Bought my first home! Now I just have to build it!

[CattyMoons]

After deciding we wanted to take the leap and become apart of the skoolie community 7 months ago & doing tons of research and searching for a bus for about 3 months we finally landed one that meets our criteria!

Our bus is a 2002 International with a DT466 & Allison 2000 transmission 163,000 miles air ride air brake & runs like a dream!
She’s a 30ft long flat nose front engine

We found her on the Facebook market place in Lexington KY & drove 3 hours to pick her up from a guy who had a whole lot of busses he was selling from school districts in the surrounding states. (They were all pre 2009 & none had the AT545 if anyone would like to be put in touch I can give you the guys name from Facebook)

We plan on living in our yet to be named bus full time & of course traveling as much as possible. We went with the mid size length of 30 ft to have more access into national parks. We went back and forth between rear engine and front engine/dog nose & flat nose up until the point of buying. We figured there are pros and cons either way & the grass is always greener. At the end of the day midsize with a good engine transmission combo was the most important to us. Some of you would probably have a cow at how much we paid for it, but it was worth the 7k to us to stop waiting around & risking our luck at an auction or salvage yard. We parked her Monday night around 1 am & went back today after work to do a walk through & took out a few of the seats. We’ll get the rest of the seats out Thursday & continue with the demo process this weekend! We have LOTS of learning still ahead of us & we appreciate all the help & advice we can get! We’re looking forward to the process & outcome and I’m excited to share it with you all in the meantime! I’ll be posting more updates & im sure asking even more questions in the coming weeks, anyway here she is before any of the magic starts!

[CattyMoons]

Here’s a video of the inside
https://imgur.com/gallery/zC9eaJB

[Elliot Naess]

[Native]

Well said, Elliot! I concur.

[kazetsukai]

Congrats! The short flatnoses are always so cool.

Originally Posted by CattyMoons

We found her on the Facebook market place in Lexington KY & drove 3 hours to pick her up from a guy who had a whole lot of busses he was selling from school districts in the surrounding states. (They were all pre 2009 & none had the AT545 if anyone would like to be put in touch I can give you the guys name from Facebook)

We are actually looking for a a platform for a second build and this is right in my area (We just relocated to Fleming, KY)! I do not use Facebook, is there another way I could contact this guy?

Originally Posted by CattyMoons

We plan on living in our yet to be named bus full time & of course traveling as much as possible. We went with the mid size length of 30 ft to have more access into national parks.

Ground clearance is often undervalued, good for you.

Originally Posted by CattyMoons

We have LOTS of learning still ahead of us & we appreciate all the help & advice we can get! We’re looking forward to the process & outcome and I’m excited to share it with you all in the meantime! I’ll be posting more updates & im sure asking even more questions in the coming weeks, anyway here she is before any of the magic starts!

You've got the right attitude... You might consider starting a build thread to keep all of your updates in, if this isn't it already. Makes for some great memories, too- we spent 3 years building ours out and page one is always a fun read.

Not sure how often you folks are down in KY but we'd love to network!

[CattyMoons]

Thank you for the kind comments! Yes we will update this thread as more happens!
Absolutely after we get through winter we’ll let you know if we’re out that way & vise versa if y’all are in Indy! Also the guys name is Dan Repass I’ll link his Facebook down below! He seems like a good guy who knows what he’s talking about but I will say he’s a stickler for price! Would barely come down $90 willingly. I decided not to take the deal bc he wouldn’t come down $400 and he ended up calling us after we had left saying he would take the offer after all. So fair warning on that front! But good inventory! Here’s his Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...?ref=permalink

[Elliot Naess]

Don't feel bad about paying "full retail" or close to it. I did with Millicent, yet I never regretted the purchase. 65,000 happy miles and counting.
Then, a dozen years later, I negotiated the price of Albatross down from $5,900 to $2,500!
Life is good.
Carry on.

[musigenesis]

I highly highly highly recommend purchasing a Bluefire gadget and a tablet if you continue to drive the bus. This gives you a digital dashboard as well as showing you lots of additional engine parameters, and possibly stuff that isn't working. I found out with mine that the temperature gauge on my dashboard had never been working at all. It will also show you the bus' true mileage - I was lucky to see my bus was only 4K true miles past what was showing on the odometer, for some people the discrepancy is a lot greater.

Very nice bus, by the way. Great choice.

[tobeamiss]

Congratulations on your new home!
Lots of luck and happiness.

[Maligator.]

Originally Posted by CattyMoons

Thank you for the kind comments! Yes we will update this thread as more happens!
He seems like a good guy who knows what he’s talking about but I will say he’s a stickler for price! Would barely come down $90 willingly. I decided not to take the deal bc he wouldn’t come down $400 and he ended up calling us after we had left saying he would take the offer after all. So fair warning on that front!

We have nearly the same bus, ours is 5 feet longer dog nose and circa 100k miles but we paid over 7k from a dealer as well. Several diesel mechanics have poked around since we got home and they said we got a great deal, atleast 150k more miles if well maintained before any major expenses. Totally worth a couple grand more at the outset to get as much peace of mind as you can, i bet it would suck to dump 30-40k and 2 years of work into a project just to have the mechanicals need thousands more.

Love the length on body style, that's gonna be a fun home!! Congrats!

[CattyMoons]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

I highly highly highly recommend purchasing a Bluefire gadget and a tablet if you continue to drive the bus. This gives you a digital dashboard as well as showing you lots of additional engine parameters, and possibly stuff that isn't working.

I’ll definitely bookmark this to look into before we end up out on the road. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that it could be a possibility (everything LOOKS to be in working condition) you never know! Thank you for the advice!

[CattyMoons]

Originally Posted by Elliot Naess

Don't feel bad about paying "full retail" or close to it. I did with Millicent, yet I never regretted the purchase. 65,000 happy miles and counting.
Then, a dozen years later, I negotiated the price of Albatross down from $5,900 to $2,500!
Life is good.
Carry on.

I can’t wait to have enjoyed 65,000 miles! Love both of the names by the way!

[CattyMoons]

Originally Posted by Maligator.

Totally worth a couple grand more at the outset to get as much peace of mind as you can, i bet it would suck to dump 30-40k and 2 years of work into a project just to have the mechanicals need thousands more.

Love the length on body style, that's gonna be a fun home!! Congrats!

Pretty neat to hear we’ve got similar busses! Hopefully it turns out to be the same case for us as well! Definitely makes me feel better about the cost! Thank you

[Thugbus]

That is so awesome. Happy for y'all and looking forward to seeing the progress!

[CattyMoons]

Ok we’ve officially been bus parents a week and a half
We’ve spent a total of 2 full days and one half day on demo so far
Removed all the seats & started with the floors
Upon research we learned the floor tracks are going to be a pain
So we’re removing the plywood around them first then the plan is to get under the floor tracks with a reciprocating saw & carbide blades to cut them out completely


^Got our first peak at the rust under the flooring & there’s a few concerning areas but overall we’re pretty happy with what we ended up with for an Ohio bus
Noticed a few small leaks already & can’t wait to get to a point where we can seal those & most of all I can’t wait to SWEEP THE WHOLE BUS OUT once the flooring is up & all the screws are out, I just know it’s gonna be so satisfying
First snow fell here last night so my toes are just about numb from today’s work
Hopefully finish up with the floor & removing rear heaters by next week & start taking down the ceiling
After that we’ll make a big trip to dump for all the gutted parts (definitely not looking forward to that chore, or bill..) It’s exciting to see how much progress we’ve made already! Anyway that’s it for now!
Happy Holidays!

[EastCoastCB]

real nice rig!
Sucks about the rust but you can fix that.

[jalthouse]

Originally Posted by CattyMoons

After deciding we wanted to take the leap and become apart of the skoolie community 7 months ago & doing tons of research and searching for a bus for about 3 months we finally landed one that meets our criteria!

Our bus is a 2002 International with a DT466 & Allison 2000 transmission 163,000 miles air ride air brake & runs like a dream!
She’s a 30ft long flat nose front engine

We found her on the Facebook market place in Lexington KY & drove 3 hours to pick her up from a guy who had a whole lot of busses he was selling from school districts in the surrounding states. (They were all pre 2009 & none had the AT545 if anyone would like to be put in touch I can give you the guys name from Facebook)

We plan on living in our yet to be named bus full time & of course traveling as much as possible. We went with the mid size length of 30 ft to have more access into national parks. We went back and forth between rear engine and front engine/dog nose & flat nose up until the point of buying. We figured there are pros and cons either way & the grass is always greener. At the end of the day midsize with a good engine transmission combo was the most important to us. Some of you would probably have a cow at how much we paid for it, but it was worth the 7k to us to stop waiting around & risking our luck at an auction or salvage yard. We parked her Monday night around 1 am & went back today after work to do a walk through & took out a few of the seats. We’ll get the rest of the seats out Thursday & continue with the demo process this weekend! We have LOTS of learning still ahead of us & we appreciate all the help & advice we can get! We’re looking forward to the process & outcome and I’m excited to share it with you all in the meantime! I’ll be posting more updates & im sure asking even more questions in the coming weeks, anyway here she is before any of the magic starts!

This is wonderful - congratulations to you both. Looking forward to following your adventures. Suh-weet!!!

[Mountain Yawp]

Nice bus. I'm excited for you.

[CattyMoons]

Ok just over 3 months since my last update! Things moved a little slower with bad winter weather and lack of daylight but we have started to pick back up again!
Demo is complete & we’re finally ready to treat our rust & seal the holes!
The biggest pain so far has been the floors bc we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into getting a handicapped bus with the railing through out the entirety of the bus! After the last bit of floors were out the ceilings, walls, heaters & wheel chair ramp seemed like a breeze! Been grinding off the excess rust from the floors for the past few days & will probably keep at it a day or two more before we hit up another hardware store to buy a welder & some sheet metal.
We think we have decided on a final (hopeful) layout after drawing up 6 or 7 or 10 different options & settled on the one that allows us to have a full sized bathroom with a small bathtub. Essential in my opinion.
Also looking into lowering one if not all of our wheel wells as the layout will require us to step over one daily in the “hall” area. Think we’ll be able to lower them at least 2 1/2 inches which isn’t much but I feel like every inch counts in such a small space.
I’m getting excited again! Hopeful things continue at the pace we’re moving as more warm weather approaches. Our lease ends in august & we’re moving back into the ‘rents (where our bus is parked) while we finish the build. We don’t expect to be finished by then but if it’s not at least livable it will be a real kick in the ass to get it done so we can get back to living in our own space
Still no name picked out & we have an idea of color scheme for paint but nothing set in stone just yet, hopefully those are things that will come to us in time. She’s still running beautifully. We’ve had her parked in grass all winter & gotten stuck in the mud twice but the ground is starting to dry up so should be easier to pull in and out soon enough so we can start getting some practice drives in. Nothing else to update just yet! But we’re still working & dreaming of the finished product! Until then one day at a time! Going to be adding some progress photos for the diary aspect of this thread as well

[CattyMoons]

https://i.imgur.com/76bopqq.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/Jr25fuK.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/tCDQBwu.jpg