Converting our bus.

I have been looking for the right bus to buy for some time now. A while ago brother in law Dirk told me about the bus at his son's school that is for sale.Anita and I went to look at the bus.We were surprised to find a 1976 Mercedes Bens bus with a big diesel engine at the back and a automatic gearbox just what we wanted. We picked up the bus from Millennium primary school on Tuesday.After a quick charge to the battery's the engine started right away. I drove the bus home and was impressed with the speed  I could drive I did 80 to 100 km h on my way home.

Making a early start on Thurs day I started to take the seats out of the bus.I thought that I would manage on my own but to now avail.Anita came to help, according to her I am to well fed to fit between the seats, ofcors it's not true,it's not my fold thy are so close together.I had to start the engine for the airbags to fill so that I could get under the bus to loosen the very rusted bolts and nuts that hold the seats to the floor.After a lot of laughs, some gymnastic moves and skinned nugels it took us two day's to remove all the seats.

20/0919
Taking the stickers off

I read on the busnuts.com website that it is easier if you use a hairdryer to remove the stickers from the bus and now my fingers are kooked.Removing the stickers was easy enough but taking off the glue is a another ball game.I bought at Autozone Super Miracel cleaner and tryed that first then, I phoned a friend of mine Werner who told me to try Burnishing compound but that didn't work either.So I drove all the way back to town and bought turpentine that worked sort of.

2011/09/21
The floor plan of our bus.
Hier is die uitleg van die bus soos ooreen gekom deur my en Anita en die hulp van n' huweliks berader,die Dominee en die Komesaris van polisie.

Die uitleg van die bus soos ooreen gekom deur my en Anita


Treating the rust around the windows.

To day I took the windows out of the bus, and what a surprise I got.I suspected to find some rust but o boy, their was a lot of rust I spent most of the day grinding the rust off which is mostly serves rust.Tomorrow I will treat the rust with rust converter and paint the area with Red oxide primer.








Blangking off the windows.
The past few weeks I did not do much to our bus.
But since we came back from the Aartklop festaval in Potchefstroom I closed off all most all the windows that we don't want.

 I used 3M-VHB doubel sided tape to fix the Chromadek sheets to the window frames.Rob Gray Nature Photographer and frend of mine in Australia build his OFF ROAD MOTORHOME the same way.He used 3M tape to fix the side panels to the frame and it worked wonderfully. 

Tommoro the bus is of to the Panel Beaters to get a new piant job.I decided to keep it simpel and mainly stay with white and silver we will see what it looks like after it is finiched.

2011/11/08: The bus is still at the panelbeater.

The rust on the front has been taken care off and the first of the primer has been sprayed on.

Ventelasion holes to get the heat out off the engine bay was cut in and will be covered with stainlessteel mech.                                                                                                             



                                                                       Pianting the bus

Here we are prepering the back and sides so it can be pianted.

 The front of the bus already looking much beter than it used to,we took out all the rust and pianted the nose.

The sides are done the silver piant whent on and it's looking good.