Leak-testing your bus, before you begin your interior build...

[Mex-Busnut]

I posted this on another thread, but after Kevin Warnock's comment:

"This advice about leak testing with a power washer is advice I have never seen, despite reading these posts for a decade now."

I decided maybe it should have its own thread. Here goes:

I am certainly no expert on this subject of bus interiors, as we are on our first conversion. You have a ton of great guidance from many others on these awesome forums with far more experience than my awesome and skinny self.

                 

However, before you do ANY interior building, do yourself a huge favor and borrow, rent, steal or buy a power washer. You will need an assistant for this.

Check the entire body, roof and even floor on the inside, while somebody is spraying it from the outside. We found a multitude of invisible leaks, that would have been terrible to try to fix once the insides are installed. Even our rear inside fiberglass shell leaked like a sieve. (We found a number of hairline cracks in it.) We also found that all of our windows leaked terribly, between the window frames and the vehicle's sheet metal. I am very happy we got all of that fixed before we started on our interior!

My two pesos' worth!  

[chev49]

Its a good idea to have a pressure washer for that as well as cleaning before working on mechanical stuff...

i have a commercial one with hot water...

[paulrobie]

I seriously wish I had thought of that or someone had mentioned that previously. This should be step 2 of bus conversion, right after stripping the interior. Good piece of advice!

[buswarrior]

Well, maybe...

BIG WARNING:

All pressure washers are not created equal.

Some are toys, good ones are dangerous.

Keep that pressure washer away from your dual pane windows... especially stock ones.

The windows that you didn't used to get fog in... will afterwards, and you will be very sad. Those seals between the panes are tired, and will not withstand the beating.

Same with a lot of the body sealer, the pressure washer will push it in, and MAKE LEAKS where there were none.

And peel some of your paint off.

The pressure washer blows water at the coach with a power that only the front of the coach, in a hurricane headwind running at highway speed, will endure.

I like the concept, however, I'm partial to using the garden hose to minimize the potential harm.

A good pressure washer in the hands of the unknowing is more dangerous than an unpinned grenade.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Hi yo silver]

You know what? I have seen pressure testing done on computer rooms to prepare them for Halon fire suppression system containment. One way to test would be to set a window or box fan in the door of the bus, then close the rest of the opening with a sheet of plastic. Turn on the fan to pressurize the interior and soap the outside looking for bubbles. TA DAHH! Wudaya think??
Dennis