The Roach Motel

[Accordion]

Roach, your's is a very nicely put together bus (motorhome). You do good work.

It appears that BrownCrown and you and I used the same carpet on our ceilings. I used spray glue (too sparingly) in the back half of the bus. I had to fix the problem by screwing strips of wood to hold up the carpet.

The front half of the bus is where I used a large amount of spray glue. It is holding well.

Again, your bus looks great.

[roach711]

Accordian - I got many ideas from both you and BrownCrown. Often I'd have a problem and would go back to the archives and see that this one did theirs one way and another did it another way. Sometimes I used a bit of both approaches. Skoolies is a great place for sharing ideas.

[ol trunt]

Roach 711, I can't resist. Like you we've had cats all our lives and find them very useful as paint rollers--just kidding. My favorite for now is my Norwegian yellow tom. At 3 years he weighs 18 pounds and thinks he is a dog (has a cocker and a couple of dashounds under his belt as proof). His favorite pass time is being swung back and forth in a laundry basket until he is air borne. When I wear out and drop the basket to the floor from waste height he just says "oof" and waits for his next ride--go figger. Had him in a carry cage at the vets one day and a big eyed 6 year old asked "mister, is that a lion?" Oh, and I should mention that he hates not being able to ride in my bus.

[browncrown]

Roach, the bus just looks Spectacular!!! ... and I can tell...the cat rules that bus

[bansil]

I told my wife "honey you are like the Proverbial crazy old cat lady"
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.She was like "ugh yeah...and your the crazy old fart with cats.....and an old Skool bus
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[roach711]

Originally Posted by ol trunt

Roach 711, I can't resist. Like you we've had cats all our lives and find them very useful as paint rollers--just kidding. My favorite for now is my Norwegian yellow tom. At 3 years he weighs 18 pounds and thinks he is a dog (has a cocker and a couple of dashounds under his belt as proof). His favorite pass time is being swung back and forth in a laundry basket until he is air borne. When I wear out and drop the basket to the floor from waste height he just says "oof" and waits for his next ride--go figger. Had him in a carry cage at the vets one day and a big eyed 6 year old asked "mister, is that a lion?" Oh, and I should mention that he hates not being able to ride in my bus.

We drew up an accessory for anyone with cats that was basically a broom handle with an 8" wooden tee attached to one end with buckle straps on each end. The cat would be strapped to the tee and be used as a self-cleaning mop head. You'd have to be careful not to leave the mop in the bucket too long or the mop head looses the self-cleaning feature.

Neither of our cats are big bus ride fans. I took Calvin out one time and he wedged himself up under the brake pedal while howling like a banshee. I only squashed him a bit getting stopped but now he's in the cat carrier when ever we're driving.

[bansil]

Originally Posted by roach711

I only squashed him a bit getting stopped

water everywhere

[inkblots84]

Roach, it's amazing what you've fit in that limited space! I showed my better half your pictures - could not believe the measurements! Your work is really great and clean. And dang how much does that cat weigh?? Beautiful feline!

[roach711]

Calvin's about 18 lbs. Just a big, dumb cat.

Our floor plan is posted in the Tutorials section.

[Stuff]

wow its like... done!

[roach711]

Originally Posted by Stuff

wow its like... done!

Close to done certainly, and a long, long way from where I started over a year ago. This summer I need to spend some time on the running gear but that's something I can take my time on. No sense of urgency lake last year when I'd regularly be freezing my butt off crawling around under the bus doing some un-natural thing. Now I wait for a nice day to work on it.

[Ferenzy]

Looks great, very nice work! Whenever I start feeling overwhelmed by my project I come back to forums and look at all these beautiful conversions and it reinvigorates me!

[roach711]

This week I finally got my butt in gear and installed seat belts on the dinette bench seat. I measured before I bought but once I got them in found that they would barely fit around my bony self and even then I had to sit up real straight and suck my gut in to get them latched. Ended up making some extenders out of bar stock and now there's plenty of slack. You can see the positive battery cables snaking through to the switch mounted on the back of the dinette bench. I bought 72" belts but should have gone for the 90 inchers.





I also got the starting and house battery banks cabled together so the alternator can recharge the house bank. I'm using a manual switch to connect/separate them so I'll have to remember to disconnect them when we're parked but this way I can also charge the starting bank with the converter/charger. If the starting batteries ever get too run down I can connect the house batteries for a boost. Another big reason to go this route was that I picked up the switch for $5.

Now I can monitor both banks on the Trimetric battery minder. Very handy!



We're going to be heading north to the family camp again for Memorial Day weekend and we're looking forward to vastly improved creature comforts this time around. Last year it was pretty spartan our first time out.

[ol trunt]

Roach 711 Congratulations! Beautiful job on the dinette and nothing wrong with the wires. You certaintly have bragging rights on this one. I still envy you that great lino floor. Maybe I'll get lucky and find some like it! So what's next--what are your plans for the bus? Jack

[roach711]

Hey Jack! Whereyabeen buddy? I was beginning to think you'd been abducted by aliens like Smitty did a while back.

I need to get the air conditioning working since I took out the roof mounted condenser. I'm just hoping the dash switches still operate the compressor, otherwise it should be a fairly straight-forward job (and yes, I can hear the Gods of Auto Repair laughing). A little decoration on that boring lilly-white bus body would be nice, too. Once that's done I'll just have to buy another bus to keep me busy.

Trip wise, this year we'll likely do 5 or 6 weekend trips up to the campsite or other points of interest around the state. I don't get any vacation time in my current job so the longer trips will have to wait until this job ends or I retire. One trip I'd like to do is to drive Route 66 from end to end.

[ol trunt]

Hey Roach 711, I'm still pluggin' away on my '35. Found I was spending too much time on Skoolie and not to much avail. I do look foreward to several threads here--yours, Bansils and Tangos and a few others, and I hang out at Nomadicista every now and then. I really need to get the '35 done while I'm still allowed to drive the thing Jack

[Shadoll]

Roach 711. WOW. Definitely out of my league. Even on finishing (is that even a thing) mine, it will at best still be a 'Hippy Bus'. Still WOW.. all professional looking and all yours is awesome. Good on you.

[roach711]

Jack - I know what you mean about the forums soaking up your time. Sometimes I think I've spent as much time here as I have on the bus. I'll have to visit this nomadicista place.

Shadoll- I've been following your conversion and you're doing just fine. I wish I had some of your artistic ability. Working on it while living in it must be a serious challenge.

I'll let you in on my secret to getting that finish:

1) buy pretty plywood (oak or birch, even walnut). The wood you start out with is the key to making pretty furniture.
2) sand it a bit
3) put on 3 coats of polyurethane, sanding lightly between coats.

That's all there is to it. Well within most anyone's capabilities. Oak plywood is about $10 - $15 more a sheet but really sets your finished piece apart.

[roach711]

Just got back from a great weekend at the family camp in northern Michigan. On the way up we stopped at a Flying J and had the beastie weighed. Fully loaded (two people, full gas, water and propane tanks, tools, groceries for 8, 4 paintball guns and a chainsaw) we weighed out at 11,970 lbs. Weighing was quick and easy and only cost us $10 and they're set up to weigh each axle separately. Ours is 4240 lbs. on the front axle and 7730 lbs. on the rear axle.

Once we had accurate weights I looked at a tire inflation chart and found that I can lower my tire pressure to 60 lbs for a smoother ride. My LT225/75R16's are rated for 80 lbs. inflation but the ride is very harsh at that pressure. Last year I did a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate and figured I could lower the pressure to 70 which improved the ride quite a bit. Dropping it another 10 lbs should make the ride real nice.

We were the first to arrive at the camp and had to whip out the chainsaw to get past a downed tree across the two-track.



Here's our lazy man's camp fire.



One of the nieces tearing it up with her pink .22 rifle.



We also found a few morell mushrooms. Three of us searched far and wide through forest and swamp and finally found this one right next to the trail not 100 feet from camp.



I was able to draft behind 18 wheelers and Winnebagosaurses almost the whole trip and our fuel mileage was a bit over 13 mpg at 60 - 65 mph. I'm real happy about that.

[bansil]

Looks like a great time was had