I Bought a Bus, Part III: This Time It's Personal

I bought a bus in November 2015 and have been working on converting it into an RV. Here's the next chapter in my tale.

Has is been long enough since my last post? Find them here:
Part I http://imgur.com/gallery/KZR7NeV
Part II http://imgur.com/gallery/LWE8x

The bus sat for a while. I originally didn't make the deadline I had set for myself, so the project sorta went on the back burner for a long time. Many months, in fact.

Since the end of Part II, I've finished removing all the nasty ass plywood from the floor. I had also mentioned these god forsaken rails and that I didn't know how to get them off.

These rails held on the seat belts for handicap students on the bus.

I ended up chiseling out as much wood from the sides of them as possible,

then sliding the cutoff wheel on the grinder in between the rail and the wood.

Gotta enjoy the nice days.

Here I'm peeling off the lettering. Gotta take every chance you can get to be a fucking dork.

Here I was wire brushing the rusty spots off the metal deck. You can see the top two panels are done in comparison to the bottom one which isn't.

Safety first with wire wheels :) I still have a scar from this.

A few months went by before I did anything else. The next few pictures are recent.

The next step was to seal all the holes in the floor and around the periphery of the walls. I used scrap metal to patch some holes.

I used an industrial strength sealant to make sure water wouldn't be an issue.

Rustoleum rust inhibitor overtop of everything. Very clean look to it

This is the beginning of the build-in. Laying down plastic sheeting to act as a vapor barrier.

I used 1x2" furring strips to line each wall. The strips are secured through the floor with self tapping deck screws, the holes of which I loaded with construction adhesive to try to maintain a good seal.

One side of furring strips done

Here the floor is ready for insulation. The studs in the middle are also secured through the floor.

I'm using what's called a floating floor, which means that the plywood on top of the insulation won't actually be secured through the steel deck. Rather, it will only be screwed to the furring strips on the sides and the studs in the middle. This allows for better expansion and contraction due to temperature changes, and minimizes the number of holes I have to put in the steel deck.

Insulation going in.

Insulation in

Getting the first plywood board down with the help of my friends. Rep the naysh.

Here you can see I added some extra studs between the middle of the bus and the outer furring strips. These were only held in place by the insulation. They weren't screwed to the steel deck and the plywood wasn't screwed to them. This gives me a little more hard support points to take the full weight of the furniture and people, but still allows for some slippage when the wood expands and contracts.

Insulation and 99% of subflooring done! Now it's getting really exciting.

Bonus bus puppy (old photo)

Some of my friends and I have decided to take the bus to Firefly music festival this year, so I'm in turbo mode to get this fuckin project done. I'm very excited. The more work on it I do, the more I want to keep working on it.

Next is to establish a floor plan and start building some protofurniture. Stay tuned for more updates.