With life getting back to normal and being respectful of our HOA, work on the bus is limited to after hours at storage or weekends.
Wiring
The bus we purchased was a handicapped bus with fully functional wheelchair ramp. Though when we purchased it, the wheelchair ramp had been partially removed and fully disconnected, it meant all the wiring for said ramp was still in place as well as various wiring required for the school bus lighting.
The pre-installed bus items we wanted to keep were the dome lights, speakers, door opening/closing, the driver seat fans, the front heater and the air conditioning. All other school (safety) gear, wires, fuses and solenoids were removed. If we were not sure of the function of a wire, we started the bus after disconnecting it. At some point we lost the upper running lights, but fortunately we managed to trace those wires back and get them reconnected.
Luckily, this was something that could be done at the storage yard in the afternoons. Wire removal in this bus is a very long and tedious process. It can be done in two different directions, but we preferred to start from the source and work towards the fuse boxes instead of the other way around.
The removal requires a few simple tools; a box cutter, electrical tape, crimp tool and some connectors. We labeled the wires we wanted to keep with their function, that way we don’t have to search for them when we re-assemble the bus. We cut the wires we did not need and coiled them up for re-use in the future.
Cleaning up the auxiliary fuse panel was a day’s work in itself. Trying not to cut or remove anything that could affect the bus operation was a bit nerve wracking. The cleanup of this fuse panel was completed, but the dashboard to main bus fuse panel cleanup still needs to be done.
All in all, we now have 20 lbs pounds less wire in the bus then before we started.
Flooring
Ivo’s younger brother, Niels, came to town over the weekend with his kids. Originally, we were going to go to Galveston for the day to play on the beach, but he brought the pacific northwest weather down with him. Since it was too cold for the beach, and the kids were having a blast just playing at the house, he offered to help with the next phase of demolition.
Flooring was the plan for the day. The linoleum and plywood were dirty and worn. Even with the current cost of plywood, we decided to pull it all up and discard it to ensure we started with a clean bus.
We were very happy with how easy the floors came up. It required disassembly and re-assembly of the driver’s seat to get the flooring from underneath, but for the rest – two crowbars and some muscle did the trick.
All nails stayed in the floor, so after removing the plywood we still had to get rid of those as well. The first nail we pounded through with a hammer, but that left a nail head which may be in the way when we put the new plywood in place. Instead, we decided to grind off the remainder of the nails. This would leave less holes to fill and a more solid floor.
To make sure the bottom of the nails would not fall out after cutting the tops, with risk of puncturing tires during a drive, we checked if we could push the cut nails through the floor with a hammer and a punch. All that hammering and pounding proved the nails would all nicely stay in the floor after grinding but…. when we looked under the bus, we noticed all the washers that were not removed after the chair removal nicely lay on our driveway….
We also tried to cut the bolts of the last remaining wheelchair track with an oscillating tool. (Advice from up north can very occasionally be taken seriously) It worked like a charm until the cheaper version of the tool we purchased started smoking. Cheap is not always good, but we simply cannot afford all this pretty new DeWalt stuff we see in the do-it yourself videos. Now we need to buy the same tool twice though.
By the end of Saturday, all the flooring had been removed with the flooring smooth.
For the coming week, we have remainder of the wire cleanup and a bus deep clean on the schedule. We’ll see what we can get done.