’4-5” tall.

My goal is to get the bus converted in stages. Getting it camp style livable by august and then be on my way with my two cats. The destination is Vancouver Island in British Columbia. I’d like to live in it for the bare bones minimum of 5 months to have the investment pay for itself by avoiding rent fees, but I’m no opposed to staying in longer.

I’ve stripped the seats out, they were a piece of cake. I got the rubber flooring out with some good old fashioned sweat. I had major frustrations and lots of breaks with removing the subfloor. I’ve got most of it up now and am fairly anxious by the amount of rust everywhere. The worst is by the back wheel wells where there are rusty holes big enough to fall through.

Two notes on the sub floor: the Lift and the Floor Heater. Both of these devices are still in. I’m hoping the lift will be taken out this week (I have a buddy that knows a guy that has a shop) then I will be able to strip the floor under the lift. The heater I was planning to leave in the bus as I’m not sure what my budget is for heating it the space, it’s already there, and reading the threads on removing them sounds messy and overwhelming. There is still some sub floor under the heater

I also got the ceiling down, all the insulation removed and the roof scraped down to the bare metal. I noticed some drippy leaks when I was taking it down and found rust patches. So I will need to reseal that and probably climb up on the roof to seal from above as well.

Lets talk about rust. I have been scrapping rust I will do my best to post images later. I used a krud kutter for rust and it took up a lot of the surface rust up turned the deeper rust black. But this rust situation has me anxious, I won’t lie about that. When I was purchasing the bus I looked under it and saw some rust, I even brought it up to the sales person. But they reassured me that it’s the midwest, everything is going to have rust… which is true. But taking something apart and seeing the extent of the rust… it’s powerful.

The beams all seem good under the flooring but everything is covered in rust and I’m not sure if I should just take the floor out and treat all the vehicle with a rust scrub… or if that would break apart all the hope and prayers keeping the bus together! My plan now is to clean up as much of the rust as possible and then convert it with rustoleum then I was thinking of taking the ceiling down over the weakest and most holey parts of the floor.

The bus is longer then I can legally park on city streets so it is staying at a friends, 1.5 hours away. So as of late I have bee going out on my weekends to get work on the bus. I had these visions of me stripping everything and painting the bus in one week so I could start insulating on week two. Now I’m hoping to have everything stripped and sealed by the end of week 3 so week 4 can see insulation begin.

Well, I just wanted to say hello and let you know I got a bus. Thanks for reading!






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