New member, New Skoolie

[phillbus914]

I started grinding the bolts off my seats when I was removing them but I found it much easier to just take off the seat bolts on the side rails then just pry the seat upwards bending the bolts in the floor to the point that most of them just broke off. My bus spent its whole life in Michigan, which is about the same as Minnesota so yours are probably as rusty as mine were.

I hope you plan to take the rubber floor & plywood. I'm glad I did, it was pritty nasty wood & there was some rust under the plywood that I'm glad I took care of. Theres pictures of my progress in my photo gallery... click the "my bus" link to see them

[the_experience03]

As it is with grinding the heads off, some seats we have to pry (and hard) so I don't think it will work just to do that. The seat post will break long before the bolts will so in the end we'd still have to deal with that mess on the floor.

That said, the plan is to try and get the rest of the seats and the floor up on Wednesday. That will give us a chance to see how the floor looks. I didn't notice any soft spots, but who knows. Hopefully it will be ready for a quick coat of some cheap paint after just a quick washing so we can get to laying down furring strips, insulation, etc pretty.

[the_experience03]

We completed days 2 and 3 of the conversion. The full details will be available on the website as soon as they are.


Long story short we got the rest of the seats out, the heaters out, the rubber flooring up, and the plywood subfloor up. THAT was a chore... Anyone else run into bolts, screws, and NAILS holding the plywood to the steel floor? It seemed a bit overdone to me....of course I doubt they built it to be taken apart someday.

We did get some good news though. The plywood was in ok shape, but will be replaced anyway. That gave me some confidence in the condition the steel would be in. As it turns out, the steel was very sold. The only areas with rust were around the seat bolt holes and that's just surface rust so we'll wire wheel it off and paint the whole floor in some el cheapo spray paint to reseal it before spending the $$$ on the furring strips, insulation, and OSB subfloor.

This brings me to some questions... What kind of centers did everyone run their furring strips on? I understand the rigid foam has some structural strength, but I also know things like my couch are heavy. On top of that I want to run the thinnest OSB possible to save a little headroom (most of the crew is 6 feet tall or more, myself included) and to save some money as an extra furring strip or two is much cheaper than running thicker or stronger subflooring.

Atleast it seems like we're making SOME progress on the conversion. This preliminary work is not nearly as much fun as framing and finishing work will be.

Also...I'm not looking forward to the $100 trip to the dump to get rid of the seats, rubber, etc....

[Eric von Kleist]

I ran my furring strips on 16" centers, more or less. It works well with 48" sheet material. Of course, the bus is less than 96" wide, so the strips along the walls of the bus were less than 16" wide.

It's a good idea to MEASURE and map things that are going under the floor. That way, in the future you will know exactly where to or where not to attach things to the floor.

Plus, if you are going to attach anything that needs ;pecial support (seats, heavy stuff, etc.) you can put a piece of 3/4" plywood down in that location instead of the foam insulation.

[busone]

You can save some money on the dump cost. The seats are usually plywood with a foam and vinyl covering. You can take the plywood out and use it for firewood or give it away. The papermill that we used to live next to would take any kind of untreated scrap wood to burn in their boilers.

You will probably have to dump the foam and vinyl but that should not be too bad. You can also get some money at the scrap yard for the steel in the seats. Or you might want to keep it for future needs on the bus. Just a few ideas.