Latest Development

 I still have and use my bus. I haven't driven it in 5 years. It had new tires probably 3 years ago. I need to do maintainance:

1. A roof leak

2. Complete the brake lines

3. Run the engine and possibly change the fluids.

4. Rework the right wiper mount

5. Remove the upper rear camera that views vertically down. Now I have a camera above the back bumper, it's not needed.

6. Finish putting a solar maintainer on the driving batteries.

I put new batteries on the bus in December. It'snow mid March and I have still not started the engine nor topped the batteries up.

I''m using the bus more as a shed/workshop at the moment. Maybe if my YouTube technology channel takes off then I'll use the bus more. For the moment it's just sitting idle as a storage place/workshop.

Why I don't post much any more...

This blog never gets many viewers. I think the last post was viewed 3 times in the months between that post and this. 

Today I was reading about somebody who was trying to get rid of their bus because their engine gave out. Well, that's to be expected with a poorly maintained old bus. People just don't have a clue when they start just how much is involved with keeping a bus on the road.

Right now on mine, I have still to finish brake lines. I need to change the engine oil and oil filters as well as the transmission fluid and filters. It has been sitting idle for 4 years and needs maintenance. I still need to work on the roof leaks that have appeared. 

Did I make a mistake in buying an old bus? Yes and no. 

I was in a poor place when I bought the bus - just out of a bad situation. I really needed a decent used RV but couldn't afford one. I looked at step vans and to be quite honest, a step van would have been a far better purchase than an old bus - largely because it's already registered as a van, looks like a van and has no windows. It would also have a flat roof. 

I am very much not sold on solar panels as being the answer to anything. I have a few smaller panels and they do what they are supposed to do. That is all. They are obvious to the onlooker and identify the vehicle as a home. Not great for security.

Insurance is a persistent problem. Nobody wants to insure a school bus as an RV because it's an old school bus and not an RV. Sure - people online will claim they can get great insurance etc. I could sit here and write about the flock of pigs I just saw flying past my window too. The fact is people online will claim all kinds of things without any of them being true. My personal experience, based on walking into insurance agents and sitting down with them while they researched their policies is that they do not cover school bus conversions. They will cover the base vehicle for the cost of a replacement base vehicle but not the contents.

Was it a mistake to buy a bus? Probably. I would have been far better off with a van. Mind, I also needed space and time to downsize my possessions - which the bus gave me. A simple long wheelbase van would have worked - something like a long wheelbase Ford Transit. 

I'm seeing people having major problems trying to offload their converted busses. Some scrapyards are charging people to take them off them. I drive regularly past two converted busses in one secondhand dealership that have been there for the 10 years that I have been passing. I see an unconverted bus that has been languishing for 5 years. The local school district just scraps its busses. I see busses lying in fields too.

I'll keep on with mine for the moment but I'm beginning to wish I'd gone a different route.

The reality of owning a bus conversion:

As my bus has been parked since the brake lines burst, I've not done much with it. It has been safely parked. I did get new tyres put on a year or so back but then got injured at work and had to take last summer off.

Recently I set to, cleaning up the interior - it had become a one-size-fits-all storage shed. Many bus projects had been started but not completed too. Now I have a much clearer idea of what I want.

Forget living in the bus in the summer - it's too hot. It doesn't matter what people claim online about being able to do it. It's just not possible unless you're willing to park it under cover and run an industrial air conditioner.

Forget also living in the bus in the winter - it's too cold. It doesn't matter what people claim online about being able to do it (sounds familiar?) Again it's not possible unless you have heat running constantly. 

Neither the summer nor the winters make the 365 day a year bus life idea that so many dreamers have, possible. One caveat - if you drive to spend the summers in Canada and the winters in Florida then you might be able to do it. That's for somebody that's independently wealthy (in which care why are you using a poor-man's RV) or somebody who is retired.

Going to the bus I have discovered... The white paint on the roof is flaking off. Remember how carefully I went over the whole roof first with a series of wire brushes in my angle grinder and then swept the dust off before wiping down thoroughly with paint thinner before finally painting? Did not seem to do any good whatsoever. It looks like peeling paint is a fact of life for old schoolbusses.

The battery is currently flat and I've been unable to install the solar charger because of wasp nests under the bus. 

There are a couple of new leaks - one where I installed a new marker light. That I'm attempting to fix today. The Dynatron caulk used to seal it had cracked. I tried Bondy putty but  that just made a mess and never cured. I've put construction adhesive on and sprayed it with white paint. I'll see if that cures the leak. The other leak is on the other side of the bus. I'll move the bus before dealing with that.

I came to the conclusion that the microwave and the fridge are both utter wastes of space. I'll remove both. The 120V inlet needs to drop down from a 30A inlet to a 20A inlet. Why have to carry strange cords and adapters when a straightforward ordinary household extension cord will do? With the fridge and microwave gone there's precious little that I need 120v for which is really good. Really and truly I only put 120v in because the fridge came with the vehicle and because somebody had made a hole in the floor for the 120v inlet.

Currently I want to use the countertops inside for electronics etc. I will likely replace the OSB with plywood because I have more money now than when I installed them.

The whole vehicle needs a darned good wash. I'll try to get that done. I did notice that some of the paint is coming off my aluminium window covering. That is unwelcome. That was a special paint and primer spray so clearly it does not matter what kind of paint goes on, it's likely to come off. It looks like a fairly frequent maintenance item. Having said that, the paint is coming off my car too - I didn't paint my car - the factory did.

I acknowledge that when I started with this bus conversion I made an error. I had wanted a step van but they were all sold out when I looked. The bus has been more of a pain in the neck because of all the annoying windows it has. 

Looking back on the effort I have put into this bus, I don't think any of it was worthwhile. Sure - I have a very workable RV but at the end of the day so far I have used it for just one single trip in the 9 years I have owned it. That's 9 years of vehicle tax, 9 years of insurance, an expensive servicing session and some expensive batteries.

When I started, I had no money. I would have been better holding on and looking for a big van like the step van I had looked at initially. That would have given me space and privacy. I discovered I don't need any of the 120v toys that the glampers like. 

I have to say that it has been a fun project. Whether I will get more use out of it, I do not know. The flat batteries are just another problem it has thrown at me as are the leaks and the peeling paint. It's not something I'd feel worth selling as I'd get likely only pennies on the dollar and the next owner would just want to rip everything out and start again anyway because the next owner would likely have been seduced by the glampers on Facebook etc.

I see the arguments for and against using vehicles as accommodation. On the whole the againsts are stronger than the fors. I always saw that. For me, the bus represents emergency accommodation - something I could flee out of a bad situation in. It also represents something I can move onto land and live in while I build a cabin or whatever. It never was an end goal in itself. It was always a step on the road.

Many people talk about "boondocking" which is a fancy word for "trespassing" or "squatting".  That comes together with evictions, fines, police action and returning to find your "home" has been towed away and or scrapped as well - with all your stuff either in it or dumped out on the ground where your vehicle used to be.

While many people might get away with abusing the goodwill of businesses by squatting overnight in their parking lots, it's really no different from somebody arriving uninvited to set up a tent on your lawn, promising to be gone by morning.

Would I do this again? Well, given the circumstances I was in when I started, yes I probably would but circumstances were pretty dire then. I was living in rented accommodation. I was paying rent and buying food. My job had ended when the company had folded. My unemployment had run out 6 months before I got a part time job that didn't pay the rent or anything much. I was having to fund my life from my savings. I did that for a couple of years. Now i'm in a better situation (but not much better). Had I not spent the money on the bus and not spent the money converting it, I'd probably have about $20,000 more, in the bank. If I sold the bus - who knows how much I'd get because I'd be absolutely honest about it. It's a good vehicle. The paint will keep needing attention. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter how well you insulate a vehicle, you're always going to be paying out the nose for heating or cooling. Solar just won't cut it.

I remember my dad telling me 5 years ago that  the bus was a millstone around my neck. He was right. I didn't want to see it like that. It was a case of I'd been putting all the effort into it to make it good - blood, sweat, tears and money. Selling it was his recommendation. That's probably what I should have done in hindsight and before I got too financially involved in it. I'd have been probably better buying a real RV - even an elderly one - that would have been used more.

Right now I'm working on the bits that need working on. I found the roof leak. It seems that the Dynatron caulk has cracked. It's supposed to be a seam sealant. When is it actually going to seal something? I'll have to get up there with my wire brush, brush it all out, treat the rust, reseal and repaint. The paint is cracking pretty thoroughly and when I scrape the flaked white paint up, the primer seems just to have vanished yet here it was (May 15, 2021 or 2 years ago) https://schoolbushome.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-roof-is-primed.html. The way the primer layer has just vanished is bizarre.

Yes, I'm feeling a tad jaded by this constant maintenance and the fact that a bus conversion really isn't much different from any other kind of camper. The nutjobs all like to go on about how to fiddle insurance to get coverage in a fraudulent manner. They also like to go on about how you need this, that and the other. Nobody ever posts the truth about bus conversions. All you see is the glitz and glamour. 

There are even more nutjobs that will hate me for posting the truth or accuse me of various things because my views do not align with their rose-tinted view of the world. Well, I don't care. 

Strange springy looking things

After being injured at work on May 3rd I was pretty much out of action until I was finally cleared by the doctor to return to work around the end of July. Straight after that I caught Covid and spent a not very fun two weeks sick with Covid. My symptoms were far lighter than my partner's she spent 5 days in bed not eating and not doing anything. I at least managed to get out of bed and though I did nothing much I was up and about for the first (worst) three days. After that I slowly improved. I had a total lack of taste and smell which was very disconcerting. I knew my sense of smell was going when I smelled freshly baked bread in the middle of the night when nobody was cooking. I don't feel even now that I am fully recovered. I got past the majority of the symptoms in about 2 weeks. The lack of sense of taste and smell lingered for a few more weeks.

Following Covid (I knew I was sick but tested negative for the first two days before positive on the 3rd) my immune system has taken a beating. I came down with an ear infection that for a while robbed me of my sense of hearing. That responded to antibiotics but isn't right even now. The doctor I saw the other day says he's seeing a lot of bacterial infections laced with viral components. 

I feel that the Chinese enforced mask mandates and enforced quarantine is quite likely because they know more about this virus than anybody else; almost as though they engineered it. The refusal to wear masks in the West seems silly given that Covid keeps attacking and weakening people then a raft of strange new infections that most people never go down with are becoming widespread. The two are linked in my opinion. It's as though Covid was the primer for all kinds of other infections and repeated Covid infections weaken the immune system further and further until finally the common cold will finish people off.

But sickness aside. I bought these springs the other day on eBay. A massive $10 expenditure which is about the price of a Big Mac these days. They're intended for use with brake lines. It seems that a coil spring such as these wrapped around the brake line will allow the brake line to be bent without kinking. I have yet to try them. They arrived last week.

This is another of my ideas. This is just something I'm playing with right now. I went to the dollar store and bought a sheet of white card, a circular brush and some magnets. I'm thinking of using a hole saw on some steel in that kind of pattern to make a security screen over the outsides of my uncovered windows. It'll have the effect of looking even more like a prison bus. The plan is a small gap above and below the security grille so I can slide a bottle brush in to keep the windows clean. A lot of maths went into the placement of those black circles. The plan is to make every window secure. This will have the advantage that I won't have to keep the blinds down in order people can't see in. It will reduce light but not as much as keeping the blinds down does.

The first priority will be to replace the back brake lines and to clean the back brake pistons. After that, the right wiper mount. Other than that there are minor projects that can be done anywhere at any time. The tyres were done last December and the bus has not moved since - and that's 100% due to my work injury putting me out of action followed by repeated infections starting with Covid.

Meanwhile I found Progressive has a nasty clause in their policy that limits me to 100 miles radius of my home address. That's fine - I will switch from cheap-arse Progressive as soon as I want to travel. I much prefer State Farm's policy even though it does cost double.

 

Letter to Karen

 Dear Karen,

Your idea of building a fantastic bus conversion with a built-in washing machine, clothes dryer, shower with 100 gallon water tanks, fridge, freezer, electric cook top, microwave and oven to live in permanently is utterly devoid of any sense of reality.

Let's take this apart one little bit at a time:

• Washing machine. This will use a horrible amount of water. At least 19 gallons per load. That means you will need to be plumbed in to a water supply. Sure - you can carry 100 gallons but that means also you'll need 100 gallon tanks for waste water.
• Clothes dryer, fridge, freezer, electric cook top, microwave, oven. Just how are you going to power them? If you went full solar you're talking about $3,000 of solar panels plus probably $2,000 of batteries or even more if they're lithium. That's $5,000 that could be put to other uses.
• Shower - unless you're into 3 gallon or less showering, the average shower uses 50 gallons a day. That's half of your 100 gallons. Two days and you're out. That's not very much is it?

Where are you going to park your bus conversion, Karen? I hear you say "boondocking". Where would that be? Are there any signs up anywhere saying "boondock here"? You do know that every scrap of land belongs to somebody? Then there are local bylaws and HOA rules where RVs are not allowed even on your own property. That means paying rent to park it, Karen. Not very boondocking is it? 

Oh, Karen, I forgot, yes - you can probably park it behind an abandoned filling station on Route 66 - until somebody sees you. Then it's (take your pick):

• A robbery and possibly a murder with or without rape from passing lowlifes.
• An unpleasant encounter with meth-heads or worse that live in the abandoned filling station.
• A policeman turns up in the middle of the night and tickets you - in your nightie - for illegal camping.
• The property owner turns up with a bulldozer and bulldozes your abandoned vehicle off his property or has it hauled to the junkyard by a wrecker.

So, Karen, where do you plan to park your bus conversion? Will you be squatting on government land? Yes - squatting - that's what "boondockers" are. Boondockers are squatters and while squatter's rights are a thing on paper they don't mean anything in the real world. Let me tell you, Karen, how it is in the real world....

In the real world people have guns and are very happy to use them. No court will ever convict a landowner who shot a trespasser when the explanation is that the trespasser threatened to kill them. There are no living witnesses. So, Karen, how do you plan to squat?

The next thing, Karen, are you going to spout on about getting full insurance for your dodgy conversion? Yes - you hired "professionals" many of whom will be unlicensed contractors but I hate to break it to you - no insurance company will ever insure your conversion as an RV despite what you read online. There are two reasons for this. First - the "RV" is still a schoolbus no matter how much you try to disguise the fact and hence not a purpose built RV. Second - the construction and planning was all done with no oversight by any professional body.

As for value. How much is your conversion worth? Is it worth the $5,000 you paid for the bus? Is it worth the $100,000 you spent to "convert" it? Is it worth more? Well, it's actually a $5,000 bus that you spent $105,000 on. That's all it'll ever be worth. No matter how much you spend on a $5,000 bus it'll only ever be a $5,000 bus.

So, Karen, time to get off your high horse and time to stop believing the garbage you see written on Facebook. You do know that the people that post the most and spend the most time on Facebook are the people that don't have jobs, real lives, money or the bus conversions they claim to own? Yes, Karen, that does include you!

Grow up, Karen!

The bus owner.

Why the long gap in posts?

 On May 3rd I had a work accident that has had me laid up ever since. Nothing permanent, thank goodness, but it does mean that I am off work for the moment and have been for a while. Without going into further details nothing more is likely to be done on the bus for a while.

Meanwhile I have been working on other projects including some computer programming and electronics as those are light things that won't involve carrying anything heavier than my small laptop.

I had been planning a summer trip. There's really not much remaining to be done on the bus. The essential is the back brake line. There's reworking the right wiper mount but that's it. The tyres are new but have not been used since installed in December. I've not driven an inch. I last bled the brakes in April so I should be able to move the bus a bit. Now that I've healed some, I can probably do that.

I bought the bits to add second solar inputs beside the two existing solar inputs on the side of the bus but in the meantime have redeployed the 15w panel elsewhere. I have the two 20W panels as one unit and three 10W panels as one unit. I have a further two 10w panels as one unit. The two 30w panels are not one unit. If they were all put on at the same time then I could probably do it using just one splitter. The ideal would be to add the second solar inputs.

So, I have two tasks that should be done. I have several tasks that it would be nice to do. Other than that the bus does appear to be completed for the moment. The seam sealing seems to have worked although I have not driven the bus since so I don't know what will shift when I'm driving. The white outside is now getting pretty grey so it does need a wash. The white paint has come off in a few small areas but the plan is to sand and spray where it does come off.

The plan for bars over the windows still exists.

My suspicions were correct.

A while ago I bought a couple of packs of red and amber LED side markers. I was going to use them but had second thoughts based upon the lousy reliability of LED anything. Thus far my experience of LED lighting has been utterly dismal. To recap my experiences...

Out of a dozen or so LED household bulbs from many different suppliers and manufacturers one one is still in service. Just one. That's utterly terrible reliability from bulbs whose manufactuers slap such unbelievable and farcical claims as "lasts 15,000 hours" on the packets. 

Inside the bus I had LED lighting running 12v LEDs. Those would last maybe 10 - 12 hours before they burned out and blew the fuse as they went out. That got exensive fast. Not only was I having to replace a bulb but also a fuse. The bulbs weren't cheap either. In the end I fixed that by replacing all my lighting units with units that were rated for halogen bulbs and installed halogen bulbs. Problem solved. Subsequently I tried some LED bulbs with a BA12 mount (same as the turn signal and brake light bulbs) and found they made the light units as hot as the halogen bulbs. No saving there! Needless to say I can get halogen bulbs cheaply and easily. The LED things are just horribly expensive. 

Being of suspicious mind, after deciding against using the LED sidelights and deciding to go back with identical incandescent sidelights I thought I'd test these "wonderful" LED "miracles". One was wired in the back yard to a solar panel so that it had power for 12 hours a day. 

The LED remained lit for 60 days but was not illuminated at night as the sun, curiously, doesn't shine at night. Thus it was lit for approximately 720 hours. That is a far cry from the thousands of hours it's supposed to remain lit! In driving terms, as I drive with the lights on for safety, that's 720 hours of driving or at an average of 40mph that's just 28,800 miles. Not very long and not very worthwhile, particularly on commercial vehicles. A school bus I drove one year covered 240 miles a day. That's less than a school year. 

Looking at the side of the LED it's possible to see a small circular heat mark beside the resistor. No wonder the thing went out. As the LED was now pure junk I dismantled it for investigation.

One of the LEDs turned out to be totally dead. The other surprised me. Putting current through it directly it turned red. Putting current through the resistor it turned amber. The other LED did not work at all. I would have put photographs of the changing colors but the LED fried itself before I had the opportunity to take a photograph.

The board is marked 7986 and LM10884. A google search came up with an out-of-stock product (imagine that!). 

The only place I am using these lights is as a stairwell light. There, it will be on for a few minutes at a time so 720 hours should last a good few years. On the stairwell I have one and it's red. It gives enough illumination to see the stairs on the blackest night but doesn't produce enough light to be really visible and won't destroy night vision. 

Having investigated that light, it's now in the household rubbish, waiting to go to the dump. The other LED lights left over are just stored in a box, awaiting a good idea. They will not, of course, be used on anything as mission critical as vehicle lighting. Incandescent bulbs just last longer. As an example of that, on my car which I have had for the past 16 years, I have had to replace two headlamp bulbs and three number plate lights. The third brake light desperately needs replacing but it's one of those ridiculous LED things and they quit making them. There is apparently a halogen replacement but I have yet to find that myth as a reality.

So, the takeaway from this is that I was dead right to be skeptical. It will be a dark day in Hell if they quit making incandescent bulbs.