Ok, I decided that I am not going to buy an engine nor transmission until I can see/hear it run. It will cost me a descent amount more but once again, I am opting for security. I contacted a used bus sales company in Florida who is currently trying to find me a bus with the engine and transmission I want to put in the bus, an international DT466 and Allison MT643. They have other options of similar engines and transmissions but I am hesitant because I KNOW that these buses can fit a DT466, I am not so sure about other engines. So hopefully they can find me one soon. The main reason I could use one soon is because I was contacted by an individual who wants to purchase the Bristol BVW engine that I have in it now. I am completely willing to sale it to him but right now I cannot remove the engine without knowing it will be immediately replaced with another working engine. So I had to decline. However, if these guys come through with a bus with the engine and transmission I want, I will immediately sale the BVW to the gentleman and use the money to get the replacements. So this could end up working out but we will have to wait and see. The advantage I have to buying this bus is that for one, they will drive the bus to me to deliver it. Pretty awesome and saves me the grief because I don’t have a bus license to get it myself. Second, I will know the engine and transmission will run. That is really important to me as a bus with no working engine and transmission is scrap metal. I can’t risk being put in that position even if it does cost me a thousand more dollars. I will report if there is any more progress.

Today we officially have the back end of the bus reinforced. You might be asking yourself why? Basically the back end of this bus hand no real frame supporting it. The frame only reaches the back tires and then it stopped. So what we had was wood hanging off the back, with small support brackets underneath being held up by the side walls which are also made of wood. Not a very strong design but I am sure they were trying to keep the weight off. The problem it has for us is that we cannot tow a car behind our bus which is pretty much essential if we don’t want to be driving this bus everywhere we go. In addition to that, we it was in really bad shape because it had been busted up pretty bad when the bus was towed. So it needed to be fixed anyways. I figure, might as well do what we need to do to it since it is going to cost us either way.

On the downside of this, it raised the floor on the back end around 3 inches. Not sure exactly how much higher but it was certainly higher. I had a rough decision to either drop the floor 3 inches or raise the floor 3 inches. Considering that there was an issue with dragging the back end causing the damage in the back I opted for raising it. Hopefully this will prevent any future dragging and damage. It was a sacrifice but I wanted to play it safe which someday may pay off big time. A small inconvenience in the back but a huge sense of security.

Here are some pictures of when the back end floor got ripped out and post installation of the floor. Got much more to go but we should have the whole bus ready to drive in the next 4 months if all goes according to plan. Keep us in your prayers.

Starting toward the end of next week the whole backend of the bus is getting a much needed remodel. The frame only goes to where the rear tires are and the rest is made of wood and is supported, believe it or not, by the walls of the bus. The whole backend is getting ripped out, a steel frame welded into place, and walls/back door rebuilt.  Oh, and a towing hitch welded on. That should be done in about 3 weeks. I will post pictures of the process.

After this, we are going to get all the lights working, and put in some RV style windows. Then we can start to drive it home on weekends where I will insulate the walls, install the electronic components (a/c, generator, etc) and plumbing. then we can build it into a house. Not sure where paint will fit in yet, but if we can afford it, we will kick it out before we start to build it into a home.

I’ll keep you posted!

Ok, so this won’t be brief but it has some interesting info.

From time to time (usually one every couple of weeks) we look online to see if their are any cheap places that we could potentially rent. Rarely do we see something that we are interested in. This is mainly due to our criteria. We are not interested in a place that is really all that nice, but just something that is right. So I will explain what “right” is.

We do not want to live in Visalia or Tulare. Exeter is the only place we were thinking we could stand around here but we figured that we are likely to end up living in either Visalia or Tulare. So if we were to live there, we need a to find a really inexpensive place that is not in a ghetto area of town. Unfotunately, that is near impossible to find. If we cannot find that, we want to live near the mountains (as we are nature lovers) and commute to Visalia for work. We have looked at 3 rivers but it seemed too far away. We watched for places available in between but nothing ever came up available. So, it started to seem that our only hope was either get lucky with cheap city house in a non-ghetto area, or get lucky with a random house available in the country between the mountains and Visalia. Eitherway, we needed to get lucky or settle for Exeter.

To make matters more difficult, we have 2 children and a dog. Most renters refuse to rent to a family unless there is a room for each child. Most renters do not allow dogs for inexpensive rentals. In fact. we only found a handful that would allow dogs that were under $1,000 per month. That is not inexpensive at all and most of them are large homes. Let me remind you, we don’t have any furniture. Could you imagine? haha. Empty house.

Our ideal is to find a one bedroom that is inexpensive and located between the mountains we love and the city I need to work in. Now back to the random searches for said criteria. We had no luck in the 9 months we have been here now. Can you believe it has been 9 months???

Yesterday we gave it a try to see what was out there and as luck would have it, there was a one bedroom in Lemon Cove that allows dog and is located between the mountains and Visalia. Woohoo! So we are in communication with the owners and things are looking good. The only issue we had was that there was a really heavy cat smell in the house that I am sure cannot be washed out of the carpet. In addition to that, the carpet really needs to be replaced. Considering how cheap the rent is ($600 mo. to us it is cheap, we paid over $1,250 for the past 6 years for rent and peaked at our last rent of $1,400), I was willing to negotiate getting the carpet and pad changed out. I told them that we would only be there for 6 months maybe slightly more and they were ok with it. The house isn’t obviously a palace, but it is perfect for us. Country roads, animals, a quick drive to Sequoia National Park, and most of all NO SHADY PEOPLE WALKING AROUND. We can actually take our kids for a walk, see some beautiful things and not have to worry something bad could happen.

So it looks like this place could be exactly what we need right now and Avira is VERY excited. She is already imagining it which means she will be heart broken if it doesn’t pan out. So I hope it works out mainly for her and my children, but I am looking forward to it too. They really need to have their own environment again for the first time in 9 months. Wish us luck and I will report what happens.

Next…

I was contacted by a gentleman today who tracks double decker buses. It was really awesome to get that email and he had some cool info which I will post in a sec. Here is a link to his site with my bus http://bcv.robsly.com/414pta.html

Here is quotes from the email because I am not a big fan of retyping what people have already typed. hehe

“US history is somewhat sketchy, but it is known that its first RV conversion was done (to a very high spec for the time) around 1982 and it is reputed to have been used by no less than film star Richard Dreyfuss…Prior to your discovering it in Paso Robles it was last reported by the network of interested bus enthusiasts (mostly Brits abroad in the US) in March 1992, for sale for $25,000 in Sun Valley…414PTA was new to the Western National Omnibus Company as their fleet number 2034. That company operated in the South West corner of England, in the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset.”

There was more in the email on a more personal note that I will not share but I thought that info was interesting enough. The guy we bought it from told me about Richard Dreyfuss owning it so I did know that. I can see how the conversion was very 80′s as it still seemed to have a disco remnant design to it. Can you believe it was selling for $25,000 in 1992??? Whoa, I think we got a great deal!

That is it for now, more to come!

I am investigating insulation for our bus. It is perhaps THE most important thing we will install. I have been concerned greatly about pest infestation in our future home. This bus has a tremendously greater potential for pests than the average bus conversion because of the way it was constructed. Literally holes and cracks they can fit through everywhere. Obviously they did not care much about insulating this thing. So I need to take great care when insulating, not just from the elements but also from pests.

When looking at all the green insulation options, there is a clear advantage to using an expanding spray foam insulation called Icynene. It will seal everything. It will literally turn our bus into an air tight ice chest. This is good for filling in all the places where pests could squeeze through and it’s R value can be maintained because it will seal the bus from air flow through these spaces. It is supposedly a green product and turns up on websites claiming this due to the fact that it is water blown and has no chemical fumes that come off of it.

I have my doubts. Why? Well…. One question I could ask that will probably answer that question for you.

Could a product possibly be “green” that requires you to wear this when spraying on?

I mean come on now people, Really? Green?

So I have been looking around for weeks now trying to learn about so-called “Green” products for the RV and all I can say is, everything is green these days. I have seen chemical products claiming to be green because it is packaged in a bottle made with recycled material and nearly anything that saves power is claiming to be green even if it used enough toxins to kill a village to produce the product. I know being green is all the rave right now, but good lord there needs to be some standards out there. Some educated, non-corporate sponsored sources that really look into the elledged greeness of products. All I know as I look into this more and more is that things are not what they seem in the world of environmentally friendly products. Some websites are founded to push products of questionably eco-friendliness by the manufacturers themselves and others are hippy types who obviously don’t think much beyond the ingredients in the product. What about manufacturing process? Are they using chemicals? Are they dumping it and where? What kind of waste is produced? How is it transported? What if it is shipped on a small plane from China and releases outrageous amounts of exhaust into the atmosphere? There is more to being green than a label telling it is so but it is getting really difficult to get legitimate info on being “Green”. I am doing my best though!

I have been in turmoil the last couple of days trying to figure out if it is wise to pay to have the electrical done in the bus and spend a bundle of money I could certainly cut in half (if not more) if I installed it myself. It seems like there’s lots of info out there on how to do it and much of it is free. In addition to that, there are several forums where people did it themselves and that makes me feel like it is completely possible to do. I have never done electrical but I get the basic idea of it. A good thing is that I will learn all about my electrical system intimately and likely be able to solve any future problems myself saving me what would be even more money. A bad thing is I can messs up and install a faulty system that gives me nothing but problems. I am going to fish around to people who have done it and see if I can get some assistance. In the mean time, I am waiting for a response from a local rv place that is going to give me a quote on installing it. We will see how that is before I make an official descision but I suspect it is going to cost me body parts.

The plan with the JB Weld was a success and it it holding well. So that solved our radiator fluid leak. Here is the video of me showing that it works.

So, once we let it run for a good 15 minutes with no leaking, we decided to see if it would drive. I drove it forward and then couldn’t find the reverse gear. In this bus you actually have to pull up on the stick a good inch and then it shifts all the way to the far left and up to get it in reverse. So here is the video of me driving it forward and reverse successfully.

By the time we were done and ready to drive it, everybody from the shop had left and I thought it was a bit to risky to take it farther because if something happened there is no way I could have gotten it back without dropping money in a tow truck. There is little reason to think that something will happen but I was be cautious so I was not sorry. Monday it might go up to the gate but I don’t want to take it on the road till it is insured.

As of today we have finally decided on a basic plan for the interior bus layout. Of course it may change as we get further along. Top is top level, bottom is bottom level. If you have any suggestions or ideas, let me know.

Oh, this is not dimensionally accurate but pretty close. I chalked this up so that I can begin to mark all the electrical outlets and lights so that the electrical guys can give me a quote.

As I said this is basic. Upstairs we plan to incorporate a washer/dryer, clothes closets and drawers, as well as a craft desk/storage for Avira. Across from the bunks will be a play area for the kids. Downstairs will have plenty of cabinetry in the kitchen, and the breakfast table will have some kind of drop down design so that we can serve espresso and goodies out of that window when we go to events It will be a lovely home.

Today we started our engine to let it run for around half an hour after filling the radiator with anti-freeze/coolant. After starting it coolant poured out from the side of the engine like niagra falls leaving a huge puddle under the bus (and beyond). My wife and son yelled to me that it was happening and I imediately turned off the engine. It took a while before it stopped pouring out but I investigated and found a hole in the side of the engine where it was coming out. Luckily, this part with the hole in it comes off and can be replaced IF I can find a replacement. Considering how rare the BVW engine is, I doubt I will have luck. The cool thing is that even though I don’t know what to call this particular part, a part number is actually on the unit. It is the 293bvw. Basically put, it routes coolant from one hole in the engine to a hole next to it. There are about 4 of these parts on the visible side of the engine. Here are some pictures of the holy part and the non-holy part for comparison. You can click the pictures to see them bigger.

Here is a farther view back from the engine.

Ironically, I need to remove the fuel injection pump so that I can replace a choke valve that is all rusted out and not turning the engine off. I was dreading taking it off just for that because of all the work involved but now I have to take it off to replace this part, so now I am not dreading it. haha. See, the glass IS half full.