Hello!

[katiell2]

Hi I'm new here. My partner and I just bought a 1999 Chevy short bus and have already started working on it. We're hoping to have it roughly converted (not perfect, but definitely road worthy and comfortable) by the end of the first week of July. Our first day, we removed all of the seats and took up the rubber and plywood. Today, we're working on the infamous rivets for the ceiling and walls. We're having trouble figuring out what to do with our heater and the back wall of the bus that houses the air conditioner. What do we need to know about taking the heater out? And would it be crazy of us to leave the back wall intact so we don't have to mess with any of the a/c lines and then just insulate over that? We would remove the back wall bottom panels and insulate them with foam board, but we would like to leave the top ones if that's not too crazy. What do you guys think?

 

[ghodges]

Welcome!

Hi Katiell

Glad you've joined us crazy skoolie people.

So I would probably do the same thing on the back wall. In fact, our upper back wall is made in such a way that we would have to cut the metal to remove the inside skin and so we decided we would simply insulate over it and put our finished wall over that.

Now the heater...

It's a bit tricky, because it gets its heat from the engine coolant. You will (probably) find that there are 2 hoses running to the heater core (a radiator type thing). These have to be removed - probably at the point where they attach to the mail coolant hoses in the engine compartment.

You would need to get two hose connectors that fit the size of hose where the current "T"s are found and replace the "T"s with them. When you disconnect the hoses, beware that you want to have a bucket handy to catch the coolant that will come pouring out.

Most likely it won't be a difficult job, relatively speaking. If you have difficulty finding the connections, etc. I would have a mechanic show you.

Good luck!

Gary

 

[ghodges]

I meant to say "main coolant hoses" not "mail"

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[katiell2]

Thank you so much! We took your advice and things are coming along nicely!

 

[ghodges]

Cool

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