I bought a thomas school bus that I hope to convert.
Been looking for one for a while. Had one pop up 60 miles away.
31' flat nose with handicamp lift I can use to load klr 650 from a side door.
Less than 20k miles since rebuilt c7 cat motor and Allison 2000 transmission.
79" interior roof heighth.
has a short enough wheelbase it can be turned around in a 2 lane road.
drove it home. cruises at 65 with no problems.
starting to make my list for stuff I need to do and get. salvaging a bunch of stuff from a delaminating rv I acquired. so, onan generator, rv fridge, furnace. roof ac. hot water heater. tanks. inverter. some windows. ladder. etc,
It will be a multi-use item. a replacement for the living room couch when the gf gets pissed. a guest room. a mobile cabin for getting away. and a domicile if gf or I really get pissed.
Been reading up on the composting toilets. most of the youtube conversion videos I have run across use them. the good ones are about $1k, but no black tank required.
So I thought I would tap the vital brain trust and see what it had to offer on those or any other feedback on this project.
fire away
Have seen pics of some amazing woodwork builds on them.
one negative is lots of RV parks will not let scoolies in.
I used to live on a little dirtbag compound, there was an immobile schooley on the property we used as kind of auxiliary housing when needed, it wasn't fancy but it was fun to stay in a scool bus and dry.
I've looked into composting toilets for reasons but it seems like a ton of work for very compromised usability. Most people use a separate piss jug to keep the wastes seperate.
Keeping liquids and solids separate looks to be what makes a difference, and that is what puts the more expensive units on top.
Since I expect it will be mostly just me i might build or find a small urinal to make keeping them separate a little easier.
Don't know how much being excluded from rv parks matters to me. For what they charge I can run a generator.
I will probably check into a battery bank that can be charged by the generator and/or the bus alternator and run stuff off an inverter while they are charged. Later I might add some solar panels, but mounting them looks difficult and hopefully by the time I am looking to park without a power hookup for longer periods the cost will come down.
I like the more solid construction of the buses and hope it will hold up better for what I want to use it to do.
i have seen a lot of issues with fiberglass delaminating and on other units exterior metal leaking.
While that is not as much of an issue with the buses, there are a lot of issues with heat transfer and interior condensation from all the metal. Researching ways to insulate to help with that. Probably an inch of Styrofoam on the floor, and at least an inch if spray insulation in the walls and ceiling.
Anybody have experience with spray insulation?
Planning to eliminate the bus windows too.
Will remove them, cover with 18 gauge sheeting, frame the gap and install some regular rv windows.
The Shop
Have you looked at incinerating toilets? Might be an option.
What a fun project, post pics !
Partridge family
Joe, this place has anything and everything you could need to do an RV build/conversion:
https://bontragers.com/
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