Note: The pictures you see in this entry can also be found, along with more conversion photos, in two separate albums under the Pictures tab above.
First, an introduction
Rachel and I have long entertained romantic thoughts about travelling Canada in an RV, and the mobile home creations we saw on our west coast backpacking trip only fueled these dreams. I chatted with one couple at a campground on Galiano Island who told me about their RV adaptation while enjoying a bottle of wine near a campfire. As the fire crackled, they talked about the adventures that came with living in their converted van that had a bed, toilet, heater, fridge, and stove. They put it all together in two weeks – a somewhat different timeline from what we took on.
By about two months after the end of our islands touring, in August 2007, we decided to go ahead with converting a school bus into an RV, a creation that is also known as a skoolie.
An early “technical” concept quickly sketched on a napkin.
You can read our reasoning for this in our blog entry Life in Manitoba. We’ve made offhand references to the project since then, and even posted a few videos, but we haven’t laid out the specifics of the conversion process and that’s my (Eric’s) goal with these entries. Looking back, we already see how we could have done things differently or more efficiently, so I hope that anyone else out there looking into a school bus conversion can browse these articles for helpful information. For those who aren’t building their own RV on wheels, I hope that you will still be inspired to do life differently from the capitalist rat race of North America, however that might look.
But to begin with, I need to explain that I am trained as and work as a professional carpenter. From the time we started this bus conversion till now, I have gone from being unemployed and working full-time on the bus, to having a job on an institutional construction site working for a large company, to starting my own general contracting business. I say this not to praise myself, but to let you know that I didn’t dive into this project with no building experience. This background has given me the confidence to go beyond the basic conversion, to attempting a raised roof and slide-outs, for example.
Having said that, I do believe a bus conversion is something that almost anyone can do. My experience in building structures with wood and concrete was of limited help when it came to considering electrical systems, plumbing and heating, mechanics, structural engineering, welding, LP gas systems, autobody, designing, drafting, and a plethora of other areas requiring skills that I did not posses. But for everything that I didn’t know how to do, I discovered a book telling me how to do it. I have spent as much time reading as I have cutting and welding. I even found a book on building slide-outs in a bus conversion, and if a book exists for something as specific as that, then a book is out there for any task that needs tackling. The question is more how much are you willing to learn, and perhaps how much time and energy do you want to devote to such a project, rather than what skills do you possess.
An overview of our project
This conversion is an ambitious undertaking – I have been at it for almost a year and the bus doesn’t even have solid exterior walls. The emotional toll has also been high; for the first three months of the project, I spent every spare moment working on the bus and both I and my wife struggled with the ensuing mental stress. And I have not even mentioned the financial cost yet.
People are usually curious of the financial implications of an endeavour like this and I want to be as transparent as possible when it comes to money, so that anyone who is considering a bus conversion has an idea of what to expect. We bought the bus for $1,700, which was a sweet deal as you will read later. However, the costs have been increasing since then. Before we even bought a bus, we estimated a final cost of $8,000 to $10,000. We soon realized this wouldn’t even be enough to cover the electronic equipment and appliances we wanted. After the purchase of custom double-pane RV windows for $3,000, we were forced to increase our estimates. We figured $20,000 would finally be enough to finish it up, but I have a sense we will have spent between $30,000 and $40,000 by the time we’re on the road. Of course, none of this takes into account my hours of labour.
These figures may send you reeling with a gasp, but understand what we are building – this bus is going to be our home, our house. Some people buy lots as sites for building their dream homes, which end up being massive things costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. We bought a bus as our site and are building a home in it for a fraction of the cost. You must also understand that this is not going to be the average school bus conversion. Our plans for the bus include: satellite Internet, air exchange system with heat exchanger, 150-200 gallon fresh water tank, composting toilet, slide-outs, in-floor radiant heat, full-time solar capabilities ($5,000 alone), energy-efficient appliances, and earth-conscious building methods throughout. The spaces in and around the bus include: slide-out picnic table; exterior covered patio; rear-covered work area; entrance; driver’s cockpit; living room with entertainment area/library; dining area; kitchen with oven, stove, double basin sink, fridge/freezer, and cabinets; home office; bathroom complete with tile shower; closet/change room; loft bedroom; shop; and that’s not counting the storage areas we plan to cram into any empty space left over. The goal is to be able to dry camp (no hookups) for a period of up to six weeks.
Another major consideration worth noting is that we are building this house on wheels to provide shelter through Canadian winters. We don’t want to flee to the U.S. every time it gets cold, so a solid building envelope is imperative. Also, I want to make this vehicle look pleasing, unlike the sad excuses for RVs on our roads today. The outside of the bus will get a completely new skin as well as having the sides lowered closer to the ground. If you’re still thinking this is all excess, think about the home you live in. Are you without these conveniences? We are building a house that we plan to live in full-time for years to come.
You may be thinking, “Well why not just go out and buy an RV?” The truth is that modern RVs are built with toxic materials the cheapest way possible. For something that would meet most of our requirements, we would have to spend about $200,000 and would probably be forced to plug in to function properly. (For other reasons why we are not buying an RV, again, read the first part of our entry Life in Manitoba.)
Some people bring up the question of resale value, and to be honest, I am not really concerned with this. I can’t categorically say we will never sell the bus, but this is not a money-making venture. I am paying the cost of this bus, whatever it ends up being, in exchange for a lifestyle that I want to live. In the end, money is simply a false sense of worth that has no bearing on the true quality or value of our lives. If I live in this bus for five years and give it away, the money I spent on it will have been worth it. Unfortunately, the fact is that bus conversions are rarely sold for what it takes to build them, so yes, I am building this thing knowing I am going to “lose” money, and no, I don’t care.
Lastly, I want to reiterate that this project is extreme by the standards of most skoolies we have seen online (follow the link to LOTS of pictures of other skoolies). You need not feel as though your conversion, if you want one, needs to go to the extent of ours. We have seen many people who buy a school bus and move the furniture from their apartment into it and live in it quite successfully. There is nothing wrong with that and the information in these entries will still benefit you. Enough fluff though, let me get to the actual drilling and cutting of the thing.
Finding a suitable vehicle
Note: While these entries will cover my steps in mostly chronological order, I will discuss some procedures in the order I SHOULD have done them, so as to help the next person reading these pages and doing a bus conversion.
Once we decided to pursue the homemade RV option, we discussed what vehicle to use. Earl, my father-in-law, had an older grain truck missing a rear axle and in need of a ground-up restoration, but with a 466 cubic inch International diesel that had very low kilometers on it. Unfortunately, it had sat for many years and the engine also needed a thorough going over.
So, we began looking for a school bus, but a suitable one was hard to find. After a five-hour drive into the middle-of-nowhere Saskatchewan to look at what was supposedly a decent bus for $3,000, we were disappointed to discover that the bus had rusted so badly that I could lie on the grass under the bus and see the interior ceiling.
The bus we drove five hours to see turned out to be from Southern Ontario although you would think it was Swiss from all the holes in it.
But I just became more determined to find one with our name on it and started phoning every school division in the phone book to ask if they were selling any. Usually they had some gas ones that would be going to auction in a few months, but I soon learned that most of the auctions that they spoke of were reserved for dealers, meaning, I wasn’t allowed in the doors. Bummer; another setback. A few people I had talked to mentioned that a company called King Transportation in Winnipeg might have what I was looking for. I was reluctant to call them, because I figured a company wouldn’t give me a deal. All they wanted was as much money as possible. I was wrong. After a few rings at King Transportation the phone was answered by a gruff sounding fellow, who, when I asked if he had any buses for sale, laughed. I was a little offended to be honest. This was the result of weeks of searching for the right bus and this guy was laughing at my obviously futile search, or so I thought. He finally replied, “Come and have a look and I am sure you will find your bus.” I was persistent in asking if he had a diesel because we really wanted to be sure it would be worth the three-hour drive. He just kept saying, “If you come and look, you will find your bus.” So I took my mechanically minded father-in-law and went.
Upon driving onto King Transportation’s yard only one thing went through my mind: “I have never in my life seen so many school buses – ever.” The glaring yellow was sunglasses worthy. And this was only one of three yards! Who does what with so many buses?
As it turns out, King Transportation is in the business of driving kids to school everyday. They are contracted out by a ton of school divisions and they appeared to be doing quite well, if the dozen or so shiny new buses sporting fancy Mercedes Benz Diesels was any evidence. How I would love to get my hands on one of those babies! Unfortunately, my budget was a mere $3,000, not the $90,000 needed for a new one.
After speaking with staff, I was promptly led into the “bone yard.” This is where buses, for one reason or another, are left to slowly rot. If you need a safety axe or fire extinguisher or outdated giant first aid kit, here is where to find it. As Earl and I walked through the rows, I couldn’t help but feel like I was picking a child to adopt from an orphanage, as though all these buses despite their age and rust had put on their best yellow shirt to impress me. I felt sad for the ones that had various types of vegetation growing in or through them. But soon one stood out. What I noticed first was that it didn’t have the old boxy look to it; it was a little newer than the rest. After talking with Bob, part owner of King Transportation, he did a little research into this specific bus and found that they never actually used it. It was a 1989 model and in remarkably good shape. It had been bought three years earlier from a Northern Ontario school division (very different from Southern Ontario I learned in my research. Southern = Rust) in a bulk purchase with a dozen or so other buses. It was not needed at that moment so they parked it. By the time they did need it, another shipment of buses had come and so the grass grew around bus number 910 for three years until I came walking along.
After about 20 minutes of tinkering, the mechanic had the 7.3 litre diesel running and it sounded good. Bob decided that the bus was worth $3,500. It was actually capable of being run as a school bus again, and it was a full-size 72 passenger still equipped with all the necessary safety equipment. He figured it was worth the money. However, I wasn’t able to test drive it as the brake fail-safe had been removed, the throttle cable was disconnected and the batteries needed replacing. I didn’t disagree completely as to the bus’ worth, but I was determined to get this thing for as little money as possible. To my good fortune, Bob let it slip earlier in conversation that he was headed to Las Vegas the coming weekend for a wedding. I figured he could use some extra cash and mustered all the magic I could, pleading for him to have mercy on this poor homeless person. He finally did and we settled on $1,700. We agreed that when I came back in a few days to pick it up, I would replace the few missing parts from scavenging other buses and his mechanics would give it a double check.
Bringing her home
On Tuesday, August 21, Rachel and I drove into Winnipeg, and after an hour or two of fiddling the bus was ready for a test drive. I took off with Bob (as I was not allowed to drive it under his insurance) and he gave me some tips on how to drive a 40 foot-long vehicle. But then we noticed that something seemed to be wrong with the brakes. He said his mechanics would take care of it, but since it was already 4:30, Rachel and I crashed in Winnipeg for the night and came back the next morning after the mechanics had unseized the brakes.
After exchanging money for the bus registration, I got a permit from Manitoba Public Insurance – no special licences required, despite having never driven such a massive vehicle before – and excitedly hopped into my soon-to-be home.
As I drove down the highway, I noticed a few things. First and most concerning, it seemed as though the brakes were still sticking a little, or else the bus had a governor (mechanical or electronic device limiting the vehicle’s maximum speed), because I couldn’t get past 80 kilometres per hour. I would have to fix that. I also realized that it was the perfect vehicle to pick up hitchhikers with. The young man from Montreal that got a ride from Portage to Virden in the bus had a great time looking around and discovering my new accessories. He even took the time to familiarize me with the contents of the first aid kit. Little did I know how severely I would need it in only four days. That evening, I loaded the whole family into the bus and drove them to Dairy Queen in Moosomin for ice cream to celebrate. Early Thursday morning I was outside, beginning the process of gutting the bus. How hard can ripping the interior out of a bus be?
PART 2
Stripping the beast and still fixing the brakes
I unscrewed hundreds of screws to remove the baggage racks from above the seats then got to work on the windows. I had originally thought we would just black out some windows and keep so
me clear, but after walking in the bus with a 6’ 2” ceiling height I decided if Rachel and I wanted to live comfortably in this thing, I would have to lift the roof up a bit. By “bit,” I mean just over three feet in the back and two feet in the front. I would have to weld slanted transitions between the height changes, which landed directly above the windshield and about a third of the way to the back of the bus. (I should also mention that it was at about this point I realized I would first have to learn how to weld.) But to raise the roof meant I had to get at the roof supports to cut them, and these of course were located in between the windows. So the windows had to come out.
I took off the metal covers that were located between the windows on the outside and removed the metal sill piece that was on the bottom on the outside. Many of the screws holding these covers on had to be ground off with a grinder because they were either too corroded or too stripped. I also removed all the seats by cutting the bolts holding them in place (not a small job) and threw the vinyl giants out the back door.
I spent about two days of solid work to remove the first row of seats and the luggage racks above. The work went faster as I figured out a system of working around the corroded screws and old gum.
I then removed the paneling that covered the interior walls. I should also make mention of the gum. WOW, the gum I found! It seemed as though those little punks that stuck it in every nook and cranny managed to stick the gum right in the heads of dozens and dozens of screws making them even harder to get out. Finally all the seats were out except the driver’s seat. That would come out later. Lastly, I unscrewed the windows from the jambs. I found that I had to really give them a hard knock before they came loose because of the caulking that had been used to install them.
On my second day of working on the bus (Friday, August 24) a spark had found its way past my safety glasses as I was grinding and by Saturday it was still lodged in there, so we headed to the Virden hospital at 11 p.m., a 30-minute drive away. The kind Dr. Mohammed nicely fixed me up and told me to be careful. If only I had heeded his advice …
During this time I was also working on the brakes. I tried replacing one caliper at a time, but I finally realized that the bus had sat for too long and the calipers weren’t sliding properly on the bracket any longer. But before fixing that problem, I turned my attention back to the interior.
A minor hitch
After suffering in the factory driver’s seat for four hours from Winnipeg to the farm, I knew it had to come out. This was the last seat to be removed. I had recently bought a new angle grinder and I only wish they had printed on the packaging “Experience not included!” I had been using the grinder for a few days without incident. It was four days before my birthday, and oddly enough, three years earlier on my actual birthday I had a serious accident with a circular saw in Lethbridge, Alberta, that ripped the flesh off the top of my left hand and opened me up to the bone.
Looking now at the pictures Rachel had taken of me grinding the seats makes me shake my head at my own stupidity. Shorts, no safety handle, legs precariously close to the blade.
I was using a special blade known as a zipcut. They are extremely thin and only meant to be used to cut metal with the thin edge of the blade. They can’t handle much friction on the flat surface of the blade. When I now speculate at what took place that day, I believe that as I was cutting through one of the bolts holding the driver’s seat to the floor, I was forcing the blade to bend a little. Finally, the blade couldn’t take the pressure and shattered. Luckily, the people who engineered these sophisticated little devils build them with a sort of mesh inside the blade so if it does explode at high rpm the pieces don’t go flying all about. Unluckily for me, this meant that the blade grabbed a hold of the half cut bolt and took flight faster than you can say, “Holy Bugger!!!” The least fortunate of these events was that my bare leg was the obstacle that stopped it.
When you injure yourself severely you don’t seem to experience the pain right away. This is why I turned to look at my leg to see how closely I escaped injury, only to discover that I didn’t escape at all. My leg looked like Steven Tyler’s mouth wide open in mid-verse except full of ground beef rather than music; it took a minute for my brain to grasp what had happened. I had several lacerations just below my knee, the largest of which was about four inches long and deep to the bone. (I know this because when I saw Dr. Mohammed in emergency again he said, “Whoa, you’ve got several lacerations just below the knee, the largest of which is about four inches long and this here,” poking something a little spongy with his tweezers, “is your bone.”)
I hurried to the house as fast as I could while clutching my left leg and shouted into the door – “I need bandages and I need someone to take me to the hospital” – almost giving Rachel a heart attack. Earl drove us to Virden, and this time it didn’t take 30 minutes.
The doctor spent about half an hour just picking pieces of dirt and metal out of my leg. Forty stitches later and a little wiser about safety, I headed back home to have a short break from work on the bus.
The doctor first made a row of stitches inside the wound to pull all the meat together. He told me that stitches that disintegrate over time like the ones used on the inside of my leg are made from cat intestine … so finally I have solved the mystery of the cats that go missing on Halloween each year.
During my forced holiday, I managed to do some drawings and planning as we geared up to start actually adding material to the bus and creating our new home on wheels. After about four days inside I felt I was ready to go work on the bus again. But this time I would do something a little less physical; I would work on the brakes.
Ah, the brakes
This particular bus is equipped with all around hydraulic disc brakes. That’s right, no air brakes. The calipers (large brackets that have a pinching-like piston in them to squeeze the disc that is like a mini wheel behind the tire that slows the vehicle) for these things are MASSIVE. Using my rudimentary mechanical skills, I finally had removed the caliper that I thought was causing the problems. I had already taken the others apart and tried to clean them up. Once I had everything back together, I was ready for a test drive.
Picture a long yellow school bus half-mutilated, no windows, no seats, no licence plate. Rachel’s parents’ farm (where I am carrying out these insane events) is remote with rarely a vehicle passing by so I didn’t see a problem with testing out my brakes on the country roads. Unfortunately, after getting the bus on a straight road I maxed out at about 60 km/h. This was 20 km/h less than I had gone BEFORE I worked on the brakes. Soon the familiar smell of brakes burning entered my nostrils. I turned around in a field and limped out of the bus to check my brakes. During this time a neighbouring farmer, whose land I think I was on, drove up beside me in his pickup. He said he saw this hulk of a school bus all dismantled driving down the road and just had to know what I was up to. After I explained the insanity he chuckled and commented that he thought the diesel motor sounded pretty good. I thanked him for his interest and jumped back into my door-less bus. I drove home and parked, leaving the bus running as I am told you should do with big diesels after running them for a bit. I hobbled out of the bus with my injured leg causing me to limp somewhat. I went to the brake where the smell was the strongest and noticed that there was a little more smoke than when I had stopped before. I gingerly got down on my back and leaned under the bus to inspect. What I saw shocked me. FIRE!!! Yes FIRE!!! My bus was on fire. The whole brake caliper was aflame. As quickly as I could, I got up on my one-and-a-half legs and half ran, half limped back into the bus to grab the fire extinguisher. I managed to put out the small blaze fairly quickly, saving the delicate rubber hoses that supply the brake fluid to the caliper. There I stood, favouring my left leg, empty fire extinguisher in hand, the rear tire of my bus all covered in white powder, trying to put this all together.
The actual problem with the caliper ended up being the master cylinder. As the piston that puts pressure on the rotor or disc moved out, it exposed the sidewalls of the inside of the cylinder. But after sitting for so long, these had corroded enough that when the piston tried to come back in it got hung up in the inner surface of the cylinder, meaning it continued to put pressure on the rotor long after I had released my foot from the brake pedal. I replaced all the calipers and brake pads at a cost of about $600. Now I can get up to about 85 km/h. After some research I discovered that my bus is probably governed. I will need a new fuel pump to get the bus past 100 km/h as the governor is installed on the fuel pump. I may let a shop handle that once the bus is a little further along, but for now I will let the mechanics of the thing be. I also changed all the bus’ fluids and replaced all the filters to give the thing new blood as it had sat for some time, for a total cost of about $200.
Removing the rear wall
After spending much time looking at the back wall of the bus I decided that the best thing to do was to get rid of it completely. It had spots of rust and once I raised the roof, the door would be as good as useless anyway. I disconnected all the wiring to the lights and started to cut. I made the vertical cuts on the sides of the bus just as the curve from the corner ended. Where the curve of the roof ended on the top of the walls on the outside, I stopped the vertical cuts and turned them towards the rear. I made a cut just beneath the window in the back that said “School Bus.”
Here it is after I made the cuts and started pushing.
Then I cut the bottom just above the bumper to finish the job. It was hard to make sure I cut through all the little pieces that were connecting the back wall to the side walls. I must have gone through 10 zipcut blades and at least three reciprocating saw blades. In the end I resorted to a few good hard kicks to loosen the wall from its home.
Here is the rear of the bus the next morning, after I disposed of the back wall.
It took me about 10 solid days of work (not consecutive) to strip the interior, replace the calipers, and remove the back wall.
Some advice
Despite the fact that zipcut blades can obviously be dangerous, stripping the bus would have been much harder without them. I bought packages of 25 Walter Zip brand blades for $75. I seemed to go through them rather quickly, but it was the easiest way. (At this point, 10 months into the project, I am into my third package.)
Look for the ones with the depressed centres as they are more stable than the flat ones.
I also used reciprocating saw blades to get at those hard-to-reach areas and to cut long runs of sheet metal. They are cheaper, but not as accurate. Whatever you do, don’t succumb to the cheap price tags of the no-name or cheap reciprocating saw blades. They are absolute garbage. I ended up throwing away an entire set of 20 brand new blades that I had bought for $10 because the metal they were made of reacted like pewter when they hit metal. Buy de Walt or Milwaukee brands or some other well-known tool manufacturer and expect to pay upwards of $7 per blade. If you are stripping your own bus, make sure you have lots of grinder blades of all types to grind the heads off bad screws and invest, borrow, or acquire by some legal method, good tools, preferably not cordless. You are going to need all the power you can give your tools and they are going to throw you around a little so be ready for it.
Next time: Raising the roof, in two sections
You are the only people I can think of that would take on such a cool, awesome project!!
