I have wanted to have an adventure bus for several years now, for snowboarding, dirtbiking, general travel etc. I have been looking for busses for a while but never found anything. In September 2020 I came across this bad boy.
I went to go see it and it looked in great shape, only 53,000 miles. It belonged to a church. Hence, the Holy Rider.
It did have some rust though, the Ford frame components are all fine, but the bus frame looked pretty rusted, I figured I would have to replace some crossmembers, but the bus was very straight so I wasn't too worried about it. Especially since I got it for only $2500. Here is some of the rust.
Drove the bus home and it drove flawlessly, all the shocks have been re-done, brakes replaced, tires are new, it has a new gas tank, fluids were all fresh. Little tight in the driveway.
Removed the seats, my gf helped out, she'd kill me if she sees these pics.
The B side for this story is one of a bus getting slowly thrown into the trash. All the seats in the driveway where they sat for a bit.
Empty.
Pulling the floor up.
I couldn't get it registered until I took all the seats out because I had to change the registration type to commercial vehicle. Took a signed affidavit and a picture of an empty bus for the RMV in MA to do it. Once it has a bed and things I will get it registered as an RV.
My brother Noah has helped me a ton with the bus so far, we have spent many days pulling this thing apart. Here he is removing windows to pull the interior walls off. The shelving, interior lights and headliner have all been removed.
The interior walls of the bus are fiberglass bonded to wood that is glued to the frame and there is spray foam bonding it all together to the outer walls. Once apart the rust damage became more apparent. I was going to have to repair a decent amount of frame, and I needed to remove all the foam and separate the outer walls from the frame in order to cut and weld it.
Here is Noah scraping foam, we spent hours and hours and hours scraping foam.
Bus almost free of foam.
Pulled all the windows out to reseal them as well as remove the outer walls. I have a tarp over the bus.
I also got the chance to strip a trailer camper for some parts, I got an AC unit, stove/oven, propane setup, tons of latching hinges, and some fold out bed hinges and a buncha other stuff.
I got distracted for a while but I'm back working on it. I removed the skirt panels and trim.
There was a lot of foam to remove where the skirts, frame, and floor meet.
Remove a bunch more trim, cut away some wood floor and you end up with this.
Lot of rust to replace, I got a bunch of metal, but for the main beams I got 3"x2" 1/8" thick rectangular steel tubing. The original beams are 5" x 2" C channel, so I will space the frame off the cross beams with 2"x1" square tubing to make up for it, which will give me 2" more of headroom too.
I made these jack stands out of the bus's seat frames to help support the rear end while repairing it.
Here they are supporting the rear end while I cut out the rotted metal and weld in new metal. A lot of the metal around the wheel is rotted, I will need to make a good system to prevent the rear wheels from destroying the frame.
I left the angle iron underneath the square tubing so I could line everything up good, but I will be fully removing all that angle iron, it is too rusty and the beams that need to be removed are welded to it. The 2"x1" square tubing will be going under the 1" square tubing as a spacer and frame stiffener.
Cut out a few more pieces and mocked them up into place. I have extended the top square tubing to go from one hoop to the other. It seemed like a weak area for flex in the frame.
Got them partly welded up.
Added the angled bits and this side is done. Angle iron has been trimmed below the repair. I have to figure out a good way to remove it in larger sections.
Starting on the other side and then will support the frame and remove the floor and start figuring out how exactly I want to mount the new crossmembers to the Ford frame.
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