Shuttlebus roof deck questions

[scootermcscoot]

Hi all,

like everyone else we want to put a roof deck and solar panels on the roof of our shuttle bus. After taking down the internal fiberglass roof liner we discovered there are 7 steel plates between 2" and 4" wide running the length of the bus front to back but apparently zero cross supports. Also there appear to be steel sections along the top and bottom of the windows and vertical steel between the windows. But there doesn't appear to be any steel at all connecting any of that to the floor. Inside the bus there are two steel posts running floor to ceiling where the drivers area meets the main part of the bus but thats it.

Now we're planning on putting a couple of walls, floor to ceiling about one third of the way in from the back of the bus towards the front, which will mean there will be a 2x4 on each side about 1/4" of the way in from outside of the bus which theoretically could transfer any loads down to the bud floor. The solar panels would be toward the front of the bus and the roof deck toward the rear (stretching no more than halfway down the length of the bus). It should never see a load above 500lbs.

Does anyone know, or have any experience of putting such a deck on a shuttle bus? Are we crazy for even considering it? Can we utilize the existing steel supports and proposed internal wall studs to help carry the load? We are planning on having a cargo deck built and attached to the rear of the bus so we could wait and have that support the back of the deck if thats the only safe route to go but that was a lot further down the line that we would want the deck to be.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by scootermcscoot

Hi all,


Does anyone know, or have any experience of putting such a deck on a shuttle bus? Are we crazy for even considering it? Can we utilize the existing steel supports and proposed internal wall studs to help carry the load? We are planning on having a cargo deck built and attached to the rear of the bus so we could wait and have that support the back of the deck if thats the only safe route to go but that was a lot further down the line that we would want the deck to be.

Post some pictures. If it's all opened-up, you can just add some supports where you need.

[scootermcscoot]

[scootermcscoot]

Last night I had the following idea, bear with me while I try and explain it. Typically roof decks either bolt straight into the roof or into the uprights between windows from what I've seen of most skoolie decks. Given there is no lateral steelwork or metal support beneath the windows in our shuttlebus I'm concerned about the point loads of a deck bolted into the roof and the load transfer of one bolted between the windows.

What I thought of last night was if we made cross members that followed the curve of the roof on the bottom and were flat on top and them bolted them through the steel that runs the length of the bus, it would theoretically spread the load of the deck and anything on it across the width of the bus roof and not just place it on the steel. I did a bad sketch to try and demonstrate what I mean.



In case the picture doesn't show up I added it to the album for the build.

What does everyone think?

Apart from the weight of the deck the load on it would never exceed 500lbs.