Plywood Removal - How I did mine.

[Brad_SwiftFur]

Today I wanted to remove some of the plywood subfloor in my bus. I've removed most of the seats and such, but I have not yet removed the wheelchair lift (I intend to keep it, and the nuts below were heavily corroded/seized). I have already removed the front right, rear left, and between-the-wheelwells sections with minimal difficulty. But without removing the lift (which is planned, just, not today), what was the best way to do it? Well, why not Ye Olde Sawzall? Just lay it mostly flat, and ...







2 cuts later, yank up the opposite edge, and viola, bare steel floor. My plywood had minimal nails around the edges.

[Brad_SwiftFur]

Nowhere in this bus was there a full sheet of plywood. It's 15' from back or driver's seat to the back door. The section from the front door to the wheelwell was roughly 5', the section between the wheelwells was around 5', and the rear section was no more than 6' (if that.)
I have not yet removed the driver's seat or the plywood from the firewall and top of the stepwell area, and I do not intend to remove the front heater if I can avoid it.

[LRScout]

Why remove it?

[Beirdo]

Originally Posted by LRScout

Why remove it?

I expect to be removing mine too... Why? To make sure the structure under it is sound, rustproofed and painted, and then I will proceed to insulate and put in new plywood.

Make sense?

[LRScout]

All you have to do is look under the bus. No holes? No rust? It's sound. It's a waste of time and money. It's a 1999 from WA? It's good to go. But if you want to spend a week ripping it up, painting it, and putting plywood back down... have fun!

[Beirdo]

No, it's a 1999 from CA, but we'll see once the rubber crap on the floor is up. Water (and other interesting stuff) does come from children on the buses too you know... Not all the issues come from the road surface.

Seeing the front edge of the plywood subfloor, I'm not sure I trust it to not be all delaminated and crappy. But I guess we'll see soon enough. Friday I have the day off and plan to go get a 4-ton floor jack and a set of decent jack stands, and the rest of the seat removal will commence. Then the rubber comes up.

However, the other part is: insulation.... That we do need up here. It was 36F with decent winds on Sunday and I froze my butt off cutting out the seats.