Straight Bussin, no cap fr fr.

[nikitis]

Update on build:

Making and mounting Solar Panel Mounts. I cut 1/4 inch flat bar into pieces and welded them together. I borrowed a 220v welder from a friend and my welds look great! First pilot holes on the roof.

The mount below unpainted, welded up. And a drill to make the holes larger.

New hole drilled and another view of the mount. The holes are cut to match the edges of the hat channel and the center of the hat channel.

Here's all 6 of them primered at night. These go down the center. I've made the side ones but haven't mounted them yet so no pics of them in this post. (Next one).

Close up view:

Here they are all dolled up, painted white. The drill shrapnel leftovers are still on the roof. Gotta blow those off or they rust the roof.

Here is me passing out on the roof cause it's hot reflecting the sun back onto me. (j/k, actually I laid down to relax and post here on skoolie.net while laying on the roof. A fun shot. The mounts are almost all screwed in at this point, and all using sealant around the edges to help with water proofing.

A close up screwed in:

Kind of a down the roof view all installed. Perfectly aligned straight. The bus roof is NOT perfectly straight, but it is close. It's off by like 1/2 inch by the time it gets to the rear. My line is perfect though as I used a chalk line. It's dead centered. What I will eventually do is put a panel up and line it up against the side of the middle mounts, and draw a line on the panels edge where the outer mounts need to go, rather than just trying to guess and draw a chalk line down the edges as I already know the roof isn't perfect, I'd rather it match up from the perfect center line and it should look good in the end. 6 panels will be added.

And finally the inside view from the hat channel:

Until next time!

 

[nikitis]

So update. This time in humility.

I screwed up the last 3 center mounts. Apparently Thomas at the factory were in a rush to install the dome light. Its not center. I had lined up my center line to that but its actually off. I didn't notice until I started lining up the side mounts. The first 3 look correct and in line but the rear 3 were way off by an inch and it was noticeable from the ground so I couldn't live with it.

I had to patch the holes I made on the roof by welding a small patch panel and re-drill them again. The mistake took 4 hours to correct.

I wholly expected to make a mistake this big long before now in this build but haven't really made any until now. I want to document the good as well as the bad, well here is the bad.

The strip there is the small patch. Its not perfect but I will line any small micro holes with a sealant.

For anyone doing this I learned the hard way to center it. Do not do line down from front to back like I did. The factory strobe or vents may not be centered!!!

Instead if in a Thomas, go by the single bumper rails. They are pretty straight. Measure between them. Mine were 30 inches exactly from side to side, front to back, so center is 15 inches from the center top of the bumper rail.

After mistake made it will mostly be hidden. No one is looking up that closely at my roof anyway except from down below and that's what I had to correct. The panels would have been noticeably crooked. But they will hide the mistake too in the center.

Once I spray paint that, white you wo t notice it at all unless you are the one dismantling them 30 years later after I sell this. The grey is primer.

All in all mounting the solar mounts and getting them straight has been one of the tougher items of my build unexpectedly. Nobody warned me it would be difficult.

 

[desrtdog]

…as the saying goes, “measure twice, cut (drill) once”…

 

[nikitis]

Yeah yeah.. I tend to lose patience when I go up and down a ladder 40 times a day

 

[nikitis]

Update. Solar mounts are FINISHED! Good grief that was way harder than anyone explained to me.

Expectations aside, I did them and I did them right. They are secured well. Learned some things about proper mounting and what is required to do it right. First hand experience is a great teacher.

I could of had them finished sooner if I didn't care about alignment so much, but also making it water tight. I had to undo about 4 mounts because they were so far off even with measuring 3 times which meant patching holes that shouldn't be there... These buses just aren't that perfectly symmetrical out of the factory. But now from the ground they all look good and straight.

I did figure out the right way to measure them. I did a chalk line down the center to the strobe light but realized later the strobe light was off by a whole INCH! It wasn't centered! I mean come on!

That was my mistake admittedly not checking that but up there when everything is curved it's hard to tell true center. I found the best way was to measure from the two single bumper rails, and divide by half to get the true center. Then take the width of the solar panel, measure out from the mount so it fits and mark 2 holes for the outer mounts, and they all were mostly completely lined up after that, if off at all it's less than 1/2 inch, and nobody is going to notice that. ( I mean you'll notice it from the pic below, but I can slide adjust them if necessary. That is true center even looking off down the center line, that's just how off my bus roof actually is. Looking up from the ground, they all look symmetrical on both sides so...

I'm good with it.

There's also some play in the mounts so it can be loosened and slide a tad as needed. It's close enough once in it will all be straight.

She needs a wash up there after all that drilling. That dirt is actually not dirt, it's metal shards from the drilling.

Will give her a good wash tomorrow. The panels won't go in until after I add Roof Decking Mounts in the rear because I plan to sand and paint the roof after the mounts are all in. Just the roof for now, and I'll do the lower half later. I figure if I'm going to make any body painting mistakes, it should happen on the roof under the panels where no one can see it. Get my practice in there I say.

Till then!

 

[nikitis]

Update.

Waiting on order of mounts for roof decking. I put the order in. I designed them, and having a local company weld them up for me since they also are my metal supplier, they have no issues adding a couple of cuts and welds for free for me and pricing is great with them. Very rare around these parts.

They should be ready by EOB Friday, so I didn't want to waste a day and decided to start with lower insulation installation. I opened another thread on this earlier today you may have seen it asking technical question about getting around the screws behind the chair rail wall. I figured out just using a proper wide phillips bit was able to remove the screws without issues to allow me to slide it in fine, then screw them back in after inserted. This went better than expected. I only broke one screw. I have spares though from the inner ceiling back at the beginning of the project so I'll just use one of those to replace it.

All the screws above prevent sliding in the insulation. So you have to back them out to slide it down, then re-insert them. Used a wide bit on the screws and they didn't strip.

Insulation is in on one side.

This pic shows me backing out the screws so it can slide down. It's not a tone of screws, doesn't take long to do this, so if you're wondering if it's worth it, I'd say yes, it goes quick.

Doing custom cuts for the wheel well. I free handed this one and it fit snug.

Then later I was getting tired. It was going quick but it's getting quite messy in here with all the cutting. First layer is in. I was debating in the other thread if I should continue past R8.6 which is what this is. These are 1.3in sheets, not 1in sheets, so it has R8.6 instead of R6.5. Two layers of this will give me R17.2. I will have to make ferring strips for the ferring strips if I do this, and it's a bit more work to do. It looks so perfect there fitting so well, I almost don't want to do a second layer, but I've not half-assed anything on this bus so far so might as well not start now.

I'll do the other side to get that side up to speed, and then look into the 2nd layer. I'll likely need to cut 1.6inch blocks and insert them at every spot on the hat channels I want ferring strips so it can span the width of the second layer but also leave room for electrical wiring. Somewhere along the back wall, I need to figure out where to run the Mini-split lines to the top since I'm starting to fill in the walls. Best to decide this now rather than make more work for me later and cut it out after installing.

That's all for today. I can already start to feel a difference inside the bus with just the floor and one wall.

 

[nikitis]

Short update. It's pouring rain. First time in like 2 months. We had quite the dry spout but I'm grateful for it as it allowed me to do a roof raise unhindered without a shelter to work under.

I literally just finished doing the final roof deck mount and sealing it last night and later last night, same day I said to my wife, "Okay it can rain now that I'm done with the roof", and boy not only 10 minutes later did it start! I didn't even notice many clouds while I was up there.

I think God was holding it back for me to do the raise and did and now he's making up for it.

The upside is, I get to test out my water proofing!

First proof it's coming down.

Ceilings not leaking. It's been pouring heavy all night so it would be by now if it were going to.

To seal I used dicor around the bolts as I screwed them in as well as around the mounts themselves. I was more worried about the bolts leaking but I did over kill it and then bolted them in. Seems to have worked out well.

The rear double doors also aren't leaking at all. I wasn't as sure about this one not leaking since the top part was more difficult to line up. The drip rail does it's job 100% and it's bone dry inside. Sealed well enough.

I even left a few holes up front in the top cap as I'm adding mods there, due to angle and overlap, it's also not leaking miraculously, but wouldn't be surprised if it started or a few drops came in. It will be sealed up soon. You can see the holes up by the flasher deletes. I'm redoing those so I removed the original rivets and never resealed it up yet, but those open holes aren't leaking so no worries.

I do have one really small leak where the front driver window and passenger door drip rails are being bombarded with water from the new location the rails are in so I will have to fix that.now that I have good shots of where it pours out to, I can make flaps to redirect the water outwards properly away from the bus.

Water fun! Till next time.

 

[nikitis]

Been awhile since update. Had some bad rainy weather the last week so didn't get much done on the bus. It's dry again, and went right back to it.

Progress update on the Insulation. First layer is IN!

Here's the front cap done. The hole up top is for the passive dehumidifier which works okay for no power. Figured I'd keep it in since it fits under my solar panels and it kept the bus dry for the last 30 years successfully.

View of the back from the middle of the bus. The back cap wasn't done in this picture, Next pic will show it done.

Don't mind the tape, it's temporary to hold it in until I get the furring strips in place.

A pic similar to the first one but more zoomed out. If you look at the front two supports I welded in for the cap, there is an issue I found on my 10 hour trip to Raleigh, NC and back. The front cap now that it's taller created a rattle. There's more wind force as there's more surface area so it pushes in a tad, just enough to hit the extensions I welded in and cause a rattle at certain speeds, so I'll pull out the insulation there up front and place a rubber stomp I bought at the hardware store for $3, and a zip tie. Put it between the bar and the front cap which should give the steel support as well as remove the rattle.

These are reasons it's good to take your bus for trips mid build so you can find out these kind of issues before you cover them up fully.

Tomorrow I'll start the 2nd layer of insulation on the walls. bringing it to a total of 2.6in in thickness with R17.2. I may not have enough insulation to do a second layer up top. I may do it over the bedroom area only, but I'll have a roof deck and solar up top already blocking the sun, and heating in the winter isn't as much of an issue as cooling in the summer.

Overall I haven't wasted much of this with cuts. Surprisingly I've been able to use almost all of it with very little waste.

I didn't show the mess below, but I will say it's "Almost" as messy as someone using closed cell spray foam and shaving. The cutting just gets stuff everywhere as much as someone shaving it it off. I was hoping it'd be less messier but I can honestly say, no, it isn't.

 

[nikitis]

Small update. Stripped 2x4's into 2x2's to save money.

Home depot had 2x4x8ft's at $2.54 and 2x2's were like $2.10. So I split the 2x4s in two and got nearly twice the 2x2s for less money. I have a table saw so why not? Splitting only took 10 mins and saved $12 roughly. I highly recommend others do accordingly in their builds when you need 2x2s if you have a table saw.

I then took to measuring the length of the wooden blocks which will bridge my furring strips from the hat channels. To get a smoother corner out of your new ceiling you will need smaller sections for the corner.

Vs a longer block

Now make no mistake, the latter picture is quicker with less bends, but your roof won't translate to be as round.

I'm deciding to take the longer route with more smaller blocks in the corners for a smoother roof. It also allows for a ceiling material that doesn't have to be as wide as well, but it is more work for sure.

Here are my corner blocks cut.

It's 80 blocks, for 10 hat channels with 2 corners each, is about 4 blocks per corner so 80 is what I need. I will be screwing them in with 2 3/4 in wood to metal screws from teks.

Which gives me that much into the metal.

That's all for today. Gotta mock up one corner tomorrow and determine my lengths for the rest of the blocks for the hat channel. Till next time.

 

[Mr P]

1/2 2x4 = 2x2.

You didn't want to bend a long board with water, time, heat, and preload? Long bow or recurve style?

 

[nikitis]

I did cut them twice actually, not just once in half. And you're right, I mistyped. They are cut into 2x2's. I typo'd them, and just corrected the post.

It equated to 1 1/2 width after 2 cuts per 2x4.

You do know 2x4's boards aren't actually 2 and 4 inches, they are 1.5in and 3.5in in actual widths. And 2x2's are actually 1.5inx1.5in. Another scam of the industry.

I did actually consider for a moment bending the 2x2's in water to bend them, but the curve is stark, and would take way too long to accomplish. There's also diminishing returns if you aren't using bendable panels for a ceiling as there will be a slight gap between the ceiling board which is flat and a perfectly curved board bent by water and pressure and drying it out.

So it's a good compromise to cut them to the length I did, I'll still get about the same curvature out of the ceiling boards used as they themselves aren't perfectly curved either. But smaller is higher resolution.

 

[TheHubbardBus]

Economics aside, I never buy 2x2s for the fact they're never anywhere close to straight. At least that's been my experience. If I need 'em, I rip 'em too.

 

[desrtdog]

Very similar to what I did - except I screwed the blocks to the side of the ribs to preserve interior headroom and just used 2x2’s….my time is worth more than the savings and I don’t have a table saw….my blocks were only about 3-4” long, so straightness of the 2x2 was not an issue, although I was selective when picking them.

Also used the same self tappers, but drilled a pilot hole through the 2x2 and rib, as well as a countersink into the 2x2 to prevent splitting, and also used a bit of construction adhesive for extra hold…

 

[nikitis]

Yeah, I was looking to decide whether to do it on the sides like you or underneath, but I decided to use the blocks underneath the hat channels because i wanted 2 layers of insulation board and needed the height to hold the insulation anyway. Roof raise already gave me 7 inches above my head so I can do it.

 

[nikitis]

Update. Wrote a Solar Simulator Web Application cause I was board, and missed using my I.T. skills since I'm currently unemployed still and wanted to exercise my abilities a bit.

Give it a try here: Nikitis' Ultimate Solar Calculator – Solar, Battery, and Wire Size Guide

Also this morning I added blocks to the side walls and middle of the upper ceiling.

The length of the blocks are 1.5 inches which gives me room to install another 1.3 inch of insulation, but I can also now buy furring strips and screw them down the to the blocks next.

Had some good dew outside the last few days, but the inside is staying dry so it seems to be working out well. I was a tad worried it would soak up, but doesn't seem to be doing so, so that's good. I can already feel a ton of difference in the inside temp so the insulation is working as well. Outside I need to wear a coat, but inside I do not.

I also did the sidewalls blocks as well.

I wasn't planning on it, but now that I'm looking at it more in it's current shape, I may cut out some blocks for under the windows so I have something to mount 2-3 inch shelving under the windows. Would help with boxing them up. I guess I need to decide soon if I'm going to want a wood facia in between the windows or not.

I also excitedly in the spirit of making the solar simulator, also purchased my solar wiring down to the MPPT controller which is going to be all 10 AWG, and includes a Solar PV Disconnect switch rated for 1000v, 63amps. I'll have everything down to the MPPT Controller ordered. I've decided I'm going to build my own battery from cells. I can save about 40% of the cost doing it myself vs buying a pre-made one, plus I can shape it and size it to fit the space I'll make for it in the bus rather than designing around an existing battery.

Tomorrow, I will start cutting more Polyiso to start fitting the second layer of insulation to obtain that 2.6 inches, and R17.2 on the walls.

Till then.

 

[nikitis]

Update. The walls are now R17.2. Floor is now R20.
Ceiling still only R8.6. Today's target was the second layer of polyiso on the walls. A little before pic:

Here is an after shot of the walls:

I cut holes using a multi tool. Works fast using that. I would just hold the board up with my knee then look down behind it and free hand the cut by aligning with my eye. Fits snug on there, it's not fastened in anyway yet, but snug due to the blocks.

Once I had the hole cut, I'd tap the board in and the wood block would push out the cut piece and the polyiso slides right on.

Next up will be ceiling insulation layer 2, then furring strips then electrical.

 

[TheHubbardBus]

Are you creating wire chases for the bulk of the wiring, nikitis?

Next up will be ceiling insulation layer 2, then furring strips then electrical.

Are you building wire chases the full length of the bus, nikitis?

 

[nikitis]

I plan to run them between the insulation and the final wall. In the layer of the furring strips. The solar will go about 15ft the longest. And 8ft at the shortest distance from the panel. I'll have the battery in the middle, and the solar up front down to 3/4 of the bus towards the back.

Speaking of which. Small update. I finished the sidewall insulation, and started this morning to do the upper second layer of insulation but realized I had nothing to hold up the cuts I do, so I pivoted to making the days mission to obtain furring strips which I have not yet obtained.

Being in South Carolina can be terrible for any kind of cheap supplies. I went to lowes as they usually have the better selection of wood around here, but not today. See pic below:

The lower ones were not wide enough, the middle was but look how crooked and tore up they were. A pithy selection, especially for $2.53 a piece. Plus there simply not enough of them even if I bought all of them. So I thought, maybe I can buy 2x3's and rip them in half like I did for the mounting blocks.

I then thought maybe I could rip a sheet of plywood for $40 into 16 strips. I need like double that though so it would have been $80 and a lot of work to hold it up while I saw through it 30 times.

I went to look and their pile of 2x3's were also all bent and broken. So Off to Home Depot I went.

Home Depot pulled a 180 and had a great selection of wood for once. They had the 1x3 furring strips in plenty and in good shape but they were $2.98 a piece. No thanks at that price. So I went back to the idea of ripping them. Home Depot also had a great selection of fresh, not dented up, straight selection of 2x3's. A little elbow grease and some time I can make them into 1x3's. They were also the same price as the 1x3's at $2.98 a piece. Sweet, two for the price of one! Or half off! So I bought 15 of them for $45, (Would of been $90 if I bought them pre-cut).

30 minutes later after arriving home, I had all 15 cut in half. I first tried a 3 inch cut with my table saw. It was doing it fine but was throwing a breaker. I guess the resistance was too high ripping through that much, so I cut it in half down to 1.5in, then flipped it over and cut the other side so I run them through twice, but it did cut easier and faster that way and no tripping the breaker so I did that, and the end result was 30 perfect furring strips for $45.

I'm quickly learning that to get cheaper wood and better quality from the big box stores you are gonna have to buy the wood larger and do your own cuts. You can literally save 50% some times doing this.

These things are perfect, and practically no blemeshes. Not that it matters a ton but at 3 inches you don't want half an inch torn away and lose strength. The edge on every one of these is solid. I got a better product than the ones that cost twice as much at the store.

 

[Anax]

Looking nice. Good job on the roof rise. I am only 5’7” so I don’t have to worry too much about it. With how I laid everything out in cad and a 79” in of head room I think I should be safe. The thought right now is to use aerogel insulation, I know it is expensive but will give me a little more room.

Overall really good job and can’t wait to see the finished product. Waiting till mine is out of the shop. Post like this give me more motivation to really want to do it. Not that I am lacking it lol.

 

[nikitis]

Update. Insulation is completed. 2 layers. Managed to do the whole roof with 2 layers. Had to do some patching with scraps but got it in. The floor is now R20, walls and ceiling R17.2. Windows R0 (I'll add some privacy quilts later).

I can already feel the difference. It's cold outside like 40 degrees, and it feels like 70 in the bus all day and I don't even have heat or AC installed yet, so I already know even with the bus windows, this is gonna work out really well.

Below is a pic of how I stuffed it in. You can see that to make the curves, I slice 3 lines on the end going down towards the window, then I slice 2 additional lines about 1-1.5 feet down the board which works quite well with rounding a hard flat board. You only have to score the line breaking the fiberglass, and then you can bend it with your thumbs and it snaps all the way to the other fiberglass backing, you don't have to saw through the whole thing. Just score a line and snap. Also makes it easier to stuff it where there's already a furring strip. Keeps them from falling out:

Here's a shot with it pretty much done minus a couple of furring strips. I was short about 4 boards as you can see on the top right of this picture. Also 2 spots at the bottom which aren't visible in the pic. I'll buy them tomorrow and strip and screw them in. You can see the resulting mess below. Honestly working with this stuff is about as bad as working with shaving closed cell spray foam. It's very dusty, Had to wear a mask while working.

And here is a shot at night after cleaning up:

She's ready for electrical finally.

Before I do that though I needed to finalize the floor plan. I've had a rough idea of what I'm going to do this whole time, but I did end up modifying my plans last minute with the wife's approval. I'll post a 3D model of the layout when I'm done making one but basically it'll be Queen sized bed in the back. Then on the drivers side towards the front will be a bathroom with toilet, and Japanese soaking tub. I'll add a shower head over it, but we decided on the land we may want to soak after working the land all day, especially in the Summers. A full sized tub would use too much water, but a Japanese soaking tub is more conforming to sitting rather than laying down, and uses far less water than a full sized tub, but also plays to needing less space for a tub in the smaller bus.

After the bathroom will be half the kitchen with sink then stove, then a table for two that folds down into a bed at night.

On the passenger side after the rear bed, will be a small nook I can creep into for privacy with a computer monitor to work remotely, or just relax and have some chill time. I'm the sole male, my wife and two daughters will be living in the bus as well with us, so I need some sanity.

After the computer work area, will be the back island for the kitchen with more counter space to lay finished pots of food etc.

After the kitchen island will be the couch you see in the last picture there but it will be sitting 1 ft higher on top of two floor drawers. The couch was the perfect fit before we did a roof raise, but post roof raise it sits too low. We want the passengers to be able to see out the windows easier while traveling for the views. It's been outfitted for seat belts and will need to be mounted to the bus again for security as I had to undo it for the insulation, and it will be higher than the chair rail with the upgrade. So some engineering will have to go into that couch again.

And that's basically it. Now that I know the layout, I can start running electrical wiring throughout the bus for outlets for 120vac, and 12v, and 5v wiring spanning the length of the bus. 5v for high amp USB plugs. 12v for any 12v appliances, and 120VAC for microwave, televisions, etc. This thing will be wired better than my house is.

Till next time.