No Coast '05 RE300 Conversion

[nocoasty]

I posted this as a reply on an old thread, but since I'm active here I figured this would be a good place to reshare my reply. :greetings:

I've been searching the forum for weeks to find a solution for removing the exterior door handles on my wheelchair access and emergency exit doors. Unfortunately, all I've come across are comments like "good luck" and "if you figure it out, let me know."

Well, I managed to do it.

For reference, I have an IC RE300 bus. The exterior handles appear to have a set screw and another screw at the top, but I've been unable to get either to budge—even after twisting the heads off several Allen wrenches.

My goal has been to make the exterior handles inoperable from the outside while keeping them fully functional from the inside, without adding locks or other mechanisms.

So, I did what any reasonable person might do: I used a drill bit to remove both screws entirely and then employed a small crowbar to encourage the exterior handle off the square shaft connected to the interior handle.

This is what you end up with.

I then removed the four interior screws holding the lock on to the door and realized I'd need to hammer it all of the way out, shorten it by cutting the square shaft down and then weld it in place back into the locking mechanism.

I removed about 2" or so of the original square shaft, ground off the paint around it and the lock and then tacked it into place.

I painted everything with black rustoleum to protect the weld and bare metal and then screwed it back into place on the inside. It works exactly how it used to, but with no exterior handle. I'm going to cut some sheet metal circles today and weld them into place over the exterior hole, paint it up, and tack over the original screw holes where the trim plate went.

Hope this helps anyone who had been attempting to do the same. Just drill the damn screws out and then toss some elbow grease and leverage on the handle.

 

[nocoasty]

I originally started to post this on September 28th, so "Thursday" is in reference to September 26th.

Thursday I decided to do something I wasn't planning to do for a while, which meant that I needed to go ahead and finish any and all remaining "body work" that was left to tackle on the bus.

First actual thing on the list was to remove the old decals and the leftover adhesive. I always use a combination of eraser wheels and adhesive remover / isopropyl alcohol. I hate this step, and this go around I opted not to remove the long reflective strips for my sanity sake.

Call me lazy, but it'll look fine in the end.

The next thing on my list was finally creating a new way for my engine to pull fresh air considering I deleted the upper air intakes pretty early on.

This meant using a grinder with a cutting disc and trying to make as straight of cuts as possible. Driver side turned out great and I'm pleased with it. I reused some of the perforated metal from the original as well, reduce, reuse, recycle or something like that, right?

Passenger side, albeit smaller, turned out great as well. This was also smaller on the original upper intakes.

**I've since driven the bus from the Nashville area in Tennessee to Madison Wisconsin. I can tell you with certainty, they work perfectly as intended. It was hot on my drive, and the bus temperature remained steady in the safe zone.

There was damage on the passenger side front storage door and I had no great options for repairing it beside simply cutting out the bent and folded metal and welding new metal in. I used body filler to try to smooth the area out after the repair as best as I could It looks 1000x better than it did, so I'm also happy here.

The repair after a little black primer.

So by now I'm hoping you've realized that I decided to paint the bus. Our first bus was a color called Cascade Green and I really thought it was a special color, not obnoxious like many greens tend to be (in my opinion), and blended really well in every environment we traveled to. However, this time, we wanted something much lighter, but not stark white.

And well, it probably looks stark white. I swear it's not though.

The first time we painted a bus, we used Sherwin Williams Industrial Oil Enamel and then sprayed it with a Wagner airless sprayer which left a pretty nice minimal texture and was SUPER quick.

The prep time and paint time was something I really wanted to replicate this go around, but I've since painted several other things with automotive spray guns and decided that it was worth the extra time for the quality of the finish I've grown accustomed to with automotive paint guns.

Our first bus took ~3 gallons from the 5 gallons we purchased and I figured this bus using a different approach would take 2 gallons as I was cutting the paint with Acetone and then adding enamel hardener / speed dryer.

Many call this the "Rustoleum" method, but I actually used Krylon Rust Tough since it was tintable and my FLHS didn't have tintable enamel in any other brand.

And so I started painting. You might notice, I'm not concerned about overspray. My plan for that involves getting on the roof after the fact and wiping down my skylights and panels with rags and isopropyl alcohol / acetone.

**Already did that, and it took all of about 20 minutes and everything looks as good as new. It likely helped that I had a TON of dust from sanding the bus and bondo.

I was on a roll! Then I hung my paint gun on the ladder and it dropped busting my in line filter, so I had to make a rush trip to buy more right in the middle of painting.

When I made it back, I got right back to painting and ended up finishing the "first coat" of the bus for day 1. At this point I had only used 1 gallon of paint, which absolutely blows my mind. I painted a vanagon last year and could have used more than that, but looking back I didn't have my gun really dialed in and I was definitely running a lower PSI.

With this job, I was mixing 3-1-1 for anyone who might be curious.

I swear this bus looks 50' long sometimes. My shop is 60' deep for reference.

The next morning, I got up early and painted my second coat, still mixing 3-1-1, and finished the bus really quickly and used a little less than 1/2 gallon of paint to finish everything off. So 1 1/2 gallons total and I still had a bit of acetone left from my initial gallon.

I also installed the fan covers for our AC units. I didn't have to paint them at all. The factory finish was so close that it literally looked perfect as is.




I removed all of my masking tape, cardboard, and plastic to reveal what I really think turned out better than I could have expected. I took the time to finish the roof coating that I left from when I was prepping for solar, which was pretty much all the sides to the drip rails and the front and back of the top part of the bus.

Eventually I think I'm going to paint the front and rear bumper with a dark gray or black raptor liner.

I installed our 2 additional panels, but haven't wired them yet. I'll need an additional charge controller for them, but I wanted to go ahead and get them mounted now that everything else is finished outside. I cleaned the panels and skylight, and then back the bus out for some photos in the sun.

I'll add those photos later because the hosting service for whatever reason isn't finishing my queue.

 

[nocoasty]

I also failed to mention that I also finally decided to register and insure the bus.

It's titled and registered at our home in Tennessee.

The title shows the body type as a BUS, but our registration in Tennessee shows it as: Personal Vehicle Type: Recreational Vehicle and the GVWR is listed as N/A which is pretty cool I think. Our first bus was just a personal vehicle type bus and the gvwr was listed.

It's insured with Comp & Collision through its VIN with National General at a total loss estimate of $80,000 for $120 per month.

We made the drive to Wisconsin over two days and the bus drove like a dream. I used our front mini split for AC while driving. 10/10 can't complain at all.

 

[DanFrazoo]

Just went through your build, a very nice project!

 

[Timeline]

Paint looks great!