Rusty 87 build thread

[musigenesis]

Had the bus home so I decided to see how my double seat from a ford transit van was going to fit. I'm going to have a bulkhead wall flush with the back of this, so it needs to be as far forward as possible.







What doesn't work so well is my plan to hang my bicycles on the side opposite the seat. It fits but the handlebars and seat stick out into the aisle too far. I may have to make them both quick-release, or else keep my bikes somewhere else.

[CalDayton]

I like the passenger seat location. Close enough to have a conversation over the noise of the engine or enjoy the heat on a cold day.

Are you planning on doing one of those hinged stairwell covers? It might make the pax seat a little more comfortable for long trips since your legs wouldn't have to dangle in the stairwell.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by CalDayton

I like the passenger seat location. Close enough to have a conversation over the noise of the engine or enjoy the heat on a cold day.

Are you planning on doing one of those hinged stairwell covers? It might make the pax seat a little more comfortable for long trips since your legs wouldn't have to dangle in the stairwell.

It'll probably be removable rather than hinged, but yeah. Also with something like a raised footrest on the forward side of the footwell. Also maybe a sort of desk or airplane-style table in front of the seats.

I was surprised that the seats are actually fairly comfortable, although with two people it would be brutally crammed. The whole thing is only 31" wide.

[Native]

31" ... not much at all. I suppose two children might fit.

[musigenesis]

[musigenesis]

A curious feature of my bus: the roof panels are all riveted to every other rib, but there is one extra row of rivets in the middle of my bus:



On the right side of the bus, these rivets have big globs of some sort of sealant over them on the outside, and they show slight signs of rust on the inside. The seems to be factory-installed rivets, so I guess this was done at the factory - maybe because of the side emergency exit door?

[musigenesis]

Starting on some simple ramps to level my bus up. Need to add another level or two, and some handles - these things are pretty heavy already.

[Native]

Yeah, handles are a must. You don't want to have to haul them around without handles. I like the ID lights, they look origin.al to me.

[musigenesis]

And hopefully not the plunger. Found a guy who does welding and fabrication and I'm going to have him rebuild the section of the floor around the wheel wells (or do the big parts, at least). Going to drive the bus to his house tomorrow and the whole job may be done by Saturday.

He's on board with my plan to make a sunken floor. We're going to cut away the existing floor entirely (about an 8-foot long section), then run transverse (side-to-side) beams at the start and end of this section resting on the chassis rails like the original floor, then run two longitudinal (front-to-back) beams attached to the underside of the transverse beams, such that the tops of the longitudinal beams will be flush with the tops of the chassis rails. He'll then add shorter transverse beams that run to the outside walls, as well as a lip on the outside walls that is down 3" from the original floor.

On my own, then, I will build the wooden floor sections (2" joists with foam board in between and 3/4" plywood on top) with painted sheet steel (or some other waterproof material) attached to the bottom (not sure how yet), and lay them onto this new framing (not sure how it will be attached yet). This will give me a fully-insulated floor section that is flush with the original metal floor (giving me an extra 3" of headroom in this section, which will be my kitchen, bathroom and dressing area).

He's also going to build the frame for a sunken shower stall which will go right behind the passenger side wheel well and project 8-10" inches below the original floor. This will give me additional headroom for the shower.

I imagine it will be somewhat shocking to see an 8'x8' hole over my wheels, but the bus is not too far from that as it is.

[Native]

I do like your sunken floor design!

[joeblack5]

I like the sunken floor design. Used to live in a bus that had a 6" lower bowling alley in the center ile.

At some moment I would like to do similar in our small school bus.

Not sure if I understand your design.. Where do you attach the remaining stubs of transverse beams that come from the wall? You are not worried about the loss of strength by cutting the original transverse beams?

In my design I will fabricate z shape adapters. The top of the z fit in the standing c shape channel that makes up the transverse floor beam.
The standing part of the z drops the floor down in between the chassis rails and the lower part of the z slides into the short section of the dropped transverse beam.

Maybe a picture of the sketch will help.


Why not insulate in between the transverse beams under the floor?

Good luck
Johannes

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

I like the sunken floor design. Used to live in a bus that had a 6" lower bowling alley in the center ile.

At some moment I would like to do similar in our small school bus.

Not sure if I understand your design.. Where do you attach the remaining stubs of transverse beams that come from the wall? You are not worried about the loss of strength by cutting the original transverse beams?

In my design I will fabricate z shape adapters. The top of the z fit in the standing c shape channel that makes up the transverse floor beam.
The standing part of the z drops the floor down in between the chassis rails and the lower part of the z slides into the short section of the dropped transverse beam.

Maybe a picture of the sketch will help.


Why not insulate in between the transverse beams under the floor?

Good luck
Johannes

I'm not sure I understand your z-shape adapters, I'd love to see a pic or sketch of it. I'll post pics today or tomorrow of my sunken floor - this will be the first thing on the bus that I didn't do entirely by myself, so I'll be able to take more pictures and videos of the process than I normally can.

I am worried about the loss of strength from cutting out the floor (which incorporates the original transverse beams), but: the sections of wall over the wheel wells are already reinforced with stiffening panels that (I think) are there to compensate for the loss of wall strength that results from the cut-out in the chair rail for the wheel opening. The transverse beams (at the start and end of the new section) are 3" 3/16" angle iron so they'll be stronger than the original beams (which have a web formed from the two C-channels bent into the edges of the panel so it's effectively 2/16"). I had actually intended to use 3" 1/4" I-beams for this but my fabricator convinced me that would be unnecessary here.

Additionally, I'm going to build additional metal support inside the wooden floor panels that I'll be creating, so when attached they will carry some of the load right at the edges of the wheel well openings that was borne by the original floor there (the metal inside the panel will be thermally isolated from the rest of the floor, which is why I'm not just adding a beam here to the new steel framework.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

I do like your sunken floor design!

Thanks, we'll see how well it goes today. If it fails completely, I'll switch to Plan B: skoolie hot tub.

[musigenesis]

Since my back corner repair went fairly well, I was briefly reconsidering whether a complete rebuild of the floor around the wheel wells was really necessary. I pulled up the temporary plywood cover yesterday and reminded myself of why it is.



I was originally pretty impressed with the ability of the rusted stiffener to still be holding up the mud flap, but at some point in the last month the mud flap dropped off:

[musigenesis]

Anybody know where I can find replacement bits for the plastic around the lights here (the orange bit over the turn signal and the light gray bit around the headlight)? I have new headlights in the mail but I can't find these parts anywhere.





I mangled the bases and the support arms with my angle grinder in the process of removing them, but if anybody wants these for the mirror part (they have cables for heating) you're welcome to them. @CMORGANSKOOL and @HazMatt, you guys mentioned needed one in the thread on this.







I was finding I wasn't really use them when driving, and I kind of like the more open view from the cab now. Removing them also confirmed to me that they are indeed very ugly.

I think also I see the reason that the newer style of these things has a much wider flange to attach them to the hood. The bases on mine had basically carved out deep grooves in the hood just from the vibration.

[joeblack5]

This is how my design is played out.

Johan

[Native]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

This is how my design is played out.

Johan

I like it ... provides strength while relocating the support.

[musigenesis]

Thought my passenger side headlight was full of water because of leaking from the mirror brackets, but I just noticed the BB hole:



The guys getting to work on the demo. This is the first thing on the bus that I haven't done 100% by myself - it is very relaxing watching others work.







Floor mostly gone. They still have to cut the back end a few inches more.



The demo revealed a majorly rusted out section of exhaust. The rest of the exhaust has been replaced but this part they couldn't get to easily so it was left as is. They'll be replacing this section tomorrow morning.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

This is how my design is played out.

Johan

Ah, I see, you're lowering the floor between your chassis rails. As you can see, I don't think I could do that with my bus - too much stuff in the way there.

[joeblack5]

Wow, you have a strong stomach for rust repair. Some busses do not have a steel floor at all...only treated plywood. I believe some crown and older gmc pd4104 have wooden floors....mine.. a transit bus has a wooden floor. My bet would be that the sheet metal floor is used as fire protection and not so much for strength reasons. Wonder if you can fill the sections between the floor beams in with wall sections of modular freezer buildings.




On my plans for the small bus...I can not go far in between the frame rails either. So the floor end up at the same level as the top of the frame rails. The floor beam C channels are indeed between the frame rails but do not interfere with the stuff going on there.
I only need to cut and lower three floor beams ..in the back, that is under the bed there is no need to lower the floor.



This will give me 4 to 5" more headroom where I need it.



J