How to drive a schoolbus conversion

As a school bus driver in my normal role, it horrifies me that so many people drive school bus conversions without the foggiest idea of what they are doing. Worse than that, most think and believe they know what they are doing despite never having driven a bus before in their entire lives.

I'll start with mirrors. There should be three mirrors per side - minimum. I have seen and driven busses with fewer but it does increase blind spots. These are the mirrors I have on my own personal bus conversion. The top mirror shows me what's in the lane next to the lane beside me and anything coming. This helps avoid accidents from two vehicles trying to merge into the same lane at the same time. It also helps when joining onto a road via a Y junction when approaching traffic is behind and to the left (or right).

The middle mirror is there to show clearly what's in the lane behind the bus, bearing in mind the mirrors will not show what's directly behind you. There is a cone of invisibility that reaches about 200 feet in which cars, trucks and motorbikes can't be seen. A rearview camera supplements mirrors but does not and cannot replace them. Electronics are zero percent reliable in critical situations. 

The bottom mirror shows you what's beside the bus and should show the back wheel and everything up to the driver's window. Seeing the back wheel is very important for cornering. More on that later.

The crossview mirror is there to show primarily anything directly in front of the bus or the bus wheels. It also helps with lane placement. As a professional of 4 years standing, I do use the crossview mirror to check my lane positioning, particularly when I'm passing another big vehicle on the other side of the road. Mirrors colliding produce debris and damage with possible fatal consequences. This is a half mirror. A full elpitical mirror will show the roof line which may be helpful when trying to get under lower bridges.

Heated mirrors are preferable to unheated. My bus was designed without heated mirrors and though I could put a mirror heater timer switch in, it's not something that I will be doing. Motorized mirrors are in my opinion a waste of time unless you have an issue with leaping out of the bus to adjust the mirrors and back in to check them. It's how I adjusted these and it did take some time. For multiple drivers using the same bus, it's essential.

I won't go on about the driver's seat suffice to say air seats are very nice. My work bus has one and I can adjust it in a trice. My own has a manually adjustable seat which took quite some adjusting. In fact I had to use a wrench to lower it to the correct height, proving that for the entire time that bus had been in use, the seat had always been set too high.

The ideal position for a seat and steering wheel is with the legs as straight as possible without straining to touch the top of the steering wheel with your hands. Prolonged driving with poor seat positioning results in sore knees and potential loss of control.

Before going on a trip there's a lot of checking that must be done. I don't mean should be done, out to be done. I do mean must be done. This is not just because these busses are old and things can and do fail at the drop of a hat but for safety sake. It's illegal to drive with defective tires or lights. Simply looking at a tire won't tell you if it's bad.

The first think to do is to get all the lights on and walk around to make sure they're all working. Stop and replace bulbs or fuses for the lights that are not working. Next, check the tires. These can be checked with a billy club or a pressure gauge. The inside tire on the back duals needs to be checked too. If it's flat it will look fine but when you put your hand on it and give it a push, it will feel loose.

Next, check the glass is clean and clear - free of stickers or anything that impedes vision. Check the mirrors for being clean and correctly angled. None of the lights, glass or mirrors must be cracked, broken, missing, chipped or the wrong color.

Check the front hub seals and back axle seals for leaks. Check all the lug nuts for tightness. Loose lug nuts will show shiny metal or will have a rust band.

Before moving the bus, keep the parking brake on, put the bus in gear and depress the accelerator slightly. The bus should not move. If it does, stop as there's a problem with the brakes.

Check underneath for drips of oil, drips of fuel, drips of coolant. Dip the oil, transmission fluid and check the power steering fluid and radiator coolant. Check all belts and hoses for cracks, fraying (leaks on the hoses) and their presence. If you have DEF, check that too.

Roll underneath and check brake lines. Check the steering linkages and the brakes. You might have air brakes or hydraulic brakes. Know which you have a check accordingly. Check the steering - there should be less than an inch of slop in the wheel.

Remember you are driving a 16 ton missile that can kill dozens of people, not just a whoopsie that dents another car and puts you in debt to the insurance company. A bus will ride up on top of a car and crush it underneath. This is why you need to make sure everything is as perfect as possible. You need to be able to prove you did your bit responsibly in order to diminish liability.

For driving, be aware of four things. Weight, height, width and length. Many bridges might have a height or weight limit. If your bus is close to the height limit, be careful as that height limit might not have been remeasured after the road was last resurfaced. Weight limits need no explanation - an overweight vehicle could collapse through the road surface even if it passed over a hundred times before. Remember your vehicle is wide and you need to allow clearance on many roads when approaching other big vehicles. The key is to move over to the curb side as much as possible without hitting the curb or any mailboxes. If in doubt, stop. Length might seem daunting but all it is, is a case of waiting to turn the steering wheel until the back wheel is at the corner (not just before or just after). You will need to borrow from the other lane of the road you are turning into. Do not borrow from the lane beside you. Getting close to the line beside you without getting into the other lane can help a lot.

In normal driving, remember you are driving an old school bus. It will not be the fastest vehicle on the road. It is not a Ferrari nor is it a Mercedes. It is not a Lamborghini either. Your normal driving should be in the outside lane so everybody can pass you safely. Remember schoolbusses are designed to spent 90% of their lives on narrow, rural roads, not on interstates. They are designed to traverse dirt tracks rather than interstates.

It may be possible to raise the speed of your bus to greater than 55mph. Please resist the urge to do so. It is not good for the engine or the transmission, despite what somebody else may have written online. When traversing dirt tracks, keep your speed down to 15mph or less - things can vibrate and fall off or break off. It has happened. In fact the battery door latch broke off when I was doing 10mph on one dirt track.

Remember to leave plenty braking distance and to be alert for idiots overtaking or emerging unexpectedly from side roads. One idiot pulled out in front of my work bus a few days ago. The ABS on the work bus failed when I braked (I've never known ABS not to fail when needed) so I left a 20 foot skidmark but avoided hitting him. I was doing the speed limit. Remember if you have a crash that if you have your ducks all lined up by doing what you should be doing then you're unlikely to be spending time as the jail's latest sex slave.

If you have anger issues then driving a schoolbus might not be for you. Remember to check your mirrors at least every 7 seconds. Definitely check both sides if there is traffic on both sides of you.

Is a bus a full time living solution?

Some people claim it is and that they can do it full time. I'm positive that's what they honestly mean. I'm equally positive that they forget the times when they're sick and have to stay with relatives or friends.

As an example of one time when I was unable to use my bus - I'd pulled a muscle in my leg and couldn't even climb the stairs to get into the bus. It was just far too painful to lift my leg that high. Other times I've been just too sick to want to climb onto my 3' high bed.

A bus bathroom is fine - as long as you can empty the toilet and the waste tanks every few days and as long as you can fill the freshwater tanks every few days. Imagine a debilitating illness like a long bout of the 'flu. That would have you laid up for a week or more with no water in your water tanks, full waste tanks and a fairly unhygeinic bus. With a house that has full time water, electricity and flush toilets as well as a good shower, this is not an issue.

There's the little question of emptying waste tanks, taking on board fresh water, cooking fuel etc. Where exactly do you plan to do all that? I can do this where I'm living because I live on shared land where I can dig a hole to bury the content of my waste tanks.

Where, exactly, do you plan to park that bus of yours overnight or when you're at work? If it's not your own land or land that you've rented then you might come back and find the bus gone - hauled off as abandoned or as trespassing. In a public parking lot it's quite likely that somebody will vandalize it or attempt to break in or even steal your home on wheels.

Busses were only ever built to transport people. Once you start living in them, condensation becomes an issue and condensation causes rust as well as mold. Everything including clothing will hold a degree of moisture as ventilation would have to be extreme in order to keep the interior dry. Every time we exhale, we exhale water vapor.

Back in college a friend rented a tiny little garage. It was dry - no leaks but it was damp from the moisture of cooking and breathing. He bathed outside in order to keep the water vapour outside. Even so, he had to wear all his clothes in turn or they would get moldy.

How do you plan to cope with repairs? You can't carry all the tools you want or need in order to fix every problem. That will lead to the annoying situation where you know how to fix the problem but have to pay somebody else to do a poor job because you can't carry the tools,

What about breakdowns? When you break down, where will you stay while your home is being repaired? Most repairshop yards are not secure and the workers will not keep your bus locked. What happens if you blow a steer tire out in the middle of nowhere? Did you know a single tire can weigh 125lbs? In the unlikely event that you'll have a spare on you, you'll need to jack the bus up and change the tire and put the wheel back on unless you manage to change the tire without taking the wheel off.

It's a big vehicle. What experience do you have of driving big vehicles? How about air brakes? Have you certified in air brake use? Can you diagnose and solve air brake problems? What about an air leak? Can you find and fix it? Do you know how to handle a rear tire blowout? What about a front tire blowout? Can you use the mirrors effectively?

Can you maintain a safe braking distance? Do you know what a safe braking distance is? Do you know how to reverse and that most accidents are reversing accidents? Do you have a partner to help you reverse safely? Do you know how important your partner is for reversing?

I see plenty people removing mirrors because they don't understand their use. It ends up with people driving almost blind.

What about pets and families? Children and animals have plenty accidents. Neither is particularly known for following directions. Pets need plenty space. Dogs need a lot of walking and exercise. Cats need about the same exercise too. In fact I'd be rather worried about the welfare of pets and animals couped up in small spaces. Let's face it, even a 40 foot bus is really something like 36 feet inside and about 6 feet wide so it's a 216 square foot dwelling. That's less than a single floor on most townhouses. In fact that's about the size of most people's lounges.

If you're single and sick, can you cope? What about if you're not single and have dependents and you're sick? Can you cope? What if you're all sick? Can you cope? Now can you cope without family or friends nearby?

Do you have answers for all these points or have you swallowed the baloney, hook, line and sinker that everybody can live in a bus? The truth is it's not a mainstream solution. Most people with bus lifestyles have secrets they don't tell such as:

• family in various places
• parcels of land in various places that they own and can live on
• storage lockers in various places where they store stuff they might need.

My big gripe is that too many people are getting oversold on the idea. They're selling and throwing away their lives, spending tens of thousands of dollars on an instantly depreciating asset. Basically people are setting themselves up for financial ruin.

Busses are depreciating assets. What you spend on the conversion does not make the bus any more valuable. A $10,000 conversion does not make a $2,000 bus into a $12,000 bus. It makes it into a $2,000 bus that you've spent $10,000 on. A $12,000 motorhome will be worth $10,000 in a year's time. A $2000 bus with a $10,000 conversion will be worth $2,000 and no more.

Sure - you can play games with paper, giving it a fancy title such as "motorhome". You're not fooling anybody though. As soon as the insurance company sees it's a schoolbus that's been converted, poof - any claim goes out the window. In the insurance industry it's generally seen as close to being fraudulent. Just leave the title as it is and insure as commercial. That way nobody can say anything. The plate inside the bus says "schoolbus". That's the important legal identification of the vehicle. It doesn't matter what alternative purpose the bus is being used for but if it says "school bus" then that's what it is for insurance purposes.

There's plenty to gripe about with the overselling of the school bus conversion idea. In fact, close to me there's a couple of bus big second hand vehicle yards. Both have coach conversions and bus conversions for sale. They're covered in muck on the outside and have been there for years. I have driven past one yard for two years and the two busses have been there all that time. The other yard I have passed every day for 5 years and those busses have been there all that time. All look to have been professionally converted, not converted by hillbilly amateur conversion companies.

When it comes time to sell a schoolbus conversion, it's best to part it out as much as possible and sell the rest to the scrapyard. Nobody is going to pay you $12,000 for a $2,000 bus or however much you paid somebody to convert it. Smell the coffee people, bus conversions are for a select few - not for every wannabe.

Tidying part 2

I started clearing up the detritus in the cockpit, putting electrical bits with electrical bits, hardware with hardware and tools with tools. I still got rid of another sack load of litter.

After a couple of hours I'd reduced the quantity of stuff in the cockpit considerably. It took a good few more hours to get the floor totally clear. The big problem is I'm moving stuff from place to place and it's not reducing any. I'm definitely going to need a bigger box for electrical bits and a bigger box for tools. Tools, like wheels are something you always need.

Actually, the toolbox idea just isn't really working. I do, however, have some plastic drawers. They might be good for the electrical though since they're not really being used for anything much. One of my problems is I like electronic components. I've only got a hazy idea about electronics from high school so I tend to buy stuff and put it together in the hope that it'll work but it rarely does. I can solder decently though.

It'll take me a few days yet to get everything into order in the bus. 

One of the things I thought of was if I weld steel over the two windows on each side of the back door, I'm going to need something to arrest sparks. Thus I went to cut another piece of fridge or freezer door. The disc in the angle-grinder was mostly used but I was able to make the first two cuts well enough. The third went OK though I had to hold the grinder at a strange angle to be able to complete it. The fourth was when the grinding wheel became so small that cutting was not possible.

I had to hunt out the tool to remove the grinding disc. That, needless to say, was at the bottom of the tool box. So, the next thing was to find the cutting discs. That took a positive age by which time I'd misplaced my safety glasses. I took the disc out to the angle grinder hoping I'd left the safety glasses out there but I had not. I left the new disc with the angle grinder and went and hunted all over the bus for the safety glasses. I found those and put them with the disc and the grinder but realised I'd by now misplaced the tool. I went back to the bus and hunted everywhere, even going through the tool box again with no luck. Then I decided to check where I'd found the cutting discs. Steadying myself as I leaned over by placing my hand on the back of the driver's seat, I found the tool - exactly where I'd left it - perched on the back of the driver's seat.

Returning to the fridge, I finished cutting the steel. I didn't have time to clean the insulation off it - that's a job for another day as is trimming it to the right size to use as a spark arrester. What it's going to do is to slip into place inside the bus to be held in place by my Harbor Freight welding magnets while I weld a sheet into place from the outside that fills the window aperture. Honestly I wish I'd known how to weld before I started the bus project. I'm sure things would have been so much faster and easier still, if there is a next time, I'll know for the next time. One thing's for sure - I know how to build a trailer if I ever want one!

This week I hope to get the bus completely tidied. I still have a few things in the cockpit but mostly stuff centered around small projects. I might be able to get the fuse box into the console and the new rectifier into place lickety split now that I can actually sit on the driver's seat!

Tidying the bus

Today as it was getting harder to get the right tools when I needed them, it was clearly time to start tidying inside the bus. It's looked like a tool volcano had erupted for quite a while. Thus I got down to it.

The first thing to remove was much of the trash. You wouldn't believe how quickly trash builds up from wrappers and boxes and envelopes. Just about everything I buy either comes online in an envelope or box with lots of associated packaging or from a store in a big plastic bubble container. There's absolutely no need for all this plastic packaging. People have sent things from one side of the world to the other, successfully, packed in straw, crumpled paper and cotton for centuries.

After a trashcan full of trash, I got to the tools. A couple that are unlikely to be used again on the bus project I put in the shed. That will likely happen to a few more. When the bus is completed I will only need standard maintenance tools on the bus together with spares such as bulbs and fuses.

Then it was a case of picking up the smaller stuff like sockets and wrenches then dumping them in the tool box. Slowly I'm getting there but it won't be done today. It might be done tomorrow or more likely on my day off on Tuesday.

Looking around I can see all the projects I have on the go:

• The 3rd battery holder. I built the base yesterday. I have to build the rest of it next. For that I might have enough steel angle or I might not. I'll have to measure very carefully.
• The new roof vent. I found my tube of epoxy putty and the new roof vent and put them carefully to one side.
• A fuse box to put in the control console in order to replace the huge array of inline fuses.
• A solidly built bridge rectifier to replace the rectifier I put together for the front solar panel. No great improvement - it just looks prettier.
• Sheet metal to go over the back windows. I'd originally put a sheet of metal on the inside of the bottom door window to prevent somebody entering after kicking out the glass. Now I think it'd be an excellent idea to have sheet metal in place of the window. For that matter I should do all of the back windows. I have no need for windows at the back of the bus! Two are covered by wooden panels and one has a steel panel over it. The fourth window isn't really needed either.

The sheets of metal for the back windows went to the back of the bus. That's a project that is not urgent and unlikely to be completed soon. The current project is the battery holder. That will need more welding. The roof vent again is not a project that's going to be completed soon. That also got stored at the back. As for the fuse box and the bridge rectifier - those are jobs that will take but a few minutes. The reason they have been left is because of the massive tool volcano that had subsumed the driver's seat. Needless to say I'd have to sit on the driver's seat to complete those projects.

During my sorting I found this. It's an old Hyperdrive HD80. It's from my days when I'd had a photography "business". I say "business" because there is no actual business in photography. At best it's a hand to mouth existence that has been largely killed off by digital imaging and cellphone cameras. Anyway, an abusive individual in my past had not actually persuaded me to start this business but more bullied me into it. Needless to say, there never was any actual income - more outgoings on gear. Most of that was lost money. This is one of the last remnants of that nightmare period. So having found that I've put it up for sale on Craigslist. eBay is just not worth the auction fees. Like as not I'll get no takers and will end up tossing it into the trash despite the fact that new it  cost $270. That misadventure cost me about $8,000 and after selling as much as I could of it (some just had no takers and had to be thrown in the trash) I think I got maybe $1,200 back.

A step toward a battery holder

What? Another battery holder? Well, yes. The two house batteries I have are doing an excellent job but in order to run the extraction fans decently I do need to add a 3rd battery. I'd decided this months ago and had tried running the fans directly from solar which had worked very well. I wanted more of an inclusive battery system though, hence the addition of the new battery mount.

I started by doing the usual measuring of a standard U1 battery and then added half an inch to the length and width. As this battery will be mounted in the battery compartment with my driving batteries, I decided to do a slightly different mount from that used in my two battery hangers. I couldn't have the tie down sticking out the side - I needed a piece of flat steel on each side just to protect the batteries next to it.

So, I cut the main pieces. This is a fraction longer than the group 31 batteries used for starting the bus but that's no problem - the battery bay is massive. It's possible to see where the U1 battery is going to go!

Having cut the basics of the battery holder, I added the sides and the anchors for the battery tie down. That was all pretty straightforward. It used up most of my 72 inch piece of steel angle.

By the end of the cutting all I had left was a 3 inch piece. I'd used 69 inches of steel angle. Of course, during construction, one of my tie down anchors needed modification so I modified it. Then the modified anchor fell into the leaves and I couldn't find it even with a magnet! There was only one thing to do - cut another. That took a minute or so with the angle grinder (who on earth uses a saw to cut steel). Then several minutes drilling the anchor hole with a 5/16 drill bit in a Harbor Freight mains power drill set on low speed. In order to save the drill bit from burning out, I used low speed and lubricated the drill site with WD40, reapplying WD40 every minute or so.

Eventually, welding time arrived. I started by using 3/32 6011 rods but they were slow going. Then I found my 7014 1/16 rods and went quite a way with those before deciding to try my 5/64 6013 rods. Well, I laid my best bead ever with the 5/64 rods. The only problem was it didn't adhere properly. That steel is anything but clean! I chipped the 6013 off and went back to my 7014 rods and completed the task thus far.

The next stage will be to put an upright close to the far end on which I can attach a sheet of flat steel through which I can mount the battery kill switch that I've been using for the driving batteries. To that upright I will also add a couple of threaded sleeves. That way in order to get it secured tightly to the battery compartment all I have to do is to tighten the bolts against the existing battery retaining strap. This also allows the next set of group 31 batteries to be a slightly different size. Batteries in the same group are only nominally the same size. I found that out with my U1 batteries.

With luck and a fair wind I should be able to complete this tomorrow!

More steel

Today I got on with cutting more steel. The actual cutting was pretty fast and straightforward. Everything has been cut over-sized. There will be a lot of trimming needed before I can actually use any of the steel I cut. The point was though to grab the steel I need before it all vanishes.

Last night I'd been thinking about the upper window of the back door. It's not really needed, to be honest. In fact I could easily install a much smaller window. That, like the two windows each side of the door, is not an immediate priority. The bottom back window is more of a priority but even that is not as much of a priority as installing the 3rd battery.

So, having cut my two pieces of steel, I set to and removed the chunks of insulation that were on them. As yesterday I vanished in a cloud of insulation dust and my clothes and my drill were covered in white dust. I was glad of my googles though a respirator would have been nice. One day I might get one.

After cutting and cleaning the steel came the painting. The cold galvanizing compound spray gave up spraying before the can was actually empty. This is why largely I prefer paint pots and a paint brush. The second sheet (shown) I started on the left with cold galvanizing compound but that ran out after about 6 inches of spraying. I switched to bumper spray and did another foot or so before that ran out. Then I moved on to white which ran out after a few seconds. Then I pulled out some silver spray that I'd bought in error and used that. That just about did the last foot or so before that finally ran out too. At least I got to use my odd ends of paint. All it has to do is to prevent rust.

The cold galvanizing spray won't burn when I weld so I don't have to worry about it. The white enamel paint on a fridge (the other side) won't burn when I weld either. All other paints seem to burn and catch fire when I weld. That's not great.

I would have cut steel to make the battery holder today but what with taking a truckload of trash to the dump, cutting the steel, cleaning and painting it and making a two piece sheet of aluminium to block a rat hole in the house, I just ran out of day. Mind, cutting and cleaning the steel was pretty exhausting work and my arms are sore from that.

Getting steel

One of my projects is to replace the windows on each side of the back door and the lower window of the back door of the bus with steel. This is purely because they are not actually used for anything. They already have internal panels over them.

As my friend was throwing out an old cooker, I asked if I could have some of the steel sheet that it was made from. As I was given the OK, I cut one of the sides off and found that it was very rusty. That precluded my using it for anything whatsoever since I don't want to have to clean up rust if I don't have to.

Now that cooker has a very interesting history. It was purchased secondhand from a local secondhand appliance dealer. The cooktop was used a little over the year it had been owned by my friend but the oven was used only once because that's when the cooker would give electric shocks to the chef. As the secondhand dealer had a policy of repairing defective appliances only if they are brought into the store, that meant she had a duff cooker that was to all intents and purposes unreturnable and a complete waste of the $100 she spent on it.

Taking the side off revealed a lot of pine straw inside and a lot of rust, heavy at the bottom and lighter at the top. This would lead me to believe it had been left outside with a tarp over it and that it had been outside for quite some time before the secondhand dealer happened across it. I believe I went through two complete Harbor Freight discs cutting that side off! As it was, the steel was unusable.

The cooker door should not have had rust inside it but it did. Thus, it is my theory that cooker had been made of bits of old cookers, was definitely not safe when it was sold and was in fact quite the lemon. It would not surprise me for the "dealer" to have a long and illustrious criminal record.

I am very fortunate in that my friend bought several appliances from that rascal. Some are fridges and because the insulation is glued to the inside of the metal surfaces of a fridge, there was little likelihood of there being any serious rust involved.  I thus decided to use the top freezer door from an upright fridge-freezer as an experiment.

From previous experience, the foam insulation has to be scraped away slowly. Previous experience also showed that cutting thin steel really eats up Harbor Freight cutting disks. So, I started work and cut the steel from the front of the door. Interestingly, I used a Walmart cutting disk and it didn't eat away the disk at all quickly. It seems thus that Walmart cutting disks are better value - pretty much like Walmart angle grinders.

Having cut the steel out, I had to lever it up slowly. It was well stuck to the insulation. Eventually The steel came free but with a very thin film of insulation adhering to it. That took quite a few minutes to remove using an abrasive disk in my battery pistol drill. It also took the complete charge of one Harbor Freight pistol drill battery.

Having cut and cleaned the portion of the freezer door that I need for one of the back windows, it was bare, bright steel. Thus I whipped out a can of Rustoleum cold galvanizing spray and sprayed all the bare steel.

There is more steel available, obviously. I just didn't feel like working on it today. Once I have it cut and painted then I shall have a steel sheets that can be put over both sides and the bottom window. Having said that, I'm wondering whether a smaller back window would be more appropriate. That's easily doable using the steel available.