Rusty 87 build thread

[musigenesis]

This piece sticks out to create a 2" tunnel underneath it that will be where the water line from the fresh tank and the electrical crosses over (this will be the only crossover spot in the bus). I had originally intended this to just be a square over the sender port access hatch, but with the one piece like this I can get to either that hatch or to the crossover by unscrewing it.



Marked off all the locations for drilling and countersinking. These are reference pics so I can make sure I didn't miss any.











Going to prime and paint these with the Valspar porch paint. I really like how it's holding up in the cab while I'm tromping all over it.

[musigenesis]

Putting this idea here so I don't forget it, although I might regret not forgetting it later. I'm keeping my side exit door, and my idea is to make the door removable such that I can then put in a heating unit that fits into and over the opening and sticking out the side maybe a foot and a half, that contains a wood stove and flue and a diesel air heater and all its plumbing. In weather too cold for a space heater I'd put this in place and then use either heat source as I liked. The wood stove flue could go straight up, and there would be no permanent modification to my bus (other than brackets or whatever to hold this thing in place, and they would not be intended to hold this in place while driving). I could even have a matching unit with AC built into it.

For somebody traveling regularly this would not work very well, but my intent is to live in one place so this might be workable. And definitely flexible.

[Phantom5824]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Putting this idea here so I don't forget it, although I might regret not forgetting it later. I'm keeping my side exit door, and my idea is to make the door removable such that I can then put in a heating unit that fits into and over the opening and sticking out the side maybe a foot and a half, that contains a wood stove and flue and a diesel air heater and all its plumbing. In weather too cold for a space heater I'd put this in place and then use either heat source as I liked. The wood stove flue could go straight up, and there would be no permanent modification to my bus (other than brackets or whatever to hold this thing in place, and they would not be intended to hold this in place while driving). I could even have a matching unit with AC built into it.

For somebody traveling regularly this would not work very well, but my intent is to live in one place so this might be workable. And definitely flexible.

That's an intriguing idea; an interchangeable utility closet!
Brilliant!

[wwiding]

So many good ideas in your thread. I have to weld around my wheel wells on my bus, and in the two back corners. Thanks to you I have a much better idea of what to do.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by wwiding

So many good ideas in your thread. I have to weld around my wheel wells on my bus, and in the two back corners. Thanks to you I have a much better idea of what to do.

You mean sell your bus?

[wwiding]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

You mean sell your bus?

Nah, I got it cheap. We're hoping to start sleeping in it, unfinished, this month. From there we'll sleep in the house as needed and spend a few months figuring out how we want to lay it out.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by wwiding

Nah, I got it cheap. We're hoping to start sleeping in it, unfinished, this month. From there we'll sleep in the house as needed and spend a few months figuring out how we want to lay it out.

Cool, looking forward to the build thread. I enjoy rust pictures now, in kind of a sick way.

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Putting this idea here so I don't forget it, although I might regret not forgetting it later. I'm keeping my side exit door, and my idea is to make the door removable such that I can then put in a heating unit that fits into and over the opening and sticking out the side maybe a foot and a half, that contains a wood stove and flue and a diesel air heater and all its plumbing. In weather too cold for a space heater I'd put this in place and then use either heat source as I liked. The wood stove flue could go straight up, and there would be no permanent modification to my bus (other than brackets or whatever to hold this thing in place, and they would not be intended to hold this in place while driving). I could even have a matching unit with AC built into it.

For somebody traveling regularly this would not work very well, but my intent is to live in one place so this might be workable. And definitely flexible.

While I think it is a very good idea to get more use out of the exit area, I think something like a pop out mud room (COVID AIRLOCK) might be more useful.


Reason? It was found out long ago that an outside wall was the least effeceint place to locate a fireplace/heater. Even though it is a good location to obtain the mandatory outside combustion air, half of the radiant heat surface is pointed outside and wastes heat, unless you have a use for the heat such as heating a (temporary? tent/leanto?) attached garage/patio/ firewood storage/drying area or using it as an outdoor kitchen.

[musigenesis]

The joy of $5 sheets of craigslist plywood. Some of the sheets have the outer layer rippling in places; I didn't notice it on the back of this one. I used a utility knife to cut these wedges out wherever the outer ply was coming up.



High-performance wood filler.









Looks OK. This is the underside so it doesn't have to be pretty, just needs to lay flat.



Starting to prime the floor sections. I was going to leave them unpainted, but during the few days I had the cab floor in place unpainted, I seriously trashed the plywood. So initially the paint will just be to protect it from me, but I may even leave this as the floor with a throw rug of some sort.



I like this Valspar porch paint, seems durable and easy to clean. I'm thinking of using the white as my interior paint for everything. I don't know if that's a bad idea, other than because the paint is kind of expensive ($29 a gallon).

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by kidharris

While I think it is a very good idea to get more use out of the exit area, I think something like a pop out mud room (COVID AIRLOCK) might be more useful.


Reason? It was found out long ago that an outside wall was the least effeceint place to locate a fireplace/heater. Even though it is a good location to obtain the mandatory outside combustion air, half of the radiant heat surface is pointed outside and wastes heat, unless you have a use for the heat such as heating a (temporary? tent/leanto?) attached garage/patio/ firewood storage/drying area or using it as an outdoor kitchen.

I'm sure being up against a wall is less efficient for a wood stove than being in the center of a structure, I don't think it's the case that literally half the generated heat would be lost because of this geometry. There would be a small loss of efficiency, but my arrangement would have the stove only maybe a foot further out than how people generally mount wood stoves in skoolies so it wouldn't be much different, and I could also insulate this shell thing with insulation twice as thick.

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

I'm sure being up against a wall is less efficient for a wood stove than being in the center of a structure, I don't think it's the case that literally half the generated heat would be lost because of this geometry. There would be a small loss of efficiency, but my arrangement would have the stove only maybe a foot further out than how people generally mount wood stoves in skoolies so it wouldn't be much different, and I could also insulate this shell thing with insulation twice as thick.

I believe that you are underestimating the loss in efficiency, however it will be you paying. You are comparing a bad location (regular skoolie with so called high efficiency tin can heaters with no thermal mass alongside a wall) to an even worse location - hanging out your door. If you look at the marketing on these high efficiency heaters, what they are talking about is getting the most btus from the fuel. It makes no difference how efficient the heaters deign is if you just throw the heat away.


Cost also depends on your supply. If your supply is free, then the only downside is the labor and time involved in handling the firewood and the tediousness of feeding the fire.



When I was 16 years old I cleared 13 acres of post oak/scrub oak/pine/cedar and brush in Arkansas with a hand axe after school and I suppose that makes me a little more appreciative of the labor end of free firewood.


At least we didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to feed the fire, nor was the house cold in the morning thanks to the fire being in the middle of the house, lots of thermal mass, and using outside combustion air (duct from under the house). The fire was done/out and the chimney damper closed well before bedtime so we did not have to worry about smoke or the house burning down while we slept. The heat did not go up the chimney all night either

[musigenesis]

This was really weird. I was working in my shed and started to hear the sound of foam board rubbing. Looked back and noticed one small piece that was kind of vibrating slightly. Got up close and noticed a hole with the end of a wasp sticking out of it. I kicked the piece outside and the wasp flew out of it (this is the hole after the wasp was gone).



I cut the piece in half to see if there was a nest inside already. Looks like he was just getting started.



Weird, I've never heard of anything like this. Now I think I have to check all my foam before I put it into the bus. A wasp nest could seriously compromise the insulation in one spot - not to mention having a wasp nest inside the bus.

[BusT]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Started scraping and osphoing the diesel tank and the floor above it. Tank has a good amount of surface rust underneath the flaking paint layer, but it's not very deep and cleans up well with the ospho. The cage is also completely rusted on the surface but it's very thick steel so no structural problems. Just going to take a fair bit of work to clean and paint everything.

Attachment 41512

Attachment 41513

I traced all the wires into the ABS box and nothing was cut, so presumably it got zapped by the welder dude.

Attachment 41514

If I take my bus to my mechanic to look into the ABS problem, would they have an easier time getting at the module from above with the floor off like this? By "easier time" I mean would I have to pay less for the hourly cost?

You think it got zapped due to the batteries being plugged in while welding???

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by BusT

You think it got zapped due to the batteries being plugged in while welding???

I think that might be what happened. The welder dude I hired was using a 220 and he said he kept blowing the circuit breaker at his mom's house. My other thought is that he might have cut or nicked one of the sensor cables while cutting the floor section out, since the light indicators on the ABS box indicate that the problem is in the left rear sensor rather than a general ABS problem. Nothing seems to have been cut anywhere, though.

I don't even know what the ABS sensor on the wheel looks like, TBH.

[musigenesis]

The screws that go straight down into the dowels work as expected and are no problems at all. The issues are all with the dowels that are shared by two, three or four boards and the screws all have to go in at an angle. I didn't really anticipate the screw paths intersecting inside the dowel, which happened in a few spots.

My original plan was to fabricate square metal washers that would fit into recesses in the joined pieces, so that I'd still only have one screw per dowel, but I got lazy and figured just angling the screws in with countersinks would work, which it did in most spots. I realize now I can put these closer to the edge of the plywood and go in with a less-extreme angle than 45 degrees.



Biggest problem was here, first screws didn't bite properly.





I stripped out a number of these screws. So much for easy removability.





My original plan was to remove this t-shaped piece if I needed to get to the sender port, but I knew I would strip out a few screws and I would actually be able to get the piece off easily, so I decided to cut a proper hatch. And I stripped out a couple of screws.





I'll figure out how I'll attach this permanently later.



Only one real problem in terms of lay-down. None of these three screws bit, so this part of the floor is bending up maybe 1/8". I'll try one more and if it doesn't hold I'll screw in a recessed plate of some sort to make them flush.



I'm planning on just carpet in the back, and this subfloor surface will be OK for that, even with the countersinks. I'm doing this same kind of subfloor in the front section but I want to use vinyl sheet there, so I'll have to lose 1/4" headroom and put down some underlayment.

[Frochevy]

Good progress on the floor!! Its looking really good!!

[EastCoastCB]

I'd call this bus "The Hard Way"!

Love your determination and resilience, man. I like watching this thread, you have so much more energy than me. Cheers pal.

[musigenesis]

Decided to fit these pieces first so I could get on painting them while also welding the bolts on the floor and painting it.

First screwup of the day - forgot this piece needed to overhang on the back side to meet the kitchen floor plywood. Fortunately I was able to use this piece elsewhere. This 3/4" plywood I got actually ranged between 5/8" and 7/8" in thickness, and I had barely enough pieces left exactly 3/4" to do this section.



New notched piece.



Badly screwed up the piece that was supposed to go top right here, also forgot it's supposed to hang over the edges to the kitchen plywood. Fortunately this piece was total junk anyway and I would have had to do a lot of repair work on it.

I got kind of fed up working with these smaller pieces and decided to bag it and get some new plywood from Lowe's or Home Depot. But then I saw the prices and remembered why I'm using this. I got 25 sheets for $125, but just new sheets for this front section would cost me almost $150. I can see why people use OSB for their floors, at least from a financial standpoint.



New wheel well piece, cut it right this time.



Second screwup - briefly forgot this piece needed to meet the door sill and cut it. Grr.



Had to notch out for a separate sill piece. So close to doing this floor just right!





I staggered the sheets here so that I don't have any four-corner joins again.



Now comes the fun part of marking out where the screws will go - on the floor that is too rusty/ospho-y to see any sharpie marks.

[Native]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Now comes the fun part of marking out where the screws will go - on the floor that is too rusty/ospho-y to see any sharpie marks.

There are markers such as these that work well on such metal surfaces.


https://www.amazon.com/Markal-96006-...79278813&psc=1

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

There are markers such as these that work well on such metal surfaces.


https://www.amazon.com/Markal-96006-...79278813&psc=1

Nice, just ordered two. Thanks for the tip!