1984 International - ex Army bus

[Kent Dorfman]

I figured I would go ahead and get a thread started here since I've been doing some work on the bus and have decided to keep it at least for now. I'm going to strip out the inside and get it running and clean up the outside and then decide whether I'm going to do the full conversion or maybe sell it. Sounds silly but half the time I don't know what I'm going to do with a project until I get into it. Here are the before pics and I'll put a reply up with the pics of the progress I've made so far. Having fun with it currently! Tom

[Kent Dorfman]

So far I've stripped most of what I don't want off the bus including the old A/C system, rubber flooring, and seats. The seats were easy to get out, they were held down by hex head self tapping screws. I got $350 for the scrap and kept 4 seats that I might want to use in the conversion. With the new 8d battery I bought I have $1,900 in the bus currently. Next thing is to get it running and road safe. Then I'm going to work on the body. Some pics of the interior although it's still messy:

[gusbus]

Question about scrapping the tubing from the seats. Did you cut it up into smaller pieces or did you scrap the seats with cushions intact? Just wondering how much work you went through to get the $250 out of the seats. I will probably be staring at number of seats myself real soon.

That was a good lick just having the seats screwed to the floor. I think most will agree; a full fledged school bus sports a bolt down configuration. Unfortunately!!!

BTW what chassis is that? It isn't a Thomas or BB!

[gusbus]

Oh I see it's a Ward! Where are the rub rails
above the windows; don't all the Wards have
them?

[Kent Dorfman]

Originally Posted by gusbus

Question about scrapping the tubing from the seats. Did you cut it up into smaller pieces or did you scrap the seats with cushions intact? Just wondering how much work you went through to get the $250 out of the seats. I will probably be staring at number of seats myself real soon.

That was a good lick just having the seats screwed to the floor. I think most will agree; a full fledged school bus sports a bolt down configuration. Unfortunately!!!

BTW what chassis is that? It isn't a Thomas or BB!

I took the bottom cushions off and kept them thinking I might use the foam since foam is pretty expensive. Plus I was thinking the scrap yard might not take them with so much non steel on them. The bottoms were just a few screws and 'my' scrap yard didn't care about the top being on, not sure what your scrap yard's policy is. They usually aren't to picky with steel.

Yes, this is a Ward or American Transportation Corp bus. I think this type of bus was only sold to the US Government for military use. I've looked all over the internet and the only other ones I saw were being sold here and there by govliquidation.com where I bought mine in an online auction. It was only a few miles away so I had it towed to a warehouse nearby. This bus has a raised roof which I like. I am not tall (5'8") but it just feels bigger inside.