Schooled by a Skoolie: How many more subtitles will I need?

Ryan has the perfect observation for the whole Rowsdower adventure. “It is an awesome project, but I’m glad I’m not in charge”

Well I am in charge. Which is frightening on account of my inability to make simple decisions. Well most of the time. I did decide to buy a bus. I’ll amend that to: my inability to make smart decisions. After all, I am living in a city that I dislike doing a job that bores the bejesus out of me because I can’t just pick a direction and go.

Something about my anxiety in that. I try to make a change and then end up freezing. I’m a catch ladies. But I do have a bus.

With the roof up, the welding began as I raced time to try and get the bus closed back up before winter arrived. I fell rather short of that goal. I also still needed to grind the rust off the floors as I finished patching up the major holes. That is a slow process. Which I think will be my catchphrase from here on out.

The lift devices held quite well overnight. And the following morning I returned for more welding. There was a lot of welding. You may feel free to Insert my catchphrase here.

I had purchased around 30 lengths of square tube steel pipe. They fit perfectly into the hat channels and would become the new struts. All we had to do was hold them in place with a clamp and weld the pillars into the hat channels. A note, a hat channel sort of a U shaped beam of steel. They run vertically between the windows. We cut them, raised the roof and then inserted the new pipe into the U and welded it into place.

But we had forgotten exactly how to weld. The heat was too low and the wire speed too high. Explanation, mig welding runs a coil of wire through an electric current and uses that wire to melt two pieces of steel together. Basically you have a little gun shaped device that you use to direct the wire. My welder gives you two options, how fast you want the wire to feed, and how high you want the electric current. Simple and straightforward. Except we were having problems getting a good weld.

When it came down to welding, we were getting an intermittent connection and well it wasn’t working. We had the wire speed too high. That was our problem. Gary fixed us up and gave us a refresher. Thanks again Gary.

I got better at welding with this. Much better by the end. Turns out welding in full sunlight is a bitch, as the bright light makes your mask cut out, and really with the blast shield down how am I supposed to weld? But I got it done. Day after day when the weather was nice. I’d change into my bus uniform before leaving work and spend a few more hours making my way towards that goal.

After the uprights were all in place, I cut some angle iron(L-shaped steel) and welded that to the square tubes. They would give me a place to rivet the new walls into place.

Yeah, I welded a lot. And I’m still nowhere near finished. Next I need to get working on sealing up the Transition.

What is the Transition you ask? You know when we chopped the bus roof off and raised it 20 inches? Yeah, that time. Pretty cool huh? Anyhow, there is still that step-up that needs to be re-filled. Usually in the form of some fancy metal work. Les installed the rear hatch of an old suv into his bus Transcendence. And then welded sheet metal around it. I really wanted to do that myself. And I had two Transitions that needed to be filled! Squeee!

So we found a local auto junkyard. $2 each to get in. An hour of wandering, taking pictures and sizing up possible hatches, before we realized that we forgot our tools. Another roundtrip to the bus site. And then I bought myself the rear hatch back to a ‘74 Chevette. It was brown. It would be at home in Rowsdower(I was going to paint it, but a ‘74 Chevette, that just seems magical).

All I needed to do now was figure out how to get it into the gap, and plumb with the roof, on both sides of the transition. I had no clue how to do that, so I set it aside as it percolated in the back of my mind and got onto other work.

You know what a bus has a lot of? Aside from chewed gum and gross rubber mats. Windows.

There are a ton of ways to raise a bus roof. Two Nerds in a Bus chose to cut lower and retain the long rows of windows, as inefficient as they were. I went with Les’s aforementioned approach. But I still do like “having light and being able to see”. So I was going to be forced to fabricate some window frames myself. And install proper windows. After buying proper windows.

Not to worry, I had expected this outcome and was already thinking about it. I just needed to find some slick RV windows. And facebook was a bust.

It appears that America’s RV manufacturing industry was based around South Bend Indiana. And to my luck, there are several businesses that sell parts for RVs. I found one that I dearly wanted to visit, and I must say it was hella-cool. One day of wandering around the yard with my sister and Brigitte and I scored several windows, and a sweet stereo system. All on the cheap. Will need to return for water tanks and a door.

Once again, having the correct tools is important. I don’t usually have the correct tools. For this job I was facing making proper cuts using a freaking hand-held angle-grinder. I pride myself in my ability to adapt. And I also pride myself in my ability to bitch when my adaptations don’t pan out. Stupid angle grinder, is like performing delicate surgery with an icebreaker(the ship, not the opening salvo of a conversation, though that would have been about as effective, I’m just not a man who likes talking, so I’d rather use the ship).

I was happy with my work on the window frames. For a couple of days. Then I took a better look and realized that I might not have been quite as level as I had first thought. Well shit. But the windows fit perfectly in them and I can always just call myself an eccentric artist type.

After that, the front Transition finally clicked in place in my mind and I made it so. AT least for the Chevette door. Still waiting for spring to return so that I can finish the job. Or have one of the people who doesn’t mind heights do it for me. I hate heights. Even sitting atop a 8' wide bus that is a mere 9.5’ off the ground makes me feel a bit wiggy.

Damn but it would be nice to be able to work on this in my own back yard. But douchey city ordinances and all that fun stuff you know. And I don’t have a back yard. I guess the latter plays more into it than the former, but if I did have a back yard, those assholes would have really screwed me over.

Jerks.

Schooled by a skoolie. Part the first.

I came across a video on youtube where a dude converted a bus into an RV, and I fell in love with the idea. With a couple of friends sold on the taking a bus and converting it into an RV for our roadtrip in 2019. (I am the wrong kind of stupid) I began searching for a bus. Yeah, I had to talk other people into this project, as I was already well over my head. More on that later.

I strolled about the interwebs for months trying to land a proper bus with the features I wanted. Flat-nose, rear-engine, 40’ long. There are always a ton of buses available, but most of them don’t really fall into my price-range of super-cheap, while not being about to shake apart in a light breeze.

Because I am either dumb or delusional in my belief that I can find both good and cheap.

I had a list of sites that I checked daily and I began to get really antsy and anxious. There were a couple at a place out in Maryland. I could buy one, take a flight and drive it back through DC traffic the 20 hours across country. Man that sounds like a bad idea. I ended up on facebook market-place as the days ticked by. Desperately combing the ads for a bus that would fit the bill. Facebook marketplace, insert Mos Eisly Cantina reference here. It fits.

But luck was with me, I came across a bus with the features I wanted. And in my price-range. A big red monstrosity that had once been a church bus. And the owner was a mere hour to the north, and had intended to build a skoolie himself and his family. That fell apart and he was now selling, but only after he had put in some of the basic work. Huzzah. I made an appointment for the following Sunday.

He was cash only, as are most of the denizens of facebook so I stopped at the bank and withdrew the cash when we were on our way to comic-con. And then spent the rest of the day weaving through rivers of strangers with one hand in my pocket as my shoulders cramped and my mind was wrapped in a gauze of paranoia. It was a long day.

The following sunday, in the company of a couple friends, we ventured north to take a look at the first real lead in our exciting new world! I was going to get a bus. Maybe. Mostly I was worried that I was going to be robbed and then get Ned Beatty-ed. I don’t have an opinion about the relative attractiveness of my mouth and to this day I am perfectly content to remain in blind ignorance about what the general populace might think.

The bus made me uncomfortable. The breaks were odd, the engine was leaking oil, the front step had rusted out and he had cut all of the legs off the bus seats, leaving the feet that would still need to be removed. We gave it a test drive and told him that I’d think on it. I thought it made me uncomfortable and I would pass.

He sold the bus to some other taker. Good luck to both of them, but I was back where I started. Then I found an auction site for local governments. Hot damn! And they had whole load of buses. All over the country! I bid on one in Eugene Oregon, all my features, and no rust. I was already cobbling together plans to fly out and drive it back. I have a friend who lives in Eugene, I’d like to drop by and see her. Fortunately, as the much shorter Maryland trek would have been an endurance job, the Eugene bus quickly taken away by aggressive bidders.

I ended up buying a bus from a school district in Toledo Ohio, some 3 hours drive from my home. I put in my bid and my nerves grew more and more strained as the countdown ticked closer to zero. How am I going to get this thing? I need a ride over. Do I have to insure it(yes, theoretically, but finding bus insurance is insanely difficult for individuals)? What would happen if I got stopped by the police, as I don’t have a special driver’s license? Did I need a special driver’s license just to drive an empty school bus across state?

I won the auction. $1500. I was already stewing in anxiety. Where was I going to keep this thing? I had already named it. Rowsdower, after Canada’s greatest action hero. I set to trying to work out the details.

Shit. I just bought a bus.

Late June and the weather was a humid 90 degrees, a good day to drive across state. Fuck the Midwest. But with paperwork in hand I set off with a friend across state to go and see my bus for the first time and bring it home. Like a proud, frightened nimrod who makes poor decisions. Like myself.

Rowsdower was in fantastic shape and sitting down in the driver’s seat made me feel excited as I imagined the possibilities.

Buying the bus was a learning experience. Firstly I learned that my bus could hit 70 on an open highway. Secondly I learned how to drive a bus. Did my bus have air-conditioning? That was my first question. And yes it did, when you opened the windows and got onto the highway. More importantly, did my bus have cruise control? I forgot to ask that. The answer turned out to be yes, I discovered on my own a month later. Hey, looking over your shoulder through the rear window? Like you do when driving a normal car, well that isn’t feasible with a bus. You stick to the mirrors buddy and you’re gonna like it.

The drive back was long and challenging. I tried to keep behind semi-trucks as Rowsdower plodded along the highways. That way I was able to keep a constant pace, and maybe even draft a little and ease up on the fuel consumption. What seemed like a week later, we finally got back into town just in time for rush hour traffic.

Another friend had offered to store the bus on his property north of town. He was in a residential neighborhood, but off the beaten path. I had never been there, but the friend who had gone on the Toledo adventure with me, he knew where it was.

Mostly.

We passed the driveway. I learned something new, backing up a school bus in a quiet suburb is not easy. It is very hard. Especially for yours truly. But alas, Rowsdower was safely ensconced in his new home! I had accomplished a major feat and achieved a goal.  And the rest of the night was mine to relax. Soon the deconstruction would begin.