Straight Bussin, no cap fr fr.

[nikitis]

Small Update. I cut 32 more blocks to line the top and bottoms of the Windows so that the facia will have something to screw into later. I was going to pick up the electrical stuff, but now after our discussion on another forum, it got me thinking about a possible different design for electrical.

Then I hadn't taken the bus out for a drive since before I started the insulation project. But now that it's all buttoned in well it was time to warm up the engine and go for a drive.

Sun was shining on her well. She's in good shape now, but she really needs a paint job. Poor thing all faded. You can see how dark green the front license plate area is. The whole bus used to be a nice shiny deep dark green, but 30 years will do that to you. You can also see the trimmings are all done like the mirrors, windshield wipers, wheel hubs, headlights.

She needs that old logo eraser wheeled off of the top cap there, and a good paint job all over and she'll look good as new.

I may before electrical proceed to painting the roof. I really don't want to have to mount the solar panels, and then remove them to paint and add them back on. So maybe eraser wheeling the logo off is what I do tomorrow, and then prep for roof painting. I'm tired of looking at her in this condition and she deserves better.

 

[nikitis]

Black Friday. I bought like $3k worth of stuff on sale for the bus.

Picked up the AC unit,
Black, gray, and clear tanks,
16x 314ah 3.29v cells to build my battery.
Bunch of wiring for electrical and fuses, distribution panels, 2 awg crimper and ends, etc, etc

Also, the wife wanted her black Friday buy and wanted the floors done on our downstairs house for when we rent out the house for income.

I have to admit using the bus as a truck has been nice these last few months. I may have to buy another used bus to dedicate as a truck hauler. Or maybe cut it in half, leave the walls, detach the frame and make it into a dump truck.

Flooring..

Shot at Lowe's in the Pro Trailer section.

 

[nikitis]

Small update:

Removed the old sticky "Oz Rock" logo off of the top cap using the Eraser Wheel. I filled in the lettering below to help you see the completely color faded logo.

(Did this bus belong to @Ozbozz57 at some point?) lol

Kidding aside, That eraser wheel is every bit as good as it's been praised. It really does get the hard sticky logos off quickly and pretty effortlessly. I'm highly impressed.

The only drawback is that it seems to wear unevenly half way through making it difficult to use it all up. Since it wears unevenly, it cause it to bounce off of the surface and puts stress on the tool. You can see the white, green, black and you can't see it here but there's even an orange layer. It ripped all of it off quickly.

It did completely remove the front cap logo though. It does also get rubber shavings EVERYWHERE so be aware of that. Most of it will blow off, the rest of the shavings will have to come off with a wash, but I don't mind because I didn't have to use a heat gun or scrape it off for hours. I got that whole thing done in like 15 mins.

Not to mention there were 4 layers to this sticker, and it ate through all 4 really quickly. Just wanted to give a shout out to this thing. It really works well.

Here it is removed. The yellow spots are just eraser shavings, I can wipe off with my hand.

I may try to use this attachment with the air gun to see if it works better as it has a higher RPM than the drill. With it being worn unevenly though, not sure it's gonna work out so well, but I have some reflector material to remove all over the bus, as well as a rear "Are we ready to grow" logo on the rear so I'll order some more of these erasers to finish the job. The time savings alone is worth every penny.

 

[Ozbozz57]

LOL...no.

 

[Crlefley]

Dude. Your “buy another bus for a truck” is spot on. I said that the other day at Menards.

Interested to see how you wire above insulation as previously mentioned. I’m right behind you in the process. But have my floor plan roughly dialed in.

Good work buddy!

 

[nikitis]

Dude. Your “buy another bus for a truck” is spot on. I said that the other day at Menards.

Interested to see how you wire above insulation as previously mentioned. I’m right behind you in the process. But have my floor plan roughly dialed in.

Good work buddy!

I'm waiting on like all the stuff to ship to me. It's gonna flood in at once then I won't know where to start.

I'll probably start with either the roof prep next, or figuring out how to fit everything under the bus. (2 tanks (Grey and black), 2 propane 20lb tanks, AC Condenser. I seem to only have room for 2 of those items, not 3, so I'm gonna have to get crafty. I may end up deleting one of the original storage boxes in the rear, keep the door for access and looks, but cut the box out, or extend it to hold the AC's condenser.

 

[nikitis]

Update log. Bus build has been halted for a bit. We've been packing up the house in anticipation of moving into the bus. We're buying a 40 foot shipping container to drop on the land to put the stuff in. I had to do some road work to accommodate a drop ship of the container. I widened the road and took out 20 trees yesterday. The initial road I made could only accommodate a car but we've been needing rock dropped off with large triaxles etc and they can't fit either, so it was time to widen the road.

Now they'll be able to drive straight back into it no problem. Sometimes in life you gotta detour a bit to get things back on track.

Also pretty much All of my bus appliances have arrived except the water heater. I now have a ton of work ahead of me. In addition to all of that stress, I have a work interview Monday I need to prepare for. It's for an important IT role at a major bank wanting my security skills, so wish me luck. If I get a job again the move into the bus will still happen, but we can relax and take our time. Our goal to live on the land is still there, so job or not we're moving there. It just determines how fast we gotta do it

 

[TheHubbardBus]

Really hope that interview (or another soon) pans out for you, Nikitis. I know your perseverance will see you through regardless. Do you have 'x' amount of time to find employment before moving forward with moving out, or are you doing so regardless of what the near-future holds?

 

[nikitis]

I was planning to move out regardless but it was gonna be like 1 year from now. Well I got let go unexpectedly soon, so it moved our time table up a year. I just had an interview today and I Aced every single technical question and thought I presented well, so in my mind the interview went perfectly as it could of gone. But there's been this weird trend occurring where people are interviewing you so they can say they interviewed you, but already have someone else in mind, and they can tick off a box. At this point with how well my interview went, I can't see not getting the job unless it became political somehow. Here's to hoping.

If I get the job the plan is to continue moving out to the land regardless of whether I get the job or not now. We already started packing up the house, so we figured why stop? Let's get out there and start building/developing it. And I can collect enough rent from the house to pay for both the house and land mortgage, and build up savings with the money earned from the new job. We'll be out on the land developing it while using the bus, and begin to build our dream retirement home there.

The plan is to mill my own lumber for my house so it won't cost so much to build. Just nails, cement, siding, roof tiles, and appliances will be all I need to pay for. If I don't get the job, I'll have to dip into my retirement to make it happen and live off of for awhile.

 

[nikitis]

Small update. Land preparations going well. Got the spot for the shipping container prepared. Rock laid down.

Further down I needed to install a culvert due to road being washed away in one place. I installed that with the excavator.

Then after that I need to widen some areas for a bus to fit through on the roads. This requires some trees be removed.

I got about 5 more trees to remove till I'm done, which I'll do today, but the excavator needed some love and needs hydraulic oil filled up and some diesel so out and about to do that now.

Till next time!

 

[nikitis]

Update. Cleared the way to the workshop site where we will park the bus. Roads widened. Stumps removed. Spot for the shipping container cut out, and container ordered. It'll be up to 10 business days for delivery.



I changed the hydraulic oil

Then I got to work

Cleared.

Moved to next stump

The path is wide and now cleared. I may need some extra rock ordered to cover the newly widened areas, but otherwise the bus can make it in now to it's permanent spot about 1500 feet into the property.

Next up on the land is a poor man's septic system install so we can drain the bus black tank into and installing water line and ram pump 1000ft from the river to the site.

 

[desrtdog]

Next up on the land is a poor man's septic system install so we can drain the bus black tank

This sounds interesting…what exactly is that?…a pipe that drains to your neighbor's property.

 

[nikitis]

That would be funny, but I like my neighbors.

It consist of 4x 275 gallon totes tied together by PVC pipe. 2x of the totes serve as the first chamber of a septic tank, then they both pour into the second two tanks where there is more water than sludge, then those go out to your mounds. It works just as well as a regular septic tank and even has more volume than your standard tanks when combined like that. Total costs is $320 for the 4 totes, about $30 for the PVC pipe, then take like 8x 50 gallon barrels for $15 each so $125 for those, cut them in half and use as your mounds with some hikes drilled in them.

So for like $475 you have a fully functional engineered septic setup good enough for a house. The same system buying official tanks and plastic molded mounds would cost you $5000, and this functions just as well as that. Which is why I call it the poor man's septic setup.

 

[desrtdog]

So, for a few hundred more you could add a couple more tanks, a compressor (aerator) and a sump pump to create an aerobic system…have the aerator feed into the second set of tanks, which overflow to the third set; chlorinate the water (low dose) in the third set and spray it on the vegetation.

Common system for where we are in TX…

 

[nikitis]

I have no clue on that one. I’ll look into it though. Curious now.

 

[desrtdog]

Yeah, it’s basically a mini sewage treatment plant. Aerobic bacteria breakdown most of the bad stuff, and the chlorine takes care of the rest…good for watering the lawn, not drinking.

 

[nocoasty]

Friend, I didn't realize you were a Master Skoolie Builder! I just saw your comment on my YouTube window delete video. Where and when did this come from and happen? That's exciting.

 

[nikitis]

Lol, I joke with people on the net, I use a bus icon on YouTube as well to help those recognize me who use this site too as you did. Since many tend to live two lives one here and another there.

I know some people who produce bus videos on YT will use this site as well when I comment on YT but also don't know for sure so it's a good way to catch peoples attention, and it worked.

I found your windows video on my feed and watched. The title caught me off guard saying its the best way, to do windows. I just wanted to help people realize there are many different scenarios and wanted to ensure people that this isn't necessarily true in every case is all. Maybe your title was a trap as well for the same reason?

 

[nikitis]

Ok, been awhile. Time for an update.

Shipping container DROP!

House is like 50% packed up and boxed. As you can tell from the picture, I have a little work to do on the container. She's not really too bad though. Picked up some paint and wire wheel and plan to go ham on her the next couple of days. Doing the inside first. I wire wheeled half of the inside then ran out of daylight.

Almost matches my Camaro. I didn't get to pick the color.

Gonna bring one of those lights that you wear on your head next time. Also gonna try my hand at my automotive paint gun. I bought a water based acrylic primer and a separate water based paint as they say it's better for metal adhesion and gonna try and thin it out with water about 10-20% for the gun.

The gun requires a thinner paint. Asked a couple of A.I.'s about what thinner to use for it and they both said just use about 10-20% water mix to get it to a milkshake consistency, and not to use a paint thinner since it's water-based. If it was oil based we'd need a thinner according to it. I asked the question in multiple ways and the answer seemed the same so I've Never painted with the automotive gun so we'll see how it goes. I'll see if it's correct. May do a test piece at the house in the morning to see how well it works.

 

[nikitis]

Update. Inside of the shipping container has been rust cleaned and painted.

Before pic:

You can see all of the rust and dings etc. It's WWT (Wind and water tight) meaning no holes in the container, but if not taken care of that won't be true for long.

I had some trouble trying to use a HVLP gun as I didn't have a compressor with enough CFM so it failed miserably. I then bought a HVLP Turbine gun that didn't require a compressor and it worked great for doing large walls. (This wouldn't work for painting my bus as it can leave some light streaks, but great for doing large walls of a shipping container).

Here is it patched up (rust prepped) and painted:

Obviously the dings aren't repaired, but the rust is been ground out and painted so it shouldn't degrade any further for our purposes. Going to do the outside eventually but needed to do the inside so we can put in all of our belongings into this thing and then move into the bus and rent out the house.

She's ready. I painted it an Ice Blue color to make it feel cooler when accessed in the Summer Time. The light color as well when lit up will help us see inside better. I plan to add a de-humidifier, and overhead lighting inside powered by a battery and a single solar panel.

This coming week we'll be packing up the house and moving stuff into this thing on our property, then fix up the house with it empty, and prep it for renting, and start living in the bus on this same property. (I'll have to finish up the bus first though). So we're looking within the next 1-2 months to be living in the bus full time. So expect a LOT of bus update posts in that time.