nocoasty
Senior Member
Where do I start... My wife and I built a skoolie in 2018, converted a van in 2020, and after having a child decided it was time to move back up to a 40'er. So in May we decided to and then purchased our new-to-us bus, but just recently had time to get around to the conversion. We (I mean I) had a few Volkswagen projects to wrap up for myself.
The bus sitting all sad outside...
We don't just convert vehicles for ourselves but we consult and build for others as well and over the years we've really learned to enjoy the process and have gotten quite particular with every aspect of our builds.
Our bus: 2005 International RE300. DT466 / MD3060 combo. Currently 101,000 miles on the odometer. 40' long, dual door accessibility bus that we removed the lift in. Rear air suspension, heated power mirrors, cruise control. This thing is loaded compared to our first bus.
To start the build, I think it's nice to know what we're thinking as an initial layout. I designed this in Sketchup, but this isn't the first rendering and it's far less detailed due to some measuring oversights I made in May when we got the bus back to our property.
We're still deciding certain details for the bathroom and for our daughter's area, but this is a good overview of the larger flow of the bus. It's similar in ways to our first build named "Tío."
Most of the appliances and major money drains have already been purchased, but we've still got a fair amount of expenses ahead of us and at the end of the conversion I'll put together the total cost involved for it.
We've tackled roughly 12 working days on the build and this is it's current state.
We employed an angle grinder to remove the seats. I'm too old and stubborn to get under the bus unless I absolutely have to and my daughter likes being held too much and too often for the grime I'd accumulate underneath.
I had to keep a few seats for the shop.
Needed to pull the bus out to clean out all the crap from grinding. The dogs were stoked.
I went through the forbidden spaghetti and filled a 27gal tote of wires. This is not for the faint of heart and is not for those who have limited knowledge, understanding, and patience for complex automotive wiring. That said, damn it's refreshing when the job is complete and the fuse panel is as clean as this one is now.
You can very easily screw something up though, so proceed with this project with the most caution. Maybe even skip it entirely.
We've insulated our floor (and entrance) and added our tongue and groove subfloor, using some new 3rd gen LP building tape at the joints.
We utilized a no screw, only adhesives (14 30oz tubes), installation method with a ton of weight applied to each section during the install. I know this is debated often, but we've used this method in the past and it simply works and it works very well.
Oh forgot to mention, we removed the old flooring and used Chassis Saver to seal our floor before installing our insulation and subfloor.
After flooring we decided it made sense to start furring the bus and doing so in a way to limit thermal bridging.
But because we planned on removing windows, we didn't completely finish.
Then I got caught up in a project my wife had been asking for. So I designed and then cut a montessori climber / convertible table for our daughter.
I made an extra for a friend of our's toddler.
This week we got to starting on the window removal and making our own window deletes. I shopped around and found the price for window deletes to be utterly absurd before even factoring in the cost to ship them (I could build 6+ for the cost of one shipped), so I picked up my own cold rolled steel from our local Nashville metal supplier, bought a cheap break, and used my CNC to make a template.
I ordered 4x10, but they only had 4x8, so I ended up with an extra sheet and a lot of waste. I'm sure I'll use it for patches somewhere though.
It took me a total of ~10 minutes per window delete, from marking, cutting, and then bending. I haven't cleaned the garbage from the previous windows, so they're just sitting in place right now.
13 window deletes in total. Steel cost ~$490 and the brake was open box and I got it for $170. That's a hell of a lot cheaper than the ~$2100 it would have cost me otherwise and I got a new tool out of it.
I started cutting them with a plasma cutter, which was way faster, but I needed some new tips and kept losing arc. So I swapped it out for the angle grinder and got back to work.
We started throwing wiring as well, but I managed grossly underestimating wire for this bus. I'm too used to vans, I guess. The last of our wire order shows up tomorrow which means I'll be able to hopefully finish roughing it in.
I've got to actually get the deletes installed. I'm using paintable automotive seam sealer inside and out, and screws. I'm degreasing my panels and priming them first though. Then we've got a few huge holes to make in the roof, minor ones for mounting our solar rails and cable entry glands, and then wrapping up the last bit of furring before deleting our air intake, relocating the breather, and then prepping for closed cell spray foam insulation.
Can't wait to share the next steps with everyone and get to know you all more.



The bus sitting all sad outside...

We don't just convert vehicles for ourselves but we consult and build for others as well and over the years we've really learned to enjoy the process and have gotten quite particular with every aspect of our builds.
Our bus: 2005 International RE300. DT466 / MD3060 combo. Currently 101,000 miles on the odometer. 40' long, dual door accessibility bus that we removed the lift in. Rear air suspension, heated power mirrors, cruise control. This thing is loaded compared to our first bus.


To start the build, I think it's nice to know what we're thinking as an initial layout. I designed this in Sketchup, but this isn't the first rendering and it's far less detailed due to some measuring oversights I made in May when we got the bus back to our property.

We're still deciding certain details for the bathroom and for our daughter's area, but this is a good overview of the larger flow of the bus. It's similar in ways to our first build named "Tío."
Most of the appliances and major money drains have already been purchased, but we've still got a fair amount of expenses ahead of us and at the end of the conversion I'll put together the total cost involved for it.
We've tackled roughly 12 working days on the build and this is it's current state.
We employed an angle grinder to remove the seats. I'm too old and stubborn to get under the bus unless I absolutely have to and my daughter likes being held too much and too often for the grime I'd accumulate underneath.



I had to keep a few seats for the shop.




Needed to pull the bus out to clean out all the crap from grinding. The dogs were stoked.
I went through the forbidden spaghetti and filled a 27gal tote of wires. This is not for the faint of heart and is not for those who have limited knowledge, understanding, and patience for complex automotive wiring. That said, damn it's refreshing when the job is complete and the fuse panel is as clean as this one is now.

You can very easily screw something up though, so proceed with this project with the most caution. Maybe even skip it entirely.

We've insulated our floor (and entrance) and added our tongue and groove subfloor, using some new 3rd gen LP building tape at the joints.

We utilized a no screw, only adhesives (14 30oz tubes), installation method with a ton of weight applied to each section during the install. I know this is debated often, but we've used this method in the past and it simply works and it works very well.
Oh forgot to mention, we removed the old flooring and used Chassis Saver to seal our floor before installing our insulation and subfloor.



After flooring we decided it made sense to start furring the bus and doing so in a way to limit thermal bridging.


But because we planned on removing windows, we didn't completely finish.
Then I got caught up in a project my wife had been asking for. So I designed and then cut a montessori climber / convertible table for our daughter.

I made an extra for a friend of our's toddler.
This week we got to starting on the window removal and making our own window deletes. I shopped around and found the price for window deletes to be utterly absurd before even factoring in the cost to ship them (I could build 6+ for the cost of one shipped), so I picked up my own cold rolled steel from our local Nashville metal supplier, bought a cheap break, and used my CNC to make a template.
I ordered 4x10, but they only had 4x8, so I ended up with an extra sheet and a lot of waste. I'm sure I'll use it for patches somewhere though.


It took me a total of ~10 minutes per window delete, from marking, cutting, and then bending. I haven't cleaned the garbage from the previous windows, so they're just sitting in place right now.
13 window deletes in total. Steel cost ~$490 and the brake was open box and I got it for $170. That's a hell of a lot cheaper than the ~$2100 it would have cost me otherwise and I got a new tool out of it.
I started cutting them with a plasma cutter, which was way faster, but I needed some new tips and kept losing arc. So I swapped it out for the angle grinder and got back to work.




We started throwing wiring as well, but I managed grossly underestimating wire for this bus. I'm too used to vans, I guess. The last of our wire order shows up tomorrow which means I'll be able to hopefully finish roughing it in.
I've got to actually get the deletes installed. I'm using paintable automotive seam sealer inside and out, and screws. I'm degreasing my panels and priming them first though. Then we've got a few huge holes to make in the roof, minor ones for mounting our solar rails and cable entry glands, and then wrapping up the last bit of furring before deleting our air intake, relocating the breather, and then prepping for closed cell spray foam insulation.

Can't wait to share the next steps with everyone and get to know you all more.
Last edited: