Would you do it all over again?

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

i am doing it again but not for the reasons i wanted.
my first bus is a family camper and i built everything overly solid because of hauling the kids and the boy scouts around in style.
now the kids are grown and we are out of scouts so dont need the kids beds taking up that space.
so i was daydreaming of a powertrain change and remodel when my wife went on the road as a travelling lab tech at the beginning of covid.
now i am a year into building her a shorty that can tow her car and give her a place to stay without spending as much of her per diem for housing.
and now i dont know if i want to do anything with the big bus for awhile.
i probably eventually will after a decent break after finishing her bus.
but i still have other projects on hold until i get her bus done like i had started building a 16x36 garage before a hurricane came in and i had to rebuild half the house.
am helping my oldest son build a school bus DT360 up to put into his super duty but thats more on him i am just there for when he needs help.
and my youngest son rear ended a truck in my 77 f150 super cab this week so now i have an entire front clip , fenders, doors , radiator ETC. oh and frame damage that is now on hold until the short bus is finished.
so my break from the bus stuff isnt really a break its just not bus stuff.
with my personal truck the 77 ford down now at least i have a boss man that allows me to use the company truck as a personal as needed and anything other than trips around my area i call him and ask for permission even though i know the answer but thats more because of GPS tracking which they dont keep up with me but i want to stay honest with the owners in case i piss the accountant or time secretary off and they want to be a pain? it happens more than you think when you/i am in charge of 25-30 men daily much less the middle man between the office and the govt. contract agencies we work for daily.
yeah probably do it again but not for awhile and reno what i built and know every aspect of whats there.
a completely different bus start from scratch for someone else build?
hell NO dealing with my wife on hers has killed that deal.
i might help someone where i can but a complete start to finish with a customer that cant come see the progress weekly at a minimum and give immediate input?
NO

[LargeMargeInBaja]

We are doing it again.
.
2003, we converted a 1996 Ford CF8000 to our concept of an ExpeditionVehicle.
.
Nearly two decades full-time live-aboard, we are building a new rig:.
* 2006 Autocar crew-cab mid-engine fire-truck converted to a toter... apparatus behind the cab gone.
Gooseneck ball.
* Mated to a gooseneck flatbed with tandem duals.
Carrying...
A boat, long and narrow, similar to the canal scows of Europe... but with sails.
Engineered for extreme duration and isolation at high latitude.
.
We are watching the daily up-date progress of sixty-year sailor, boat builder, and multiple circumnavigator Sven Yrvind on YouTube.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Yrvind
(82-years old, his name trans-lates from Swedish as 'Whirlwind', and in his active comments section, he is often referred to as 'Professor Whirlwind'... an accurate description of his genius.)
Writing notes, snagging screen-shots, and balancing Sven's simplest of boats against something enormously complicated such as the Dashew Fast Passage Boats series.
.
After we splash, we will very likely drop off the planet... sayonara and hasta la never.

[David from Ontario]

I'm retired and a grandpa doing my first skoolie conversion (theskoolielife.com - home page.) On social media I see a mostly young couples doing conversions. Lots of good ideas about where to store the snow boards. Not so many about how to power the CPAP machine.

It's encouraging to see folks in my age bracket taking on such an ambitious project. I think the OP (dwood443) fits that description, too. Are there any others out there? Are you on social media? I'd love to follow you.

[Oldyeller]

Originally Posted by David from Ontario

I'm retired and a grandpa doing my first skoolie conversion (theskoolielife.com - home page.) On social media I see a mostly young couples doing conversions. Lots of good ideas about where to store the snow boards. Not so many about how to power the CPAP machine.

It's encouraging to see folks in my age bracket taking on such an ambitious project. I think the OP (dwood443) fits that description, too. Are there any others out there? Are you on social media? I'd love to follow you.

I'm 69, retired and building out a skoolie that I'm documenting here. If you're interested I have a build thread linked below.

https://www.skoolie.net/forums/f11/l...oon-32061.html

[flattracker]

I have designed my RV electrical to support powering a CPAP machine. I am using a 300 watt sine wave inverter to power my fridge and CPAP. When outside or generator or large inverter power is applied, the power connection for the fridge and CPAP switches from the small inverter to whatever other power is there.

I turn 70 this year.

[craigify]

I have some insight that I think applies here. As an engineer of the software variety, there's something called the second system effect, or sometimes called the second system syndrome.

The idea is that as an engineer, you will be tempted to sometimes re-do a complex project from scratch when you think you can start over and fix all of the design decisions that you, or others made. This is highly and extremely in-advisable, and will most often always lead to disaster. Why? We, as humans, often disregard all of the many iterative steps it took to produce a product, which in this case, is a customized bus. Starting over means you loose all of the specific fixes for your particular bus. If you start over on a new chassis, you'll have even more challenges that you most likely didn't think about since the platform is different. This has been proven over many years of engineers making this same mistake.

The end answer, in my opinion, is strongly: NO. If you want to fix things, fix each one. In engineering, this can be thought of as technical debt. We build things, and realize that they work, but they will need to be fixed, made better, or redone sometgime in the future. We always carry a certain level of technical debt. This is good. This means that we're actually using the things we make and not always getting stuck in perfecting them.

You'll have to come up with a strategy to work with your technical debt and think of ways to fix what you want in order of priority, and maybe make some decisions to live with some things, or change them in some sequence.

There probably are scenarios where you would want to start over, but I think they are few. Is the bus going to meet some kind of disaster? Does it use unobtanium that's impossible to source, and therefore literally cannot be fixed if it breaks? Is there something at the core of the bus extremely dangerous or unsafe to drive or be inside of it? You'll find that almost everything will _not_ meet this criteria, in my experience.

[dwood443]

Originally Posted by craigify

I have some insight that I think applies here. As an engineer of the software variety, there's something called the second system effect, or sometimes called the second system syndrome.

The idea is that as an engineer, you will be tempted to sometimes re-do a complex project from scratch when you think you can start over and fix all of the design decisions that you, or others made. This is highly and extremely in-advisable, and will most often always lead to disaster. Why? We, as humans, often disregard all of the many iterative steps it took to produce a product, which in this case, is a customized bus. Starting over means you loose all of the specific fixes for your particular bus. If you start over on a new chassis, you'll have even more challenges that you most likely didn't think about since the platform is different. This has been proven over many years of engineers making this same mistake.

The end answer, in my opinion, is strongly: NO. If you want to fix things, fix each one. In engineering, this can be thought of as technical debt. We build things, and realize that they work, but they will need to be fixed, made better, or redone sometgime in the future. We always carry a certain level of technical debt. This is good. This means that we're actually using the things we make and not always getting stuck in perfecting them.

You'll have to come up with a strategy to work with your technical debt and think of ways to fix what you want in order of priority, and maybe make some decisions to live with some things, or change them in some sequence.

There probably are scenarios where you would want to start over, but I think they are few. Is the bus going to meet some kind of disaster? Does it use unobtanium that's impossible to source, and therefore literally cannot be fixed if it breaks? Is there something at the core of the bus extremely dangerous or unsafe to drive or be inside of it? You'll find that almost everything will _not_ meet this criteria, in my experience.

Well said, thanks

[flattracker]

Hello Craigify,
I too am a retired Software engineer, with hardware and software test also in my background. I don't envision ever a complete do-over of my Crowns. I am incorporating the lessons learned from doing the conversion of my first Crown. Differences in the electrical system, differences in plumbing and layout. I will at some point go back and make changes to the "old Crown" to correct some of its problems.
I agree that complete do-overs usually aren't needed, unless the previous iteration was a dismal failure.
I also believe in re-use of design and technology when possible. Both of my crowns are framed with Unistrut, have the generator, holding tank, and the propane tank in the same place.


These are things that worked in the old Crown and will work in the new Crown.


The underfloor layout of a Crown provides challenges not found in other buses, so how they are done makes for different approaches than other buses.
I wouldn't have it any other way.

[flattracker]

Attached are images of my 300 watt inverter and the labels on the fridge. The refrigerator is 10.1 cubic feet and I got it from Home Depot. It was the biggest refrigerator that fit through the 24" wide door.
Sorry for the poor image quality:

[Veloc]

Originally Posted by craigify

I have some insight ...
... in my experience.

Heh heh heh, the reason I'm here without a bus is because I've lived my life by the words "learn from the mistakes of others, not your own." Eventually I'll have a bus, but before I get to that point I want to learn as much as I can both from the successes and the failures of others. I'll learn from my own mistakes as a last resort.

[Jfoster503]

Short answer is a resounding YES!

Longer answer is that buying the bus changed how I looked at living life and started me towards a destination of living smaller, better, and just plainly more fun! I went into the build with basic knowledge of how to build, researched the heck out of ideas, and have read thousands of posts here. Learned from my mistakes, got better with tools I had, got better tools! Two years in and we just put in flooring. After sleeping on a pile of foam, sleeping on the just installed mattress was dreamlike. Our bus ain’t perfect, but I know every inch and if I want to change something all I need is time and my impact driver. We looked for bargains to cut costs, cast off lumber from lumber yards, discount construction material stores, etc. I might change minor things, but I’d do this adventure over in a heartbeat! Don’t think I’ll ever do another bus build, our six window shorty is perfect for our present and future needs, but I’ll probably do a van. Wanna see how small a space I can squeeze life.