desertfather
Advanced Member
Hi everyone -- long time lurker, first-time poster. Nice to meet you all! I've read through a lot of the build threads and have found them really inspiring. I hope to make my own contributions to this great community. I'll start with the following (and really long) introduction.
This past winter, I was thinking about summer vacation plans, and wanted to find some kind of rolling bunkhouse that my wife and four kids and I could take on camping trips. We've sort of tried everything: remote backcountry camping in deserts overseas, staying in national parks with all our gear loaded in a pickup, pulling a pop-up camper behind our minivan, etc. But I've always wanted something for longer trips -- maybe a hard-side trailer that would allow us to pull into a rest stop, take naps, make sandwiches, etc., and then hit the road again without a lot of complicated setup.
So I was trolling CL for awhile looking for trailers that might work, but I'd just sold my big truck in favor of something more economical, and needed something I could pull with a Dodge Caravan, and eventually realized that sweet spot of big-enough-plus-light-enough was too expensive. I was willing to buy something a little older and work on it, but my start-up budget was pretty low, and I couldn't find anything.
Then, you know, in March, I find this school bus being sold by a volunteer fire department about an hour away. It was the old short bus the dive team used to use when they did river rescues. Six-window 1990 Wayne Lifeguard/International 3700, 7.3L diesel, automatic transmission. 144,000 miles. I didn't really know what I was looking at, since, at that point, I hadn't looked at this website. I just thought it was cool. They were asking $3000 for it.
Here's what the FD guys told me. A school district used it till 2005. Then the FD maintained the bus and made sure it passed annual NY state inspections through 2016 when the dive team got a new vehicle. After that it was driven every few weeks, doing miscellaneous light duty, but mostly sat around and suffered. It's been an upstate NY bus all its life, so it has all the rust underneath that comes with that (more on that below).
I thought it was kind of a long-shot thing, so I talked to my wife, who was amazingly OK with me calling the fire department and seeing if they'd entertain what I thought was a long-shot offer: $1500. They called back right away and asked if I wanted to do a test drive. So I loaded up the whole family and we went out to the boonies where I got behind the wheel of a bus for the first time.
You can probably envision how the story went from there. The engine is roaring, the heaters are blasting, my wife is sitting behind me with a nervous smile on her face, and the kids are in the back pumping their fists and howling with joy. By the time we got back to the fire department, I knew I couldn't put the genie back in the bottle. We shook hands and I left the bus with the FD and paid a little extra for them to remove emergency lights, get some of the dive gear racks out of the back, etc. Half of the seats had already been removed to make space for all the scuba gear.
From there it was a bit of a roller coaster.
I'll spare you the exuberant photos of a newbie cutting out the rest of the seats and grinding bolts, but I started visiting this site a lot, and began working while there was still a ton of snow on the ground. The idea that took shape was basically to turn this thing into the rolling bunkhouse I wanted -- sort of a tiny cabin on wheels that we could sleep in and use as a basecamp for outdoor adventures in the Catskills and Adirondacks. Nothing too complicated inside -- two double bunks for the kids in the back, and a drop-down dinette and couch up front for my wife and me. I'm inspired by short-bus builds that use roof decks, hammocks, awnings, etc. to create usable hangout and storage space outside. Like these:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjXN_9cFhiv/?hl=en&taken-by=alwayshomebus
A couple of days later, I went to the DMV, but there was a title issue that the fire department had to work out. They were cool and said they'd work it out and get back to me ASAP. While I waited on that, I decided to get the bus in to a mechanic, and figured the best way to have someone give it an all-around look would be to just do a state vehicle inspection for $25, and then I'd have an idea of where to go from there.
I made the mistake of taking it to an International dealership that seems to think it's in the business of restoring old vehicles to showroom quality. Everything passed inspection except the brake rotors (minor thing, right? haha) and they wanted to replace the whole system at a cost of $6000. That totally demoralized me, and I called the fire department right away and told them what was up, and given the outstanding title issue, we batted around the idea of negating the sale. But that would take time, since the commissioners would have to vote, and they weren't meeting for another few weeks, etc.
While I waited for that, I calmed down a little. I remembered that while I paid for the inspection fee, the guy who failed the bus for the brake rotors admitted that the rotors weren't in terrible shape and could probably just be resurfaced, but that he'd prefer to start from scratch on the whole thing. At the time, though, all I was thinking about was the huge invoice. Now I was thinking Plan A would be to get a second opinion on the inspection/brakes, just in case the dealership guy was trying to hose me. Plan B would be to order aftermarket parts myself, buy pizza for a bunch of mechanically-inclined friends, and try to lift the bus and replace everything without killing ourselves.
Plan A seems to have worked out well. I brought it to a shop that services a lot of work and landscaping trucks, and the guy there didn't think the rotors even looked bad. He said it certainly shouldn't fail inspection. Furthermore, he said the rest of the system looked fine, and that if it were him, he'd just make sure the calipers were freed up and would replace the brake pads. I made it clear I'd be driving my family around in this thing, and he said he really thought the dealership was being ridiculous.
So right now, this is where it stands: I've decided to keep the bus and honor the deal I made, for better or for worse; the kids call it "Li'l Trickster," as as much as it's jerked me around already, I've kind of fallen in love with the thing. The fire department is getting a replacement title from the DMV so I can finally get this thing registered and actually inspected; and the Plan B mechanic is fixing the brakes, changing the oil, and doing a couple of other minor things. He still has the bus, but here's how it looked in my driveway, with the main emergency lights removed and little else done with it:
And now here's what I'm thinking about where we go from here:
I do wish I'd taken a harder look at the rust when getting into this. The old undercoating is totally gnarly. You can peel pieces of it off and flakes of rust come along with it. The frame still feels solid, but the rust needs to be stopped, for sure, even if I don't plan on living in the bus, or keeping it for the next 30 years. Getting the undercoating off and recoating every nook and cranny under there is going to be a real challenge. My plan right now is to pressure-wash it underneath and blast off everything I can, and then see if there's any point in trying to scrape or wire-wheel more of it off before hitting it with rust converter. No photos of all that yet.
I'm not so worried about the interior. I've measured everything and have sketched out a couple of plans that I think will work. I'm decent at building things; right now I'm writing from a 64-square-foot cabin/shack that I built almost completely from stone and cedar from my land, pallets I got for free behind Harbor Freight, and other stuff I found free or cheap online. I think I'm resourceful enough to get it the way I want it, and do it safely and well.
I'm thinking I'll worry last about exterior paint, and just try to get that done before the fall. I don't have an air compressor, and feel fine about the brush-and-roller jobs I've seen here. White roof, and either IH White or Rustoleum Sand color for the rest.
There's a lot I have to figure out. Engine seems to run well and has plenty of power. I'm hoping the low miles will mean that it'll serve me well for awhile. Transmission? All I know is that it's automatic. Rear axle is definitely geared low -- when I drove it home, top speed on flat ground was just under 60 mph at almost 3000 rpm. Tires have really deep tread but I didn't check codes, and I guess they're pretty old.
All right, that's about all I can think of right now. Nice to meet you all.
This past winter, I was thinking about summer vacation plans, and wanted to find some kind of rolling bunkhouse that my wife and four kids and I could take on camping trips. We've sort of tried everything: remote backcountry camping in deserts overseas, staying in national parks with all our gear loaded in a pickup, pulling a pop-up camper behind our minivan, etc. But I've always wanted something for longer trips -- maybe a hard-side trailer that would allow us to pull into a rest stop, take naps, make sandwiches, etc., and then hit the road again without a lot of complicated setup.
So I was trolling CL for awhile looking for trailers that might work, but I'd just sold my big truck in favor of something more economical, and needed something I could pull with a Dodge Caravan, and eventually realized that sweet spot of big-enough-plus-light-enough was too expensive. I was willing to buy something a little older and work on it, but my start-up budget was pretty low, and I couldn't find anything.
Then, you know, in March, I find this school bus being sold by a volunteer fire department about an hour away. It was the old short bus the dive team used to use when they did river rescues. Six-window 1990 Wayne Lifeguard/International 3700, 7.3L diesel, automatic transmission. 144,000 miles. I didn't really know what I was looking at, since, at that point, I hadn't looked at this website. I just thought it was cool. They were asking $3000 for it.
Here's what the FD guys told me. A school district used it till 2005. Then the FD maintained the bus and made sure it passed annual NY state inspections through 2016 when the dive team got a new vehicle. After that it was driven every few weeks, doing miscellaneous light duty, but mostly sat around and suffered. It's been an upstate NY bus all its life, so it has all the rust underneath that comes with that (more on that below).
I thought it was kind of a long-shot thing, so I talked to my wife, who was amazingly OK with me calling the fire department and seeing if they'd entertain what I thought was a long-shot offer: $1500. They called back right away and asked if I wanted to do a test drive. So I loaded up the whole family and we went out to the boonies where I got behind the wheel of a bus for the first time.
You can probably envision how the story went from there. The engine is roaring, the heaters are blasting, my wife is sitting behind me with a nervous smile on her face, and the kids are in the back pumping their fists and howling with joy. By the time we got back to the fire department, I knew I couldn't put the genie back in the bottle. We shook hands and I left the bus with the FD and paid a little extra for them to remove emergency lights, get some of the dive gear racks out of the back, etc. Half of the seats had already been removed to make space for all the scuba gear.
From there it was a bit of a roller coaster.
I'll spare you the exuberant photos of a newbie cutting out the rest of the seats and grinding bolts, but I started visiting this site a lot, and began working while there was still a ton of snow on the ground. The idea that took shape was basically to turn this thing into the rolling bunkhouse I wanted -- sort of a tiny cabin on wheels that we could sleep in and use as a basecamp for outdoor adventures in the Catskills and Adirondacks. Nothing too complicated inside -- two double bunks for the kids in the back, and a drop-down dinette and couch up front for my wife and me. I'm inspired by short-bus builds that use roof decks, hammocks, awnings, etc. to create usable hangout and storage space outside. Like these:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjXN_9cFhiv/?hl=en&taken-by=alwayshomebus
A couple of days later, I went to the DMV, but there was a title issue that the fire department had to work out. They were cool and said they'd work it out and get back to me ASAP. While I waited on that, I decided to get the bus in to a mechanic, and figured the best way to have someone give it an all-around look would be to just do a state vehicle inspection for $25, and then I'd have an idea of where to go from there.
I made the mistake of taking it to an International dealership that seems to think it's in the business of restoring old vehicles to showroom quality. Everything passed inspection except the brake rotors (minor thing, right? haha) and they wanted to replace the whole system at a cost of $6000. That totally demoralized me, and I called the fire department right away and told them what was up, and given the outstanding title issue, we batted around the idea of negating the sale. But that would take time, since the commissioners would have to vote, and they weren't meeting for another few weeks, etc.
While I waited for that, I calmed down a little. I remembered that while I paid for the inspection fee, the guy who failed the bus for the brake rotors admitted that the rotors weren't in terrible shape and could probably just be resurfaced, but that he'd prefer to start from scratch on the whole thing. At the time, though, all I was thinking about was the huge invoice. Now I was thinking Plan A would be to get a second opinion on the inspection/brakes, just in case the dealership guy was trying to hose me. Plan B would be to order aftermarket parts myself, buy pizza for a bunch of mechanically-inclined friends, and try to lift the bus and replace everything without killing ourselves.
Plan A seems to have worked out well. I brought it to a shop that services a lot of work and landscaping trucks, and the guy there didn't think the rotors even looked bad. He said it certainly shouldn't fail inspection. Furthermore, he said the rest of the system looked fine, and that if it were him, he'd just make sure the calipers were freed up and would replace the brake pads. I made it clear I'd be driving my family around in this thing, and he said he really thought the dealership was being ridiculous.
So right now, this is where it stands: I've decided to keep the bus and honor the deal I made, for better or for worse; the kids call it "Li'l Trickster," as as much as it's jerked me around already, I've kind of fallen in love with the thing. The fire department is getting a replacement title from the DMV so I can finally get this thing registered and actually inspected; and the Plan B mechanic is fixing the brakes, changing the oil, and doing a couple of other minor things. He still has the bus, but here's how it looked in my driveway, with the main emergency lights removed and little else done with it:
And now here's what I'm thinking about where we go from here:
I do wish I'd taken a harder look at the rust when getting into this. The old undercoating is totally gnarly. You can peel pieces of it off and flakes of rust come along with it. The frame still feels solid, but the rust needs to be stopped, for sure, even if I don't plan on living in the bus, or keeping it for the next 30 years. Getting the undercoating off and recoating every nook and cranny under there is going to be a real challenge. My plan right now is to pressure-wash it underneath and blast off everything I can, and then see if there's any point in trying to scrape or wire-wheel more of it off before hitting it with rust converter. No photos of all that yet.
I'm not so worried about the interior. I've measured everything and have sketched out a couple of plans that I think will work. I'm decent at building things; right now I'm writing from a 64-square-foot cabin/shack that I built almost completely from stone and cedar from my land, pallets I got for free behind Harbor Freight, and other stuff I found free or cheap online. I think I'm resourceful enough to get it the way I want it, and do it safely and well.
I'm thinking I'll worry last about exterior paint, and just try to get that done before the fall. I don't have an air compressor, and feel fine about the brush-and-roller jobs I've seen here. White roof, and either IH White or Rustoleum Sand color for the rest.
There's a lot I have to figure out. Engine seems to run well and has plenty of power. I'm hoping the low miles will mean that it'll serve me well for awhile. Transmission? All I know is that it's automatic. Rear axle is definitely geared low -- when I drove it home, top speed on flat ground was just under 60 mph at almost 3000 rpm. Tires have really deep tread but I didn't check codes, and I guess they're pretty old.
All right, that's about all I can think of right now. Nice to meet you all.
