Serenity - '98 BlueBird

[Taxidriver308]

This is the start of the Serenity project.

The bus: 1998 BlueBird, 32 foot, FE 5.9L, 44 passenger Church Bus. It had only 58k miles total, but it had been sitting in storage for several years.

I live in Phx and the bus was in Rio Rancho, so about 500 miles one way. I checked the bus over, it seemed to be in decent mechanical condition, but all the tires looked pretty old and were cracking. I did not see any rust under the bus, but it did look like the windows had been leaking pretty bad while it was in storage. I did not have high hopes of all the tires making the trip and was glad I had signed up for road side assistance.

I broke the trip up into 2 days and let the bus have several breaks during the drive. All in all it was a very easy drive back and the bus did a great job and all the tires made it ( I was very surprised ).

I am not going to be able to do the entire build at this location, so the first step is to remove all the seats, convert the title to an RV, and then use it as a way to transport all my belongings to a place I can live and have space to work on the bus.

I was able to get a storage place very close to me since I can not park it for long term in this neighborhood. I have started the process of removing the seats and trying to get as many as I can with just unbolting them. The bolts I cant get access to from under the bus I will have to grind off the heads of the bolts.

I am going to add the pictures in the next post (after I re-read the post on the best way to post pics to this site )

Until then, this is the photo album link I was able to upload them to
https://www.skoolie.net/forums/members/55172-albums2553.html

 

[kromboy]

I did my seat removal in 3 stages:

1. Angle grinder, tedious but was the only tool I bought when I arrived to pick up the bus

2. I got the hang of it a little more so I learned to loosen the bolt while lifting the seats with a bottle jack, the added leverage from the bottle jack helped get the bolts to loosen instead of just spinning in place

3. Then I got even better at it and started snapping off bolt heads with an impact wrench, don't even have a high torque version, just this $50 impact from HF did the job
https://www.harborfreight.com/autom...in-3-speed-impact-wrench-tool-only-58637.html

Angle grinder works, but it's the most time consuming method, I would just snap the heads off, it's the easiest method I've found. But do make sure you have a hammer and a screw driver in case a bolt head gets stuck in the socket, I've had to do that a couple times.

 

[Taxidriver308]

It has been a minute but here is the update.

I removed all the seats except for the front 4 (2 each side) just in case someone needs to ride with me for some reason. I also sit in them when it is parked.

I unbolted most of the seats from underneath that I could reach. The rest I cut the seat leg off with a band saw and used an angle grinder on bolt heads. Was pretty straight forward.

There was more water damage from the windows leaking inside than from anything coming the bottom. I will see how it looks when I get the flooring removed.

I installed a counter base and put a piece of plywood on top. I put a mini-fridge, an electric hotplate, and a small electric barn heater on/in the counter so I could qualify to be a motor home. I got all 6 new tires put on it as well. Went and did the emissions test (was a little worried about that) and it passed on the first try.

I called up Prompt Titles & Registrations here in Phx. I asked if they could come out and do the inspection/title conversion/registration and they said yes. The guy came out, did the level 1 inspection of checking the VIN. He said I would have to bring in the bus for title and registration. So I was a little frustrated over that but what ever. I drove the bus in to their office, brought my paperwork inside. The inspection guy put everything in the computer, gave me my stuff back, charged me for the inspection/registration and said my plates would be in the mail and to expect them in 2 weeks. I asked if he did the conversion and he showed me on the paperwork that it is now a MHA. I am not sure if the guy glanced at the back of my bus when he did the inspection, but if he did it was for a split second, and no one went out and looked at it when it was at their office, but I was not going to argue about it.

So it is now a MHA and legal to be on the road. My next thing to do is decide where I am going to move to so I can start the real work of demo-ing it out and building it back up.

I will add a few more pics to the photo album soon