Boo Hoo Sniff........ My bus :(

[artvonne]

  Hard to add anything meaningful to the many comments. The only thing that comes to mind is to say that once you get rid of all the junk thats going away, and sweep the floor, it wont look nearly so overwhelming. Keep going until everything leaving is gone, and youll be able to relax. Im sure right now it just looks like a big mess. 

[mikewarmblood]

Yeah I can understand the feeling.  My RTS is just missing the back cover that covers the A/C unit and it is a slant back. Just that piece missing I feel it is incomplete and it bugs the living you know what out of me.  I can't emagine what i would feel if I gutted it I would be depressed. Just the back cover broken gets me depressed.  I know I am the type of guy that if I has two buses and one was being stripped for a conversion I would not be so crazy!!! but if it my only bus I don't think I could do it.   But if you stick with it don't get depressed you'll will start the feel the excitement when thinking of where this or that goes and before you know it, it will look like a motorhome.   My opinion.  But I share your feelings.   

[happycamperbrat]

haha!! What a bunch of nutz!! You guys have proven it and we are all certifiable! When a person can see beauty or hope in those photos, you know youre a gonner      

[belfert]

I bought my bus back in early April 2006.  I had barely started stripping the interior five years ago today.  You appear to be further along than I was at that point.

I worked on the bus probably 5 or 6 days a week after work and weekends for the whole summer until about mid September 2006.  If I was home I was working on the bus or sleeping.  The bus was nearly usable by mid September.  A friend was helping me at the end, but he had a family emergency about 5 days before the planned first trip.  I really had more work than I could finish by myself in those five days.  Another friend convinced me to cancel the trip as he felt the bus wasn't going to be ready.  I was really bummed, but I canceled the trip.

It was probably a good thing we didn't end up going as the radiator was bad and it would have overheated on every grade in the Rockies.  I replaced the radiator during summer 2007 and no more issues with overheating.

The moral of the story is you can get a lot done in five months if you want to dedicate most of your non-working time to the bus.  There are some guys who claim to have done a conversion in two weeks full time, but it probably wasn't their first bus and they probably have a bit more skill than I do.

[happycamperbrat]

I read these stories about the super fast conversions too! Argh! A lot of my problem is that I have such a HUGE learning curve to overcome! When I started out on this, I didnt even know how to get a rivot out of something lol Additionally, my family has had a LOT of health problems that have set me back while I took care of them. And too, the weather here makes it often unbearable to be out there working on it for any length of time. But I just got those hookups done and a new portable personal space swamp cooler, so hopefully I will be able to work on the inside of this summer in fair comfort.

[Highway Yacht]

I read these stories about the super fast conversions too! Argh! A lot of my problem is that I have such a HUGE learning curve to overcome! When I started out on this, I didnt even know how to get a rivot out of something lol Additionally, my family has had a LOT of health problems that have set me back while I took care of them. And too, the weather here makes it often unbearable to be out there working on it for any length of time. But I just got those hookups done and a new portable personal space swamp cooler, so hopefully I will be able to work on the inside of this summer in fair comfort.

Teresa.. is there anyway you could build a portable greenhouse frame from PVC pipe and throw a shade cloth over it like they use at the plant nurseries?? The PVC pipe and fittings would be fairly cheap but not sure about the cost of shade cloth. That would at least keep the direct sunlight off of you and the bus but still allow the air to circulate.

Jimmy

[happycamperbrat]

The only problem with that is the wind....... we regularly get very high winds out here, sometimes up to 100 mph. Also the sun is soooo strong out here and the air soooo dry, that plastic/pvc anything very rapidly becomes brittle and just doesnt hold up. What I want to do is install some galvanised poles in cement and build a frame with them, then wrap that with heavy shade clothe coated in cement Seriously!