Cost of Conversion Work

[luvrbus]

Chuck, wise choice on the guys in Oregon is Mike going to do the paint he is the best and Larry does first class work and I find both to be very honest.


good luck

[John316]

Keep us informed please. It will be nice to know somebody whose rig is being converted, and then done (well no conversion is ever done ).

Anyways, we will look forward to pics. Keep it up!

I will post pics of our progress....sometime . Today we are working electrical (uggh). I hope we get that finished up soon. We are going with LED's for most of our lighting. I think that they will be hidden strips of lights. Cabinets are being built right now, and I have the HVAC ducting installed. We got our new generator set up so we can run 120 off of it. It was set up for 240.

So much to do, so little time .

God bless,

John

[Dreamscape]

John316, You better start showing pictures, I like to copy what others have done!

Chuck, Good Luck on your conversion, Mike will do a great job on your paint, look at Clifford's, unbelievable! Take a look at some of his work here

http://www.willyscustomconcepts.net/

Keep us all informed of your progress and show as many pictures as you can. We like to see all the goodies!


Take Care,

Paul

[busnut104]

Well make it about double to what you will think it will be. I know i have at least 125000.00 and probably closer to 140,000.00 if I would take the time to add up the receipts. This is not counting the many hours of work. but with that being said I did enjoy that part. I have not used it at all since the work has been done, most of the things have not even been use. not even the john, which is a new china closet. I have had it for sale for over a 1 and half. had some calls but no one with any money. So there she sets and that is where she can, I'm asking 79000.00 about half of what I have in it. I maybe would drop a little other then that it can set right there and just maybe I will find time to use it, if I don't run out of time first. still a bus nut. You can not help but love these beast.     

[Dreamscape]

I can't imagine spending that kind of money and not using it, I think I would make the time. In this market you may have it for quite sometime, unless you find someone with the cash.

Go out and enjoy the fruits of your labor, it might put a smile on your face! Heck I get all giddy when I can spend 100 bucks on ours!

[Hard Headed Ken]

I know of a lot of us want to do the conversion because we enjoy the work and the challenge. Having converted my 4104, then redoing most of it, then powering it, then finally just tired of always wanting to make some other improvement, I sold it. I bought a 1988 Prevost Angola conversion. Considering life is short, resale of a name brand conversion is maybe a little better, it more than likely will be low mileage, there will still be plenty of challenges in general repairs and the things you want to modify and in today's market an older profession conversion can be bought for 60,000 to 80,000 dollars. Consider this, find one you like, have it checked over, maybe buy some new tires, batteries and hit the road. The older Angola's and Liberty's are supposed be electrically simpler.

Ken  

[John316]

Ken,

I agree. If you can find a conversion you like, go with that. However, some people, like us, never found a conversion that we liked (we looked at conversions all the way up to 500K dollars). All of the entertainers, we old and wore out. The new ones weren't built right....We finally decided that we had to build our own. We could have gotten a entertainer, for what we paid for just the shell, but that wouldn't have been built right. There are always trade offs. Now we are spending months on our conversion, but it will all be worth it having it built right. Yes, it has taken a tremendous amount of thought, drawings, brainstorming, building, sweating, and changing ideas, but we keep telling ourselves that it will be worth it .

So bottom line is, if you are just a couple of people going to travel for only a weekend or two, I would say go with one that is done. If not, do it yourself...Provided finances are there.

God bless,

John

[Skykingrob]

Hi Chuck
I bought my 91 Prevost for $38K 4 years ago, have receipts totaling another $25K for a roof raise, custom made cabinets, woodwork, webasto, 12.5K genset, side by side refer, all appliances, most of the furniture, leveling system, new aluminum wheels. I have the paint, about $17K, corian $5K, carpet, $1K, tanks $1K and awnings $6K left before I call it finished for a total of $93K. I was shooting for $90K from the beginning, thinking I would be okay with the price, that is, until prices went south. I have done everything myself so far and will continue to do so except for the paint and corian. Custom cabinets and woodwork, which I enjoy doing, is not eveyone's cup of tea. I learned to weld, not great but well enough to keep the chasis togetherLike others have said, it satisfies me becasue I am doing it but if I were hiring it out, some of the things I let get by because I did it wouldn't get by if I was paying someone else was doing it, but then, that would cost more to do again.

If you can find a conversion now is the time to buy them. I don't think (fingers crossed) you would get hurt due to the amount of discounted pricing in the market at this time.

The reason I continue to move forward is I enjoy the project, I am motivated to see it to the end. I will have a 91 coach with only 86K original miles on the chasis in a conversion just the way we want it at a reasonable price.

Hope this gives you some idea what it might cost you if you were to move forward with your own conversion but there are a lot of variables.

Rob
91 Prevost LeMirage XL
Missouri

[belfert]

I actually kind of like working on my bus, but I am not happy with how redneck the interior looks right now.  I would be happy to pay someone to do the work if I could afford it.  A friend of mine in Kansas said he knows someone who does inexpensive, but nice looking bus interiors.  He never calls me back to give me the name of the guy.

I have no one to help so sometimes it forever to get things done.  My friends who do help from time to time for the most part don't care how it looks so they don't do a good job.  I may rip everything out again next summer and do a number of things differently so the end result turns out better this time.

[TomC]

If I take off the massive amount of mechanical work and modifications I've done to the bus, the actual conversion has cost about $45,000.00.  I've spent about that much also on mechanical work.  I didn't have the money to buy a nice bus, so the transit at $4,000.00 was it.  But putting another $40,000.00 into mechanical work shows me I could have had a nice highway bus, if I had the money at first.  You do what you can with what you have.  At least now I have new steering, air bags, and virtually everything in the engine compartment including the transmission has been rebuilt or replaced.  Good Luck, TomC

[Busted Knuckle]

If I take off the massive amount of mechanical work and modifications I've done to the bus, the actual conversion has cost about $45,000.00.  I've spent about that much also on mechanical work.  I didn't have the money to buy a nice bus, so the transit at $4,000.00 was it.  But putting another $40,000.00 into mechanical work shows me I could have had a nice highway bus, if I had the money at first.  You do what you can with what you have.  At least now I have new steering, air bags, and virtually everything in the engine compartment including the transmission has been rebuilt or replaced.  Good Luck, TomC

Hey Tom,
What ya got is nice! Especially since it's done (more or less) & PAID FOR! It's better than mine!
  BK 

[TomC]

Thanks BK!  I know one of those nice Setras would make a real class act going down the road and coming into a RV park! Good Luck, TomC