Cowboy Express

[booboo-SKO]

Well hi folks this is going to be long winded, so grab a cup of coffee and here we go. here is our bus that we put into a honken big tarped Quonset for five years and did our conversion as we kept track of our time on it, it took over 6500hrs and counting. sorry we never thought to take pictures of the process. but hear are some pics of the almost finished bus. i guess your never really finished. i will tell you a little about it. it is a 1993 GMC 454 54 passenger blue bird on propane. i work for First Student and we bought this bus for a Tim Hortons coffee. for you folks in the states Tims is like Starbucks. i guess i will explain this on a point system to make it easier to explain. any specific questions you have just PM me and i will be happy to answer them.

Anyways to start out with the bus had a 366in it with a allision 545 transmission and 695 gears in the back.

engine 366
i rebuilt a 454 out of 1982 truck for propane and should be a direct drop in ...right??? ...NOT anybody that tells you this is lying.LOL anyways changed what we need to change to make it work and in she went.
transmission
the bus came originally with a fuller 5 speed. (sorry to the female folks) cardinal coach lines now bought out by First student changed all the manual transmissions out to automatics so the women drivers could drive these buses easier. whish i still had the fuller trans.
diff
the gears were 695 which only really allowed the bus to do around 60klm hour...or 85klm hour down hill with someone pushing...LOL
changed them down to 464 and now it will hit 110klm hour (70MPH) on flat towing a jeep.

as for the interior i will try to take some more pics
for a while i was a RV mechanic, so every thing is done in components so you can take whatever piece out if you have a problem. so for example if you have a wiring problem you can take out the upper cabinets one at a time to get to the bus wiring.

as you can see everything i have done and if you have any questions i will be happy to try to answer them. everything was built by me except the cushions which a local quilter did those.

we have bought another bus with bud rims etc on it and were looking to change them out with the daytons so we can have chrome simulators on the bus.
thanks for time.
booboo

 

[somewhereinusa]

Very nice.

Tims is like Starbucks

So, it was a very expensive cup of coffee?

 

[booboo-SKO]

we did get a lot of deals but yep 16.500 when we did a total of the stuff we bought and traded etc over the 5 years
booboo

 

[2kool4skool]

Very nice!

 

[Robin97396]

Very nice job of remodeling. That's a good looking bus.

 

[Docsgsxr]

Looks like a professional job! Very nice indeed!

 

[dan-fox]

as for the interior i will try to take some more pics
for a while i was a RV mechanic, so every thing is done in components so you can take whatever piece out if you have a problem. so for example if you have a wiring problem you can take out the upper cabinets one at a time to get to the bus wiring.

A little bit of discussion or tutorial as to how to "think modular" would be greatly appreciated, at least by this one n00b.

For instance, I am thinking of stealing an idea I saw here. One of us raised the roof by an amount, then put in a "false" ceiling that amongst other things gave a place to run all sorts of good utilities. Sounds good, but for the life of me I can't figure out a ceiling system that will allow easy access/removal to troubleshoot/repair/improve as needed, and not look like acoustical drop tile.

How do you mount your upper cabinetry so as to allow one-by-one remove/replace?

 

[booboo-SKO]

dan-fox...that one was easy...before i started building the cabinets i had made a template of the roofs curve. and the cabinets are deceiving as there is only a front and bottom to them and of coarse sides so we cut a strip of 1x2 on a angle ...going off the template,mounted that strip on the roof, leveled the cabinet, then screwed in the top front of the cabinet to that piece of wood and L brackets that are countersunk on the back to the bottom and the roof side...and on the sides we used gimp for a finished look to butt up against the next cabinet. if you would like some pic i will try to get you some.

as for the other posters thank you very much for the compliments
booboo