On the short bus

At the beginning of summer I had the wild idea that I wanted to buy an old school bus and convert it to a camper of sorts.

I don't know anything about school buses except for the fact that some are made (geared?) to go on the highway and others aren't. Figuring that most would probably have bad engines I was thinking maybe a transplant with a diesel and an automatic.

The very next day I saw a pretty cool bus that looked to be in good shape and stopped by only to find out that it was the drunk's ride home for a bar. I did a little searching and didn't find a thing so I shelved the idea.

Well, the drunk tank bus just turned up for sale. I went inside and it looked pretty clean and the front area looked just as it did when it was a school bus. All the rear seats had been removed and a couple of sofas set back there. There was also the door for a handicapped entrance, but there was no handicapped mechanism in place.

It's a 1983 GMC 6000 with a new 350 motor, trans, rearend, new tires plus new spares.

One of the front door windows is cracked but the rest look to be in good shape.

It is a 6 window version meaning that there's a line of 6 windows down the side if that tells anyone the size.

Since I know nothing about buses I'm wondering if anyone has done this and had any words of wisdom?

While I like the look of the standard window I know that when I rode a bus the windows never really latched good and made a lot of noise as you went down the road.

I'm presuming enough space to put a below floor generator like RVs as well as any tanks or storage areas we'd need. I'm not sure a bathroom or toilet would be needed, but I've never RV'd so I may be wrong there too.

How do you lock the front door?

Am I totally crazy?

Oh, BTW the price wasn't what I expected. I was expecting $15k-$20k and it is only $2,500.

Watch the video below, it will answer most of your questions and even give you some ideas on interior layout:

http://m.discoverychannel.com/tv-shows/porter-ridge/videos/hilljack-recreational-bus

We had a thread about this a few years back. The conventional wisdom was that it was more cost-efficient to buy an actual camper than do the conversion, fwiw...

Damn if I had a bus like that I'd be moving mormons from utah to san francisco, then the homeless/crazies from san francisco to palo alto. I could single handily clean the town up.

I was really thinking something more like this, except not so old looking and no sign on the top. The bus I'm looking at, while small, isn't this small.

I can't find any pics of the interior of this bus.

https://www.facebook.com/HotRodBus?filter=2

Looking for pics of this online led me to a number of "hot rod" buses. Most had been lowered (too much), but I wonder how hard it would be to lower one a few inches. It really makes them look cool.

A Friend just bought one as a band touring rig so I have had a lot of experience lately with a short bus.

First off these things are not built with efficiency as a secondary or even tertiary design consideration. There is a LOT of wasted space and terrible aerodynamics. On my buddies there is an 18" gap between the floor and frame apparently in an attempt to get the passengers as high up as possible. This gives the all too familiar school bus swaying ride that most folks agree causes car sickness on any longish trip. His tops out at 78mph on flat ground but will cruise at 65 all day long.

They are HUGE and ugly and take up a lot of space when they are parked. It has been an issue for the band when they play wineries that the management doesn't want the ugly thing visible so they make them park it off site.

That said these things are a terrific value. I was pushing for them to buy a 15 passenger van but there were no decent ones for sale around here for under 6 grand. He bought a 63K mile 2003 GMC Turbo Diesel with automatic and everything for $1800 and probably could have talked the guy down even further. No one wants these things.

The flip side of the coin is that they are costly to maintain. A set of 6 tires for this thing are outrageous. When he tried to have someone replace the rear brakes he had to take it to a heavy equipment shop since no one else would touch it.

They can load up 6 people a cello, upright bass, violin, guitars and whatever else and get almost 16mpg on a 350 mile trip with it.

Slippery wrote: Watch the video below, it will answer most of your questions and even give you some ideas on interior layout: http://m.discoverychannel.com/tv-shows/porter-ridge/videos/hilljack-recreational-bus

OK, I'm missing something. That link gets me to a page that says there is such a video, but I can't find a way to play it.

ditchdigger wrote: A Friend just bought one as a band touring rig so I have had a lot of experience lately with a short bus. On my buddies there is an 18" gap between the floor and frame apparently in an attempt to get the passengers as high up as possible. This gives the all too familiar school bus swaying ride that most folks agree causes car sickness on any longish trip. His tops out at 78mph on flat ground but will cruise at 65 all day long. They are HUGE and ugly and take up a lot of space when they are parked. It has been an issue for the band when they play wineries that the management doesn't want the ugly thing visible so they make them park it off site.

That makes the one I'm looking at look overpriced, that is unless the new engine, etc. is better than his.

I wonder what it would take to get rid of that 18". That might be better than lowering.

From something I read a long time ago in a land far away it sounds as if he got the city version and not the highway version. I have no idea the difference other than possibly gearing or the transmission. I've not been able to reach the owner yet, but I'm betting this one is the city version as well.

With that limited "knowledge" is why I was originally considering a diesel/auto/highway swap, but if this engine is good then that would let me drive it, see what I wanted to change in the driveline and work on the body.

I was wondering what the HOA would think of having a bus parked behind my house which is one reason to give it a little character so it becomes a source of wonderment instead of an eyesore.

I would probably paint the whole thing silver or gray (ford escort grey). That color can make anything blend in.

Not crazy but you could probably get something a lot newer with not a lot more cash. I think Kevin has had pretty good luck with Hongtard One:

Is that one of those "Avis" rent a car buses like you see at the airport & what do you call them so I can do a search?

The are used by ARC's, senior transportation, medical transportation , I believe they don't meet school bus regs. Conversion bus might be the term used.

carguy123 wrote: Is that one of those "Avis" rent a car buses like you see at the airport & what do you call them so I can do a search?

Hint: I search "Church" and "School" in the cars section of CL all the time. In both cases, they didn't buy the vehicles with their own money, but with money they begged for/stole from others, and it's not like they're going to cut a check to those suckers when the thing sells. $1000 goes a long way when it's icing on the cake. Dig?

iceracer wrote: The are used by ARC's, senior transportation, medical transportation , I believe they don't meet school bus regs. Conversion bus might be the term used.

"passenger" is another good search.

ditchdigger wrote: That said these things are a terrific value. I was pushing for them to buy a 15 passenger van but there were no decent ones for sale around here for under 6 grand. He bought a 63K mile 2003 GMC Turbo Diesel with automatic and everything for $1800 and probably could have talked the guy down even further. No one wants these things.

At that price i would buy it scrap the back and throw a truck bed on it =) and at that the MPG might bump up a bit too

Holy hell thats a deal.

The 18" between the floor and the frame is usually to raise the floor to give the passengers a flat floor to walk. The buses come in multiple configs. The tall floor doesn't have humps for the rear wheels. The lower floor models have humps built over the rear wheels.

If you are asking how to lock the right side passenger door - This is kind of hard to describe but it works on our transit buses. The handle should have a locking tab that you have to flip up to release it and open the door. Stick a screw driver under the tab and push it back to the frame of the handle mount. It keeps the tab from being flipped up from outside. The passenger doors are fairly easy to break into if not secured - the screw driver prohibits a bad dude from popping up the tab. I figured this method out after the radio was stolen out of mine while I was still driving one.

We get about 9 - 10 MPG on our 10 passenger through 16 passenger bus. The wheel chair lift doesn't seem to have any effect on mileage.

carguy123 wrote: How do you lock the front door?

I've seen some older ones with the folding door secured with a hasp and padlock on the out side.

I've been thinking about a shuttle bus for band transport for a while. With 6 of us, pooling gas money even at 10mpg would be a helluvalot cheaper than all of us driving separately to gigs any more than an hour away.

Bear in mind that a lot of school buses aren't built for adult-sized people. For instance, at a bit over 6', I can't stand up straight in some buses. If I'm spending any amount of time in one, that would get really old really fast.

Shuttle buses have a better form factor and more efficient base for light duty use, but typically are made of cardboard and rattle like a bathroom stall door. I prefer the ambulance route myself, all aluminum crash tested box with tons of exterior compartments.

This, however, popped up on the local CL and I've been eyeing it for a while. Could totally build a deck on the back to haul atv's/motorcycles or extend a flat bed off a little and haul a race car.

http://fredericksburg.craigslist.org/cto/4024976225.html