2002 Bluebird CSRE TheMothership

[RoadWarriors]

My wife and I have begun the adventure of converting a retired ECU campus transit bus.

[RoadWarriors]

We are tackling the seats and starting in on taking down the ceiling.

[RoadWarriors]

The work must continue

[TimHogan]

That's a beauty! I'm curious to see the result when it's all done

[Meathead]

Lookin Good!

ECU would be Eastern Carolina?
Go Pirates!

[emoji3522]Dave

[RoadWarriors]

That very university. I was able to get their maintenance department to give the secret to turning off the “ECU Transit” sign. Very nice folks over there.

[TJones]

Nice bus!

[RoadWarriors]

The factory AC stopped working shortly after we began the demo phase. It took me more time than I'd like to admit to trace wires, but it is working once again. We plan to keep it and reduct it to use while the bus is running.

[RoadWarriors]

I am way behind on keeping the thread up to date, so I will try to give the highlights of all of the progress that we have made in the last year.

We decided to delete most of the huge windows that came with the bus, as well as the rear entrance door and stepwell. We ended up replacing those windows with 20 gauge steel sheets from a local supplier.

[RoadWarriors]

This next part took a few weeks. We stripped down the floor and sanded/wire brushed the few rusty bits. Then we treated the entire floor with Osopho rust treatment. Then painted the floor rusty primer red. Next we installed insulation panels and sub flooring. All four of us are north of 6 ft so we opted for 1/2' thick for insulation and sub floor.

[RoadWarriors]

The temps were really starting to cook outside in the SC summer so we paused our inside work to add a couple of Maxair fans. Also installed a lock on the front door before we started putting expensive bits on the inside.

[kromboy]

Damn, never have I been so glad that both myself and my gf are practically midgets compared to you giants. Putting in 2 inches on the floor and still have so much headroom left

Originally Posted by RoadWarriors

All four of us are north of 6 ft so we opted for 1/2' thick for insulation and sub floor.

[RoadWarriors]

This next bit was a blur that probably took over a month in real-time. Next we installed furring strips to the ceiling and walls to provide the panels something to anchor into as well as to provide an air gap to minimize unwanted thermal bridging. At this point in the build I also roughed in some electrical. The lights in the photo are being provided by a 12V motorcycle battery that I had in my garage. No real electrical system was in place yet.

[RoadWarriors]

I wanted to build an Insta-beautiful all "blue" system, but on a school bus mechanic budget. So there were some trade-offs made. The installed system today does not have the solar side, although some of the wiring has already been rough in for that someday in the future. I have 1 200 ah 24V battery powering a 3000 W all-in-one inverter/converter that supplies 12V DC and 120V AC. You will have to excuse the rat's nest as I had not cleaned that up before the photo was taken.