The Party Monster 2000 IH3800

[El Tanke]

Hi guys, my wife and I are a little ways along on our build, but I thought I'd start a build thread to show what we've done and to solicit some advice for upcoming phases.

We are starting with a 2000 IH3800 with 125k miles ~8000 hours and minimal rust. We picked it up for $3000.




yep, thats a stripper pole. It must have been an 'alternative' school ;)

This is an out of order pic of where it stands at the moment to save you from having to go to the end to see where I'm going with this thing


Adam

[El Tanke]

The bus is partially to promote a business we're getting off the ground, which is a website aimed at the party industry, hence the name of the bus.
Immediately I decided we'd need more head room, so the process begins

windows out



interior stripped, I left the lower interior galvanized panel in place. It was a well riveted in place and seemed like more trouble than it was worth to remove it.

Adam

[dmattarn]

Originally Posted by El Tanke

Hi guys, my wife and I are a little ways along on our build, but I thought I'd start a build thread to show what we've done and to solicit some advice for upcoming phases.

We are starting with a 2000 IH3800 with 125k miles ~8000 hours and minimal rust. We picked it up for $3000.




yep, thats a stripper pole. It must have been an 'alternative' school ;)

Adam

Nice looking bus!

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[El Tanke]

Need a lift? Yup, sure do!

I used a sawzall to cut the vertical supports and a cut-off wheel on a 4.5" angle grinder on the sheet metal in the rear and roof.

I used a couple auto floor jacks to do the muscle work, and couple 2x4s thoroughly screwed together as a jack extension. the roof isn't actually all that heavy, I was able to lift in an inch or two doing an overhead press.




The most important aspect of a roof lift is keeping everything lined up and stable. This is what I ended up with. This is 1" threaded rod inside of 1.25 square tube. Can't recall the gauge, maybe 14ga






I used 4 of these screw supports in total. The process was: jack a wee bit on one end, spin the nuts to remove the slack on the all-thread, go to other end and repeat the process.Took less than 30 minutes to go up 18"

[superdave]

looks great,love that color

[cadillackid]

cool way to do the transition piece as a whole cap.

great lookin rig!

-Christopher