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Skoolie
Join Date: Dec 2022
Location: Greenville, SC
Posts: 130
Year: 1991
Coachwork: Bluebird
Chassis: TC2000
Engine: Cummins 5.9
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Lucas the Vagabond
Hey everybody! I’ve been posting on this site for a while with a multitude of questions and confusion that everyone has been very kind to answer. I’ve been meaning to make this “skoolie diary” thread for a while but just never found the time. Well now I’ve got a few minutes to at least begin it. I begin writing this about 4 months into the build. We began in November of 2022. We began thinking about it in August.
Here’s the background. My wife is a highschool teacher and I am a hospital chaplain resident. We live in Greenville, SC currently renting a house in a semi-residential area. We originally began thinking about skoolies because a dear friend of our spontaneously moved up to Wyoming and we thought that was so cool. The conversations usually sounded like “man, I’m so glad she gets to do that! That would be so awesome but we would never do anything like that because [multitude of reasons were tethered to a house and south carolina].”
We’ll fast forward a bit and inject some boldness into the narrative and suddenly we’re talking about try some van life stuff. My wife and I began thinking about using some of that money to pursue the dream of travel we have shared for a while (ps, we’ve been together almost five years and married since June of 2022. So we’re newly weds). We figured if we were going to do something like that it’d need to be now. We don’t own a home yet. One of our cars is paid off. My internship ends in august of 23. She is leaving teaching after this year for a bunch of reasons. Her family is here and mind is near Atlanta. We have two black labs, Harper and Zeus. We have no kids but eventually want some. Im 23, she’s 27. Clock is ticking. If we want to do something spontaneous and fun like this, to us, it’s gotta be now.
It began as thinking about traveling around Europe for a couple of months. We both want to go there and see things we’ve never seen. But a couple of months sounded too short. And what would we do with the dogs? This led us to start looking at other nomadic lifestyles. Did we want to leave our current city jobs and buy a plot of land and try to do off grid homesteading? (Yes we do…but not yet.) We for sure want to travel, so……..eventually we landed on van life. Obviously. “Let’s buy a sprinter van! They’re easy to drive and don’t drink a lot of gas. They’re easy to procure and look cool. Everybody likes sprinter vans. I don’t want to deal with driving something like a bus or RV!” Well it didn’t take but about a week of watching sprinter conversions to realize an obvious fact: we don’t want to live with two large dogs in a cramped space with no shower. Sounds like hell.
RVs were the next consideration. Did we want a fifth wheel? I could trade in my Subaru Outback towards something like a Silverado and we could tow it! A good friend of my dad’s did that with his wife and two kids and loved it! But…those trucks are like $60,000+. And what the heck would we do with a dually truck afterwards? I don’t want to drive that everyday. I guess sell it for a huge loss and buy a used Subaru lol.
Well how about a class A RV? Yeah, those are nice. I thought about my rich uncle Larry who had one of those and a houseboat. They were NICE. All the amenities you can think of. So we started looking at those. While we did have some good sized saving, money was and is still an object. The price tag turned us quickly away from any RVs. Some savings have to be for the trip itself. I’m not blowing $200,000+ on the vehicle! So how about used? Well, that wasn’t a terrible options but by that time we’d realized that a lot of people were discussing school buses as means of travel. We liked the idea of doing something different and unique so why not at least consider the bus?
A quick Google search of “skoolie versus RV” made the decision for us. I don’t need to explain to you all why the steel ribbed monstrosity designed to protect society’s most vulnerable was superior in every way to the uppity fiberglass counterpart that turns its nose up at us from the horizon of overpriced RV parks. That and the infinitely customizable aspect of skoolies sold me too.
Now i was brought up in a pretty un-handy (handy-less? Without handiness?) family. My father was not the grease covered mechanic changing his oil in the driveway while 8-year-old me stood readily beside, waiting to hand him his snap on ratchet at precisely the right moment. He was an accountant at a golf course and I love him. But he is not a handy man. My grandfathers are and were. I learned pieces of woodworking from them. But not enough to do carpentry of really any kind. My home was a “If it’s broke you can’t fix it. Buy a new one” type household. And that was of course nice…until I had to buy my own things lol. I didn’t learn what an impact driver was until senior year of high-school. All this to say, building a bus is not in my realm of skill sets. But I’ve never been a stranger to challenging myself. So why the heck not? It’s only what you trust with yours and others lives every time you go out on the road.
So we decided on a skoolie. But what size? Shorties were attractive from a driver’s standpoint; no CDL, no length or weight restrictions, could possibly grab a latte in a drive thru with one. But the more we tried planning and thinking through our needs the more it seemed infeasible. My wife and I both were vehemently against a full sized bus. Chiefly because neither of us wanted a CDL. And yes I’ve heard you don’t have to have one to drive a bus. But I think it’s equally reckless to allow some rando off the street to hop in a massive RV with no large vehicle training and take off down the road. What a liability! (*cue the memory of an RV trip with my dad and brother where my dad took out the guard rail of the Camper store literally as we pulled away from having paid for the rental…*). We also figured larger buses were more expensive. And we didn’t need that much space. So we decided on a mid sized flat nose rear engine. We wanted a blue bird (but we didn’t know it at the time. All buses looked the same to us).
At some point in this process we had the realization that we were possibly fooling ourselves and that this would be an impossible, reckless, and or stupid thing to do. We figured asking for some outside input couldn’t hurt. To our surprise our friends and family all encouraged us. My dad, to no one’s surprise, was skeptical but even he admitted “I wish I had done something like that when I was your age.” Many said something akin to this. We felt emboldened all the more to pursue this dream.
Our next and final question to decide concerned whether we wanted to buy an unconverted bus, a partial conversion, or a fully converted. We found a midsized dog nose bus that we really liked that was a partial conversion (probably 80-90% done). Beautiful light blue color. Located in NC so not too far. No need to do the crazy two day overnight sleep-in-your-hammock non stop trips some of y’all have done (though I respect it). Well I wanted to consult my step dad who is the most knowledgeable car guy in my family. He owns a trash business as well so he’s got a CDL and is familiar with the big engines. I ask him if the Maxxforce something or other is a good engine. He replies with what in summary is a hard “No. That’s the worst engine.”
Our spirits are crushed. We spend another few weeks looking. These midsized flat nose buses prove to be a needle in a haystack. I’m also aware now that we need a Cummins or DT466 (but not the DT466E apparently). Much of my knowledge at this point (and currently) is regurgitated from those of you who know firsthand what you’re talking about.
We commenced to scavenging Offerup, Craigslist, FB Marketplace, auction sites, etc. Literally anywhere that might sell a bus. Finally we got a hit on one in Dallas, GA. Only an hour from where my parents live. We can make a weekend out of it! Perfect! It’s a 1991 Mid sized Bluebird flat nose front engine. “Ehh, close enough” I think. I message back and forth with the owner, Mike. He tells me he bought it to turn into a skoolie also. It’s a “partial conversion” in the sense that he removed the seats and installed 1/2” styrofoam insulation and 3/4” T&G plywood. The top is smothered in Henry’s Tropicool, something I later regret but accept.. He also has a plethora of items he planned to put in it as well that are now for sale. A couple dressers, two high quality captain chairs, mirrors, a shower, a couch, etc. much of the decor has an…interesting…look to it. Tells me he was going for a “1920s art deco” aesthetic. When asked why he was getting rid of him Mike tells me with a kind and thick southern drawl “my wife just couldn’t get the vision.”
Well we are over the moon excited! $4500 is asking price. Figure we could get him down to $4000. I count the windows on the side to double check it’s a mid and not a full size. It is. Later on my wife is double checking and tells me she thinks it’s full size. “No way, count the windows!” I tell her. I ask Mike. He says he’s unsure. Well, “I’m pretty sure it’s midsize” I tell her. We feel pressed to go anyway cause we’re tired of looking for a bus. I’m not proud of that, but it is what it is. Pending any MAJOR damage we were gonna buy this bus. That’s what we’d decided.
Well we get to GA, rally with my mom and step dad so he can come see it since of the four of us he’s the only one who knows what he’s looking at. We arrive at a rural farm property. Mike meets us out front with the warmth of a retired southern GA policeman and pastor. Not two minutes into the visit, I realize my wife was right (and I’d have to admit I was wrong lol): the bus is a full size. My wife catches my eye and our look communicates panic to each other. How are we gonna drive that??
We meticulously look it over. My step dad examines all of it. “Frame looks good,” he tells me, “no rust that I can see.” We take it for a test drive. I think it sounds fine. It reminds me of my grandpa’s old F-350 dually that rumbled and smelled like diesel. Fond memories fill my mind during the test ride. I bust out laughing watching my step dad bounce up and down in the air ride chair. My mom is of course taking pictures. https://imgur.com/a/SIGXGIy
We get back and I’m eager to buy it. My step dad wisely tells me we need to talk it over first. We leave and converse over chicken nuggets and frosted lemonades. He tells us that the bus seemed to struggle going up hills. He thinks it might be governed at 55 or 60. I don’t like this but I think “we can make it work. The skoolie life doesn’t operate in a hurry.” He mentions a couple other smaller concerns but tells us the Cummins 5.9 is a great engine and if taken care of will last a long time more. (The bus had something like 160,000 miles on it). My wife and I speak one on one. We decide we’re going to offer $3750 and go no higher than $4000. If Mike accepts then we’ll take that.
We get back. Wheel and deal a bit. I feel like I made off like a bandit with the bus, both captain chairs, the shower, and a big ol delta bandsaw mike didn’t want anymore all for $4600. Not bad, I think.
My step dad drives it home. He lets my wife and I practice driving it in their neighborhood. For me it’s not much different than the old box truck or the flatbeds or the trucks and trailers I’d driven in the past with my step dad. It’s still freaking huge though. To say my wife is nervous would be an understatement. But we all really encourage (peer pressured?) her to drive it. To her surprise it’s actually “not that bad.”
We end the weekend with dinner and pack the bus with all our pilfered good from Mike’s garage and begin the 2.5 hour trek back to South Carolina. My step dad follows us to the gas pump where he educated on on how to properly fill the bus and what to look for regarding routine maintenance. Then he swipes his card and says “this first tank is on me.” We I hug him I catch sight of the $100+ price on the tank. I realize just how big this vehicle is.
https://imgur.com/a/lwPmWCe
I hop on I-85 North and ride the slow lane all the way back. My wife cautiously trails behind me in her RAV4. We stop at a rest stop outside the city so I can stretch and calm down from the stress of navigating Atlanta traffic in a bus. Scratch that- the stress of navigating a bus. Period. We left early so we wouldn’t be driving with 30 year old headlights at night. The sunset is beautiful. We pull in the driveway a little after 5pm. I spent 20 minutes trying to finagle it through the back gate. Using the tape measure I’d determined the bus had 3” of clearance which I process as “Yeah, it’ll fit.”
The ground is wet at the base of our backyard and i manage to mutilate much of the grass trying to get the thing turned around and positioned. I pray it’ll grow back before our lease expires…later I let the landlord (my uncle) know I’ll plant some grass seed before I leave. It’s a form of penance I guess.
We wake up the next morning feeling like it was a dream. When we see a blaring gleam of yellow from the bathroom window we’re reminded there is a bus in our back yard. A glorious 1991 Flatnose Front Engine Bluebird TC2000. We name him Lucas, Lucas the Vagabond. And from that day forth, there is much to be done.
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