Cleaned out my Bus "What goes where?"

[daddyoften]

So I finally got a chance to clean out the bus. (pics and short story in projects section) 
Now I have a genuine empty shell!  Now what?

So now I can start the true planning process and first off I was wondering if anyone has used the empty space below where the toilet was (Blue Circle Below)?  There really isn't an access door to it but I thought it might be a good place to put the engine battery(s).  But I don't want to ad too much weight to the engine cradle as I might either hang a bike rack off the back or build a small scooter rack on the back.  Plus we will be towing our toad with it.  On the other side (Red Circle) where the coach A/C pump use to be I'm going to install an aftermarket intercooler and cut in a grill there.  I'll use electric fans to draw air across it.  And up front I'm hoping is where I can install the generator (Yellow Circle). 

Next up, what was in the lower bin (Pink Circle)?  I think it's the a/c evaporator?  It's just sitting in there on a skid.  What is the tank above it?  Can I remove it?  This is where I want to cut in a mid-ship door.  I know it's not really in the middle, but it works great with my floor plan layout and it looks the best structural place to do it as well.  Then we won't use the front door anymore.  I will have to replace the floor due to it's in pretty bad shape so that will make a good time to make structural modifications as well.  I haven't decided yet if I'll shut it off for good or just won't use it.  I'll raise up the floor to match the driver over the steps and place the most beautiful co-pilot know to mankind! AKA wife!  I'll have to find a way to make use of the steps (purple circle) for storage.  Maybe a lift up floor under her seat or just open the front door.  That's a minor detail at this point. 

Thanks
Eric.

[Charles in SC]

I cannot answer your questions but I am wondering what you are using to strip the paint on the passenger side?
You have an ambitious project ahead of you. After I had the seats out of mine I laid iff the floor plan on the floor with masking tape then spent some evenings in it pretending that it was done. My father used to say that you needed to live in a house awhile before you built it to see how you liked it.

[daddyoften]

I got the bus with the paint the way it is, I'm not sure what the P.O. did? And he has passed so I can't answer that for you, sorry.
Yeah, that's the next step is masking tape then go get more/different Windows and the side door from a rv salvage yard

Sent from my Droid phone

[Darkspeed]

Hi Eric, cutting a door mid ship on a 41XX bus will structurally compromise the shell as it is a stressed skin "frameless" design.

Im not saying don't do it, im just saying put in all of the reinforcements ( welded steel structural tube door frame ) and attach the skin to the frame before cutting the door so your bus stays square.

The skin in these buses takes a lot of the load and stress.

[daddyoften]

Thank you Darkspeed,
I have done quite a bit of reading and research and agree that this is not something to be messed with.  I have not actually found any "real" information on doing this particular thing but have found a lot of advise and precautions.  Funny thing is I have Bus conversion magazine's back from the original first one's for about 8 years and they were doing roof raises on these 41's like it was nothing    Now we know better. 
I feel the location I have found is better then other places in the bus for this.  The bus needs a new floor so I will have the "structure" open when I do this.  This also is a place that there were factory windows, meaning there was a hole in the side of the bus there already so I figure this will help in the structural side of things.  I'm not a structural engineer but I have a fabricator and do understand the workings of gussets and distribution of loads and stress.  With that said I very much welcome ANY and ALL experience good and bad regarding cutting a door in the middle of such a bus.  If it weren't for the floor plan that we almost "need" to do I wouldn't be messing with it but with the new door location it will help us do the very unique multi room setup we need for such a large family all in one bus.  I don't want to go to a longer bus as I already have such a wonderful foundation with this one and don't want the limitations that come with such a long bus in state parks, especially with the Sprinter toad following behind 
Thank you!
Eric

[luvrbus]

There are a couple of mid door entry GM's in the Western GMC club they don't seem to have any problems

[Darkspeed]

Eric, when I gutted my 4106 and removed the floors.... and removed the aluminum stress members between each bulkhead... so it was literally a shell, the bus was surprisingly rigid.

When i cut 8" of height out of the bulkheads the bus went a little wet noodle.

I would think a mid entry door could be safely done but if I was doing it the door frame would be beefy.

Also keep in mind that the side shell has a curve to it so one the outside face of the door frame will also need to be curved.

I would build my door frame out of A500 2" x 4" x .25 structural tube and inset it where it was inside the curve then cut a curved strip of .25 to fill the gap between the frame and the skin, welding the straight side to the strip to the face of the door frame and riveting the curved side to the skin with some structural L and a good isolation layer because you would be putting aluminum skin on steel frame. - but thats just an idea

Cool project, cant wait to see it!

Is your bus modified to tow a toad? The 41XX buses have to be.

[RJ]

Eric -

Some thoughts:

Red Circle:  Intercooler?  Does your engine have a turbo?  Or are you thinking an additional oil cooler for the transmission?  Please elaborate a little more.  I don't know about the 4107s, but the 4106's had an access hatch inside directly above the A/C compressor to help with alignment after repair.  If your coach has that hatch, consider what a 4106 owner I know did - he installed a safe underneath the hatch, building a box in such a way that the safe wasn't visible when you opened the A/C compressor access panel.

Yellow Circle:  Very common to install a genset in the old A/C condenser compartment.  Just make sure you have access to service the unit.  Does make soundproofing a little more difficult, but not impossible.

Blue Circle:  On the 4104s and 4106s, this is where the electrical compartment is that has the various relays and what not for the engine compartment.  Had it's own access hatch, so it's different than your '07.  Not sure about the load induced on the bulkhead by hanging batteries off of it, but it might be ok with Group 31s, especially since they'd be really close to the starter.  Gotta leave clearance for the Allison, tho. . .

Purple Circle:  Since you want to install a mid-ship door, close off the front door, but do something similar to what's on the driver's side - the exterior-accessed compartment underneath the driver.  Then you could build storage where the old steps were, or do like Boomer did on his Eagle and install a driver's A/C unit using Red Dot components.

Pink Circle:  That is the old HVAC compartment, with both the main coach heater core and the A/C evaporator.  If all that's removed, lots of space available.  Some folk use it for their house battery bank, accessing it thru the wooden panel in the front baggage bin.  The tank is your emergency air tank, designed to apply the brakes in case of a catastrophic air loss in the system.  It also has sufficient capacity to allow you to move the coach one time to a safe place before the brakes set up again.  You can move it if you want, but a thorough understanding of the entire coach air system needs to take place before doing so.  Remember, a lot of slide rules were used in the design.  Schematics are in the shop manual. 

Look closely at how the engine cradle hangs from the roof of the coach.  Two bolts is all that holds it up.  That's it.  Designed perfectly for the powertrain that came with the coach, but not designed to hang a motorcycle/scooter off the back end.  It's not the static load that's the problem, it's the instantaneous dynamic loads that shear the bolts holding the cradle.  Same goes for the trailer hitch/receiver.  It needs to be tied into the lower radius rods so the loads are transferred into the chassis, not the hangers.  If you want to haul a cycle, then spend the money and buy yourself a TrailerToad (www.trailertoad.com) and mount the bike carrier on it and carry any bicycles on the back of the toad.

Speaking of bicycles, on my way home the other day, I saw a 5th wheel with a bike rack on the back bumper with six bikes on it.  You should have seen that bumper flexing back and forth as the bikes reacted to the trailer's movement over the highway.  Probably 8"-10" of movement at the top of the rack as it jounced along.  Wonder how long that will last before the bumper fails from stress fatigue?

FWIW & HTH. . .

[Iceni John]

Better than marking out on the floor with tape where walls etc will go, I use CAD  -  Cardboard-Aided Design.   It's easier to visualize how things will look like if life-size replicas are first made from old cardboard boxes.

John   

[Oonrahnjay]

Better than marking out on the floor with tape where walls etc will go, I use CAD  -  Cardboard-Aided Design.   It's easier to visualize how things will look like if life-size replicas are first made from old cardboard boxes.
John   

      I call that my Savings Plan -- because it saved me time and money!  Quick, cheap, and useful.

[luvrbus]

Card board mock up is the way to go then if you are married both sign the mock up BTDT

[daddyoften]

I searched for the Western GMC club and all I could find were the "newer" GMC motorhome clubs. 

I like the "CAD" design    I'll start with the simple 2D version with Green tape and step up to the 3D CAD design 

Red circle - Intercooler - Yes, the PO installed a 77 8v71T with an automatic.  It doesn't have a muffler at the moment and will get one.  It ran great when I brought it home but wanted to run hot.  I thought an intercooler would help with heat and maybe give a few more pony's.  I already have a 9L intercooler sitting right here.  "WHY NOT?"   

Blue Circle - No electrical compartment on mine there. The OEM toilet was located above this section so I assume there was a holding tank of some sort here.  There is no access door but there does appear to be enough room for a couple of 31's.  But they would have to be installed from bottom and lifted up into place.  Not ideal but as everyone is aware every square inch needs to be utilized for something. 

Pink circle - I'll have to relocate the emergency air tank but I'm ok with that.  I don't have any access panels inside the bus down.  Just a few abandoned air passages from the old HVAC.

The PO installed a receiver hitch on the back and tied it into the radial arms.  This was his second bus conversion, his first was a 4104 many years ago so I like to think he had a good idea what he was doing.  So far I haven't found much of anything that he did "wrong".  But I'm still learned myself. 

Thank you for all the suggestions.  I'm hoping tonight to do the 2D room design.
Eric

[luvrbus]

The intercooler won't help with a heating problem on a 2 stroke if that is your reasoning you can forget about it, you need a big intercooler to off set the heat the blower generates even then the air under the blower will be around 250 degrees   

[TomC]

Since my bus is 102" wide (AMGeneral transit), the radiator is set in enough where I had room for an air to air intercooler when I turbo'd my 8V-71 (which by the way REALLY wakes it up). And because the fan is running all the time (solid mount, no clutch) it creates lots of air pressure. When I installed my aux transmission cooler with fan, the fan wasn't powerful enough to pull in cold air, so I reversed it to pull air from inside the engine compartment out-it still cools since even 130 degree air is cooler then the 200 degree transmission fluid.

The generator should be installed in the front-furthest away from the bed so if you have to run the gen all night, it doesn't bother you. My A/C's are noisier then the gen running. No such thing as a too quiet generator. By the way-as far as gensets go-I highly recommend you get an open generator and make your own enclosure. The gensets that have a cabinet are very hard to work on. Powertech makes a really neat, compact 8kw open version with it's own pull through fan. Good Luck, TomC

[luvrbus]

I wonder if he has a after cooler 8V71 block they are better candidates for a CAC