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Old 12-24-2022, 09:57 PM   #1
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
"Miles" the bus.

His name is Miles, because I didn't want to have to constantly explain why I named my bus conversion "Thelonious".
2005 Freightliner FS-65 Thomas "48 passenger" (built for 22) wheelchair lift bus. Etowah County, Alabama school district origin. Purchased by GovDeals.com auction in August 2017.
Mercedes Benz MBE 906 turbo diesel, Allison 2000 trans, air brakes, 183k miles, ZERO rust.



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Old 12-24-2022, 10:11 PM   #2
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
Initial picture. Learning how to post pics.
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Old 12-24-2022, 10:20 PM   #3
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
Miles.

Bodywork pics.
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Old 12-24-2022, 10:38 PM   #4
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
"Miles" the bus

Paint, etc.
Days of cleaning and sanding...
Epoxy primer.
Single stage urethane topcoats.
TCP Global products, good paint, good prices.
Colors are Dark Aqua, Light Aqua, Dark Pewter, White.
Removing ceiling panels, put a couple of scrap boards in the windows to hold the panels while taking out the screws.
Aluminum rack for solar panels, 2x2x1/4 angle.
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IMG_20181002_165653891_BURST000_COVER.jpg   IMG_20181116_174608477.jpg   IMG_20181116_174621847.jpg  
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Old 12-24-2022, 10:42 PM   #5
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
Bus "clean out" finds:
Among the usual pennies, gum and candy wrappers was this Love Letter from Miriah to Cody.
Did they live happily ever after?
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Old 12-24-2022, 11:18 PM   #6
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
"Miles"

Solar panels, combiner box on roof. All panels 36 cell, "180 watt". All parallel to reduce issues from panel shading. Each panel fused. Combined into two feeds because I'm using two 30 amp PWM controllers from Bogart Engineering. A PVC LB conduit body was "low profile" enough to stay within the rib thickness. More photos of solar stuff later.
Spray foam: I used Foam It Green kit. I insulated the outer roof skin using everything I had, since it was about 40°F outside.
Spare batt fiberglass, moving blankets, anything. Vis-queen over the top.
Hooked up three electric heaters, about 4500 watts (on three separate circuits) overnight.
Checked roof interior skin temp in the morning, was 108°F. Metal was bone dry. I'd been keeping the two jugs of foam in a small heated bathroom at 75°F.
Brought them out, wrapped a blanket around them, removed the heaters, opened the doors until interior skin temp was 80°F, then sprayed foam. The mix was good, stuff went on well, kicked just fine.
Trimming is NO FUN. Mask, safety glasses INSIDE goggles, still got that **** in my eyes.
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IMG_20190318_171958857_HDR.jpg   IMG_20190318_172024335.jpg   IMG_20190321_095744025.jpg  
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Old 12-24-2022, 11:30 PM   #7
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
"Miles"

Furring strips, 3 inches wide, so ceiling boards could be fastened off the rib centers for thermal break.

Two layers of 1/2 inch cdx, cut across the 48 inch dimension because they bent better that way. Laminated in place with Liquid Nails and Teks screws.

1 inch white "styro" board with silver mylar side facing down bent nicely into place between furring strips. Sealed up with aluminum tape.

Wires for overhead lighting run beside furring strips.
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Old 12-25-2022, 06:20 AM   #8
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Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 6,995
Year: 2003
Coachwork: International
Chassis: CE 300
Engine: DT466e
Rated Cap: 65C-43A
Nice job on the insulation and absolutely gorgeous paint job! That might be the best paint job I've ever seen here.

Another tip for the pics: when you just upload the pics, they appear in the "attached thumbnails" section of each post, as above. After uploading the pics, but before submitting the post, you can click the paper clip button again and you will see all the pics you've uploading in a drop-down list. If you click "insert all" in that list, it will add refs to each pic into the body of your submission; you can then write text before or after each pic etc. This puts the pics "inline" in your post instead of all being grouped at the end in that separate section.
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Old 12-31-2022, 11:10 PM   #9
Skoolie
 
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Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
Trailer hitch

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Acquired a used hitch, 10,000 lb rated. The seller said it was off a Chevy pickup, $25.00. It was wider than the width of the frame rails, so I got a piece of 1/2 inch plate to mount it with.

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Drilling holes in the frame flanges for 3/4 inch grade 8 bolts.
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Hitch mounted.
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One really lucky break came when I decided I wanted to re-route the exhaust pipe to the other side, because I wanted to mount a grey water tank on the left side behind the axle. Looking at the pipe, it seemed I would be able to use much of the existing pipe by taking it apart and flipping the pieces over.
It turned out that the piping all disassembled easily, and EVERY PIECE flipped over and fit perfectly back together. Even the hangers fit on the other (passenger) side - there were even mounting holes for the hangers on the other side exactly where they were needed.
The bumper flipped over, mounted perfectly upside down, and the exhaust hole was in the correct location as well.
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Old 12-31-2022, 11:26 PM   #10
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Bellingham Washington
Posts: 111
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner
Engine: 6.4 liter Mercedes MBE 900
Rated Cap: 48 passenger
Air horns

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Air horns from WOLO, (reconditioned) Orient Express.
Tried to load a video, but it wouldn't work.
I was able to use the air supply originally meant for the crossing arm and stop sign, which was already being fed from a pressure protection valve, and the original horn relay from the terribly anemic sounding electric horn. I found cable glands and a PVC wire entry shell enclosure on the internet somewhere. It's sealed to the roof with 3M VHB tape.
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Old 01-01-2023, 03:53 AM   #11
Skoolie
 
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Location: Earth
Posts: 157
Year: 2001
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: Freightliner FS65
Engine: Cummins 5.9 ISB 24v
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross View Post
His name is Miles, because I didn't want to have to constantly explain why I named my bus conversion "Thelonious".
2005 Freightliner FS-65 Thomas "48 passenger" (built for 22) wheelchair lift bus. Etowah County, Alabama school district origin. Purchased by GovDeals.com auction in August 2017.
Mercedes Benz MBE 906 turbo diesel, Allison 2000 trans, air brakes, 183k miles, ZERO rust.


Could have named it Davis and the Monk.
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Old 01-01-2023, 08:26 AM   #12
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Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 632
Year: 2001
Coachwork: Thomas
Engine: 3126b 210hp
Rated Cap: 48
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercuric Mind View Post
Could have named it Davis and the Monk.
Kind Of Blue

☮️Dave
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