Up comes the old floor!

[Paladin]

Question for those who have done it already.
I'm getting ready to pull out the old flooring in the bus (MC-8). Tonight I tore out one side of the linoleum junk, wasn't too hard really but came up in lot's of pieces. I had to scrape it quite a bit with a floor scraper to coax it but some areas were really loose. Did they glue that stuff down randomly as well as nails?
Anyway, I know I'm going to find a virtual treasure trove of old hair and dirt etc (I peeked in there already) but what else should I expect?
Any tips or tricks to make it faster or easier? Any areas that I should be careful in or expect to find a bit of difficulty?
Unfortunately right now I'm a one man demolition crew so I have to do this part alone.



-Dave   

[gumpy]

http://www.gumpydog.com/bus/MC9_WIP/Structural/Floor_Removal/floor_removal.htm

[Paladin]

Thanks Craig, I read your page and it was of much help and inspiration and I guess a little fear. I hope to avoid the cutting of the heater line though. Am I really going to need to do anything like?


-Dave

[gumpy]

Not necessarily. It will depend on whether you need to do any cleanup or repairs to the air beam under it.  If you do, I recommend
you use rubber heater hose to fix it and put in an access panel in the floor to get to it later. You might want to tap into it later
to put in an aux driver heater under the seat or some such thing. Wish I had done that on mine. Wasn't something I was thinking
about at the time.

[DavidInWilmNC]

Hi Dave,

I haven't pulled up the front part of the floor yet, but I have done the back section (I'm not pulling up the part over the bays).  I used a circular saw with the depth set to as close to going through the wood as I could, without it actually going through.  I cut the area in long strips.  As they weren't cut all the way though, I used a utility knife and cut through with that.  I don't see that doing it this way will damage anything.  To make removal easier, I cut near the screws that hold the floor down.  Then I just used a pry bar to remove the 1.5-2" strips.  It's a bit messy, so if you have a saw with a dust collector attachment and a shop vac, I'd certainly use 'em!  I'm going to tackle this on my 8 in the next month or so.  I can't wait!   

David

[Paladin]

Thanks for the input. I pulled the remainder of that linoleum crap up today and tried to start pulling the ramp out but only got two screws out. The rest are all seized and stuck solid, the ones I did get actually broke off.
Looks like this is going to be quite a bit slower going than I hoped. The wood looks like a nightmare!

I also maybe should have gotten a small dumpster or something for this job too. The Linoleum overfilled an entire garbage can, the large ones on wheels the city gives us. Now I have to wait another week to fill it again.
I've got some metal recycler guy who will come for the steel if I ever get it all out.

What have I gotten myself into???

Just keep thinking of the better days to come..........

[DavidInWilmNC]

If you don't have a good 4-1/2" grinder, now's the time to get one.  I've found the best deals on tools at pawn shops.  My last finds were a Hitachi grinder (almost new) for $35 and an 18 volt top of the line Makita drill set (w/ case and 2 batteries) for $60.  I've actually bought 3 drills there, among other tools, and use every one of them.

David

[gumpy]

I also maybe should have gotten a small dumpster or something for this job too. The Linoleum overfilled an entire garbage can, the large ones on wheels the city gives us. Now I have to wait another week to fill it again.
I've got some metal recycler guy who will come for the steel if I ever get it all out.

I was going to suggest you keep the linoleum and use it in the pathways of your garden if you have one. It works
great to keep the weeds down. A little slick in the rain, but no weeds!

[Paladin]

Yep, I have a couple of grinders but with all of the fasteners I was hoping that at least some would like to come out now on their own or with not so much coercing and the rest I'd grind off as per Gumpy's detail of his.

Last summer i was grinding and welding away for some time making a trailer to haul my cars on and this year I have the bus in the driveway. I was hoping to keep a little more quiet profile for a while so as not to raise the attention of Herr gestapo man two doors down. So far I've been hoping he hasn't seen the bus 

We were thinking of painting a scene of an empty driveway with a garage door on the back end of the bus and a wood picket fence along the side so he wouldn't notice. Sort of like Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner. He's so stupid it may work but I'm not sure about a bunch of grinding again this year.

[unclewilly]

  Hello Dave;
  when i took the floor out of my senicrusier i drilled the heads off with a drill bit one size bigger than the bolt, it was a lot faster than trying to cut with a cold chisel or grinding them off. lots of luck with your
floor it is a lot of work not ot mention dirty.   

[Paladin]

That's a good thought. Tonight I was pondering using a hole saw just larger that the heads of the fasteners and cut down around them to the the depth of the wood thereby isolating them. After prying the wood up I could then go back and easily whack off the remaining heads with the grinder with a cutoff wheel. Problem is I'd have a bunch of holes filled with cut off fasteners and couldn't reuse those holes for the new flooring if I wanted to. What are the chances of that though?

Or I could light the bus on fire and hope to only burn the wood flooring leaving what I want....... Yeah, I know, a Darwin award candidate idea but it's late. 

-Dave

[gumpy]

Problem is I'd have a bunch of holes filled with cut off fasteners and couldn't reuse those holes for the new flooring if I wanted to. What are the chances of that though?

Don't worry about that. Use TEK screws to put the new floor down, which are self drilling/self tapping. I found it easier to predrill a couple sizes under for the tek screws, though. They seemed to want to dull before getting through some of the steel rails, or they'd break as they started
tapping.

Or I could light the bus on fire and hope to only burn the wood flooring leaving what I want....... Yeah, I know, a Darwin award candidate idea but it's late. 

Controlled explosions might be a better option 

[DavidInWilmNC]

That's a good thought. Tonight I was pondering using a hole saw just larger that the heads of the fasteners and cut down around them to the the depth of the wood thereby isolating them. After prying the wood up I could then go back and easily whack off the remaining heads with the grinder with a cutoff wheel. Problem is I'd have a bunch of holes filled with cut off fasteners and couldn't reuse those holes for the new flooring if I wanted to. What are the chances of that though?

Or I could light the bus on fire and hope to only burn the wood flooring leaving what I want....... Yeah, I know, a Darwin award candidate idea but it's late. 

-Dave

I tried the hole saw approach - don't waste your time.  Believe me, if you cut the floor into strips close to the lines of screws, you can come back with a pry bar and chisel to get out the rest of the wood (where the screws are).  You'll be left with just the screws sticking up.  Hit these with the grinder and they're gone!  The center part (over the air return) is easy to get out, so leave it for last so you'll have a catwalk.  There is a row of screws along the seat rail, by the wall, the air return, etc.  You'll see 'em from above.  Use an old blade in the circular saw (so you won't waste a good one when you hit an occasional screw) and I'll bet that you can get most of the floor removed in a few hours.  Then it'll be just a bit more time with the pry bar getting out the little pieces around the screws.  Cutting off the screws with a recip. saw or grinder won't take long, either.  Before you know it, you'll have the floor out.  Don't forget that the floor also glued down, so even if you removed all the screws, you'd still have to deal with that.  Removing the seat rail can seem like a challenge, too, but it's not too bad.  A cutting wheel on a grinder takes care of the tack welds.  Another thought is to not remove the floor over the bays.  Mine's in good shape, so I left it alone.  It meant that I had room to keep my tools and other stuff that's in the bus but still have access to the places I needed - over the airbeams, HVAC areas, and anywhere there's insulation.  Lots of my insulation was wet and nasty.    The good thing is that with 30+ feet of flooring to remove, you've got plenty to see what method actually works best! 

While the rear floor was out, I also removed the wheel wells (fiberglass) and what was left of the metal liners over them.  I used rust converter on any rusty areas, a POR-15 equivalent on any mild steel, installed new liners, sealed everything, reinsulated, and reinstalled the floor.  Don't spend too much time dwelling on how to remove the floor; that's only a small percentage of what you have prior to getting the new floor down.

David

[Rodsmc5c]

   I used a hole saw on mine. I drilled a hole in a scrape piece of plywood kinda near the edge, laid the hole over the screw head, stood on the plywood and drilled. It's only 1/2" so it went quickly.  Sure made some interesting pieces  on the wood pile.
                  Rod

[Ednj]

 
I used the angle grinder method, just hit the heads of the bolts with a cut off wheel (like making a screwdriver slot) and those big 12' sheets came right up and were reusable.
There's nothing like the smell of bus lavatory soaked wood burning you'll never forget it. lol