Escape Ordinary Journey Begins

[EscapeOrdinary]

Hey everyone. My goal is to post some video entries with the breakdown of our story. But i wanted to get a thread started because it is official now. My wife and i decided that we wanted to take a crack at the skoolie conversion!! Primarily for long weekend trips but as it evolves hopefully longer trips!

So the bus is a 2002 blue bird, 5.9 cummins front engine and allison auto tranny. 138,000 miles.

My background is mechanical, i was a ford technician, but i got out of wrenching about 10 years ago to start my own business. So mechanically i can hold my own. as far as interior goes that is a different story. Ive done some home DIY like flooring small kitchen upgrades and little things like that. But have never done any heavy stuff like frame work or custom cabinetry.

We have literally just drove the bus home, we are planning on doing the basics as far as seat removal, floor removal and cleaning in the next 2 days or so. I did a test run on seat removal, it looks like the seat bolts just spin, i looked underneath and i can see there is a bolt that would need to be held. i feel like that is more of a PIA than just grinding the bolt heads off so i think that is how ill go after that.

With that if anyone wants to give any up front advise i am more than open to it. In the mean time ill be doing all of my research on the forums.

Here are a few pics!!!

http://www.skoolie.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=23547&stc=1&d=1529797880

http://www.skoolie.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=23548&stc=1&d=1529797880

http://www.skoolie.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=23549&stc=1&d=1529797880

http://www.skoolie.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=23550&stc=1&d=1529797880

 

[jjhwick119]

A tip for the seats - Have someone underneath the bus with locking pliers like vice grips. Hold the nut on the bottom, use drill on the top. I did it this way solo, getting under the bus and putting vice grips on 3-4 nuts at a time, then hopping back in the bus to remove them. If you do this with 2 people, it's easier than cutting them out, in my opinion.

 

[EscapeOrdinary]

First video

Well here is the first of many. A bit amateur but I’m sure I will get better lol.


https://youtu.be/INEd2IaEQv4

 

[EscapeOrdinary]

https://youtu.be/INEd2IaEQv4

 

[Wkheathjr]

for me, I had similar idea of trying to unbolt the seat until there were few nuts underneath that is difficult to reach due to some frame under the actual frame in middle of the bus so I settled on angle grinding mid to front seats. I guess it depends on the design of each bus. Yes, I had buddy helping me on few seats in the back until we got stuck with hard to reach nuts and I ended up doing the rest of seats myself.

I am curious why do you have defcon box in your bus? If I understand correctly, it is supposed to help diesel run cleaner and is must have on recently model but not sure about the bus your age?