Jacuzzi Bus - Page 2

Steve · 01-04-2004, 01:13 AM

Hows the van coming along? Are you going to be able to pull the bus into your shop to work on it. Here at my shop my bus just barley fits through the door stock, and the bus even fits between the lift too!

soused moose · 01-04-2004, 06:00 AM

That pic of your Bus in the Shop ...brings tears to this Old Bus Converters Eyes....I'd Kill for a dry place to work in.

Trying to build interior framing sections in the pouring down rain and snow is getting old....

lapeer20m · 01-09-2004, 03:15 PM

The bus won't fit inside my barn now, let alone when the van gets installed. the bus is too tall. I am very fortunate however. Being on the fire department, i have access to the fire station. I put the bus inside the station on occassion, but only for very short term, perhaps a few hours at most. The bus will no longer fit inside the fire station after the van is installed on top.

lapeer20m · 01-31-2004, 04:17 PM

so i've postponed the 2nd story of the bus till it warms up. Here's a current pic of the black plague in all her frozen beauty.

Steve · 01-31-2004, 09:57 PM

What is that thing under the bus about half way down?

lapeer20m · 01-31-2004, 10:38 PM

that's the housing for generator # 2. why would anyone need two geni's on a skoolie you may ask?? old #2 is a freebie that was given to me a few months back. It's a cast iron kohler 1,800 rpm generator. Most geni's spin at 3,600 rpm's, making twice as many exhause strokes, thus a lot more noise, and those faster spinning units wear out in a shorter period of time.

old number 2 is a 4kw 110volt unit, it has a built in cooling fan to allow the geni to be mounted in an enclosed cabinet. It's wonderful, electric start, very quiet, super heavy duty. I'll never wear it out in my lifetime. I use it when i need 110 volts, and my batteries are going dry.

The problem is that i NEED 220 volts to run the hot tub. When i run the jets on the hot tub and shore power is not convienent, I fire up the brand new noisy Geni # 1 which is mounted on the other side of the bus.

here's the link to the geni page on my website

for more info

http://www.geocities.com/lapeer20m/Kohlergeni.html

lapeer20m · 02-29-2004, 09:13 AM

Here's today's project.......hopefully i can do it all in a day.

After a party, i didn't drain all of the water out of my hot tub, nor did I leave it plugged into shore power so it could creat it's own heat. Unfortunately, it froze, causing the jacuzzi to leak. The tub portion is fine, the leak is from one or more of the pipes/fittings/hoses

I can fix anything! But this is gonna be a bit of a project. There are more than a dozen jets/drains/. When building the cal-spa jacuzzi, they first ran all of the hoses/pipes, then they created a box and sprayed a couple feet of foam insulation to keep everything from cooling off. This means the hoses/pipes are buried somewhere in the insulation and i have to chisel through the ickyness to find where the water is leaking from.

The wall of the bus has to be removed, then i have to get prybars and the floor jack to lift the jacuzzi off of the floor of the bus. I also have to remove all four holding tanks from the rear of the bus so there is room to work.

Wish me luck !

EldoMike · 02-29-2004, 09:21 AM

Wears me out just thinkin' about it...think I'll go ride my Guzzi...it's 65 degrees here today...

EldoMike

Steve · 02-29-2004, 02:11 PM

Good luck with that Jason, hope taking the side off it doesn't mess up the paint job too much!

lapeer20m · 03-01-2004, 05:33 PM

my skoolie website has had over 2,700 hits so far. Probably not that impressive in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's pretty cool.

It's been up for about a year.

Here is the link if you haven't checked it out yet.

http://www.geocities.com/blackplaguetour/

lapeer20m · 03-15-2004, 09:46 PM

I spent all day today working on the newest bus project. For a long time i've wanted my remote keyless entry remote to open the front door of my skoolie. Not unlock the front door,,,,but actually open it, as if by magic!

A UAW worker generously misapropriated a handy pnumatic air cylinder from one of the big three auto makers. (and we wonder why cars cost so much) I mounted the cylinder in place of the rod that originally opened the door. After several hours of running wires, welding brackets, buying stuff from home depot, running the air supply lines ect, I finally got the door to open and close by itself.

Tomorrow if have to tidy everything up. There is a mess of wires and air lines strewn across the floor of the bus.

This probably would not be practicle for the average skoolie owner, but this is a great option for me to have available when showing the bus to a group of first timers.

I bought a new window today for the front door. Suprisingly it only cost about 20 dollars from the local glass shop.

Steve · 03-15-2004, 10:41 PM

Got pics? Where does the air come from?

lapeer20m · 03-18-2004, 02:12 PM

The air comes from the air brake system. I utilized flexible poly tubing, the type that is commonly used for the waterline to an ice maker. Home Depot sells some really cool quick disconnect hose fittings. They work with air or water.

I'll get photo's of the project soon.

Steve · 03-18-2004, 05:05 PM

I thought the air brake system didn't hold pressure when the bus isn't running?

lapeer20m · 03-18-2004, 09:28 PM

that is one of the flaws in my design. AFter a couple hours, most of the air has escaped from the system, leaving the door closed, but inoperable by remote. At this point it is possible to open the door by pushing on it.

It's not that important to me that the bus is not secured after a couple hours. It gives the appearance of security, having the door closed all the way. A locked door only keeps an honest person out. When it's most necessary to have the door secured is when i'm in party mode and not in the best part of town.

When the bus is parked during the week at my house, security isn't really an issue. Nothing is locked here. My house, my car, the bus, they're all open. I live in a small town, there is just not much crime here. We don't even have our own police department. The county cops occasionally cruise through town.

I think i could keep air in the locking system if i added one more solenoid, or a check valve. (assuming the pnumatic cylinders are air tight)

lapeer20m · 03-22-2004, 08:54 PM

UPDATE:
I went to wal-mart and purchased a 10 dollar 12 volt air compressor. One of those BFU units. ('bout fricken usless!!!)

The amperage draw to run this new air compressor is next to nothing. I plumbed the air line into the pnumatic door system on the bus, along whith a pressure switch, valve and other stuff. The end result.......

When the air brake system is above 40 psi, the door opens and closes using the stock air system. After the bus sits for a while, and the pressure drops below 40 psi, the door opens and closes with air pressure generated from the small 12 volt electric air compressor.

I spent the better part of a day trying to eliminate every possible air leak out of the pnumatic door system that i could find. The electric compressor does not feed the air brake system, only the door system. About every 5 minutes, the compressor kicks on for approximately 5-7 seconds to keep the pressure above 40 psi. This keeps the door secured. The downfall of this system is that after a week or two or longer, the batteries on the bus will begin to run down due to the draw from the small electric air compressor. She doesn't realy get the chance to sit that long. I drive my bus (with the exception of absolutely frigid weather) a couple times a week. Sometimes i take it to work where i finish projects i've started. Other times i drive it just because i can. The girl at the gas station asked me why i always drive the bus. I said "If you had a bus, wouldn't you drive it around??"

How often do you drive you bus??

lapeer20m · 03-29-2004, 12:40 PM

The jacuzzi no longer leaks. Everything works great.

I leave the hot tub half full when i drive, then fill her up when i get to the party or wherever the destination may be. I had been using a submersable sump pump to move the water back and forth. That was ok, but not too stylish.

When fixing the leaks created by the frozen water from this past winter, i changed the special cal-spa pipe diameters to standard pvc pipe diameters. (My hot tub manufacturer used special non-standard pvc pipe sizes to force the consumer to purchase parts only from the manufacturer. ) I put in a couple of fittings/valves ect. Now i can fill and empty the hot tub using the pumps that power the jets. All i have to do is open or close a quarter turn valve. These 2 1/4 hp eletric motors move a lot of water in a hurry !

lapeer20m · 04-03-2004, 06:56 PM

I have an am/fm stereo in my bus i got from a vehicle the fire department used for jaws of life training. It works well. The bus came with a radio, but it wasn't very user friendly. I added a couple of extra speakers when i installed the "new" one.

Later i installed a regular house dvd/cd/mp3 player with surround sound, coupled to a big 110v house stereo reciever connected to a couple of sub woofers for a little added bass. I run my tv off of a separate inverter. The power drain from the sound system makes the tv picture flutter a bit. This is especially bad when playing video games. It does give a pretty cool effect when using the tv in screen saver mode, it dances along wiht the beat.

lapeer20m · 04-03-2004, 07:07 PM

After much consideration, i decided to 86 the "VAN PROJECT" It's a marvelous idea, but i don't think it would be particularly helpful on my 4000 mile journey to northern nevada and back. It's too bad, i put some money into that project, and A LOT of elbow grease.

currently the shell of the van is hanging from the rafters. There is a wooden floor inside, she's painted inside and out. She's just about ready to be placed on the roof of my skoolie, but i just don't think it's such a good idea.

Maybe next time i'll look before i leap. Separating the shell of a van from the body is a tremendous amount of work. Especially when it comes to the engine compartment.

Steve · 04-05-2004, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lapeer20m

I went to wal-mart and purchased a 10 dollar 12 volt air compressor. One of those BFU units. ('bout fricken usless!!!)

The amperage draw to run this new air compressor is next to nothing. I plumbed the air line into the pnumatic door system on the bus, along whith a pressure switch, valve and other stuff. The end result.......

I spent the better part of a day trying to eliminate every possible air leak out of the pnumatic door system that i could find. The electric compressor does not feed the air brake system, only the door system. About every 5 minutes, the compressor kicks on for approximately 5-7 seconds to keep the pressure above 40 psi. This keeps the door secured.

Do you know the brand/model of that air compressor, I am looking for one of these 12V units that will turn off after the system reaches a certain pressure, all the ones I have seen run continuously till you turn them off.

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