New Skoolie Adventure

[Doktari]

Five factors you mentioned point me to suggesting you find a full size bus rather than a small bus. Usually I suggest getting a cutaway van to people with no experience and little cash. They are glorified vans and thus affordable to operate, maintain, repair, park, etc. However you mentioned: 1) You already have a backyard to park;2) You have two helpers already for the build; 3) You have financial assistance for the build; 4) You have two children; 5) You are in graduate school and are not traveling. I would look for any large shell to live in and put my funds into a nice conversion for self and the children.
As far as the time needed for conversion. Ive seen a retired carpenter help his son do a beautiful full conversion in 3 months. That took real dedication however. And Summer weather. This short amount of time was the exception not the norm.
Best wishes

 

[cmstrick654]

Native, I think my biggest worry is getting a bus and it being so big I cannot drive it lol. I am a compact car with a backup camera type person.

 

[cmstrick654]

We have a 1998 white bluebird Skoolie we are selling that is mechanically in excellent condition. It only has 63,000 miles on it. If you’re interested hit me up. Or just go to Craigslist in Portland Oregon and look at it. It’s a great bus, we have done some stuff to it but mostly for weekend outings. Let me know. ����

I appreciate that but Im sure its well outside of my. budget, as well as being on the otherside of the country. The furthest we are willing to travel for a bus is 16 hours round trip.

 

[cmstrick654]

Five factors you mentioned point me to suggesting you find a full size bus rather than a small bus. Usually I suggest getting a cutaway van to people with no experience and little cash. They are glorified vans and thus affordable to operate, maintain, repair, park, etc. However you mentioned: 1) You already have a backyard to park;2) You have two helpers already for the build; 3) You have financial assistance for the build; 4) You have two children; 5) You are in graduate school and are not traveling. I would look for any large shell to live in and put my funds into a nice conversion for self and the children.
As far as the time needed for conversion. Ive seen a retired carpenter help his son do a beautiful full conversion in 3 months. That took real dedication however. And Summer weather. This short amount of time was the exception not the norm.
Best wishes

I appreciate that. We will do the best we can with what we have and hopefully do something worthwhile.

 

[musigenesis]

Native, I think my biggest worry is getting a bus and it being so big I cannot drive it lol. I am a compact car with a backup camera type person.

Driving a bus involves turning a wheel and stomping on two pedals, same as your car. If you can get through the first few drives without killing anyone, you'll be fine.

I first drove a school bus (mine) last year, and initially I could only really turn left - my attempts to turn right (in a fairly tight residential Philly neighborhood) required me to stop and back up in order to complete them - so I would just go around in a big left-turning circle a couple of miles and come back to my spot.

I eventually figured out the right-turn thing and driving has been pretty easy since then. This is a big exaggerated, but to turn right you want to cheat to the left first (if possible) then drive into the middle of the intersection and come to a stop, still with your wheels straight. Then you turn the wheels all the way right (while stopped) and then accelerate, and you'll make a nice sharp right turn. In practice you just slow down in the middle of the intersection rather than stopping completely, but you definitely do it more like what I describe than with a normal car. In a bus, if you turn right like in a car, your front wheels will describe that perfect arc around the corner, but your back wheel will hop the curb and smash into the utility pole.

Anyway, everything about building a skoolie is new and scary. You'll eventually (soonly) look back on your fear of just driving the thing and laugh.

 

[cmstrick654]

Anyway, everything about building a skoolie is new and scary. You'll eventually (soonly) look back on your fear of just driving the thing and laugh.

Thank you for that

 

[Native-SKO]

Driving a bus involves turning a wheel and stomping on two pedals, same as your car. If you can get through the first few drives without killing anyone, you'll be fine.

I first drove a school bus (mine) last year, and initially I could only really turn left - my attempts to turn right (in a fairly tight residential Philly neighborhood) required me to stop and back up in order to complete them - so I would just go around in a big left-turning circle a couple of miles and come back to my spot.

I eventually figured out the right-turn thing and driving has been pretty easy since then. This is a big exaggerated, but to turn right you want to cheat to the left first (if possible) then drive into the middle of the intersection and come to a stop, still with your wheels straight. Then you turn the wheels all the way right (while stopped) and then accelerate, and you'll make a nice sharp right turn. In practice you just slow down in the middle of the intersection rather than stopping completely, but you definitely do it more like what I describe than with a normal car. In a bus, if you turn right like in a car, your front wheels will describe that perfect arc around the corner, but your back wheel will hop the curb and smash into the utility pole.

Anyway, everything about building a skoolie is new and scary. You'll eventually (soonly) look back on your fear of just driving the thing and laugh.

I would like to add a phrase my wife picked up in a skoolie forum ... go long.


When you make your right turn (especially), go long into the intersection before making the turn. The ideas is that you need to make sure your rear tires are at least parallel to the curb of the intersection. Just practice .. it gets easy with practice.


Go long!

 

[Native-SKO]

Another tip: Go to a bus barn and try out (as in test drive) a couple of different sizes and types of buses.