Bus Life Adventure

[BusLifeAdventure]

Here are some photos of Bus Life Adventures Conversion over the summer. We are a short 4x4 bus that was from Buffalo,NY and is now home to 4 people. We are making a documentary on life in the bus lane. We bought the bus in Albany, NY and road tripped it back using only side roads to Park City Utah. Come check it out!
http://www.buslifeadventure.com
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/183247780/life-in-the-bus-lane

The school bus yard in Albany, NY

The Bus and a really cool ice cream stand

Wolf Creek Pass, Colorado

Removing the Seats

Making the bus one window shorter for our adventure deck.

Welding our Adventure Deck/Snowmobile Deck

New Paint

Back from the tune shop and its finally snowing

Wood Burning Stove

Final Product

 

[Tango-SKO]

Very interesting --- and you have no doubt set a Guinness record for the "most hangover"...(behind a shorty bus, that is). So...how easy is it to do wheelies?

 

[BusLifeAdventure]

It does not do wheelies! We took a 5 window bus and made it a 4. So the deck is over the remaining chassis!

 

[ol trunt]

Gotta say that with a lever arm like that behind the rear axle, I'd be naming the thing "Sparky" In all seriousness, please don't try to pull a trailer with your toy until you can find a way to get the center of gravity back between the original two axles. You really need to go to a weigh station and get a 4 wheel weigh in, calculate the CG and make proper accommodations. Just saying.

 

[Tango-SKO]

Jack is absolutely right --- even a small amount of weight that far back creates a HUGE lever action on the rest of the chassis. I would also strongly recommend a 4 wheel weight check to see where CG is. My 40' BB had a 12' overhang but it was also balanced. It looks like you have as much on the shorty which puts the CG well aft of the rear wheels. Not a good thing.

 

[BusLifeAdventure]

Thank you guys, we will get that checked out. That wasn't a concern until it was brought up.

 

[BUBB-SKO]

For your stove pipe, unless you have already done it you might want to remove the pipe from the ceiling and then remove at least 6 inches of insulation from around the pipe, then add in 6 inches of ceramic insulation into the void, the ceramic stuff can take 2000 degrees without burning, just a thought,

Probably also want to look at the weight rating of the tires to make sure the rear tires are not overloaded. Also look at the gvwr for the axles/suspension/brakes to make sure they are not overloaded to the point of failure on those long mountain down hill drives.

question for board, should the weight dist be 60% rear and 40% front tires? what should it be?
From what I have just read it should be equal, meaning if you have the rear tires at 70% of gvwr then the front tires should be at 70% off gvwr,

When you accelerate their is a shift of weight from the front to the back tires, when you brake their is a shift of weight from the back to the front tires, when you turn the front tires need a certain amount of weight on them to grip the ground properly.

Perhaps you can cut a 2ft or 3ft section out of the rear platform and just let the snowmobile hang off a bit, perhaps move your roof container so it hangs over the front window a foot or two.

I dont mean to dogpile on you, just some thoughts.

 

[BusLifeAdventure]

everything helps, no dogpiling as we are so new to the skoolie thing

 

[jazty]

Gotta say that with a lever arm like that behind the rear axle, I'd be naming the thing "Sparky" In all seriousness, please don't try to pull a trailer with your toy until you can find a way to get the center of gravity back between the original two axles. You really need to go to a weigh station and get a 4 wheel weigh in, calculate the CG and make proper accommodations. Just saying.

Jack is absolutely right --- even a small amount of weight that far back creates a HUGE lever action on the rest of the chassis. I would also strongly recommend a 4 wheel weight check to see where CG is. My 40' BB had a 12' overhang but it was also balanced. It looks like you have as much on the shorty which puts the CG well aft of the rear wheels. Not a good thing.

Hmmm.. yes.. I can easily imagine the steer tires popping off the ground going over speed bumps too fast (or the like) with two snowmobiles back there.. Might want to consider some front weights!

 

[opus-SKO]

I'm thinking a single tire tag axle would be sweet.

 

[Tango-SKO]

I'm thinking a single tire tag axle would be sweet.

AKA: "Wheelie Bar"!

 

[opus-SKO]

AKA: "Wheelie Bar"!

I was trying to sound more official.

 

[sdwarf36]

Well-you've used it -so you can tell us if it works or not. But if you are welcoming critique ( ) , your designer/fabricator must have been a bridge builder! I'm guessing the rack alone is over 500 lbs? You could park a train on that. I build tube chassis race cars + roll cages-if you told me "build something to hold a 500 lb sled + 100 lbs of gear" i'd bet I could make something that weighs 1/4 of that.

A hard lesson learned: something has got to give. 1st learned by me at a young age. I had a Datsun 510 wagon-build up for hammering down dirt roads-pretending I was a rally driver. I had a piece of 3" pipe given to me. I thought it looked tough so i made a front bumper out of it. One nite out beating around, I blew a corner + went into the large rock with the right front. The bumper never bent-but the car was destroyed. The energy went from the bumper into the mounts-and the to the shell of the car-which was nowheres as strong.
With that thought in mind-what do you think it stronger, your deck or the Chevy its mounted to?

 

[opus-SKO]

Datsun 510 wagon

Haha!! Oops...sorry.

 

[roach711]

Looking at the front wheel clearance in the before and after pictures, it doesn't seem that there is much new leverage on the frame. The conversion took off a decent sized section of body sheet metal and the rear cap is now much farther inboard. The bumper and seats are gone as well as the kids that once sat in them. All that lightened the weight aft of the axles. The new rack incorporates the original frame rails so that part's a wash.

The rack and snowmobiles probably put back all that plus some, but as said before, the weigh station will tell the tale. Otherwise we're just guessing (I certainly am ). There should be a sticker inside the driver's door frame listing maximum axle loadings. A quick trip to the truck stop is in order here.

We should start a betting pool here.