What lies beneath- our first dose of bus related disillusionment

I am a little dispondent right now so I don’t feel like writing much. But I feeling better than yesterday. It’s nice to be in the bus even if it isnt cooperating. I’m so grateful to everyone for putting us up but I CANNOT BLOODY WAIT to have our own space again. Even if it’s just so I can eat icecream in my underpants…
Anyhoo sorry for that disturbing mental image… here are some annoying bus pictures…. grrrrr

6 responses to “What lies beneath- our first dose of bus related disillusionment”

rovingcraftshop

January 25, 2016 at 2:40 am

Hang in there. There’s more suprises to come. I know from experience.
https://whatcanyoudowithaschoolbus.wordpress.com. But now I’m reaping the benifits.http://leonardsteward.blogspot.com

Leonard

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1. Morgan Mushroom
  
  January 25, 2016 at 10:21 am
  
  Did you have rust in your walls?
  
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rovingcraftshop

January 25, 2016 at 10:38 am

My walls were good. I had rust in my floor. Mostly where the school bus sets were bolted down. After I took up the original bus floor and repaired the metal base floor, I installed in-floor radiant heating. http://leonardsteward.blogspot.com/2014/09/putting-in-heated-floor.html

Leonard

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1. Morgan Mushroom
  
  January 25, 2016 at 10:41 am
  
  Ahhh see our floor is plywood… all the rot. Our wall panels have rusted through though. Not sure where to begin with that. How long did your conversion take you?
  
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  1. rovingcraftshop
    
    January 25, 2016 at 5:05 pm
    
    Building a bus is like raising a child. You’re never really done. This is my second bus (child) project. I started this one in Sept 2012. I took my first real trip in it in Mar 2013. I’ve been living and traveling in it since Sept 2014. I’m still not finish it. A lot depends on how much and what you want to do to it. I started living and traveling in my first bus after having it for two months.
    
    Leonard
    
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BusBusandCo

February 10, 2016 at 5:29 am

Bus conversions seem to be full of highs and lows, ups and downs, peaks and valleys. It seems the only time for smooth sailing is once a process has been worked out and tested. At least this has been my experience so far. We had to deal with rusty floors, but our walls were solid, fortunately. We ended up cutting out some of the walls anyway, to give more room for insulation.

Our floors had linoleum and plywood layered onto the metal base floor. Do you have metal underneath your plywood? Here’s what we did with the rusty floors after we got up our plywood. For surface rust (we had lots of it), we took an angle grinder with a grinding wheel and then a wire wheel to somewhat refinish the metal floors. We then sprayed Ospho, a rust converter (nasty fumes, but easy to apply), to penetrate the rust and slow down the oxidation process. We painted the floor with Rustoleum. Some sections we used POR-15 (like for the chassis – we followed this same rust removal/conversion process), which is a much better product, just pricier.

For the bad rust (near the rear wheel wells, specifically), we cut out the sheet metal flooring and the steel crossbeams. We have replaced the cross beams with 1″ steel tubing to frame out the wheel wells, but we haven’t covered the frame with new sheet metal yet. That’s our next step for the floors.

I swear the rust isn’t that bad to work with and repair. It just seems like it because it wasn’t planned and is a nuisance. I would suggest getting a process in place for removing/treating the rust on the walls and then plug away until it’s finished. Figuring out the process is the tough part. Once you’ve got it, it’s just time and sweat :)

I hope this helps and good luck!!

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