Skoobie the Skoolie's Transformation

[skoobie]

We have already begun the transformation of our skoolie, but I feel like I need to start from the beginning.

Bringing Skoobie Home –

In the beginning of 2016, we knew that we would be moving across country within a year. We also knew we would need to do something with the house we owned in upstate New York, either sell it or rent it. With either option, we would have to store the ridiculous amount of household goods we had accumulated over the last three years in order to show the house to perspective buyers and renters. We looked into Pods, Penske and the local storage units and every option seemed to be between $8K-$12K and/or we wouldn’t be able to access our stuff while it was in storage.

At the same time, Nathaniel and I started following Expedition Happiness on YouTube, a German couple who flew to the States to buy a school bus and convert it into the mobile home of their dreams. We loved watching their progress, their creativity in converting the bus, and their super cute dog catch a few minutes on screen. Then it hit us. We could gut a school bus and make it into our own personal storage and moving vehicle! And who knows? Maybe once it pays for itself as a moving vehicle we can turn it into our own skoolie. Nathaniel quickly got on eBay, government auction sites and this lovely skoolie.net school bus conversion forum to find a good deal on a bus in decent condition.

We lost many auctions and drove many miles looking at nearby buses, all of which had horrible rust on their bellies. We were in upstate New York after all, where salty roads eat your vehicles from the bottom up. The local buses were also very overpriced, anywhere from $5K-$20K. After about a month of constant searching, Nathaniel finally found the perfect bus. A beautiful white and red activity bus used by the Fort Gibson Schools for their sports and extra-curricular programs. Average mileage, low amount of rust, rear Caterpillar engine, and 40 full feet of bus for only $3,800! But it was all the way in Oklahoma, a 20 hour drive from where we were at the time. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. We won the auction and Nathaniel flew down to Oklahoma to drive Skoobie back to upstate New York.

More pictures of our progress so far can be found in our profile. I'll be mentioning what's going on in them in the coming days.

-Amanda

[skoobie]

We decided to take out all but four seats from the front, one in the very back and two that happened to be over the heaters in the body of the bus in order to make room for our stuff during our move. We used those seats as shelves, and we used the four in the front as temporary storage for Nathaniel’s most-used tools (which came in handy later!). Along the bottom of the bus and along the windows, Nathaniel installed E-track, a commonly used tie down system, giving us multiple anchoring locations along Skoobie. We needed to pack Skoobie tight, so we made shelves and used as much of the E-track as we could to fill him, floor to ceiling with our house hold goods.

These pictures show what Skoobie looked after all the E-track was installed. Nathaniel used an angle grinder to remove the seat bolts from the floor. I used a drill and elbow grease to disassemble the seat hardware and cushions. We sold the metal to a scrap yard for a measly $40 something and paid about $50 something to throw away the cushions at the local trash center. Once the seats were out of the way, Nathaniel welded the E-track panels along the sides of the bus and screwed them to the floor.

We were able to fit just shy of 12,000 pounds of house hold goods into Skoobie! We were very close to the weight capacity, but we made it, albeit with a few minor setbacks when leaving New York. I'll write another reply with that story; it's a long one.

[skoobie]

Between renting our house and being able to leave upstate New York, we had about 2 weeks to wait. We stayed at Candlewood Suites in Evans Mills, NY.

Skoobie was kept on an RV storage lot while we waited to leave. The day before heading home, we went to pick up Skoobie and bring him back to the hotel so that we could leave quickly in the morning. We had previously installed a generator into the engine compartment to run throughout the night to warm up the block heater to assist Skoobie in starting his engine. Everything started that day, no problem, and we drove him to the hotel. Nathaniel noticed some air leaking from the throttle and was a bit worried, but Skoobie held enough air and made it to the hotel. Once there, Nathaniel took the air throttle apart in -10 degree weather and brought it inside for diagnostics. After much (MUCH) hemming and hawing, and driving all around the area to local bus shops, truck stops, and diesel engine mechanics, he decided that the dust boot was the seal for the throttle and ordered another over-nighted since we couldn’t find it locally ($122…) while we asked our friends here on the skoolie.net forum if they had any ideas about what could be wrong. This was Friday.

The part came on Saturday, as scheduled, and while Nathaniel was installing it, we got a reply from our friends on the Skoolie forum. “That’s just the dust boot. It’s not going to hold air for you. You will need a new air throttle”. This was confirmed when we started Skoobie and it still leaked air, even worse now that we had taken apart the throttle. Our hearts sank and our wallets ached. Not only would we have to stay two more nights in the hotel (if not more, since it was now the weekend, and over-nighted now meant Tuesday), but we had to order another expensive part and pay for expensive shipping. To make matters worse, no one seemed to know which air throttle went to our bus model, since not whole lot use air throttles. From the previous day of searching every where locally for the dust boot, we knew no one had the entire throttle either. We scoured the manufacturer’s guide to the bus and the parts guides and finally decided to chance ordering the one that looked the most similar to ours. Scheduled delivery: Tuesday.

Tuesday comes, delivery delayed. We had a huge snow storm that Monday and were expecting the delay, but hoping that for $75 shipping fee we might still get it on time. So another night in the hotel, and wait until Wednesday. Wednesday comes and we stalk the UPS man as he makes his rounds to all the other businesses in the area before stopping at our hotel. Nathaniel gets the part, I check us out of the hotel while Nathaniel installs it and we are FINALLY good to go! The manager at this Candlewood Suites was so sweet as well; she gave us a discount on all the unexpected nights we had to stay while we waited for the parts to come. We were so SO very appreciative of her compassion!

But “Not so fast!” says Skoobie. One hour and 15 minutes down I-81 S and Skoobie decides that his electrics are going to go wonky. Nathaniel pulled over and I thought for sure we wouldn’t make it home for Christmas at this rate (it was now December 21st and we had at least two days of driving ahead of us). Nathaniel immediately checks the electrics in front, they’re fine. Checks the alternator; SUPER hot! Could cook an egg on it in 30 seconds, hot. Nathaniel gets the alternator out and we start driving in my car towards any heavy machinery shop we can find in the area. We are close to Syracuse, NY now, so luckily there were several to choose from. After a couple mechanics, a NAPA parts store tells us there is a diesel engine alternator refurbish shop just 10 minutes down the road. Gives us his contact guy's number and address and off we go.

This shop was not open to the public normally and only did work for corporate-owned machinery. After hearing our story, however, they were gracious enough to help us. We were so appreciative! They put our old alternator on their meter and said that we were lucky our electrics weren’t completely destroyed, that’s how overcharged it was. They gave us a new alternator for a decent price (something like $362 or around there), we installed it, had dinner and continued on our way.

We made it to Erie, PA before completely running out of human energy and having to call it a night. Got up early the next day and made it to Dayton, OH, where we would park the bus before heading up to Michigan in just my vehicle to visit family for the holidays. Skoobie had no other issues the rest of the journey down to AL Hooray!

[skoobie]

Nathaniel decided that he wanted more head room in the shower area, so he is currently working on a skylight. I've attached pictures of the progress so far. I think he only has to check for leaks, attach the skylight and seal everything left to do on it (besides obvious painting, but we're not quite ready to paint yet).

He used old metal tubing that we had from the delivery of our lawnmower (it was encased in a metal frame) and some leftover sheet metal from the ceiling and window patches. It makes the shower area huge, in my opinion.

[Robin97396]

There's lots of excitement while driving a skoolie. It's good to hear you made it.

That's an interesting idea for the shower. I've seen people put in a sunken shower pan to gain headroom before, but this is the first time I've seen it done this way.

You guys are dealing with all the bus adversity very well. Keep it up.

[cadillackid]

theres a lort of adsventure sometimes in taking a local vehicle out on a 1000 mile road trip.. when i got mone in florida last year my air compressor blew and I was down for 3 days in a hotel.. that ended up having the coolest people and I got tons of work done.. wierd how thigns work out when you keep a positive mindset and push forward.

congrats on your rig and transformation!
-Christopher

[Robin97396]

Precisely, I have a lot of accidents that turn out for the better.