97 intersmashable Conversion

[Yukon Cornelius]

So with the monsoon rains we had the other day I found a couple other tiny seeps, they have all been marked and will be dealt with in the next couple weeks.
I have been cleaning and prepping the floor for rust treatment, it's been slow, mostly do to my work tempo creeping into my personal life lately. That and we had a couple sunny and warm days, so that spring cleanup up and lawn care you folks probably did 2 months ago or so we did last week/still doing. But I should have it sprayed, and then painted within the week.

In the meanwhile I took the fleet numbers off the bus, I notice people talking about how much of a PITA de-decaling can be. My preferred method for most decals but especially vinyl is boiling water and a 1" putty knife or a razor blade scraper if it's a completely flat surface. I find the putty knife works a bit better in most situations. But you basically boil the kettle or a stock pot, and then;
pour it over the decal and finish on the edge that is going to be your starting point.
Then lift that edge with the putty knife, pic the most logical area (lifted portion, corner, crack, etc) until you can get your fingers on it.
Peel back with 45 deg or better angle, slowly while rocking left to right.
Depending upon the outside air temp and decal size you'll have to pour a little more over again, pour onto the portion still stuck to the vehicle.
Then repeat as required, it took me 15 min to peel 6 large numbers off.
The before



and the after




now just a bit of goo gone or isopropyl and no one will know there was decals there to begin with.

I would have made a video, but I would have needed a 3rd hand

[Yukon Cornelius]

Well, 2 quick coats with the corrroseal and looks like I'll be able to test my epoxy paint tomorrow.
During the wire wheel phase


, i thought i took one of the whole bus post wheel and pre treatment but I can't find it....
nice sunset last night too


first coat



my pesticide sprayer couldn't handle the corroseal as well as I had hoped, so spray and roller it was, floor joint got the brush treatment.
2nd coat

[Yukon Cornelius]

First coat of paint on the floor, courtesy of a visiting Air Force. The French took some damage to one of their fancy new A400's and it required a panel and some paint. They sent a gallon of grey and of blue, they only needed about 500ml. So since they didn't want to do the paperwork for the open DG on their flight home I "disposed" of it for them.
Excited to see how it looks in the morning, but till then here's the post gun cleaning pic.

[desertfather]

Paint from the French Air Force? Sounds like this bus will be a legit International by the time you're done, and a conversation piece for sure.

On the note of paint, are you keeping the exterior paint as-is? Looks like it's in great shape.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Originally Posted by desertfather

Paint from the French Air Force? Sounds like this bus will be a legit International by the time you're done, and a conversation piece for sure.

On the note of paint, are you keeping the exterior paint as-is? Looks like it's in great shape.

Ya, transport of dangerous goods by air is a PITA once the items have been opened. Most people with have no idea as this super sweet paint is going to be buried under the flooring and insulation.

As for the outside there is some touch up work to do down the road.... mostly on the rub rails and a couple friction points but the bus will stay white.

[Yukon Cornelius]

So, been a lil busy lately with other stuff. But the paint is done for now, I did the lower walls/chair rail just to clean up the look and seal the chipped paint areas.


But it hasn't been all work that's keep me out of the bus, some exploring, fishing and camping has been done, we've had some crazy runoff this year so the water levels are high and there is still substantial amounts of snow in some places.




there has also been lots of planning, pondering, and researching done for certain parts of the bus build.

[ComfortEagle]

Originally Posted by Yukon Cornelius

Soooooooo, got the bus into the driveway the other day, took some measurements, and initiated the further de-construct.
The plan for now is to get the bus squared away as a low tech, driveable bunk house. We have one year to sort it out, I plan to be as efficient as possible with the expansion/upgrades thought out now, to reduced the overhaul done the road.
long and short is we have a full hockey line up of kids to cart around for a few more years, and we currently live in a remote location, etc etc.
Anyways, I'll try to be as diligent as possible with the posts and any rockstars ideas I come up with. I'm by no means an expert, but I am fairly creative.

You are certainly getting your bus squared away. I googled your location and "currently live is a remote location" is not wrong. I thought I was from the North East (Boston area), but you my man are REALLY from the North East. The ever reliable Wikipedia says the average summer high temps barely hit 70 degrees, with night time average lows of 50. The other nine months of the year look like another story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jm4LoOaAWI

[cadillackid]

even boston is wild weather.. I was there for 3 weeks.. late may till mid june.. and even in boston.. one day would be 49(yes the high in june) and misty-rain. then the next would be 72.. 88.. then 51 again... and a few in between.. cant imagine whjat it is further north and east...



this bus is Lookin good though through it all!!
-Christopher

[Yukon Cornelius]

Thanks Guys, haha ya we had 30 deg the night we went camping that I took those pics. the next day it was 80 lol.
We had snow 60 miles from us the same weekend we were camping, and I had about 150' of snow that was 2' deep to drive through about 150yds back from our campsite lol.

[Yukon Cornelius]

So.....been busy with life and a few other things. But I've washed most of the inside, roof, walls, etc, just have the drivers area and the back wall/door. I also popped all the windows out of the bus and I've cleaned up some of the window holes. Going to touch up the paint in a few spots, completely clean the windows, then put them back in and seal them up solid.


I also put some burlap over the tires, two fold keep the sun off the tires, and more importantly keep the noisey winge'n neighbours at bay about my levelled vehicle......


I also got some work done up on one of our local snowmobile trails, new culverts and grooming.



still pressing, not much visual satisfaction at a distance.

[Yukon Cornelius]

So, now that summer has ended and the kids are back in school.....I've been able to wrap up some stuff recently, resealed all the windows except for the drivers window, the windshield. This involved painstakingly boring scraping, clean, scuffing, etc.
But now they are re-installed, I used Loctite PL S40 to stick them in place and then flushed the edges with Lexel, there are some places on the outside of the bus where fit n finished are what they were, and whatever sealant was there has been removed.
Along with that some visual progress has been made in the way of insulation, the walls down each side are about 90% insulated. I've begun prepping the skins for the walls to, its repurposed oak ply.

That's what she looks like inside, should have more insulation done by the end of thanksgiving (Canadian Turkey is this weekend)

[Yukon Cornelius]

So in the span of time from Canadian Thanksgiving to (Almost) American Thanksgiving, we have gone from 20C to 20F...… And we've already had 5ft of snow fall...…..
Currently most place have between2-3ft

Starting to show some signs of visual progress, I unfortunately do most of my work on the bus after work…. and since I live in the sub-arctic it's basically dark by the time I get home. this makes for kind of crappy progress pics, so I have elected to try and take them on my lunch break or on the weekends as I can.
So I have a bunch of pics to load as I haven't made many posts recently so here is a teaser from work today and more of the bus to follow shortly

[Yukon Cornelius]

So, I mentioned wall skins. They are repurposed oak plywood, they were in 2' x4' sections which means I have more seams than I would like but the price was right.
Here is them fitted for spacing


I also had fit the insulation for the roof radius, I saw another member here had affixed some framing lumber to the ribs, and since I plan on doing a strip style roof much like a cedar strip canoe this made sense to me. I can't recall who done it, but thanks for the idea. I elected to frame both sides of each piece, not sure yet whether it was a stroke of genius or a waste of time, but I had the 2x4s so.

this pic shows 6 windows worth of roof insulated, as of tonight it's at 9


from the other end


I did some cleaning and re-organizing before the pics...

So I mentioned strips for the ceiling, well this summer I lucked into a bunch of Douglas Fir, there from ceiling rafter trusses from one of large warehouse type buildings we have here. They replaced them with steel this year so for the cost of my time and a few bucks in fuel I liberated a "few" boards
This is a sample of what they look like cleaned up



and this is the first pile of strips from my test session to see how feasible this idea is.

[Tango]

Nice wood shop! And from the looks of it all...you know how to use it.

[Yukon Cornelius]

So we have snow up here..... And I saw a perfect example to showcase thermal bridging/heat loss. As can be seen in my previous post the rigid insulation is mostly installed, however I haven't closed up all the gaps, and I also haven't closed over the ceiling. So may not be able to see it really well due to the shadowing the other day. but you can see the snow is melted down significantly over the ribs




So if you're wondering about heating or cooling, this speaks volumes to the effects of thermal bridging. And the inside of the bus wasn't hot, it was warmish. Iit was long sleeve shirt and Carhart's, comfortable so long as the standing around was minimal.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Originally Posted by Tango

Nice wood shop! And from the looks of it all...you know how to use it.

Thanks, its a club for the members and their families up here, we have a pretty reasonable compliment of industrial equipment.
My old man has been a carpenter most of his life, and my grandfather was a cabinet and furniture craftsman.

[plfking]

Originally Posted by Yukon Cornelius

..… And we've already had 5ft of snow fall...…..

Sigh.

The ONLY thing I hate about living in the South is the lack of snow. One of my bucket-list items is to spend a winter in Buffalo. (although now I have a bus, so I should change that to Aspen or Vail).

What kind of glue are you using to attach your foam to the roof? I've used
3M's Super 77 on a few sample pieces, and they've held so far (since the weekend), but I've still got bad memories of trying to glue headliners on with this stuff 35 years ago.....hoping it's a better product nowadays.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Originally Posted by plfking

Sigh.

The ONLY thing I hate about living in the South is the lack of snow. One of my bucket-list items is to spend a winter in Buffalo. (although now I have a bus, so I should change that to Aspen or Vail).

What kind of glue are you using to attach your foam to the roof? I've used
3M's Super 77 on a few sample pieces, and they've held so far (since the weekend), but I've still got bad memories of trying to glue headliners on with this stuff 35 years ago.....hoping it's a better product nowadays.

We measure our snowfall by the foot, and I BBrraapppp so I am pretty ok with it. Just wish there was frost in the ground before the snow started sticking. Bogs, and small ponds are super sketchy right now.


I'm sticking the foamboard to the ceiling and each other with PL300, it's meant for foamboard. Seems to be working fine, I will be filling the gaps between the wood frame and the foamboard with expanding foam, which should increase thee bond. After that I have a couple rolls of that reflectix hot water tank blanket stuff, so any gap area between the foam and the ceiling strips will be soaked up with that.

[plfking]

Originally Posted by Yukon Cornelius

I'm sticking the foamboard to the ceiling and each other with PL300, it's meant for foamboard.

You are the MAN.

(...or, for our Canadian friends.......You are the MAN, eh?).

Will pick some up tomorrow and give it a whirl. Thank you very much for the info.

[oredigger]

Looking really good. The bus, not the snow.

Just curious about the 2x4's attached to the ribs. Are they pressure treated or did you seal them with something to protect them?