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Hello from Southeast Idaho
Hi all, joined up almost a year ago but have never gotten around to posting anything till now. Mike here from Southeast Idaho. I grew up on the family dairy farm and took it over eventually. Ten years ago I sold the cows and started working for the local school district as the bus supervisor/mechanic and still farm on the side. A little background of how I got interested in bus conversions. Back in 1979, my dad drove this 1968 international bus home and said he was going to make a camper out of it. I thought to myself, yeah, right... My dad was very handy at building things and when he got through with it I was amazed at how nice it turned out. That little bus (24' bumper to bumper) has been from Canada to Quartzite, California to Florida multiple times. I inherited it when he built a bigger schoolie 10 years later, and other than the 37 year old paint falling off the outside, the rest of it is in excellent shape. School buses are built like tanks and things dont shake apart on the inside of them. The second bus my dad built was a 66 passenger ward bodied chevy chassis bus, started out with a 350 gas motor and ended up with a 3208 cat diesel for propulsion. This bus was an upgrade from the first one, has better windows, urethane insulation sprayed in, more of a motor home than a camper. He traveled all over the western states with that one as well. In about 2002 he picked up a 1976 GMC city bus from Salt Lake City, its a 40 foot single axle bus, commonly referred to as a "fishbowl" body. This one was the biggest project yet, it took him 3 years to do the conversion on it with the first two spent stripping, removing, reskinning, ect. It also got urethane insulation on the walls and ceilings, he used 1x2 furring strips to give a thermal break between the metal frame and inner coverings with 1" foam board insulation on the floor. He also used regular vinyl double pane house windows to help with condensation on the glass. This one just went from Idaho to Quartzite for the last 10 years of his life. When he passed away last november, I ended up with it too. A guy can never have too many buses right? The wife and I have been venturing from home a little with it this summer and having a blast with it. I have enjoyed reading everyone's posts on here and it makes me get excited about when the day comes a few years away that we can hit the road and tour the country in our bus.
Mike
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