Ball Family Bus

adventures in converting a school bus to an RV

one photo

I liked the way this turned out…

out for a ride

In celebration of her upcoming birthday, Macy had a friend come over to spend the night. This morning they wanted a ride in the bus.  I took them a little way up the road - about a three mile round trip.  Here are some blackberry photos from the trip…

a brief outing

I took the bus into town Saturday to the gas station where I filled up the gas cans that I use for the lawn mower. It’s nice to have the cargo bay for smelly gas cans rather than the car trunk. It was fun to drive it a little - I felt [...]

Floor plans in tape

Last night, Keegan and I taped out the interior design on the floor of the bus. This helps get a feel for size and placement in the real world. The different floor levels still make it a little challenging to visualize, but this has been a very useful exercise.

A couple of [...]

Full dumpster, empty bus

Yesterday, the kids and I got the dumpster loaded. I was thinking we’d have some extra space but it’s completely full.

I removed the rear heater finally. It made a mess but I caught most of the coolant from it in a tub. The area under the floor there is the most rusted [...]

Dumpster time

This week we had a 10 yard dumpster brought out to haul away the bits I’ve removed from the bus.

I started putting some stuff into it last night and will finish loading it up on Saturday I hope.
I am keeping some of the more choice metal for future use, but the piles in the yard [...]

Working on side wall panels

Last night I got all but one of the wall panels and insulation below the windows on the right side out.

Update: tonight I removed the remaining right side panel and the front half (in front of the emergency exit) of the panels from the left side.

Ceiling all out!

The entire ceiling is now out along with the inner skin over the windshield and rear window. It looks really bare over the driver’s seat now. I’m going to miss the huge bus driver mirror. It was fun to scowl at the kids in while driving…

I also removed one small [...]

Taking out ceiling

Tonight I finally got serious about drilling out ceiling rivets. I removed four of the ceiling panels and insulation.

Once you get the hang of it, the rivets go pretty fast.
I am removing the ceiling so that I can add in much better insulation (both thermal and acoustic) than the little fiberglass that is [...]

Almost all out

Tonight I removed the rest of the floor except for under the driver’s seat and the rear heater. I uncovered more spots of rust, rotting plywood, and places where there was moisture present but not too much.

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