Advice on an '85 SafTLiner

[captainkf]

Just a quick note on converting on a budget.

Even if you can find an old rv/trailer to pilfer parts out of and are a dump scrounge it will cost much more than you think. All those trips to the hardware store for a few more bolts, steel, paint or wire. They add up like crazy. Just the tools between saw blades, broken bits and specialty things you may not have will cost too much. I don't mean to disaude, it's just papers and ebay are full of half finished convesions.

Have you considered buying an already converted or partially converted bus? If I were to do it again, I think that's the road I would go. In the end it would have saved so much time and money. All that time I spent working on my bus, I could have been using it with those I cared about. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the work (somtimes much more than others), but financialy it may have been more benificial to buy a partialy converted bus with all the big things bought already than do it myself. And I got some amazing deals on appliances and building supplies.

Just some thoughts.

Good luck either way and keep us posted.

-Richard

[boojiewoojie]

Richard, some good thoughts. It seems kind of like a balancing act to do what's best. I'm the kind of person that always has to have a project going and fortunately I get to be at home with the family working on things. I guess I shouldn't mention that on our trip to CA I'm picking up an airplane kit to build...Don't worry, I've built an airplane before so I know what I'm getting into. Since we homeschool, the older children are always helping out and they're excited about the projects comeing up!

I was gonna pick the bus up last weekend but the weather was so bad we cancelled the trip. It looks like this weekend is a go! We're planning on heading out early Friday morning and hopefully returning by Sunday night.

On the roof raise: Harbor Freight up the road from me has those jacks too. Have ya'll ever looked at Dave Galey's book "The Bus Converters Bible"? He used 4 modified car jacks and raised one corner at a time. He cut all the posts except the 4 corners, clamped w/ angle iron the posts closest to the corners, cut the corners, raised each corner in turn an inch or so while letting off on the closest clamp. For him it was a one-person job and he had a controlled raise.

Elliot, I sure am curious to see how you fill in the front cap!

Rick

[Elliot Naess]

I could definitely have done the lifting by myself, one end at the time.
And it took surprisingly little force, so those 7000 lbs capacity jacks were not really
needed. And of course there are many ways to do this. I looked at all the lift jobs
I could find on the web -- then did it my way.

Front cap coming up soon.

[the_experience03]

What are the plans for the front cap or is that going to be another case of just winging it? Are you planning on sloping it back at all or just building it up vertically?

[Elliot Naess]

No sloping. That's a key point of the plan; the entire roof went straight up. Now I just
fill the gap. The filler will go behind the upper part and outside the lower part, to keep
rain out. The corners will be the difficult part. I plan to make cardboard templates
before I cut metal.

Did we highjack somebody's thread?
Boo? Are you alive? Hello? Hello? Say something, Boo!

[boojiewoojie]

I'm here! I feel honored to have elicited such multitudinous displays of verbosity that have contributed immensely to my knowledge of the crazyness of acquiring a school bus. I had bad experiences riding the bus as a young lad, so I view the the opportunity to, at this point vicariously, rend such noble transportation into a true work of art as some form of retribution. Thread on, thread on. May my former bus driver stand in awe one day!

[Elliot Naess]

Yesss! Boo gets it!