The Bus With No Name (Yet)

Rsquared · 06-26-2017, 02:59 AM

Greetings all. Starting this new thread to document my buildout of a 2001 38' International 3800/ She's halfway to the goal already, being modified as a toyhauler, with ramp, 30 gallon gravity fed gas tank powering a 13kw generator, and stripped seating. That not being enough for me, I plan on a 2' roof raise for the front 2/3, with a roof deck for the back 3rd, in floor heating, full live aboard facilities, and a fabrication shop in the back. I leave in 2 days to start the build. Let's see what can happen!

Rsquared · 06-26-2017, 03:02 AM

My questions for all you. (The first of many many many). She's been sitting about a year. Started up fine, drove two hours to her new home. What sort of maintenance do you recommend? Currently, my plan is to change the oil, and replace any and all filters (air, fuel, oil) that I can get my hands on. Sadly I've got no service records, but she's looks well taken care of so far. Helpful comments will be rewarded with more pictures

Rsquared · 07-05-2017, 06:42 PM

Threeish days in. Works been intermittent, due to the need to go blow things up for America, and seeing family and all that. I've got the floor stripped and rust converted, the side panels are about halfway removed, and the bottom about halfway derusted and getting ready for conversion.

The flooring and wall that was in there was a PIA to remove.

If you're going to build something, don't use 36 3" self tapping screws to hold your flooring panels down, and then bondo over them, and paint over that. Especially without removing the rotting subflooring first...

But progress is being made every day, and there's been no explosions....yet

Rusty · 07-05-2017, 08:33 PM

Got a good jump on that floor! Looking good.

What are the insulation plans? It'd be easier to pop them roof panels while it's still low, but that inner skin adds rigidity to the roof structure, which is nice to have for the stress/flex of the raise. I'd remove after, me thinks.

That will be a useful hauler when you are done.

Rsquared · 07-12-2017, 07:53 PM

I'm planning on a mix of foam board and expanding foam insulation. Probably about 2 inches all around. The floor will get in floor raidiant heating with pex tubing, with a heating system to come whenever I have more cash and supplies.
It does add rigidity, and we did think about that, but there's been many a successful raise without it, so I think we'll be ok.

Rsquared · 07-12-2017, 08:29 PM

DBeen a good long week of tearing and building, and we're sneaking up on the exciting parts. So lets get caught up.
We stripped out all the interior panels, removed all that nasty fiberglass insulation, derusted the floor, and also spent three days derusting the bottom. Do yourself a favor, get a clean bus, or look like this.

These busses have dirt in the oddest places. 16 years of dust here.

The next task was to tackle all the electrical whatnot, remove my safety switchs (don't need any interlocks here) and take out about 30 lbs of extra wire. Luckily mine were all normally open, which means that when the switch is activated, the circuit closes, and the bus wont start. So I can just cut them out, and presto chango, no more interlocks. Easy way to test this is just have the busses electrical on, and remove the ground. You hear the buzz, you're normally closed, and need to short the switch. No buzz, you're free to go.

Then I took a day off to play with my favorite girl, Josephine the Colossal Skeletal Marionette. Been going all around the country with her, delighting the denizens of this land.

Rsquared · 07-12-2017, 08:33 PM

The next few days was dealing with more rusty boxes, and rusty stairs. What's the easiest way to deal with rust? Sawzalls!

No more rust~!

Sawzalls also make short work of stuck on linolium, treaders, and just about anything else.

I'm kind of torn between that and the air chisel as my favorite tool of this build, but I'd say the air chisel is the #1 most essential thing to make this easy. Rivet removal, adhesive scraping...Just remember to sharpen it now and then. Denty tool are no good.

Hopefully I'll remember to take some pictures of these rebuilt bits tomorrow.

cadillackid · 07-12-2017, 08:35 PM

Ive just recently started to master the air chisel.. WTF was I thinking all these years and builds for not having one.. ok well ive always had one.. i just never really used it a lot..

my angle grinder gets a lot of use too..
-Christopher

Rsquared · 07-12-2017, 08:37 PM

After caulking 1001 little tiny holes in the floor of the bus, we were ready for the fun parts.

We went to our local steel yard with this trusty stallion, and for a cool 856$, got all the steel we needed to raise this roof 22.5", and reskin it too.

Leveling it was a bit of an adventure, but with some hillbilly jackstands and a 10 ton bottle jack we got everything nice and level.

Rsquared · 07-12-2017, 08:54 PM

Last update for today. We spent our time doing all the last prep for the roof raise. Fabricated some beautiful jacks, using the 3/4 threaded rod method. Its pretty critical that you get these as close to perfectly vertical as you can, so measure 3x.

When prepping for welding, I removed the battery terminals, my transmission wiring harness, my ABS computer, and pretty much everything else I could unplug. Excessive? Probably. But it took me only about 30 minutes, I got more familiar with the parts of my bus, and better safe then a non starting bus.

Another important step to getting your bus ready is remove any birds nests that may have appeared.

That's all for today folks. Tomorrow, we cut the roof off!

Rsquared · 07-19-2017, 08:24 PM

And the build continues. Days in, Nights out. 7ish days a week. I can't thank my hosts and helpers, Christian and Jessie, enough. I've taken over their yard here at bisquit run for the last two weeks, and there's no sign of stopping.
So on to news. The Roof is UP!

Everything ran really smoothly, one of the nuts got a bit tight as we went higher, so tight that we stopped at 20". Which is plenty, plenty of headroom. And keeps me under 11'6". Go more places
This does have repercussions to my idea of running a double course of windows on one side, but I would have had to go a full 26" raise for that. I'll get it right on the next bus;)
And now, some random roof raise pictures

(yes that's me)

Rsquared · 07-19-2017, 08:29 PM

The next few days efforts were devoted to gusseting, strengthening, and reinforcing all these holes I made in this nice bus. We added bracing in the windows which will be covered (Shower/sleeping/shitting areas), and added in some bracing to support all the new sheet metal caps.

That's 1/8" steel plate to rivet to, which is welded to an unpictured support structure behind

Rsquared · 07-19-2017, 08:39 PM

The back cap was fabricated by utilizing the back internal trim plate to create a stencil. We then extended that line 2 inches out, and used that cut, offest by 20" (The height of the roof raise) to draw the top edge. I wouldn't say if fit by like a glove, but with enough hammering and tinkering, we got it in. Then we fit a 4" lip to the edge, which was tacked on up top, and welded on the bench. We then fit the cap to the roof, with beads of sikaflex between all mating surfaces. The vertical surfaces were glued with sikaflex, and drawn down using self tapping screws. The horizontal surfaces were riveted down. All resultant seems were caulked. Exuberantly. That was alot to read, so here's some pictures!

(Blue line was the inner back wall panel, that was offest to create the proper curve)

And after all that, it looks like this!

EastCoastCB · 07-20-2017, 05:44 AM

I love it!!

Summ1 · 07-20-2017, 07:03 AM

Awesome job, and great pictures detailing everything!

Tango · 07-20-2017, 09:17 AM

Lookin' good. And wise to unplug the batt and such before welding. It is possible to cook all your computers otherwise.

Rsquared · 07-29-2017, 11:35 AM

Lots to see here, it's been a busy busy busy week. First update: The front end! We've been working on setting in the rear end of a Mercury Grand Marquis. Why that? It was availible. It would look pretty up there. That's reason enough right?

I'm lucky enough to have the services of a mad art car builder and metal fabricator in the guise of Christian Breeden. Those without skills or friends like him, take care. This was the most technically chalanging part of the build, to get everything to seal up and sit right.

Rsquared · 07-29-2017, 11:51 AM

Most of the rest of the week was spent fitting, drilling, and installing the side panels. This took a lot of prep, but really paid off with a smooth install.

The channels were filled with fireproof expanding foam, and ratchet straps were used to raise the sheets into place, along with tapping along the bottom edge with a hammer.
The holes were then drilled out, and the sheet taken down to debur and prep for final assembly. I used sikaflex 221 on all mating surfaces. The top and bottom row of rivets were replaced with 1/4 inch bolts. Each bolt had more sikaflex under the heads, and on the threads. This was done because removing the rivets with the air chisel really bunged up the holes, so I could not replace the 3/16th inch rivets. It also allowed my to use the bolts to draw in the top eyebrow rail, which had been bent out to allow easier installation of the side sheets. The sides were installed by first riviting down the center, and then spreading out to eliminate any bubbles in the sheet metal.

We continued in that fashion until all the side sheets were hung, overlapping front to back.

Rsquared · 07-29-2017, 11:57 AM

On my passenger side, I wanted big ol picture windows, so I made a double row of the original windows. 1 1/4 inch angle iron was used to provide a support for the windows, and the original sheet metal supports were reinstalled.

On another note, be careful with your power tools. Caught a curl in a drill, and got myself a fancy new haircut.

Rsquared · 07-29-2017, 12:07 PM

With the sides mostly sealed up, we turned to installing the floor. I used 2" xps foam, and sealed all the edges with foil tape. I glued it down with loctite PL,
using about a tube per 8x4 sheet. Add weight and wait two days.

I decided that eventually I want to be a fancy man, and have in floor heating, so I installed the piping now. It was a pretty simple process, buy 300' of PEX tubing, route out a channel for it, (1/2" Pex tubing and a 11/16" ball end router bit make a pretty good match), and hammer it into place. No glues or fittings needed. Make sure you make your channel a bit deeper then you need it, as you don't want the pex tubing sticking up. Any deviations from a straight line that you route will cause it to ride a bit high, so leave the room!

As far as the layout, you can look online for the specifics on how to design your system. I used 1/2" PEX, which was reccomended to have a spacing of 8-12". I did 12", as I'm not planning on being in really really cold areas. 1/2" PEX has a minimum bend radius of 5 inches, so I gave myself 6" bends for wiggle room.

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