Midwest Bus Build

[busboi]

Hey everyone, I live in Iowa and recently bought a 2004 Thomas Saf-T-Liner HDX RE bus down in Atlanta.

After having some electrical issues addressed, I drove the bus 900 miles back home and have been doing demo over the past 3 weeks in the evenings and weekends. I have most of the demo done and am about to do my roof raise (16").

I have a lot to figure out yet, but already benefitting from the collective experience of you all here, so THANK YOU! I've also been learning a lot from certain YouTubers whose explanations and videos have helped significantly (Chuck Cassidy comes to mind, but lots of good channels out there).

My wife and I, along with our 3 fur-children, would like to travel and see the rest of the country while I work (full-time remote). Last year we started visiting some national parks (Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Great Smokey Mtn.) and we've been bit by the "parks bug".

I've been trying to keep up with at least weekly update videos which I post to YT to share with friends and family, nothing fancy but it is nice to document the journey. I'm sure more pictures/etc to come!

[PhilipE]

Yes we like pictures.

[BarnYardCamp]

make sure you read up on roof raises for Thomas Built buses.
16" is a lot!

[busboi]

Here are some pics of my bus and some of the work done so far. I also post videos to YT weekly(ish) for family/friends:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNJ...XOpXDhmoPdeS0g

[busboi]

Originally Posted by BarnYardCamp

make sure you read up on roof raises for Thomas Built buses.
16" is a lot!

Yea, 16" is the max I would want to go, but I'm 6' 1" and plan on doing ~4" floor insulation and 3" on the ceiling, so the space will be very welcomed.

If you (or anyone else) have any tips for roof raise on a Thomas, I'm all ears. I've already been reading up on the existing threads I could find RE: roof raises. Because of the fiberglass front cap above my windshield, I will be doing a transition from 1st to 2nd rib.

[BarnYardCamp]

I don't know if it's all Thomas Builts or just the standard FE models. But the walls angle in maybe 6 degrees starting at the bottom of the windows. So, with a 16" raise, you could find that nothing will line up, unless you make the cut below the windows.
There are definitely threads on this so hopefully you can find them and read up on it.
I did not raise the roof on my bus, so I have no personal experience to share.
Hats off to anyone willing to take on that much fabrication!

[Samweld]

I'm in the process of doing a below the window roof raise on a 95' thomas RE, its a 15" raise starting on the rib just aft of the front door. I will have to fabricate a transition from the lower front part of the roof up to the raised part. I also live in Iowa and while I have done only minimum documentation It's not yet put all the way back together so I can still take pictures. It is a TON of fabrication and metal work but I think it's totally worth it. Having the raise start below the window makes it so that the bottom of the windows start up high enough that you can have a full height counter top, and look out the windows without leaning over. In our build we are using all steel to fill in the gap. I will take pictures and post them later today.

[Samweld]

Ok so I didn't realize i need to have my pictures hosted somewhere in order to post them so I will need to figure that out, any suggestions?

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Samweld

Ok so I didn't realize i need to have my pictures hosted somewhere in order to post them so I will need to figure that out, any suggestions?

You can post pictures here directly. Click the paper clip button at the top of the editor, select and upload pics in the window that pops up, then click the paper clip button again to add them inline to your post.

If you don't see a paper clip button, click the "Go Advanced" button at the bottom. The "Quick Reply" editor does not have the paper clip button.

[busboi]

Originally Posted by Samweld

I'm in the process of doing a below the window roof raise on a 95' thomas RE, its a 15" raise starting on the rib just aft of the front door. I will have to fabricate a transition from the lower front part of the roof up to the raised part. I also live in Iowa and while I have done only minimum documentation It's not yet put all the way back together so I can still take pictures. It is a TON of fabrication and metal work but I think it's totally worth it. Having the raise start below the window makes it so that the bottom of the windows start up high enough that you can have a full height counter top, and look out the windows without leaning over. In our build we are using all steel to fill in the gap. I will take pictures and post them later today.

Awesome, Sam, look forward to seeing your pictures!

Are you keeping all the original windows then? I thought about doing below the window but 1) I plan on sheeting everything and cutting out custom window holes for used RV windows and 2) from what I've seen from others' experience, the slight six degree angle isn't significant enough to mess with sheeting the sides after doing a mid-window extension.

I just finished doing my hard cuts at the front and back this weekend and am just waiting for the extension hat channel from a local metal supplier. Hoping to get the raise done before it gets too cold - or much colder rather, it's already getting down to the 20s at night

[Samweld]

We are planning on reusing most of the windows except for a few on the front and a few in the back that will be blocked off for privacy or utilities. I will post pictures when I get home today (thanks for the info on that). I’m curious to see your solution for re attaching the ribs once the roof is raised as this ends up being one of the areas where I will end up having the most labor involved. Were you able to find hat channel that was as thick as the stuff used for the ribs?

[Samweld]

First Picture is obligatory before the chop shot.

Second Picture is after the raise and in its most current state still working on it!

Third picture is an inside shot of one of the patch panels:
panel is cut to same width as original panel of the bus so the seams kind of line up and with a similar amount of overlap.
Ribs are being replaced with 1" square tubing with an 1/8" wall and then I'll be adding some 18 gauge angle to either side to fill and tie in with the external sheet metal and the square tubing to mimic the the hat channel structure, the square tubing extends about 6 inches into the rib on both sides of the cut and then there is a rosette weld and weld around the cut hat channel to the tubing.
To the right you can see one of the pieces of 1" all thread that I used to fine tune the height, there were six of these total during the raise 2 front, 2 middle and 2 in the back. I saw this method in a youtube video, it is not my idea and I regret at this point not being able to properly credit whomever had this idea in the first place it worked really well.

Fourth Picture is a closeup of the emergency door jam I had to cobble together some sheet metal in layers to get to the proper thickness everywhere, looking at the cross section you can tell that there were layers added upon layers to create the structure around the door along with rib.

I need to take a better picture of the front cut, also if there are any other details you'd like to see I can take more pictures tomorrow. Now that I have been through the process of uploading it won't take two days the next time.

[musigenesis]

FYI: instead of "first picture, second picture" etc., after you click the paper clip button and upload pics, back in the editor you can click the paper clip button again and this time you'll see all the uploaded pics in a drop down. You can add them into the text of your post inline by clicking on them one at a time (you'll see an image tag added into your text each time), or you can click "insert all images" and then add descriptive text on top of each one.

If you don't add the images inline like this, they show up instead in the "Attached Thumbnails" section, as in your post.

[Dbacks2k4]

Hello fellow Iowan. My shop is in Iowa City. I also have a rudimentary youtube channel that I update periodically. Definitely post lots of pics and if you want to share your channel url that'd be cool too.

[Samweld]

a shot of the front cut on the inside, the plan is to make a angled transition with some storage space on the inside.

front cut from the outside, the first window on either side will be filled in with sheetmetal, one side will be storage the other side will house the electrical stuff.

the rear was cut right underneath the gutter as that was the only straight wall on the back, everything under that was at an angle of some kind.

rear windows on both side will be filled in for privacy and we have tossed around the idea of adding a smaller window higher up to let in light

another detail of the jam: i have a home-made sheet metal break and i made it so that I can bend stuff 16" wide so the jam is made of two pieces plus some square tubing, i'll be adding more because one side of the bottom of the doorway didn't match back up. A new and narrower (by 3/8") door will be made for the opening

the sides are situated such that the top is under the stock sheet metal and the bottom is over, sort of like a shingle, i added the small offset at the bottom so that the added sheetmetal would lay flat against the ribs/fabbed hat channel.

[Samweld]

Originally Posted by Dbacks2k4

Hello fellow Iowan. My shop is in Iowa City. I also have a rudimentary youtube channel that I update periodically. Definitely post lots of pics and if you want to share your channel url that'd be cool too.

Dbacks2k4: Hello! I'll post more pics, although now I'm thinking I just need to start my own build thread, I have thought about a youtube channel but never actually started one, I did take some time lapses of the raise.