BCM Community

I have done this for a neighbor building a Blue Bird school bus. We bought a Wrecked 98 Damond Intruder. Really not bad . drove it home 92,000 miles on it. All systems for bus build -tanks appliances- 2ea ac-tv's antennas-furniture. even vents  6.5 gen set- etc.Granted they were not the best of everything but everything was there and you could change later it you wanted to upgrade.Cost $2,000.    Sold engine and trans for $1800.    Only food for thought. Actually located this at local impound/insurance pool yard. Made for quick build.

Thats basically the same thing that I did for the stuff for my bus. Its a bit dated but it got us on the road til I tear into it more.

For a first time builder with limited funds a schoolie would get their feet wet and if they could find an older camper on the cheap they could scrap out the systems if they still work. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat. I remember my wife and I's first camper. It had the ole ice box for a fridge and a pump at the sink for water. Porta potty in basically a closet. I found a 110 ac unit on a garage sale and stuck it into a window I first removed. You had your choice of a bed or a table but not at the same time! We had a riot and always dreaded the end of the season. Didn't need a tv because we were to busy having fun. Throwing lawn darts or playing croquet. Sometimes I think convenience has taken a lot of the fun out of life. Put it on credit instead of saving. Throw it away instead of fixing it. Propane instead of charcoal (I use my Traeger smoker instead). Full hookups and  drive through sites. Nobody knows how to back up anymore. They miss yelling at the wife as she backs you into a tree on the blind side! To be honest with you. Doing a schoolie on the cheap sounds like a lot of fun..... before and after!

I used to buy stuff from IAA, now copart has all the yards around here. RVs that are wrecked are often cheap. I think it costs me like 250 a year for the membership. Busses occasionally show up in their auctions around the country.. tons of people who drive under branches, etc in their s&s... One thing i have noticed on the west coast in the last couple of years is the amount of refrigerator fire vehicles... so if you are building, be sure to put it in properly. I think the next frig i do, I make a steel box around the sides, back, top so that if their is a fire i wont burn the whole center.... just someting i have been considering after seeing this stuff every month. Anyway, there has to be a way to isolate somewhat a frig fire... of course fire ext in kitchen as usual

  My wife and I walked through Colaw RV Salvage a few weeks ago. The number of rigs that are burned is shocking, and sobering. Hard to know what caused them all, but its likley many were from refrigerators.

  Because of that, and because of the questionable quality of todays absorbtion refrigerators, im planning to go with a compressor type runnng off an inverter.