Rob could hardly wait to get stuck into the bus conversion. Is this a bus conversion or a motorhome conversion? Either way Rob was making it into a new motor home for us to do some serious RV travel around Australia.
You may recall from the previous post on this subject that Rob had problems. The last 300km or so of the journey was a worry as the gears started making this horribly noise and so Rob started to drop his speed and nurse it home. He only just made it to the bottom of our long driveway. He couldn’t get it into gear and Dean ended up towing him up our driveway with our tractor. Rob quickly arranged for an inspection by our mechanic, Waldo. [We have been so grateful over the many years that Waldo comes to his customers. We can highly recommend him for fans in the Wollongong area.] Rob thought it might be something to do with the diff, but after consulting with Waldo and then a diesel mechanic recommended by Waldo, they found it is something to do with chains...which is sort of better news than we had expected.
Now that we had the bus physically with us, we could begin to actually
visualize and plan what we can fit in and where. We knew that we wanted 2
slide outs, one for the bed and the other for the lounge. Rob had
discovered this great mechanism for the slide outs but they had to be
ordered direct from America, so the sooner we could work out the sizes
we desired, the sooner we could place an order and the sooner we can get
them. I gather it will still take a while, especially with the silly
season (Christmas) upon us and production and shipping being out of
kilter for the time being.
His dream of converting a bus into a motor home has started with ripping
out the seats. The strapping strength of our youngest came in handy
here. (Thanks Dean for your big muscular contribution). More stripping
goes on over the next week, with the curtains removed, the partitioning around the driver's seat is taken away along with the hot water thermos/heater, over head luggage
racks removed and the small fridge
Now Rob is keeping a journal with the amount of hours and costs involved. With the idea of the information being useful to someone else who might want to convert a bus into a motor home, I will most likely put these details in a summary type format at the conclusion of the bus conversion series. That is when we can finally call it our motor home. I wonder what we will call this motor home... we already have an idea... but it's a secret for now!
Never a smooth road
You may recall from the previous post on this subject that Rob had problems. The last 300km or so of the journey was a worry as the gears started making this horribly noise and so Rob started to drop his speed and nurse it home. He only just made it to the bottom of our long driveway. He couldn’t get it into gear and Dean ended up towing him up our driveway with our tractor. Rob quickly arranged for an inspection by our mechanic, Waldo. [We have been so grateful over the many years that Waldo comes to his customers. We can highly recommend him for fans in the Wollongong area.] Rob thought it might be something to do with the diff, but after consulting with Waldo and then a diesel mechanic recommended by Waldo, they found it is something to do with chains...which is sort of better news than we had expected. Dreaming of the possible layouts
Now that we had the bus physically with us, we could begin to actually
visualize and plan what we can fit in and where. We knew that we wanted 2
slide outs, one for the bed and the other for the lounge. Rob had
discovered this great mechanism for the slide outs but they had to be
ordered direct from America, so the sooner we could work out the sizes
we desired, the sooner we could place an order and the sooner we can get
them. I gather it will still take a while, especially with the silly
season (Christmas) upon us and production and shipping being out of
kilter for the time being. Stripping the bus
His dream of converting a bus into a motor home has started with ripping
out the seats. The strapping strength of our youngest came in handy
here. (Thanks Dean for your big muscular contribution). More stripping
goes on over the next week, with the curtains removed, the partitioning around the driver's seat is taken away along with the hot water thermos/heater, over head luggage
racks removed and the small fridge Another hiccup
Rob started disconnecting the ‘kero’ heater, only to discover it wasn’t a kerosene heater as he had been told but a very old diesel heater. As Rob soon discovered when diesel started leaking as a result of cutting the fuel lines. He had to block the cut fuel lines and rethink his next step.Journal keeping
Now Rob is keeping a journal with the amount of hours and costs involved. With the idea of the information being useful to someone else who might want to convert a bus into a motor home, I will most likely put these details in a summary type format at the conclusion of the bus conversion series. That is when we can finally call it our motor home. I wonder what we will call this motor home... we already have an idea... but it's a secret for now!
good stuff that you shared with us thanks for that, we also have a great Sydney Busses which designed well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the valuable info! ...These are a few school bus conversions. for inspiration.
ReplyDelete