New Project - 95 Shuttle Bus

[Robeebus]

My wife and I bought a 1995 Shuttle bus with 7.3 Powerstroke. Just a few days after purchase and we are excited. Hoping to get a salvage RV to use parts, but struggling to find one in western Kansas. If anyone has ideas, suggestions please let us know. We are a little clueless, but I think we have a good plan in place.

[chev49]

look in denver Cl, or colorado springs if you are that far down... lotsa stuff there. aint too far drive from west kansas esp at 80mph like i drive thru there. you can also post on cl to pick up a free or almost free trailer, etc .. but i would be checking colorado...

[ol trunt]

WE NEED SOME PICS! HAHA. You've got your wife on board--all else should be fun! Please post pics since most of us can't read

[Stuff]

Originally Posted by ol trunt

WE NEED SOME PICS! HAHA. You've got your wife on board--all else should be fun! Please post pics since most of us can't read

lmao i double that post

[Robeebus]

Ok sorry guys. Here is the first picture that I tried to attach with my first submission. We have gotten to the tear down point right now and luckily haven't run into many issues. Floor is mostly solid, but needs some patch work. In case your curious the wheel chair lift has been removed I will try and post a few more interior pics tonight.

If anyone has ideas on these issues please let me know:

We want to put a minivan seat we got in the back for our son and safe travel, any thoughts on bolting it down? It was on a track to be folded and moved back and forth so I am problem solving ways to put a track in the floor, but with obvious issues. What about seat belts? What is the best way to bolt in seat belts?

Any thoughts on after market brackets for the water tanks?

Any other tips or "watch out for"s?

[Robeebus]

Inside one before tear down.

[Robeebus]

Inside two before tear down.

[Robeebus]

Here is picture of the inside after tear down. Sorry it is at night.

[ol trunt]

Wow, when you say tear down you mean tear down. How's it look rust wise now that you can see all? What are the floor dimensions (behind driver/pass)? I like the rear lift door and the glass side door

[Robeebus]

There is some surface rust in two areas, around the lift door behind the passenger seat and by the back door on the passenger side. Looks like they fixed the leak a while ago, but didn't pull the panels to clean up the mess. I have sanded it and will paint with a rust converter. I have taken our the rear air to put in some storage space. I am somewhat concerned about the ability of the front air to keep it comfortable in the back, but with max air on it seemed OK at 90 degrees today. Repaired the floor today. I will post a picture tomorrow in the day light. I plan on running electric and starting to construct the storage cabinets tomorrow.

The dimensions are 13'x6 1/2' behind the seats. This includes the stair well. Which takes up some space. We have worked up a few floor plans that will fit very snuggly. If anyone has suggestions please let me know.

[Stuff]

bottom right gets my vote.


sweet bus! shortie, single rear wheel, an ACTUAL passenger door unlike mine lol. lots of power with the 7.3 in it! looks like a true shuttle craft! Good luck in the strip and re-do!

[chev49]

ditto on bottom right

[lornaschinske]

I have a question for you. Do you REALLY need the dinette?

I ask this because we are "eat on your laps while watching TV" people. Lots of folks are. There was a lengthy thread on this a few months back on Escapees. Basically it boiled down to the folks who always ate at a table in their homes, tended to use their dinettes and could not conceive of not eating at a table. Then there were the folks who ate outside whenever possible at the picnic table (or brought their own... some campgrounds either do not have a table because they grow legs and move to another site or they are so trashed/nasty that you wish they would grow legs and move to another site) or ate sitting watching TV during bad weather. Then you have the other folks (like us) who discovered that the dinette tended to be buried under a pile of stuff and wasn't ever usable so we tended to eat watching TV.

We have two separate chairs with an end table between the seats. We set our drinks on the table and I bought a little picnic caddy that holds the 4 wicker paper plate holders (we also use them to hold the hot plates), bottles of ketchup & mustard (plus misc stuff like David's pill dispensers, a couple paperback books pens/pencils). The caddy keeps the clutter down a bit. I also have a couple of those folding metal tables you get at Wal-Mart. We like ours and bought them (3) several years ago to set our table top grill on. We paid under $12 for each of ours, they cost a lot more now. Sometimes David will use one like a TV dinner table. I tend to cut my food up at the kitchen counter, David likes to cut his up while he eats.

Under NORMAL conditions we would eat outside as often as we can. But here in NM, several things prevent that... wind, dust storms, a fiberglass picnic table (I sat at it once in a pair of blue jeans, then I had to take the jeans off and wash them due to the tiny slivers of fiberglass in the backs of my legs... ouch!) plus we tend to eat late out here and the roaches like outside lights. I believe there are more roaches in NM than in FL! I have a slight phobia about roaches. After fulltiming in the Class C (which started out with a dinette) from 2006 to 2011... we decided we did not need to take up space with a dinette. If we want to play a game of Scrabble (I have a small travel version), my "board" will fit nicely on the end table between our swiveling chairs. Ditto for cards. Plus we do have the folding aluminum tables. I'm down to two since I left the "grill table" with Stacey. I plan on buying one of those little 4 ft folding tables they have at Sam's Club along with one of these folding tables for the grill. I need to measure the leg base on our current grill. We want our own "picnic" table for outside due to the condition of the tables we have been running into for the past few years. The "fold in half" table linked to above takes up little room and gives us the option of placing our freestanding folding chairs where we want them unlike the folding picnic tables that I see some RVers hauling around. As for holiday meals... we eat those either in a restaurant (if with the kids) or if by ourselves, we eat just like any other meal. I much prefer eating out. Less work for me. But I now make the "special" holiday dishes thru out the year. I have learned to scale them down to smaller batches except for the idiot turkey but I strip the carcase and freeze most of the meat as soon as it cools, so David can have turkey (in the electric roaster) more than once a year if he wants. I have bought "pre-cooked" smoked turkey breasts in the store and that makes David happy as well (I don't care for turkey all that much... once a year is plenty).

Just asking. Sometimes you end up adding stuff in that you really don't need even though you thought you might or because it seems strange to leave it out. Before you lock down your floor plans THINK about how you will be using your conversion. I mean really sit down and discuss HOW you will be using it both now and later. If you will be putting it into campgrounds, then go visit some. Check out the facilities (hookups, where located in relation to the campsite, condition of the bathhouses). Most campgrounds will let you in to look. Some won't for various reasons. We always said (when we we up against a locked or manned gate), "We are thinking of camping here in a couple of months, could we check out your campground to see where our RV will fit and look at the bathhouses?" Now if you don't camp much you may think the bathhouse thing is odd. If you do camp fairly often (with women &/or children) then the bathhouse thing is perfectly normal thing to ask. We have only been refused at two public campgrounds. Both places had a problem with theft/vandalism in the recent past. Picnicking in the "off-season" campgrounds is a favourite past time for us. We like to carry a notebook and list the good/bad spots as we walk or drive thru the campground.

[Soundman1]

We are turning our bus. To a tailgate vehi le for football. We are putting a dinette in for one reason and that is my wife. Hard enough time getting her to come out to things, and her and my daughter like to eat at an actual table. Trying to get a 2 yr old to eat on the ground or her lap, or a folding tale that s too high just doesn't work

[ol trunt]

Then that's three for the lower right! The floor space in my bus is the same as yours--it's tough to get everything in. My FP is very similar to yours. Guess we will see how it works!

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by Soundman1

...Trying to get a 2 yr old to eat on the ground or her lap, or a folding tale that s too high just doesn't work

When our kids were two, they liked to eat on a short "box" we had. It was the perfect height for them and they did sit on the ground. But my kids were "different" according to lots of other folks. By the time they were two they could eat like normal folks in a sit down fancy restaurant OR eat while standing up. When it comes to food, no one in my family has a problem with eating... anywhere, anyplace! But you might keep the portable table idea in mind. So handy!

[Robeebus]

Well, we don't need a dinette, but what we are doing in putting in a car seat for my son to ride on and then have a removable table in front of the seat. The seat we have has built in child harnesses. By wife isn't ok with make shift seating and seat belts, so I have to go with the safer option. I plan on making the couch fold out into a bed. It'll be tight with the kitchenette, but should be just big enough.