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Old 01-29-2018, 10:13 PM   #21
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Yes, definitely get helpers. Call in all favors from anyone that even remotely owes you a favor. People with actual skills get beer, afterwards.

This is a really fun project and I have a feeling you're going to enjoy it. How fast you get done depends on what type of build you're doing. I don't know how much you know and how much you don't know so excuse me if you've heard this before.

There are basically two types of builds. Our favorite is to completely gut the interior of the bus, insulate, wire, plumb and finish out the interiors. Some have waste tanks and others choose not to use them. The other faster type of build is to get the seats out, then basically start framing in the walls. Install insulation, electrical, plumbing and finish the interior as desired. I may have skipped a few steps.

There are arguments in favor or against each type of build. Basically the decision seems to come down to you geographical location and climate. People in warmer climates can take the easier and less expensive route on insulation. There's still a valid argument that us more delicate northerners wilt in those tropical climates so we need insulation to help our AC work better while visiting humid/warm areas.

A build can be as complicated or as simple as you like. You can learn to do anything you don't already know how to do on youtube concerning your build. All you have to do is try, and not be discouraged when it takes multiple times longer than anticipated to complete. Think of it as a zen project.

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Old 01-29-2018, 11:50 PM   #22
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Helloandwelcomeitshouldbenoproblemdoingitinsixweek s.
Iknewagirlonceandshestrippedherfloorsandsealedthem inonenight,butshewasafastworker.
whattypeofstimulantswillyoubeusing,asipreferpharma cueticalgradeassistancewhenworkinglonghoursonaproj ect.
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Old 01-30-2018, 05:17 AM   #23
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Originally Posted by Rusty View Post
Helloandwelcomeitshouldbenoproblemdoingitinsixweek s.
Iknewagirlonceandshestrippedherfloorsandsealedthem inonenight,butshewasafastworker.
whattypeofstimulantswillyoubeusing,asipreferpharma cueticalgradeassistancewhenworkinglonghoursonaproj ect.
lol was that on purpose?
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Old 01-30-2018, 11:08 AM   #24
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Rusty is planning the drug induced bus build, with tightly clenched jaw.

Speed building. Yeah.
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Old 01-30-2018, 11:12 AM   #25
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Rusty is planning the drug induced bus build, with tightly clenched jaw.

Speed building. Yeah.
JUST GOT BACK FROM A 3 WEEK RAVE< MATE !~!!!!
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Old 01-30-2018, 11:44 AM   #26
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Originally Posted by Robin97396 View Post
Rusty is planning the drug induced bus build, with tightly clenched jaw.

Speed building. Yeah.


Lol. I was thinking either that or his space bar ain’t working [emoji16]


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Old 01-31-2018, 10:20 AM   #27
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Deadlines are a bummer. Can cause a lot of cut corners and half-assery.
East Coast I love that word Half-asserly..... I definitely resemble that remark sometimes.
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Old 02-04-2018, 08:12 PM   #28
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I think you are very enthusiastic and that may be what burns you out with such a tight deadline

1 week to remove seats, clean and paint floor, add insulation and a base floor (doubt it, this is very labor intense and will make you sore and miserable)

1 week to prep, clean, remove stickers, sand ,prime and paint outside (doubt it with weather a factor)

1 week for solar and electric (doable if everything is laid out)

1 week for plumbing, hanging tanks (making brackets etc) (doable if you know how to weld,cut steel etc and don't rely on other people who will want to do it their way)

1 week for propane tank, lines and stove/heater hook up (doable, worst thing will be cutting side of bus skirt for valve access and making tank brackets)

so that is 5 weeks of intense work, now we have 2 weeks left for the interior, are you making all furniture and beds etc from scratch or using off the shelf items?

SO that gives you and idea, you will need to make an excel spread sheet or whatever kind of timeline to work this out and keep on schedule

Biggest hurdle I see is this WILL NOT be fun and NOT fun projects create tension and possible fights and a willingness to give up and throw in the towel

I would lot more time and then if you get done early it's win/win

Good luck AND do not use power tools when really tired
This is already helpful! I have a feeling we'll beat a few of these and lag on some others but we'll see : )

I hear you on the stress/tension/exhaustion thats inevitable for this endeavor but I'm hopeful we can keep our cool and not kill eachother and everyone that's going to help us along the way haha.

We plan on repurposing some furniture and building some pieces also. We'll see how it goes!
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Old 02-04-2018, 08:26 PM   #29
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Howdy and welcome DiscoMoose!

Anything is possible... but... this is a big project. Before starting my conversion, I lived in a couple different motorhomes for a few years so I knew what I wanted out of my conversion and how all the systems worked. That is a huge advantage. I think it took me about 4 months to make mine just barely livable. That included holding tanks, toilet, one plastic utility sink (that was bath, shower, kitchen sink, and bathroom sink), mattress on floor, refrigerator and a couch. My (solo) effort level during this time was about forty hours per week.

I've now been living in it and working on for about nine months and she is very livable (in my opinion, many would argue otherwise) but FAR from "done". I don't work on it nearly as much now as I am "comfortable" (which makes me very lazy).

I suspect if you don't know the intimate details of the various systems, you will spend seven weeks on the computer learning about them and finding/ordering the correct items.

But... as I said... anything is possible! You won't know til you try!
Hey JD! Believe me, we WISH we had previous knowledge of any part of this project, but that just isn't the case : (

We have been traveling the last few months which has given us some time to do research and I can see how easy it is to get sucked into an endless world of research! Come April (when this whole project begins) we hope to have some of the big research hurdles out of the way, have some of our appliances purchased, and people ready to help. Might be a perfect world, but we're pretty determined to get this thing done. Thanks!
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Old 02-04-2018, 08:43 PM   #30
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I've been working on my bus now for about eight or nine years, and I've only recently started on the interior! I've been making my shower walls for the last month or two - even the seemingly most insignificant of jobs will take you significant time. OK, I'm a perfectionist, but I can't imagine how even the most rudimentary interior work could take less than two months!

What takes time, sometimes much more time than the actual physical making, is all the planning and designing. Working out how to do something, and in my case sometimes having to design and make tools and jigs in order to then make the item, can takes much longer than you ever think possible.

John
Ahh eight or nine year?!?! Unfortunately and fortunately we don't have that kind of time... or our own place to live until this bus is complete so I'm hoping our intense motivation will get us through this.

We too are perfectionists, but I've learned that nothing is perfect and there will always be things we want to change or something we've totally botched that needs fixing. All these things will be remembered for the future we have more time and can work on another build sometime down the road : )

I agree that designing and planning is going to be a big hurdle! The best we can do now is read and watch videos as much as we can so we aren't in total shock once we start the project
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Old 02-04-2018, 08:58 PM   #31
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And just so you aren't discouraged... in my first weekend my daughter and I took out all of the seats in under 4 hours (65 pax bus) and my son-in-law and I laid the subfloor and the Pergo and built a king sized bed frame.
The following weekend my daughter and I painted the interior and I moved out of my temp digs and into the bus with my bed, a home depot bucket, a bar fridge and a 4' card table as my kitchen counter.
I had my kitchen, couch and desk built by the end of December 2016, while living on the bus, but traveling extensively for work and I took my first road trip with the bus in March (4 months after moving in it).
If I had not been traveling so much and worked every weekend on it, my guess is it would have been about 9 weekends of work to have what I have now. A home.
Sandi
YESSS Sandi!!! This gives us some much needed hope We've got 3 brothers (ones a mechanic), dad with tons of tools, and lots of relatives/friends that are tradesmen. I think one of our biggest challenges will be clearing these peoples schedules to help us... nothing beer and pizza can't do (I hope)!
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Old 02-04-2018, 09:02 PM   #32
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Your time line is ambitious but perhaps doable.
We brought a yellow school bus full of seats home in March and left for Alaska in a fairly complete conversion July 3.
I was very busy on the farm during that time with spring planting and also took a truck ride to New Mexico so I suppose we worked on it for seven weeks.
Get helpers.
Have fun.
Okay, okay so this is possible! We won't have jobs so aside from the countless weddings we have to attend this spring/summer we will be focused just on the bus. If we can get to the fairly complete mark by 7 weeks, we are good to go!
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Old 02-04-2018, 09:10 PM   #33
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JUST GOT BACK FROM A 3 WEEK RAVE< MATE !~!!!!
Lol this made me laugh - thank you : ) Hopefully we won't have to turn to drugs to get this thing done
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Old 02-05-2018, 04:48 AM   #34
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Lol this made me laugh - thank you : ) Hopefully we won't have to turn to drugs to get this thing done
You mentioned some skilled helpers that said they would help, after you got a few beers in them, of course.

You need to be super-organized to pull this off. You need to have that bus measured and ready to go when your workers show-up. Parts and supplies and fasteners and adhesives and lubricants need to be on hand.


There is a guy on here with a beautiful bloodmobile that had many promises of help from family, only to have them evaporate at work time. I suggest leg shackles.

Post your plans as they firm-up so the peanut gallery can comment.
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Old 02-05-2018, 05:18 AM   #35
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You mentioned some skilled helpers that said they would help, after you got a few beers in them, of course.

You need to be super-organized to pull this off. You need to have that bus measured and ready to go when your workers show-up. Parts and supplies and fasteners and adhesives and lubricants need to be on hand.


There is a guy on here with a beautiful bloodmobile that had many promises of help from family, only to have them evaporate at work time. I suggest leg shackles.

Post your plans as they firm-up so the peanut gallery can comment.
Our plan is to bring in the muscle for the demolition things, then do the measuring and have all supplies on hand for when the "skilled" workers come into play.

Beers are only allowed once the work is done of course... hopefully that'll help seal the deal. But yes, I hear you... people make many false promises, but I have a feeling curiosity will get people to come. Getting everything we need before hand will be another challenge... luckily we live 5 minutes from two different Home Depots : )
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Old 07-03-2019, 07:10 AM   #36
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I “finished” mine in 5 months. I had to move across the country for a job in the woods and live in it so it had to be done. I was working around 55 hrs/week at my job and the rest of the time was on the bus. Around 6hrs a night to sleep. I did 2/3 of the work myself, my dad came and helped on weekends and helped eliminate some big projects (like prepping and painting, some detailed carpentry, etc.). Keep in mind this is a 6 window shorty.

I was so burned out at the end of those 5 months. If I could do it all over I’d allow myself a year timeline to finish everything.

I see this was posted a few years ago. Any status update?
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Old 07-03-2019, 08:32 AM   #37
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McCormick,

I can relate to the extremely strenuous hours trying to get the bus done. Im in a similar position now. 6am-4pm at work, quick dinner and commute to the bus storage location, and then working on it from 6pm to midnight or 1 am. Couple hours of sleep, do it again. Weedkends I cut the bus work at 10pm and sleep in till 8 because the parts store isn't open till 8am anyway.

It's very tough. I ask around for help from friends or colleagues but I feel bad and don't want to impose. My parents live in another state and can not help. I've done about 90% of the work myself. A couple friends have come long distances to help, which has been huge, but asking someone to drive 300 miles round trip to help with my bus is a tough sell. I've considered many time to pay someone skilled for help working on the bus. Even those that has said yes seem to evaporate after a while....
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Old 07-03-2019, 08:38 AM   #38
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100% agree - everyone loves the idea of helping until they see how monotonous and grueling the work can be.

It’s also VERY difficult to manage multiple people working on things at one time. Sometimes there’s not enough room, supplies, or jobs that can be done at once. Or you feel the need to hover because you know they may not do the job correctly - that was my biggest issue. The simplest jobs done incorrectly on the build can cause some big headaches down the road. Ultimately, I found it easier to work by myself or with one trusted person.
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Old 07-03-2019, 10:09 AM   #39
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I don't have the "hovering" problem as much. I ask my helper to just come find me if they are unsure about something. if they do screw up or make a mistake I try not to make a big deal out of it. Most of the time I just accept that if it wasn't them it would have been me who made the same mistake and it's ok.

My problem has been organization of tools and supplies. Often If I have people helping we run out of screws or something and I have to make parts runs.

Twice I've just told everyone to show up a the back of the Lowes parking lot and we just set up shop there. They do tool rental for some stuff too and now that I have 110V power in the bus I don't need to be tethered to a shop for anything.

Those were super productive days and the Lowes employees would come out on their breaks, drink my beer, and watch or suggest something I should buy.

If something doesn't fit I can just walk in and return it right away.
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Old 07-03-2019, 10:47 AM   #40
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We're just starting our conversion ourselves, so I don't have any advice to offer you. But our goal is to do things right, and learn a lot in the process... the latter being both a prerequisite to, and inevitable consequence of, the former. Since there's no way we can know aheadof time how long it will take to know what we don't, there's also no way of estimating how long it will take to apply that knowledge. So I believe we're both comfortable with it taking as long as it takes. The journey is as much a part of our experience as the destination - both before and after we're actually going somewhere.
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