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.