FiberGlass Shuttle Bus

Mjohnston0729 · 08-22-2020, 03:16 AM

Hello 👋🏻 Names Mākena. New Here. I just bought a 1999 ford e350 shuttle bus. I am wanting to raise the roof and remove the honeycomb fiberglass, but am unsure how to go about it. I see that I have carpenter ants that have moved in I think due to parking under a tree. Im sure theres not much damage, but I put boric acid and sugar traps out and just put some directly on top of the honeycomb inside the windows to hopefully get back to the queen and and kill the nest. Whether or not the fiberglass honey comb is still intact or not, I still would like to remove the fiberglass honey comb on the inside. Will I be able to do this with it being sandwiched? Picture attached.. I guess I’m confused on whether the outside is constructed with metal or not... I don’t think so it looks like fiberglass.... I would really like to raise the roof with metal tho and I’ve heard that metal to fiberglass works well, however I want to make sure I am structurally supporting the vehicle as well. So if I rip off the honeycomb fiberglass on the interior and see what structural support is already there, since I’m guessing there’s at least some type of metal support will the support on the Roof or on the body be affected? Is ripping the honeycomb fiberglass off going to make it so that it will be able to accept less weight on the roof? And any tips on roof raise would be much appreciated 🙂

BeNimble · 08-23-2020, 04:14 PM

I'm raising the roof on my shuttle bus, so just follow my build on here and you will see how I do it. I considering using steel tubing since I have a lot of it for my racecars, and have some lightweight chrome moly tubing,
but I will be using wood, it works better with fiberglass. The shuttle bus roof is light and can't be used as a deck like you can with the metal structure of a school bus.

You can just kill the ants. Tent it and use that fogger stuff.
I looks like your has a flat floor? which might give it a lower roof height?

Mjohnston0729 · 08-25-2020, 02:07 AM

Awesome sauce! I’ll be on the lookout for how your conversion is coming along with the roof raise 🙂 so do you have honeycomb fiberglass as well in Your shuttle and are you removing it first and then using wood? I guess I’m confused on what your using the wood on? Instead of sheet metal on the outside when you do the roof raise your using wood? And obvi the tubing for structural support on poles already in the body of the FG. I already have been using boric acid and sugar to kill the ants and it seems to have worked pretty well. I do have a flat floor. I’m going to be pulling the rubber and the plywood up in a couple of days. I heard that on some of the shuttle bus bodies may not have much between the chasis and the plywood so I’ll be excited to see you what I find when I pull it back. So I only think that I’ll be stripping about an inch of flooring between the plywood and the rubber matting. The height I believe is maybe like 6’ 4” I just want to add like maybe 6-12” or so, but I might just not deal with it. Still debating, but just trying to get info on it to see if it’s worth it or nah.

BeNimble · 08-25-2020, 02:29 AM

This shuttle bus has nothing below the plywood, except in the small area of the cab there is the cab sheetmetal, but the box has just plywood. Mine looks in good shape.

I am keeping the fiberglass outer layer, replacing the honeycomb with foam insulation and the inner layer will be thin plywood, all epoxied together. I am debating whether to remove all the good honeycomb on the drivers side or leave it. As you know, the bus is full of windows, so there really isn't much wall at all, except maybe 2ft or so at the bottom. I will be re-using the ceiling fiberglass sheet for the outer layer of fiberglass. It is a bit thin, but good enough. I have a bunch of 1 inch 4x8 sheets of polyiso removed from my old office ceiling which I will use, but I really want 2 inches, so would have to double them up, so maybe I have to actually spend some money and buy some 2inch polyiso, stuff is not cheap when so far I've got about $200 in this project.

zen builder · 08-25-2020, 07:04 AM

BeNimble, Looks as if you answered my question from another post about the flooring. I was a little taken back that there isn't sheet metal under the plywood flooring in shuttle buses. I am not sure if that is the case with motor homes or not. I guess I assumed ( here we go with that word) that every thing had sheet metal on the frame. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

jaxon cactus · 06-13-2021, 04:33 PM

My daughter just bought her bus from a guy who thought there was some type of metal support under that honeycomb sandwich and found that the wall didn't! The honeycomb IS the rigid structural support. I have been on multiple forums trying to get help on how to rebuild the structural integrity back into the wall.

Jake&Hendrix · 06-15-2021, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeNimble

This shuttle bus has nothing below the plywood, except in the small area of the cab there is the cab sheetmetal, but the box has just plywood. Mine looks in good shape.

I am keeping the fiberglass outer layer, replacing the honeycomb with foam insulation and the inner layer will be thin plywood, all epoxied together. I am debating whether to remove all the good honeycomb on the drivers side or leave it. As you know, the bus is full of windows, so there really isn't much wall at all, except maybe 2ft or so at the bottom. I will be re-using the ceiling fiberglass sheet for the outer layer of fiberglass. It is a bit thin, but good enough. I have a bunch of 1 inch 4x8 sheets of polyiso removed from my old office ceiling which I will use, but I really want 2 inches, so would have to double them up, so maybe I have to actually spend some money and buy some 2inch polyiso, stuff is not cheap when so far I've got about $200 in this project.

I just got the same bus, '98 ford e350 7.3 powerstroke. What are the advantages of taking out the honeycomb fiberglass opposed to leaving it it in and framing/insulating as is.

jaxon cactus · 06-15-2021, 04:45 PM

My personal suggestion would be to leave it in and build walls to insulate against it. Don't mess with the honeycomb. From what I can tell, it looks like the bottom part of the inside wall, has actually been laid on the wood floor of the bus. There is no metal reinforcement in the wall!! In my daughter's case, the person she bought it from thought there was so he started tearing it apart only to find there was no additional support.

I have seen pictures of other bus's that have a metal frame ribbing built into the honeycomb wall but my daughter's doesn't have it! There are YouTube videos of people who have similar bus's and you can see they attached 2 x 3 boards to the wall so they could insulate and then they put another piece of plywood or siding or something for the inside wall.

Jake&Hendrix · 06-15-2021, 04:52 PM

My plan was to rip out all insulation and frame with furring strips and insulate inside. Thought about getting some metal supports put in so i could attached brackets on the top for a deck.. but the fiberglass body has me worried about that... might just stick with attaching solar panels to the top and leaving as is.

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