Ladie Butterfly's Bus Conversion
The day she came home.
Online for days we hunted for a bus. I contacted the owner of this lovely beast but because I wasn't online everyday we almost lost her to someone that wanted to buy her and take her away and bury her in the ground for some camp. I won't go into that. I finally arranged to see her and she was full of things but she was running and been driven there not long before so I knew that she ran wonderful and drove well too. The people that had her did the maintance on her during her life with the school she served. Plus the gal was a bus driving teacher too. With me and no experince driving something this larger she took me out in the bus and showed me the ropes. I made my deposit on it after we agreed on price ($2000.00). One week later I went back to pick her up. I wanted to give them time to clean their things out of the bus.
Paid the remaining balance and took a few lessons and drove around a bit. Now was the true test driving her from Vancover WA to Chehalis WA. With my copilot and 2nd copilot in the car we did fine until we got to Winlock then as I passed a slower moving veichal she started to sputter. First thought was what was wrong. We pulled off to a parking space to check her out and agreed that nothing was wrong. We then took off and started up the hill to get gas. We stalled on the over pass going up to the gas station. That is where we stayed until we got more gas. I found out that trying to back her down into a safe place to allow traffic to get around that power stearing was gone and soon the air brakes locked and we were stuck. We got gas to her and took her the rest of the way home. I would say that was one adventure I would do again but I would be more prepared.
Please be forwarned this project is costly and we did everything we could to save money. We used old water bed frames that we cut down to do some of the frame work, that we got from Freecycle. Plus there were other items that we got from freecycle as well.
These web pages are a work in progress and so is my bus please be patient with me because I am single and raising a family and converting a bus plus working can some times take a lot out of a person. Thank You.
Paid the remaining balance and took a few lessons and drove around a bit. Now was the true test driving her from Vancover WA to Chehalis WA. With my copilot and 2nd copilot in the car we did fine until we got to Winlock then as I passed a slower moving veichal she started to sputter. First thought was what was wrong. We pulled off to a parking space to check her out and agreed that nothing was wrong. We then took off and started up the hill to get gas. We stalled on the over pass going up to the gas station. That is where we stayed until we got more gas. I found out that trying to back her down into a safe place to allow traffic to get around that power stearing was gone and soon the air brakes locked and we were stuck. We got gas to her and took her the rest of the way home. I would say that was one adventure I would do again but I would be more prepared.
Please be forwarned this project is costly and we did everything we could to save money. We used old water bed frames that we cut down to do some of the frame work, that we got from Freecycle. Plus there were other items that we got from freecycle as well.
These web pages are a work in progress and so is my bus please be patient with me because I am single and raising a family and converting a bus plus working can some times take a lot out of a person. Thank You.
Cleaning the inside out.
Well we started to clean out seats and pull panels from inside the bus. First came the seats we found lots of pencils and gum and few bands for hair and part of a report card. Who's ever it was was doing fine in school. We saved covers and cushions and the frames of the seats. Plus panels from side and ceiling where taken down.The wood off the back of the seats was used for flooring. I was the poor lucky soul to crawl under the bus and hold the wrench so that he was able to unscrew the bolts up top inside. I got dirt all over in my face and hair, yuck, but I wouldn't change it I would still crawl under it. After we got all the seats out we then proceeded to take up the rubber matting on the floor now that was gross old glue and stuff. We saved some of the larger peices to line the storage boxes that will be under the bus and the storage boxes for batteries and propane.
