Hey guys! Gryphon here. I have had my bus Pixie (32’ 1996 Bluebird CS-FE with Cummins 5.9) for about a year now. Unfortunately I have been working and traveling most of the time since bringing her home, and I only just now finally have the time home to give her the love she deserves. So I will be doing a lot of detective work around here gathering knowledge to get to work on a proper conversion project that I am sure will be ongoing for much of my life
My plans for her are to be a long term live-in vehicle, staying on the road for large chunks of the year working on music and art projects and visiting different cities and national parks. I would like to house a few people comfortably with proper insulation and eventually once my knowledge and budget allows, do some conversion to a solar powered off-grid home.
I do work in audio electronics with synthesizer design, which is pretty far from anything involved with a bus. I am coming from virtually no background in auto mechanics, electrical, or construction, so I am a total novice at this. I am however self employed, make my own hours, and work from anywhere, so I have a lot of time to invest into learning and labor for this project. I get obsessive whenever I take on any kind of project, and this is one that I am really excited about now that I can sink my teeth into it.
The most daunting thing to me about starting from ground zero is figuring out what I need to learn first. It seems that many threads and steps here require some prior knowledge to be able to follow along with, so a lot of it is Greek to me at this point. I was wondering if anyone has some advice on the utter fundamentals to study first so I can start understanding more specified topics, and so that I can properly care for this bus. Should I first research Diesel engines in their entirety? RV Electrical? Any specific things that are most important to understand first? I am willing to do the work - I just need to know where to begin!
Hopefully I am able to give back to the community and participate a bit more as time and experience wears on
Really wanting to make this a huge part of my life!