Skoolie Conversion Diary – Weeks 1 and 2 – Demo

As of today 10/24/2020, we’ve had the bus home for 2 weeks.

So far, we have removed the subfloor the previous owner started on (thankfully the seats were already out), removed the heater and AC units, ground out the wheelchair rails, removed the ceiling and wall panels and insulation, and have started to remove the driver’s seat to allow us to rust treat the entire floor.

After sitting at a desk for 15 years (Ash), I have loved working on something that is so physically demanding. Besides the occasional bout of fitness obsession or playing softball, I haven’t had much need for physical exertion. I didn’t know that my hands could be this sore, but I’ve loved (almost) every minute of it.

I’m sure there will be a time when I’ll dread going to the bus for yet another project we are working on, but 2 weeks in, I can’t wait to head to the bus every day after work.

Lessons Learned

Lesson #1 – Almost everything will take 3 times as long as you think

I think most people, just like we did, underestimate the time it takes to do things until you are in the thick of it.

When we were researching in the skoolie Facebook groups, stalking our fave bus Instagram pages, and watching Youtube videos (btw…go subscribe to our Youtube channel) you don’t realize the hours that it takes to get through some of these things. We’ve seen tons of skoolie people posting about how their builds took them 2 years and we wondered why. “It shouldn’t take us that long…right?”

We assumed that they just didn’t have that much time to dedicate to the build. But now, 2 weeks in with the days slowly getting shorter and shorter, we are starting to realize how it could take so long.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gotten a lot accomplished in a short time, but we spent 2.5 hours last night removing 5 bolts from the driver’s seat, 5…bolts!!! And we still have one with a stripped nut that we aren’t sure how we’ll remove. It will probably take us another hour today. But without a power source last night we were working by lantern & our iphone flashlights until 9pm so we had to call it a night.

I’ve come to realize, it’s ridiculous how long something so simple can take.

Lesson #2 – Your grinder will be your best friend

Having never used a grinder before in my life, I had no idea how useful this little $15 tool could be. As a matter of fact, we got 2 so we could each be using one at the same time. You will use it for everything in your demo phase. The grinder has rarely left my hand this past week, but my poor hands are paying for it now.

Lesson #3 – Rust SUCKS!

When we went to look at the bus the first time, it was raining. We took a look at the undercarriage but didn’t really get to climb underneath. We poked around with our keys and then end of a kayak paddle (it’s all we had, were on our way home from a visit with our parents…13+ hour drive home and weren’t really prepared). We saw what we thought was some surface rust, but after spending some time under the bus it’s worse than I would have hoped for. I still think we are pretty solid, but we have some remediation to do.

There are some holes in the floor near the wheel wells that we’ll need to patch, but the rust on the undercarriage has made removing some of the bolts more difficult than we anticipated.

Next Steps

In the next week we are hoping to remove the driver’s seat, treat the floor with rust remover, patch some rust spots in the floor and fill the holes from all of the seats and chair rails, and paint with POR15 rust inhibitor.

Wish us luck!