The weboughtabus Bus Build (Name TBD)

weboughtabus · 03-05-2018, 08:24 AM

My wife and I have been long-time lurkers, but we've finally gotten ourselves a bus! We managed to get a good deal on a wheelchair accessible bus right before the cold snap here, so the progress has been minimal, but we're looking to really make moves as the weather turns.

Our Bus:
5-Window 2004 Corbeil E350 SuperDuty, 6.0L V8 Bullet-proofed Diesel

Our Plans:
Complete gut (in progress)
Rust treatment/inhibiting
Rigid foam/ply subfloor
Spray foam walls and ceiling
Vinyl plank flooring
Nature's Head Composting Toilet
Custom wet bath
100 gallon fresh water tank
40 gallon grey water tank
Dual Fuel Generator
Pure Sine Inverter
Mini-Split Air Conditioning
New paint
Whatever else comes up!

Pictures and progress will be in subsequent posts!

weboughtabus · 03-05-2018, 08:36 AM

Some pictures of the bus as it was purchased:

weboughtabus · 03-05-2018, 08:51 AM

So far we've been pretty lucky with the work we've done. There were no interlocks on the door alarms, Corbeil mostly used screws securing the interior panels, instead of rivets, we only had to cut three seat bolts to clear them all out. So far we've managed to get all of the seats out and start exposing the plywood subfloor.

Up next will be tackling the chair lift, removing the rad line heater (I plan to run the coolant through some toe kick heaters under our cabinets), dropping the AC skirt condenser and cutting out the Q-Straint track from the floor so we can get a peek underneath and get the new subfloor installed.

Here are some photos of the work so far:

TrailLifeBill · 03-05-2018, 09:35 AM

Good lookin' rig!! I look forward to seeing your build. We are just about at the same phase in our build - although mine has many more rivets to deal with.

weboughtabus · 03-24-2018, 07:40 PM

The photo doesn't show much, but it's progress! I've fully disassembled the chase behind the driver's seat that contained a bit of electric and the AC lines. Aside from that I've removed the floor heater and the wheelchair lift. The lift was being a pain, until I decided to cut the bolts. After that, it was a breeze. As a bonus, we now have a bus length's pair of welding cables that had previously supplied the lift. Hopefully I'll have more pictures and exciting progress to share soon!

jonb8 · 03-25-2018, 09:11 PM

Good luck with your build,,,,,

weboughtabus · 03-26-2018, 12:17 PM

Another small development - after reaching out to the folks at Collins Bus Corporation (they bought Corbeil a few years back) I now have most of the electrical schematics for early 2000's Corbeil buses. If this information would be helpful to anyone else, please let me know.

1olfart · 03-26-2018, 03:28 PM

I bet those schematics would be helpful to many folks on this forum. You may save yourself time by going ahead and posting them, so that they are here for them to refer too.
BTW I'm enjoying your posts.

weboughtabus · 03-26-2018, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1olfart

I bet those schematics would be helpful to many folks on this forum. You may save yourself time by going ahead and posting them, so that they are here for them to refer too.
BTW I'm enjoying your posts.

Thanks! And you're right- no sense making people jump through hoops to get something potentially useful!

Corbeil Electrical Schematic

Corbeil Multiplex Schematic

weboughtabus · 03-26-2018, 07:11 PM

A little after-work progress! We were able to get up our first piece of plywood and received a beautiful surprise-ALUMINUM! We have an aluminum floor, so we'll just have to clean up the rust from the bolts that had been through for the seats and L-Track. Speaking of which, those bolts are all going to have to be cut off from down below. Hooray! More time on my back with the cut-off wheel! Aside from that, we've also completely removed the skirt A/C Condenser, so I'll be listing that in the Classifieds soon. Hopefully we have more good news and progress to report soon!

vroom · 03-26-2018, 07:47 PM

Nice. Awesome on the screws instead of rivets. That floor looks super clean.

weboughtabus · 04-16-2018, 02:33 PM

As usual, life has been getting in the way, lately. Not much progress to report. I was hoping to get the L-Tracks all removed this weekend, but they're a bitch to cut off with just a corded drill and cutoff wheel and impossible to remove "properly." All of the Allen heads are either stripped or so full of gunk they're never going to come out and they used lock nuts down below, so either way I'm on my back to remove them. I tried the "Circular saw down the center of the track" trick to split the track and then lop the heads off from up above, but that was loud and I didn't have a good enough saw blade (do they even make a metal cutting circular saw blade?). After battling that nonsense for a while, I decided I would just get up the rest of the puke mat, so that's what my progress picture is.

weboughtabus · 05-01-2018, 08:06 AM

No progress on the demo/buildout to report. My last run at the L-Track was tedious, to say the least. Running a cutoff wheel on the drill certainly wasn't the best way to cut out 50-ish bolts while laying on my back. I'm thinking it might finally be time to pick myself up a cheap angle grinder. Once I get those bolts and L-Tracks out, I'll turn my attention to the ceiling and wall panels so we can get to the fun/pretty stuff.

I did pick up my RV stove/oven, though. I scored a great deal from a really cool guy who just renovated his RV. He had only used the stove a handful of times and decided to swap it out for a convection/microwave combo. For $50 and a bit of driving I walked away with a practically new Magic Chef 3-Burner, 22" stove. Fingers crossed that I have some real progress to report soon.

EastCoastCB · 05-01-2018, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weboughtabus

No progress on the demo/buildout to report. My last run at the L-Track was tedious, to say the least. Running a cutoff wheel on the drill certainly wasn't the best way to cut out 50-ish bolts while laying on my back. I'm thinking it might finally be time to pick myself up a cheap angle grinder. Once I get those bolts and L-Tracks out, I'll turn my attention to the ceiling and wall panels so we can get to the fun/pretty stuff.

I did pick up my RV stove/oven, though. I scored a great deal from a really cool guy who just renovated his RV. He had only used the stove a handful of times and decided to swap it out for a convection/microwave combo. For $50 and a bit of driving I walked away with a practically new Magic Chef 3-Burner, 22" stove. Fingers crossed that I have some real progress to report soon.

I've had good luck with a $15 angle grinder from HF.
I like my old Hitachi but I dropped it off the roof of a bus and it busted to pieces.

weboughtabus · 05-01-2018, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

I've had good luck with a $15 angle grinder from HF.
I like my old Hitachi but I dropped it off the roof of a bus and it busted to pieces.

Ouch. It's always hard to see a good tool take a nosedive like that. I actually just got a mailer for my local HF and they've got their angle grinder for $10 right now. May have to take a drive down on my lunch break.

o1marc · 05-01-2018, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weboughtabus

Ouch. It's always hard to see a good tool take a nosedive like that. I actually just got a mailer for my local HF and they've got their angle grinder for $10 right now. May have to take a drive down on my lunch break.

When Harbor Freight have weekend parking lot sales you can usually find the grinders for $5 with a coupon from the flyer. I always pick up a couple more when they are that cheap.

Twigg · 05-01-2018, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weboughtabus

Ouch. It's always hard to see a good tool take a nosedive like that. I actually just got a mailer for my local HF and they've got their angle grinder for $10 right now. May have to take a drive down on my lunch break.

Buy two.

Put a cutting disk on one and a grinding disk on the other.

ben2go · 05-01-2018, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twigg

Buy two.

Put a cutting disk on one and a grinding disk on the other.

Yep.......

MovinOn · 05-02-2018, 11:19 AM

Seems like it's moving along well. Where did the bus come from and what did you pay? I'm in NH but have brothers in NJ who might be able to look at a bus for me. Any ideas for someone still looking?
Is there a way to know if a floor will be aluminum by model or year?
Looks like another build for me to watch!
keep up the good work.

weboughtabus · 05-02-2018, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MovinOn

Seems like it's moving along well. Where did the bus come from and what did you pay? I'm in NH but have brothers in NJ who might be able to look at a bus for me. Any ideas for someone still looking?
Is there a way to know if a floor will be aluminum by model or year?
Looks like another build for me to watch!
keep up the good work.

Thanks for the encouragement! We ended up getting ours from a gentleman who buys and sells buses, primarily on eBay. We got in touch with him on there, gave him an idea of what size and condition we were looking for and he let us know when he came across one. His eBay username is lightningman82 and his name is Bill. He was extremely helpful. I met up with him to view the bus, left a deposit and he delivered it (for a fee) a few days later. We paid $4,700 for the bus, if I recall correctly. Some people would say that's high, but we'll have a mostly uninterrupted floorplan, decent headroom and a bullet-proofed engine with low miles and the convenience of having it delivered to our doorstep.

As I understand it, Corbeil and Giardin used a lot of aluminum in their bus bodies. The easiest way to check, though, would be to bring a decent magnet and try to stick it to various parts of the bus. If you can get up under the bus, you should be able to see the sheet metal up over the frame rails and can check for magnetism.

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