Batteries , batteries everywhere and not a light to be seen.

Moving the battery box for the engine batteries turned out to be a longer process than at first planned . I was agonising about do I remake the box or alter the existing. The box needed to be repositioned and made 25mm wider , what am I going to do , which is the quickest path?

A customer came in and wanted something machined , I was on holiday and I told him to go away. " Can I pay you to do it for me" , "No bugger off I am on holidays". In the end he played my game , you know say little , look helpless and ask lots of pleading questions. I took his timber and started to machine it . He asked" what will it cost ", the reply shocked him." Nothing , just go away when it is finished and don't come back until I return to work". We then had a philosophical discussion about how you can help people out without wanting anything in return.

Battery box.....that was the subject , here is the altered box in the new position.

Looks great don't you think. The existing leads reached without alteration , this box is more solid than the original. I have sprayed with zinc oxide ( red oxide )but will need the repaint with the colour to match the chassis of the bus.

The bin for the house batteries now needs to be fitted , as it will have four batteries approx 540 x 220 x 250 high it needs to be quite solid.

There is no doubt this bin is really strong. I have developed a method of making these bins that is quite simple and effective . I will fit a shelf to carry two batteries above the other two , they are Gell Matt batteries so do not need to have water levels checked.

One thing I have learned about renovating buses.....DO NOT TAKE THE EASY ROAD...It will come back and bite you if you do. A saying in industry in Australia is " Do it once and do it well". This is possibly why we have trouble in this country competing with imports , a lot of them are inferior products albeit they are usually a lot cheaper.

Tomorror I am going to move in front of the back wheels and make a bin for the generator. 6.5KVAHonda , remote start and very quiet. I have purchased an industrial fan , 240 volt and if the Generator runs so does the fan , that should help to keep it cool. Anyway wait until the next post to see. The generator pulls out on a slide and swivels around so you can get to both sides.

See you later.....Sich

Just when I thought the end was in sight.

I took the bus or is it now a mobile home out and turned it around . It was at this point I said to myself " Pooh there is a long way from here to the end" . The right hand side has a battery box to moved , a house battery box to made . a generator cabinet to be made , a grey water tank to be fitted and a fuel tank cover panel to be made.

I am on three weeks holidays now and have a chance to make major progress , four days have passed and I have worked about 70% of one day on the bus. Today was Sunday and I went shooting parrots... what a joke my tally was I shot a tree ( on purpose of course). I wanted to see the damage by a 12G shotgun at three metres , yep keep at the rear of the gun always.

All the parrots were flying out of range until... my mate and I were going through a fence so...unload the guns . break the barrels and open the wire by standing on the lower strands . My friend took the opportunity to loosen his belt to pull his trousers up higher and yes you guessed it. A group of about 20 birds came and buzzed us at about 3 to 4 metres, no time to load and shoot , just curse. The funny thing is that I pictured it happening before it actually happened...sometimes I wonder if thinking about things causes it to happen.

I carried about 200 shells in my shooting jacket pockets for about three hours to just fire about five shots , one of those at a tree, I showed the tree I did.

Anyway I have framed up the heater cabinet door and the fire escape door.

The hinge side is at the front of the door towards the front , in case they ever come open the tendancy will be to blow closed in the wind.

The frames are both fitted , I will sheet them later when I sheet the bottom section of the sides. Fitting the door frames meant I had to weld 6mm metal in to the tubing and then tap holes for the hinge screws. ( Very tedious I can assure you).

I then needed to remove the old battery box and alter it.

The battery box is to go in front of the air cleaner and before the upright. The square opening will house the house batteries 800 Amp Hours at 12 volts. It took a day to alter the battery box , will take a few hours to refix it then a day to make the house battery box behind the wheel or actually the mud guard. This is enough for now , the next photos will show these items completed.

Happy christmas to all ... Sich.

More sikaflex and more black gunk everywhere.

Did I mention that sikaflex has to be the messiest and most invasive product on the market....but boy is is good. Nowdays everybody claims their product does this and does that but many do not ever deliver what they profess to deliver...Sikaflex does.

The sheeting of the bus in Aluminium is a slow process that must be done the same way each time otherwise you will get a different result.

Here is the part fiished result , I sure am happy with the finish . My frind and i have decided that we are quite anal ,but then again that is why we get such a good result. I am dying to know what the finished bus will look like and what it will be worth...plenty I would imagine. Being a cabinet maker the interior and exterior finish will be quite exceptional. I intend to have the painting done by a painter who is a custom truck painter..I think he will be as fussy as I am.. hope so anyway.

You will note that there are not many windows....rear one on LHS has yet to go in, this is what separates a bus conversion from a mobile home .

Anyway enough for now... Sich talk to you later.

More bussing and more to come.

Every day that I work on our bus I realise that the most important thing I am learning is not the skills required but patience. You can try to hurry but that will get you nowhere. Every thing you do takes a certain amount of time and that time you must give the project.





Moving the door required making curved sides of the door to match the frame. One side took about two hours of hammering ,bending and heating , the other side ( the second one) took about 10 minutes . Luckily it happened that way round otherwise I would have been devastated.

This curved door tested me to the limit but the end result is better than I had hoped for. Success is a better drug than anything I think...the euphoric feeling is great. The door took all in all about three weeks of part time work but the end result......fantastic.

I wonder sometimes what sort of idiot purchases a bus for $40000.00 then sets about pulling it apart without prior experience.......an adventurous one I would think. Now I have moved the door I think it was well and truly worth it. A recently deceased friend worried about the project but just before he died he said " yep it is going to be good... " from him that was a good omen. Sadly he will not see the finished project unless there is an after life and who says there is not.

I do not care when I die....preferrably later rather than sooner but the one thing I do not want to die of is boredom. I see people ready to retire who have no plans or dreams.....how sad. I went out to tea the other night with four of my wifes friends and their husbands and we talked about retirement. One had golf ( how much can you play?) , one drove a truck and thought of nothing else , one had sold steel for a company all his life and one never said what he had planned ( could not really say what he had planned ). I don't think that I really fitted in.

After this bus is completed and I have used it I am going to converta 4WD truck to an offroad camper then go and see parts of this beautiful country that most people never see .

Enough for now.. see you later.......Sich.

Cladding the sides seemed so easy in planning.

Yep that's how easy it was going to be ....... just stick the sheets to the metal framing with sikaflex. Anyone who has ever worked with Sikaflex will empathise with me at this point.

I am using Sikaflex 252 a black sticky adhesive which has the ability to get on everything it touches ,even gets on things that it does not touch. What an adhesive though.. it sticks like the proverbial sh.t to a blanket. I am told if your joint is 3mm thick it will distort at least 6mm to the side before failure...I believe it.

I use sheets approx 3ooo mm by 1500mm , 2mm thick for the top section of my bus. The bottom section is approx 3000mm by 1000mm but is 3mm thick. I hope to minimise damage should a minor accident occur. The correct adhesion is directly proportional to the preparation of the surfaces........read the instructions and FOLLOW THEM TO THE LETTER.

At this point the windows have yet to be cut in , this is done by using a nibbler and following the frame.

Today we finished our first bus fit out and the client took delivery.. it looked great . Later I will post some photos for you to look at.

You will notice I have left all the bottom sheets until last... anyway enough for now.. I will post more later.

Regards....sich.

Fitting water and fuel tanks.

Fitting water and fuel tanks is far easier when the sides are not on your bus. When we fitted the fuel tank , was 200 litre and changed for a 400 litre aluminium tank , a blow was that the sender mechanism for the volvo tank ( new ) did not work the dashboard gauge. To the rescue comes my friend , one of the most resourceful people I have ever met. He encourages you to do what you would previously consider impossible , or too involved to do.. a great motivator.

The new tank having been fitted had to have the sender unit from the old tank modified ( the float arm lengthened ) and then fitted to the new tank . This involved drilling a hole in the top of the new tank. ( How do I keep swarf out of the tank? ) This turned out to be a non event.. as many problems I ponder over do. My main problem was that I drilled te new hole over an internal baffle... poo ! Oh well... cap the hole and drill another one..no problem. Does the gauge work , like a new one.

Fitting water tanks was a major event , you must put in the amount of storage you want and then need to fit int in to the chassis. The weight must go where you want it and you must be able to remove the tanks for maintenance if you need to. I put then between the chassis rails over the front wheels.

This is where I put them , in line and so the water would flow from one to the other. My front tank is to be my reserve , 80 litres when everything else is empty.

Earlier I mentioned our first bus that we sold.. would never look good. Here are the photos of the converted bus after the purchaser finished with it, as I said it would always look like an old bus....good call on my behalf I think.

You can see I was right.. looks great but is still an old bus..I just think sometimes that I am too anal but I am fussy about what I do.

Enough for now....will add more soon......Sich.

Many hours and ideas ago.

Now that we have converted the school bus bullnose ( very square and angular ) in to a more rounded and sleek look we can continue with the resheeting in aluminium. I want people to look and turn their heads when they see our new home....always trying to impress. Most people are lucky to build a patio table or similar innane items , I and my friends however take on quite adventurous projects.

The back window was removed and a fibreglass panel was made to fill in the hole. This as you can see turned out quite well. A recessed section was created at the top for the rear turn/stop/brake lights and the centre recess was for the reversing camera . The gaps etc were filler with body filler and sanded off....what a fiddly job.

The outside sheeting has been removed and the frames have been made for the windows. One of life,s mysteries is " why didnt I try one of my windows in the holes made , I had them there". Somewhere I read that the manufacturers allow for the required gaps.. just leave holes the size of the windows ordered . Now I have windows that are to say the least very tight .

I had decided to use the front left hand door for my entry when one of my dearest friends said to me that the difference between a motorhome and a converted bus is that people do not move the door. As she left my yard I was cutting in the new door . This meant a curved door and cutting down one of the bins under the bus.. the end result is awesome.. a must.

As you can see the door was no mean feat..but it works a treat.

Enough for now I will return with new pictures later....sich.

Who wants to convert a bus in to a motorhome?

The idea to convert a bus in to a motorhome started many years ago and came to fruition about three years ago....about 2005. We purchsed a Hino bus with about 500K Klms on the clock and stripped the interior.

Then it happened we realised that an old bus would still be an old bus. We had paid $10,000 for it and decided to sell it, we sold it for $19000. There is always a buyer for everything at the price you want... you just have to connect the two people. You the seller and of course the buyer, they are there you just have to wait to find them.

2007 We found and purchased a Mercedes bus, rear motor and a school bus. School buses are heavily regulated in Western Australia requiring regular maintenance and inspections. Our bus has 545000Klms on the clock which for a bus is not much, we also knew the owner and his maintenance record. I think if he saw it now he would not recognise it.

This bus was more modern than our first and in immaculate condition. We picked it up and brought it home,

Our first adventure was to take all our friends on a picnic to local towns for the day..this was a hoot and everyone wished we had done some more trips.

Our dream had begun to materialise..we paid $40.000 for this bus hence the more modern look.

There was one undeniable fact ... the orange had to go.

A very interesting phenomena occurred , everyone asks the same question...." bet you can't wait to go around Australia ". What a crock of....!%* . What about the massive enjoyment of converting this orange beast in to your dream mobile home.

People asked me what about the first Hino and I say to all " I have gone around Australia three or four times in my head, that is half the fun."

Firstly we needed to have a plan..a drawn plan showing where we were going to place the toilet , kitchen, bedroom etc. Much research needed to take place before we went too far ahead.

We decided that rivets just did not cut the mustard so we intended to strip the sheeting from the outside and replace with aluminium sheeting which is glued on. Windows were removed and we started stripping..what a job. We decided to remove the school bus front and make a fibreglass bullnose that gave a more modern look. ( Here I am cutting the old front off ).




We used the old bullnose to help make a Plug , to make a mould and then this mould was used to make the new front bullnose ... hard work but very rewarding.

I will be continuing to update this blog with the progress of our bus . We are in Western Australia, Perth in fact and happy to help anyone contemplating a project like this ,.

Talk to you soon......all the best...sich.