Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Day 63 - Front Cabinet | School Bus Conversion

Today I worked more on the upper cabinet. I will try to have some pics posted in the next few days.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Day 62 - Front Upper Cabinet | School Bus Conversion

We decided to tie in the wood theme at the same time as covering up the ugly metal at the very front of the bus.



This will give us some more storage, a place to mount a cd player and speakers.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Day 61 - Grill | School Bus Conversion

Today we decided to go ahead and change the color on the grill. The silver paint that we had used was actually indoor paint (found out later) so it was starting to crack. We went ahead and painted it white.



Will start on some more framing tomorrow.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Day 60 - Storage Room | School Bus Conversion

I almost had enough luan to finish the storage room today. I only need one small piece and I will be done.

I was hoping I could make this one solid piece but I could not fit it in the door so I cut it down the middle.





After I put up all the luan I had I went ahead and carpeted the floor using a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet that I had picked up previously at Lowe's for $5. I glued the carpet down to the sub floor using carpet glue. I still have enough left to carpet the drivers area.

After the carpet was down I finally got to put in my custom made flange that our sheet metal guy had made.

Here is the finished product:





Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Day 59 - Storage Area | School Bus Conversion

Today I worked on the storage area in the back of the bus.

I had my wires just sitting in the back storage area. These wire are for the lights that will be on the back wall in the master bedroom as well as an outlet in the storage area. I also ran an additional 12 volt constant to provide power to the rear view camera (yet to be installed) and a light for the storage area.



Here is the outlet for the storage area.



Here is the lighting wiring I ran on the opposite side of the storage wall. This is in the master bedroom.



Since the back is closed off I had to figure out a way to have a light in the back. After some figuring and wiring I ran a switch to the existing lights that were already in place.

I put the switch right by the door opening. It works!



I also tied in another light that sits in the top center of the back wall.



I hope to have the back storage area paneled tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Day 58 - Staining | School Bus Conversion

Today was stain, stain, stain.

All of the installed paneling is now stained and ready for varnish.

More soon!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Day 57 - Sanding & Staining | School Bus Conversion

Today I ran out of my paneling material so I decided to go ahead and sand what paneling I had up.

After the sanding was done I started staining the wood. The stain we are using is called Pickling White. It is a subtle color that we have used in the past and really liked how it turned out.



Some of the pics following may be hard to make out the difference from the stained and un-stained wood. In person there is a noticeable difference.

Here is the dinette seat before the stain:



Here it is after:



This is the cabinet is by the front door that has been stained:



All the kitchen cabinets have been stained:



And about half of the bunk room:



Hope to have the staining done tomorrow.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Day 56 - More Paneling | School Bus Conversion

It has been some time since I posted extiror pics of the bus. Here is the Passengers side.



Here is the drivers side:



We did more paneling today and it is coming along nice. We are almost done. I took a few pics to show the progress.

This is facing the rear with the bunks on the left and right and the door way all paneled.



This is facing the front from the master bedroom:



Facing the front in the bunk room.



More soon!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Friday, July 17, 2009

Day 54 - Cabinets & Paneling | School Bus Conversion

Today we went up to the local lumber yard and picked up:
  • 2-sheets of 1/4" Oak Plywood
  • 1-sheet of 3/4" Oak Plywood
We started by cutting out the cabinet face for the area behind the front dinette seat.



There will be two cabinet doors here. The top right cutout is where my inverter remote will go.

Next we cut out the face of the cabinet that sits behind the other dinette seat.



We also did some more paneling in the master bedroom on the passengers side.





More soon!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Day 53 - Paneling | School Bus Conversion

The first thing I did today was fill a gap on the left side of the drivers seat along side of the bus. It was a good size gap so I took a piece of 1/2" construction foam and cut it to the size of the opening. I put it in the opening so that I could spray the Great Stuff foam into the gap. That way the foam did not just fall to the ground on the outside. There had been just a piece of metal over the gap before. It was the only thing separating the inside for the elements outside. I used Great Stuff Big Gap filler foam.



Next, we worked on more paneling.

I was able to get both closets paneled using 1/4" Luan.

Here is the drivers side: (Again, it is hard to get good pics in this cramped space.)





Here is the passengers side closet:







More tomorrow!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Day 52 - Dinette Seats & Paneling | School Bus Conversion

Today we started with the dinette seats. The backs were already cut and just needed to be nailed so we glued and nailed the dinette seat backs.

At first I was going to hinge the actual seat to expose the storage space underneath but decided to just have a removable seat. The upholstery will be added latter.

The blocking on the seat locks the seat in place when it sets into the seat framing.



Here it is with all the blocking in place.



I chose not to hinge the seat bottoms mainly because I thought the seat padding and upholstery may get in the way when hinging it open.

Here is the seat top in place.



And the other.



Next we paneled the seat.



We were getting low on our oak plywood paneling. We were able to panel the bunk bed on the passenger side of the bus.





We also paneled the master bedroom doorway on one side.



Should have more done tomorrow!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Day 51 - Electrical & Dinette Back | School Bus Conversion

Today we spent the day tying up all the lose ends on the rough in electrical. We are basically done.



We also built a wall that sits behind the dinette seat closest to the front of the bus.




We will probably put some kind of a cabinet here.




Here is a pic of the breaker box. This breaker box contains to 20 amp breakers. One for the A/C the other for the refrigerator and the hot water heater. There are also 2 - 20 amp breakers located in the inverter. We will direct wire to the inverter for all inverted power.




I will still need to run the 50 amp service cord and plug that will attache to the outside of the bus.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Day 50 - Electrical & Carpet | School Bus Conversion

Today marks the 50th day of work on the bus. It seems to be going well and we are all still excited about the project.

Today we kept plugging away at the electrical. We of course are running both the inverted and non-inverted wire and all the 12 volt wiring.

We are officially done wiring everything in the master bedroom beside actually hooking up the lights and switches. That will be done after the walls are all paneled, stained and varnished. The rest of the wiring should go a lot faster. The master bed area is a main hub for all the wiring so it took some time to get it sorted.

After the wiring was done we cut and put the carpet down under the master bed in the storage area. It turned out very great!

Looking towards the passengers side.



Looking towards the back.



Wiring on the passengers side (The small box you see in this pic is a 12 volt distribution box):



Wiring on the drivers side:



More tomorrow!