Birdie

[Alt1]

Really great looking progress. The under side looks great and more people should follow that type of process to address any chassis rust. In my next thread update I'll include my underbay photos and I did basically the same for mine. Lots of work but well worth it in the long run.

Initially, I thought the extended front bumper looked a little strange but I understood the purpose. Now with a matching extended rear I think it will look great once finished.

Keep it up, looking great!

[fo4imtippin]

Trying to get an idea of my bracing for the rear deck. I also had to bolt down my wood planks temporarily as I kept stepping outside the frame rails and almost maiming myself.



The light tower mast goes up 25ft and will have starlink on top as well as a Mimo antenna, VHF antenna for a Ham mobile repeater, and I'll put 600w of LED lights on bottom to light up the ground if needed. When collapsed, the starlink should still be under the solar rack height so it doesn't catch anything. The hand winch will be swapped for a push button atv winch.




The crane will be mounted on a 2.75 diameter axle spindle. I'll weld rectangle tube on the upright for it and have a 360 swiveling tire carrier for a 11r22.5. i will use the crane to load motorcycles on the back as well as the tire onto the carrier. Its rated 1260lbs at full extension. I'm actually excited to get it done as I don't really have another hoist to lift engines and things around the house. I have used my kids treehouse winch to unload trailers by myself so far. I'm waiting to take the motor and genhead out of the light tower.




I did just realize I'll have to bolt a few things instead of weld because they need to come off for paint as I would never be able to paint them or behind them in place.

[fo4imtippin]

Splits into three pieces for painting and keeping dry until i can paint the raw metal. I'm waiting for a few parts to come it so i can finish the crane mount. I found a guy with a press brake to bend me some side extensions for the bumper. Going to move on to the roof rack this week. Gotta figure out the height of my rack so i can build the ladder rack that goes on the back of the bus.

[fo4imtippin]

So i have traced my troubleshooting of my auction generator to the injection pump. I have it out and on the operating table. After pulling the first assembly apart, it appears that some water must have made it and sat in the fuel side of the pump. Its quite dirty in there. I'm going to try and clean everything up and reassemble. I don't want to spend $600 on a rebuilt pump if i can rescue this onel Lots of tiny parts, so slow and steady i will be on this.





Ill also have to find a way to filter the water out of the 42 gallons of fuel that came with it.

[Corbi]

Thank you for the superb detail and outline of your build. My history is more like muddling through, buying tools as needed, learning as I go. As a street parker, the setting limits what element can be added when. If I had a choice, I'd follow your plan.

[fo4imtippin]

Originally Posted by Corbi

Thank you for the superb detail and outline of your build. My history is more like muddling through, buying tools as needed, learning as I go. As a street parker, the setting limits what element can be added when. If I had a choice, I'd follow your plan.

Yes i am lucky to fit mine in the side yard and having patient neighbors. I thought i was good on tools before i bought the bus, but have really expanded my collection. My order is different than i expected and my "next step" is always changing due to materials, weather or some other impediment. I cant wait to start leaving things together instead of test fit and the disassemble for primer and then take everything back apart when i paint the body.

[fo4imtippin]

Originally Posted by Alt1

Really great looking progress. The under side looks great and more people should follow that type of process to address any chassis rust. In my next thread update I'll include my underbay photos and I did basically the same for mine. Lots of work but well worth it in the long run.

Initially, I thought the extended front bumper looked a little strange but I understood the purpose. Now with a matching extended rear I think it will look great once finished.

Keep it up, looking great!

Thanks! i was kind of going for like a power company truck or Firetruck where they have the huge bumpers. The crane on the back will kind of complete this look. Think ill add a big vice somewhere as well.

[rossvtaylor]

I missed your second page, where you showed the generator. When I saw your injector pump, above, I said..."hey, that looks like a Kubota pump" so I went back to read the other posts before I asked for confirmation. I just rebuilt my 2-cylinder version of that pump.

I see that you've got compression issues with the engine. The rebuild kits are pretty reasonable. I recently got one and I'm in the process of putting new liners and pistons in mine, since my engine sat with water in it also...and the liners were pitted. I paid about $300 for the rebuild kit, with liners, pistons, bearings, gaskets, valves and seats.

[fo4imtippin]

Originally Posted by rossvtaylor

I missed your second page, where you showed the generator. When I saw your injector pump, above, I said..."hey, that looks like a Kubota pump" so I went back to read the other posts before I asked for confirmation. I just rebuilt my 2-cylinder version of that pump.

I see that you've got compression issues with the engine. The rebuild kits are pretty reasonable. I recently got one and I'm in the process of putting new liners and pistons in mine, since my engine sat with water in it also...and the liners were pitted. I paid about $300 for the rebuild kit, with liners, pistons, bearings, gaskets, valves and seats.

Thanks Ross. Not sure i ever updated the thread, but the motor has 500psi in all three cylinders. Hopefully i don't have to rebuild it for a long time, but would be a great motor to do. Its so simple. So far, i think the water only made it to the injection pump. The delivery valves were all rusted shut (although had movement to allow priming). I cant find replacements for them. I found a kit with the new pistons, springs and o rings, but no delivery valves. Kubota really doesn't want us rebuilding these pumps at home. Parts are soaking in acetone now so i can clean off the rusty varnish on them and try it all again.

[fo4imtippin]

I want to start working on my rear ladder rack. I needed to find out the height of my roof rack so i can make the supports the correct height.




I needed to leave room for 2 maxair fans in the middle. I also wanted to be able to fit two rows of commercial solar panels 40inx80in on either side. With this plan, i can fit 4 on each side. I plan to mount them on stainless hinges with pins on top and bottom, so that when they are at my house longer term, i can tilt them all south at the same 15degree plane. This will allow them to shed water and leaves and things better as well.


I also wanted a safe place to tie down kayaks and things. The middle walkway can store 28ft of long stuff without having to remove off the solar panels.


Downside of this plan is that while they are in A frame mode, they have to be in two strings since they are in different planes. One string will always be more efficient than the other. Good news is that i can fit a ton of wattage on a shortbus with this rack. If i was full timing, i would probably leave it at 2000watts, but i want the extra solar to backfeed my house while its parked most of its life.


After all the geometry and mitering the steel, i hope its worth it. A flat rack could be done in a few hours, but its going to take me all day to fabricate 11 trusses. Luckily i built a jig to make sure they all match.




I was worried about the deflection since the 14g 1.5in square tube is spanning 8ft, but on the ground i could stand on it(200lb) while both ends were free and had maybe 1/4in of deflection. Once its secured at each end and has cross bracing, its not going to move at all.


Once completed, the weight will be around 450lb above the windows. I don't think that's too horrible. Its a lot more than two rows of aluminum solar rack, but it would be holding twice the panels.


The panels would add another 500lb to this total. Am i crazy to add 1000lb 10ft off the ground? I'm looking at about 20-22k finished weight. Most of the rest of my heavy items are underneath the bus (generator, batteries, water tanks, extra fuel tanks).

[fo4imtippin]

My sides of my roofrack are 30ft long and i cannot store the welded raw metal inside until i paint. I was able to get the passenger side done and back down to paint today. It was 25mph winds. I would say i reached the wind limit of my flux core. Once they were all tacked, i brought it down to the ground to finish weld, sand and roll on epoxy primer. I'm really happy with the side profile. Never know how these things are going to look when its in your head.





They are thru bolted to the ribs with 3/8 on top and 5/16 on bottom. There's 6 supports along the bus. I will add a bolted gusset to the front member to make sure if the welds vibrate loose over time, i don't have an unplift scenario. Supposed to rain off an on this week, so the drivers side might be a few more days. I'm also not looking forward to standing in my bush to mount it.



I'm going to swab the insides of the tube with rustolem so that rust doesn't drip down my bus. Also need to weld up some nut plates to catch the bolt from the inside of the tube.

[fo4imtippin]

I ended up with steel buyers undermount toolboxes. 60in wide X 18in Tall X 18in deep. I highly recommend elite truck for anyone shopping for them. After tax and freight, they were quite a bit cheaper than everyone else including local dealers. I originally had my mind set on some RKI boxes that were 24inches deep, but they were double the cost and 12 weeks out for delivery. These buyers ones had an awesome 3 point latch that will keep the door tight against the weather seal. Bonus was that i got to use my crane for the first time to load the boxes inside the bus when the freight showed up.






I was mixed on a tight fit with caulk in the corner between the toolbox and body, but the weatherstripping will give me options to remove for painting and not worry about vibrations between the body and the box. I still have to cut out a flat 11g plate to fit between the toolbox and deck extension. On one side, in the 10in gap will be an retractable extension cord reel and and the other side a retractable water hose reel.



For the toolbox below the handicap door will be a slide out outdoor kitchen with a grill and airfryer on drawer slides and second stage slider for a prep table. We will try to keep our picnic stuff in here since it will be under the awning.


The toolbox on the drivers side will store camp chairs and other commonly used camping junk.


Ill have one more toolbox to mount and that will be a 72in wide X 24in Tall X 30in Deep barndoor style. That is going between the wheels on the passenger side. Half will house the diesel generator out of the lighttower and half will house tools and bus parts and extra fluids. I'm not sure if i will get to this before paint, but with the weatherstripping, it should be pretty easy to add later.






I actually have room to add 10 inches to the backside of these. I priced out a 4x8 sheet of 12g and it will be about $125 to cut and weld 10 more inches onto the back side for more storage. I built the brackets to accommodate my storage expansion. I haven't done it yet, but i'm also going to add some bolts from the inside going up to existing rivnuts that were holding the AC condenser onto the bus. This is more of a belt and suspenders approach in case my bracketry were to fail and to support the body side of the box in case of enormous g forces.




Passenger side complexity was that the handicap ramp was supported by large brackets underneath. I had to fabricate custom spacers for all 8 wheelchair bolts. After putting the box in, the frame side of the wheelchair bolts falls right on the 18in seam of the toolbox. I was planning on using strips of 11g plate inside the toolbox to hold the nuts from the wheelchair lift. I'm going to have to extend the toolboxes before i can bolt the wheelchair lift back down.

[Rwnielsen]

What an awesome thread. Improvise, adapt, overcome.
Seeing what you've done is very inspirational

[fo4imtippin]

I have access to a shop that fits my bus during May. I have started planning my paint to tackle in this window. I am going to pull windows, lights racks, bumpers, etc. I will take my bus down a few weeks early so i can start pulling off all the stuff needed and do some final coats of body filler on a few spots. I'm really not experienced spraying paint, but I'm going to give it go. Ill list all my products and what i've determined the best equipment and settings so far. Anyone with suggestions, I'm all ears!



I have been having lots of discussions with the missus on paint colors and designs.. Below is the tenative plan. Colors are a bit off. I just sprayed a sample of both. Will add that tomorrow once the sun is back out.




So far, we have two colors we really like. We are going to tape a line under the main rub rails and keep everything black for easier touch ups and changes in the future.



I know white on a roof is best, but with the entire roof deck having solar, and my colors being mostly light, i'm just thinking the body color will go on the roof. It is of note, that 6 months ago, i quoted paint, and its up 30% from my quote then.



The general paint plan is below.

1. Sanding
   1. Sand flats with orbital sander 320 grit
   2. Scotchbrite pad on rubrails and rivets
2. Cleaning
   1. Powerwash
   2. TSP scrub
3. Sealant and Fillers
   1. 3m Urethane Seam Sealer on Roof seams
   2. Seam Sealer or Sikaflex on topside of rub rails and vertical joints
   3. Lightweight body filler on rear light deletes
4. Wash and Clean before taping
5. Tape off anything that cant be primered
   1. Windshield
   2. Rear Windows
   3. Rubber Fenders
   4. Wiper Motors
   5. Tires
6. Shoot entire bus with PPG CRE-321 High Build Epoxy Primer. Estimating 3 Gallons to cover bus at $171 per gallon. 4 day recoat/topcoat window
7. Mask bottom black line and below.
8. Spray PPG Delfleet Essential SingleStage 6:1:1 paint. $184 per gallon. Estimating 3 gallons of color, 2 gallons of black. Will use very slow (76-8 or extra slow activator (88and up).
   1. Spray roof from forklift scaffold
   2. Two people spray sides from front to back
9. Wait 1 day to apply tape to new paint.
10. Mask top colored areas
11. Spray bottom 2ft of bus
12. Remove masking from bus
13. Move bus out of building
14. Clean all bumpers racks, hardware, etc
15. Spray black parts
16. Reassembly

So my best guess of paint budget is $920 for paint, $500 on primer. I figure ill have $500 of gloves, thinner, caulks, consumables, tapes and masking tape. This puts the total budget right at $2k. I was originally going to do tractor paint, but that is up to $100 per gallon with the catalyst. So that still would have totaled out to about $1300 as the paint coverage on rustoleum is a bit less than the Delfleet, but i could skip the primer.



I really wanted the durability and longevity of Urethane paint. Delfleet is supposed to really easy to spray so i landed there over other paints. Also, eastwood had about half the coverage per gallon of the delfleet, so i would have had to spray a ton.

[musigenesis]

For sanding, you might want to get one of those triangular sanders to go along with the orbital sander. They're much better for getting all the way to the edges of panels right next to the rub rails and drip edges etc. On my bus I did those areas by hand, but the places where I tried to hand-sand are the spots that are showing a few signs of peeling.

[fo4imtippin]

Before painting, i finished up the top of my roof rack. Its 28ft long, has a crossbar every rib, and is made of 14g square tube.


Each side can take up to a 42inch width solar panel and there's 18inches down the middle for my maxxair fans to sit between panels. I weighed the whole thing once completed, and was at 300lb on the dot. I left if off to paint and plopped it on after. Everything is bolted through 10 vertical pieces anchored with two 5/16 grade 8 bolts. I used butyl tape on the through bolt holes and added nylock nuts on the bolts.

[fo4imtippin]

Painting pretty much went as planned in my previous post. I had the various hiccups that make you want to quit, but glad i persevered. I feel like a much more confident automotive painter by the end. Originally i started painting at night when the temp had cooled down, but i was running into lots of runs and worse lighting. I did find about halfway through that it wasnt worth painting at night because the humidity was 100% and the paint laid much better in the day. The air coming out of my hvlp was very dry, but i think when the paint hit the cold/ damp metal, it would run. Painting my black parts like my roof rack and ladders was the hardest part with the 4 sides of skinny square tube. I ended up using a mini pressure pot which helped spray overhead from a creeper a bit easier.


I had a bit of bondo work that i let my wife take care of due to time constraints in my temporary shop space. It turned out pretty good, but we really could've used a few more skim coats. We also seam sealed every seam except the bottom of the rub rails. After primer and paint, it really blended in nicely. I highly recommend the 3m urethane seam sealer. It tools really well and 3 tubes covered the whole bus.


The total liquids used on the actual bus was 2 gallons of grey and 1 gallon of black. I bought three gallons of PPG High Build epoxy primer, but i fouled up one of the gallons somehow and the remaining 2 gallons covered the bus with a thick coating.


The parts took 1 gallon of epoxy primer, 1/2 gallon of high build urethane primer and 2 gallons of black.


I still have to paint some missed parts like the BLUEBIRD letters and the door. I also have to paint some stainless screw heads that the chrome looks a bit odd on.


We aren't 100% happy with quality of the black areas on the bus, as those had 2 drippy coats and then were sanded before 2 nice coats. The drips show through, but wont be noticed by anyone more than 2 feet away from the few areas (if that). We are very happy with the quality of the gray that covers 80% of the bus. Overall, we walked away and feel good about how it looks. While painting, i felt like i was ruining all my hard work..


We think the color looks great, its kind of a tan/grey. I was a bit unhappy with it when the aluminum colored windows were plopped back in. We are going to paint the exterior of the windows black before we seal them in for the last time.


I would highly advise masking by removal. We took everything off that we could including windows and it made it very easy to mask off the remaining areas of the bus when we changed paint colors. There is no bits of yellow showing anywhere on the exterior of the bus. We also started with getting doors, wiper doors, fuse panel, gas door, etc so those ended up with smooth gloss on the last coat.


I pretty much threw everything i could on or in the bus and drove home when done. I still have a lot of reassembly of parts and install new clearance lights and things.

[Nick5272]

Looks fantastic! Couple questions for you: did you look at all into Sherwin William’s automotive paint. We are considering that and they have an easy to use single stage paint.
Second, can you share more about what went wrong with that gallon of epoxy primer? That’s the kind of costly mistake that I bet I’d make lol. I’d love to learn from whatever your mistake was…

Lastly: the space you are using, did they supply an air compressor? What kind did you use? And what paint gun/pressure pot did you use? Currently researching all that for my wife and I’s. We plan to go the same route as you and do all out automotive paint. Currently we have no enclosed space that we could use so that’ll be something we’ll struggle with.

[musigenesis]

Rack and paint job look great.

You don't seem like you need any suggestions, but I had good results painting my three bare aluminum windows black by priming them with SEM self-etching primer and then painting them with Rust-Oleum semi-gloss black enamel.

[Alt1]

Loving the details in the post. I am certainly no painter and your details will be helpful when I am ready. Also great work on the roof rack, I'll he interested to see it all complete. Keep it up!