Hilda the Rusty Green Bus

[chumcity]

Hi everyone, me and my girlfriend are about halfway through converting our Bluebird and I thought I would share some photos on what we've done so far.

To start off, we bought the bus last winter in NJ and brought it back to Vermont where we were living. The bus is a 2002 Bluebird All American RE, with a CAT 3126 and an Allison MD3060. We bought it off a guy on facebook for $2500, he was going to do a bare bones conversion but decided not to.

Didn't take any photos of the gutting stage, but it sucked. All the panels were riveted and I must have removed about 1000 by hand using a hammer+chisel before buckling and getting a air compressor and air chisel.

After the floor was ripped out I discovered an atrocious amount of rust near the wheels, unfortunately no pictures but there were several gaping holes. I cut out all the rusted areas (about 5 or 6 separate spots) and welded in steel to replace it. I also welded shut all the screw holes from the floor and used long strand fiberglass body filler for the rest. During this stage I also added in a 3 inch steel C channel under the floor for extra support around the rear wheel well, the original floor support was completely rotted out. Finally we painted over the floor pan with black Rustoleum and chalked out our floor plan on the floor pan to see how our plan would pan out.

I believe next was framing the inside, we did things mostly following advice from Chuck Cassidy videos from this point on. The wood is all double stacked 3/4" plywood in 2" strips. On the floor I used double stacked 1/2" strips to save on headroom (and because we had a bunch of free 1" reflective insulation). Everything was screwed in using wood to metal screws.

 

[chumcity]

Flooring!

We had some leftover red oak flooring that we got for free, and combined it with some other mysterious hardwood flooring in the back that we got for free to get almost enough flooring. We used plywood for the floor under cabinets and other things that wouldn't be visible to make our nice flooring stretch further.

I decided not to use a subfloor because it would have made the ceiling too low for me to stand in, and we REALLY didn't want to do a roof raise. The process went like this: we planed down all the boards to take off the original pre-finished surface and v groove (for aesthetic purposes, we like flooring that is finished in place). When installing, we wood glued the tongues to the grooves and also glued it to the framing, then brad nailed the tongues into the framing. So far its been super solid.

In the last pic you can see it fully sanded and finished, I think it looks so good

 

[chumcity]

BTW I am leaving out a lot, so please ask questions if you want to know more about a specific thing that we did.

 

[chumcity]

Next up was the roof rack which would hold our 5 solar panels and 16 foot long roof deck. I made this with angle iron, steel plate and unistrut. Most of our materials are off cuts, scraps or bought from wholesale distributers. We have been working on this conversion on my families farm/truck shop near Toronto, so there is an abundance of materials around.

Painted it black and used stainless steel machine screws to bolt through the roof. I made 28 brackets total, one per hat channel. They are mounted just in front of each hat channel because its the sturdiest spot to put it without being on top of the rivets.

The roof was painted with dicor and sealed with dicor lap sealant over the seams.

 

[chumcity]

We used my uncles blue gizmo to do everything on the roof. All the controls are in Chinese.

Woww fancy solar panels... They are grape solar 370w 24v panels, just enough to reach the required 120v to begin charging our 48v battery.

The roof deck is held in with short deck screws going up through the roof rack, seems sketchy but it's actually pretty strong. There is one ridge support in the middle(carriage bolted thru the roof) and two free floating joists in between the center and the roof rack to help make it feel less springy.

 

[nikitis]

Do you notice any flex in the roof deck as you walk on it cause I can see you didn't put them through the hat channels themselves but next to them?

I think it could be strong enough since you connected them but curious if you've noticed any flex.

 

[chumcity]

Spray foam!

We also built a few boxes around the wheel wells and ran all the wiring, I will explain our electrical system in another post.

None of the spray foam companies in Vermont wanted to do our bus, but it was easy to find a company in Toronto. It cost 1200 USD, money well spent.

 

[chumcity]

Do you notice any flex in the roof deck as you walk on it cause I can see you didn't put them through the hat channels themselves but next to them?

I think it could be strong enough since you connected them but curious if you've noticed any flex.

Heres a more detailed view of the roof deck construction. I think you're referring to how the unistrut is connected to the angle iron? To answer your question, no, but yes for a different reason. The steel roof rack is super solid, absolutely no flex in any direction--the unistrut is bolted to the angle iron. But the deck boards themselves had a lot of flex in between the center support and the unistrut, so I added the free floating joists underneath them and that fixed the springiness.

 

[chumcity]

I have a lot more progress to post but I gotta go work on the bus lol. We are securing the fridge today.

 

[RadioHill]

Thanks for sharing!

For the roof, did I miss read, you put down Dicor paint and then Dicor Lap sealeant over the seams? I might be reading you too literally, to think you put the Dicor paint down first and then the lap sealant?

 

[chumcity]

Thanks for sharing!

For the roof, did I miss read, you put down Dicor paint and then Dicor Lap sealeant over the seams? I might be reading you too literally, to think you put the Dicor paint down first and then the lap sealant?

Yeah! Dicor paint first and then self leveling lap sealant on top, maybe did that kinda backwards. The lap sealant was sort of an afterthought. We considered using that thick butyl tape stuff over the seams but it was gonna be really expensive.

 

[chumcity]

This is our electrical cabinet. I chose to use an all in one inverter and solar charge controller because its simpler and cheaper (depending the brand) than getting everything separately. The backbone of the setup is our EG4 48v battery and EG4 3000ehv all in one. So far it's been good but the 3000ehv is very power hungry, and the power saver mode is just sort of annoying. I think the parasitic draw from the inverter drains the battery from 100% to 70% just over one day and night. The power saver mode should be good theoretically, it works by shutting down the inverter until it detects a load, but it has trouble detecting certain loads. For example turning on a light might trigger the inverter, but then for whatever reason it clicks off again after the light is powered and then gets stuck in an on-off loop. I heard on diysolarforum.com that they may be working on a firmware update that fixes this though...

We are waiting until we start living in the bus to decide weather we will need a second 48v battery, but right now I'm leaning towards yes. Especially considering we are going to be using a compact electric oven and an induction stove for cooking, and a minisplit.

As for the rest of the system, everything is working perfectly. Theres 5 separate AC circuits: one for the outlets on the left wall, one for the right wall, one for the stove, another for the oven, and one for the minisplit. We used some scavenged 12/2 extension cords for the AC wiring and supplemented with solid core 12/2 from home depot.

There is also a 48v dc to 12v dc converter (the silver heatsink box on the wall) that supplies power for our led lights and vent fans, this has an automotive fuse box (directly above it). The wire is all 14awg that we ripped out from the bus electrical system, mostly stuff from the interlock, the hazard lights, etc.

There are a few lights in the front of the bus that actually are powered by an AC to 12v DC power brick that is tied into the AC side in the front of the bus, this was to avoid long 40ft 12v wire runs which helps with voltage drop etc. It's not the most elegant way to do things but it solves an important problem.

These are our solar panels: 370W (24V). I chose them because signature solar sold them for cheap, and they were one of the few that they let you buy in small quantity. We have 5 on the roof, that is the minimum you can do to reach the charging voltage required by the EG4 3000EHV

 

[chumcity]

We built wood windows!

I think this is by far the most unique thing on our bus. We built them by disassembling the original windows to get the panes, and then just building a standard wood picture frame around them. Its held together with PVA glue and some basic joinery in the corners. The wood was some beautiful wild pine that used to be our dining table! (we ate on the coffee table for a few months...)

I have tons of videos of this process that we are eventually going to put together and edit for Youtube.
Above is a screenshot that shows the process a little better. The chips on the sides get trimmed off with a track saw once the glue sets.

 

[chumcity]

Im jumping ahead a bit but heres some pics of how they actually look installed. Seriously some of the most beautiful softwood I have ever used--and VERY strong as well. I would not recommend doing this with any other type of wood. Modern softwood would not last very long.

 

[nikitis]

Nicely done. A truly unique idea for sure.

How well do they seal in rain?

 

[chumcity]

Okay next up was installing the walls.

We used 1/8 inch hardboard for this because its pretty firm but can also bend around the ceiling curve, and as a bonus it's dirt cheap. Like 10 USD per sheet.

We wanted more of a painted drywall look because the wood shiplap thing is overdone and I think it makes it look like a log cabin or something.

We cut the sheets in half, hot dog style, so they were easier to bend. These twist jack things were super helpful for holding the curve in place while we nailed it in.

Everything got spackled with lightweight spackle, and yes I will let you know if it cracks.

If anyone wants to do their walls this way I would highly recommend putting more framing in around where the panels meet, especially on the ceiling. Honestly we did this really quickly and you can tell. All the gaps between the panels on the ceiling are super visible. We are going to fix this soon by cutting 3 inch strips of hardboard and nailing them right over the cracks, hopefully it will give it a cool look kind of like this

 

[chumcity]

Nicely done. A truly unique idea for sure.

How well do they seal in rain?

No leaks so far. I will make another post for the full window installation process soon.

 

[chumcity]

Floorplan. The weirdly shaped room in the middle is the bathroom, forgot to label it.

 

[chumcity]

Diesel heater install:

Used insulated ducting to route the heat to the kitchen and the bathroom. I'm hoping that being able to turn the bathroom into a sauna will help with the less than ideal shower/bathing situation (little to no hot water).

The install took about a day, super worth it. It's been freezing cold in Canada, big surprise I know, and this thing has been keeping the inside very comfortable.

 

[chumcity]

First piece of furniture. We bought 25 sheets of 18mm baltic birch, its very cheap in Canada. I bought a 5x5 sheet for $115 USD in Vermont and the same thing costs around $60 CAD ($43 USD) in Canada. It's basically the same price as getting plywood from Home Depot in the US.

The cushions came out great, the fabric was clearance from when Joanns closed.