A Builder Tours His Favorite Skoolie Conversion After Four Years: ITS BETTER THAN EVER

[Music] you know the work of converting and enjoying a school bus doesn't stop when it leaves my shop and in the winter of 2017 when the owner of this bus picked it up he took that message to heart and he spent the last four years putting almost 50 000 miles on this bus enjoying it very much but taking exceptionally good care of it if you look at it i mean you'd think this just rolled off the line yesterday but it didn't unfortunately he's going to be moving on in life and this bus will be leaving his ownership but before he does that i asked him if i could do a tour of this bus to share with you not only what i think is one of the best builds we've ever done in my shop but also one of the best cared for buses i've ever seen from tip to tail everything on this bus has been lovingly serviced over the last four years and i want to take a moment to share with you not only what that looks like but also to give you an idea of what you might be in store for if this is a lifestyle you're considering we'll start on the outside go over the features work our way to the inside just like an onion i hope you'll find something very enjoyable about this video and this bus [Music] [Music] a bus conversion is only as good as the platform you start with and in my opinion this is one of the best starting points you could ask for in a full-size bus conversion this is a 2005 freightliner fs 65 chassis with a thomas built body on it featuring a mercedes-benz mbe 906 turbo diesel straight 6 engine it's mated to an allison 2000 series electronically controlled transmission with overdrive and in bob's tenure of ownership it has had nothing but the expected preventative maintenance and common wear items you would anticipate on a heavy-duty diesel engine of this vintage in my opinion this is one of the best power trains you could ask for the mercedes engine is incredibly reliable and it's computer controlled and because of that you get an engine that is very economical bob's been averaging 9.8 miles per gallon in his journeys and we consider the fact this vehicle is over 35 feet long that's exceptional a lot of folks are intimidated when they see the mercedes name plate behind these engines but i can tell you right now that anybody with experience in this field will agree that these are some of the most reliable medium duty diesel engines ever produced take a look at how clean this engine compartment is and i think you'll have to agree now of course the engine is only one part of what makes a bus a great platform for conversion and it doesn't stop there on this one this bus is from florida and it's completely rust free it's one of the cleanest frames i've ever seen and that frame is resting on a brand new set of front tires like new rear tires and these beautiful shiny alcoa aluminum rims i mean look at the shine on those guys it's kind of intimidating honestly unlike a lot of our builds this bus doesn't feature a roof raise it does however feature one of the highest stock ceiling heights available in a school bus that was a great feature that bob was very keen on when we started this project and what that did is it allowed us to still sneak an inch of foam board insulation in the subfloor in addition to the three inches of closed cell spray foam we installed throughout the build if you'll notice we've also gotten rid of all of the old drafty school bus windows and installed new rv windows and most of them are double pane they all feature screens and this thing has no trouble staying warm or cold in any climate that bob's been to in addition to getting rid of those drafty school bus windows we've gone through and replaced all of the exterior lights with leds the front headlights are also now leds and after the conversion was completed bob took it to his local sunny merriman thomas dealer and had it professionally painted on the exterior as you can see here it's one of the nicest paint jobs i've seen on a school bus and i think it really really adds to the overall appearance of it we've added a porch light over his front door in addition to a rear view camera he has a side view camera here that enables you to check out that blind spot behind this panel is a 10 gallon auxiliary fuel tank that supplies fuel to the honda eu3000is generator right here on a slide this generator is one of the most efficient and quiet ones on the market and it was a great pairing for this because despite the solar setup on this bus bomb wanted to make sure that in any situation he would always have juice behind the generator we have four 20-pound barbecue propane tanks the supply gas to his range and oven his combination gas electric water heater and two camco olympian wave heaters moving down the line on this side of the bus the fun just keeps rolling up here you have the exterior access panel to that gas electric water heater i mentioned earlier we also have an outdoor shower so you can you know get clean outside a little farther down just above the bus the fuel tank we have the city water inlet and the gravity fill inlet for the 80 gallon fresh water tanks that we have mounted inside the bus below that we've got a 40 gallon gray water tank up front and that's servicing the kitchen in the bathroom and in the back we have another 40 gallon tank which is just for the shower coming around to the back of the bus you can see we've deleted all of the leak-prone drafty school bus windows here and replaced them with new sheet metal so we could get in lots of insulation you'll see the led swapped rear lights and down here we have one of my favorite additions one of the easiest things you can do on your bus which is a two inch class four receiver hitch rounding out the driver's side we have a 30 amp shore power inlet some more led swapped clearance lights and then right down here we have our insulated battery box and inside that box we have 8.6 kilowatt hours of brand new lithium iron phosphate batteries which combined with the over 1400 watts of solar panels on the roof make sure that this bus isn't run out of juice anytime soon one last unique feature that we did on the outside here for bob is we actually installed a dedicated flexible solar panel on the roof a 100 watt model dedicated just for keeping his starting batteries topped up and in addition we went from two starting batteries to three to make sure this thing always has the juice it needs to crank over it also this bus also features in case you ever needed a uh a hidden disconnect switch so that you can actually completely isolate these batteries from the bus which is nice if you're going to be working on electrical components on the engine well i could probably ramble on for hours about all the nice features and details of the exterior of this bus but let's get inside so i can show you what happened in there because i think that's where the real magic is on this conversion the stairwell is finished up very nicely and it has a custom walnut and birch plywood organizer here adjacent to the stairwell the dash has been repainted there you can see our standalone charge controller for the starting batteries and this whole front cockpit has a fresh coat of paint and we actually left the front cap and ceiling intact up here just to keep things really clean well before we go any farther though i gotta talk for one second about this latching mechanism we came up with for bob so from the outside of the bus you can rotate the handle which drops this latch down across the doors if you'll see here this drops right down there and when you slide the deadbolt across the deadbolt actually goes into that tube and when that happens this door is locked it's very cool because it lets bob keep the aesthetic of the original school bus door but now he has the ability to lock it which we all know is a big problem on the dash you'll find our backup camera monitor and i really love these freightliner gauge pods i think they're just about as good as it gets on the bus this is probably one of my favorite interiors we've ever rolled out there's just something about the way it all came together that makes it feel really homey in here for me it starts with the fact that although we didn't do a roof raise we still have plenty of headroom in here for this to be comfortable i'm six foot one i've even got my boots on today and i still have about two inches of headroom that's really nice especially when you consider the fact that we snuck enough insulation in the floor and the ceiling to make sure that this bus would work for bob in all four seasons if you move through the rest of the interior you'll see that we've got our wide plank pine ceiling coming down into custom-made perimeter shelving throughout the bus using a combination of walnut and reclaimed wood i think it adds a really nice character that makes this bus feel very homey inside if you look around you'll see lots of indirect rope lighting it's one of our favorite things to do in builds because it doesn't take up any space it adds a really cool natural kind of feeling light especially if you get it reflecting off of the wood like we do back here and of course we put it on dimmers because everything should be on a dimmer you know life should be on a dimmer the front of the bus starts with an awesome co-pilot seat we've got two seats out of a toyota sienna minivan um and i like those seats because they feature built-in seat belts so the front seat here has a seat belt and it also swivels around so that it faces this seat right here over this custom beautifully glued up walnut and oak table opposite the booth we have a couch that pulls out into a full-size bed for any guests you may have there's storage underneath the bed and then on either side it's flanked by end tables custom made cabinets really go a long way to maximizing your storage in a bus and this is no exception we've got uppers on both sides all the way back in addition to a whole host of cabinets complementing the kitchen and under this futon the kitchen of this bus is something that turned out really awesome behind me we've got our butcher block countertop with a cantilevered span that actually extends over the end table for the futon so you kind of have this overlapping thing you get two tables in the space of one i really like the way that turned out we've reinforced it with the steel frame underneath to support this little peninsula here we've got a propane range and oven and then next to that behind our reclaimed wood accent wall with a little plant nook on top we have a 12 volt vitre frigo marine fridge and i really like these 12-volt marine fridges because not only are they very efficient and high quality but they have locking latches on both the fridge and freezer compartments and because they're meant for mobile installation they have a nice mounting flange on the outside that makes securing to securing them to the cabinetry very easy if you've ever tried to fit a residential fridge into your bus and figure out a way to latch it and also keep the fridge itself from moving around you know how challenging that can be especially if you want to look good rounding out this side of the kitchen we have a really nice big deep stainless steel sink with the window because every kitchen sink should have a window behind it and some great task lighting above it now one of my favorite features of the kitchen i think i've got a lot of them but this one's definitely one of them is this handmade folding walnut drying rack that we made which pops out like this and lets you dry your dishes right over your sink so the water drips in you've seen these kinds of things in some of our other builds it's something we really like doing we need that cute little guy the bus is heated by two camco olympian wave heaters these are catalytic heaters that are over 99 efficient we got one in the front and the back and those are more than enough to make sure that this thing is comfortable in all seasons all the cabinetry on this bus features the same type of push button latching hardware that you've seen in our other builds i think it's a great solution this bus features a split bathroom layout in which the sink and nature's head composting toilet are in a separate room from the shower the sink itself again is another really deep unit because we like big sinks in our buses it features a backlit vanity again with those indirect rope lights and then a kind of heavy-duty industrial sink right next to that you can see the controls for the water heater which operates on both gas and electric rounding out that split bath setup over here toward the back of the bus is an awesome 32 inch by 32 inch shower very clean and then right above it of course we have our fantastic vent fan for venting out any steam really clean shower super late super usable layout here and one feature i really like is if you're in the back of the bus getting clean all you have to do is open this closet and you've got your own privacy from the rest of the bus really handy working our way to the back of the bus after the bathroom and in between the bathroom and the shower we have two really good sized closets the one on the right side also houses the water heater and the one on the left houses the inverter and charge controller but there's still plenty of room for enough storage for two people easily the master bedroom on this bus is one of my favorite spaces because it feels like a completely different place than what's happening in the front and it's really got a nice kind of cocoon feeling so you can feel protected from the elements and whatever might be happening outside the bus when you're back here resting features a queen size mattress below which we have a lot of storage accessible from outside and from in here it also is sitting on top of our 80 gallons of fresh water storage with some nice compartments hidden along the way for storing whatever you need to out of sight below it on the front we have two large pull out drawers and that's also where we've installed our tank monitoring system where you can check the levels of the fresh and gray water tanks on the bus above the bed we've got a perimeter shelf with some more of that awesome indirect rope lighting that we like so much a couple of reading lamps on each side and even a nice bedside table with you guessed it some more storage at the foot of the bed as you move toward the front of the bus there's some nice triangular shelving built into this corner to kind of accentuate that area and still leave room for walking by and of course we've got more of those double pane insulated rv windows doing their part to keep this bus cool and comfortable in this hot weather for air conditioning the bus features a dometic 13 000 btu rooftop air conditioner which is plenty for keeping this bus nice and comfortable one of my favorite features about this bus are all of the lighting details from the downlit task lights to the indirect rope lighting reflecting off the ceiling behind the perimeter shelf lip and under the cabinets the bus always feels really comfortable and inviting if you work your way back we got the fantastic vent fan here and the lighting just continues with more indirect perimeter lights accentuating the bedroom one awesome thing that's also included with this bus is a binder documenting virtually everything that's happened to it we've even got our original floor plan concepts here pictures of the bus the day it was bought and then one of my favorite things are these oil analysis tests that we have here from blackstone laboratories and as i promised earlier um you know we got smiley faces on this report but you know these these are some of the best tests that this lab has seen um you know recently this isn't engine isn't showing any signs of slowing um let's see would have been a lot to ask for the metals to read much lower than this so and we've got a whole slew of these you continue to impress us with this engine um you know you can't open up an engine and look inside of it but these oil analysis tests are about as close as you can get this folder is super great it also contains all of the mechanical receipts for work done by the local dealership so you know everything's been done correctly well if you're anything like me i'm sure you've been curious to know how all these schooly conversions hold up after many years and many miles and i think that the bus you see me sitting in is a testament to just how durable and how long these can last if you choose to put in the little time and extra effort up front to protect your investment this is one of my favorite builds we've ever done and in my opinion it looks just as good today if not maybe a little better than it did when it left our shop back in december of 2017. thanks for watching this video and hopefully you'll find it interesting and entertaining enough choose to hit that subscribe button and we can stay up to date and stay in touch and i can continue sharing with you more school bus bus life schooly life schooly conversion construction tips and tricks to help you get you on the road and stay on the road [Music] all right well i thought i was done with the tour and teaching everything about that bus but since i happen to have the man himself here the reason why that bus was built i thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce him to you and then get his perspective on what it's been like being a schooly owner for the last well you've owned that bus almost five years but you've been using it for four years um and see if he has any words of wisdom for us so thanks for coming on to the show and sharing your expertise and i think um the first question which everyone wants to know is you know what what led you to this and why did you pick a bus you know why did you go to florida buy a bus and then give me a call yeah that's a question um i had to think about that and and i would say that i saw a number of people who many years before it kind of bug bit me who kind of just like went off in the country in in a bus like for the summer or something like that some kids went on mission trips or whatever and uh people just wanted to be in the outdoors and i you know i thought that was cool when i saw it didn't think a whole lot about it yeah and then as the years went by and as i moved towards retirement i was like i want to start doing something a little bit out of the box and you know i can't say exactly when it happened and how it happened but the idea of outfitting a bus was specifically a bus it wasn't like i was going to go buy a camper or whatever uh bit me and you know one thing led to another i found a dealer in florida and um he actually drove the bus to me in virginia so and then i was living on a farm at the time and i put in the barn i said well you know we're gonna do this in our spare time and then no spare time presented itself yeah that happens and so uh the story i know i've told a hundred times is that i started going online looking for guys that were smarter than me about how to make this happen specifically mechanical electrical yeah and i went on schooly.net i think it's what it's called and uh hunting around the forums specifically the mechanical electrical forums and i found you by name i was there and you were talking to people and you sound like you knew what you were talking about and so i think i actually called you and uh we talked briefly and then we might had a follow-up call and then we struck a deal that you were going to come to the farm i was working at for a number of weeks or maybe even a couple of months i was going to work alongside it you were going to teach me and showed me how to get started on this thing and um so i was pretty excited about that i was convinced you knew what you were talking about and i went home to my wife that night and i was like hey i think i found the guy who's gonna help me because i can't get this thing done on my own and she said what's his name and i'm like well i'm not so sure you would know i met him on the internet yeah i'm not going to share that with everybody you know and she said what's his name and i said charlie kern she said saw him on hdtv and i was like kidding right so i was like i watched tv strikes again i wasn't convinced that she really had you know the name writing with the show right because it just seemed so out of the ordinary yeah we would both be talking to the same people so i called you back and i said charlie my wife thinks that you were on hgtv and you said very uh you know plainly yeah i am i'm like oh okay so plan b so we're not you're not coming to virginia we're not doing this thing in a farm barn uh i'm bringing this bus to you i'm going to lead it with you and you know the rest of the story like that's exactly what we did yeah that's a funny bob had to remind me of this story because i had forgotten all the juicy details of it um that's a good story so taking up from there you know we built out bob's bus and you just saw how it turned out and we've been really happy with it and bob's been enjoying it for the last four years and i think of all the clients we've had uh he certainly managed to squeeze the most miles onto his conversion uh so far and um he comes back and visits us i mean it's been almost every summer i think with the exception of one and so it's been fun to stay in touch with him and continue making improvements on the bus as he enjoys it and we learn about how to make it even better um and i think that that brings me to my next question for you i mean as someone who's done this for four years you know what's could you share a couple things that maybe you wish you had known going into this if there were some things that were surprising to you and conversely like what would you tell somebody you know what would you tell the bob bauer of uh 2016 or 2017 when you were just getting started yeah you know i mean i'm sure there were things that well i know there were things that i didn't know about the process but we were talking earlier you know i come from a career in construction right yeah so like this is a lot like construction just on a vehicle and not a building so i can't really say that anything really surprised me um yeah i will say that and i'm not just saying this like i had the supreme trust in you like our early discussions it was pretty obvious to me that you knew what you're talking about and i could trust you with my build uh you know we mentioned earlier didn't do we didn't have a contract yeah we did this thing on a handshake that's like you don't do that like smart people don't do that but i knew that you could be trusted and that you knew what you were talking about we were both dumb and i mean i marvel at that because it's quite quite uncharacteristic doing business today yeah a lot of pitfalls and doing business that way but i felt good about that so i can't say that i had a surprise yeah i would give you know any number of uh advice to people that are thinking about doing this and i think the first one would be like don't cheap out on the bus like the bus you start with yeah like the bus you start with like don't don't bite on the government auction that can sell your bus for three thousand dollars not that there are gems out there but if you don't know what you're looking for um you know that's dangerous because you know if you put you know forty fifty sixty thousand dollars into a bus and the platform is not sound you're gonna have some sleepless nights and some really disappointing times with respect to repairs and whatever so yeah uh i i did pay probably more than most folks thought i should have paid for that bus but uh you know the mercedes engine has turned out to be just a little gem the frame the chassis has not given me not one problem and so i was comfortable putting a bunch of money into it um the other thing would be like don't trust your vehicle your build to somebody who maybe hasn't done a bunch of them you know one of the things that impressed me about charlie was that you were living in a bus i was living and i thought well that's the guy you want building your business if he didn't get his right yeah he's going to get yours right yeah and i think and you told me this number times like you know you this is this is a continuum for you guys you know you learn every bus you do you learn something yeah and certainly after you're built and living out in boulder in the bus that you know you just i felt like had all the the knowledge and the wisdom that you needed to have to do this well and of course you know time has borne that out to be true yeah um you know i just oh also have a mechanic like have a mechanic for preferably one person that's only going to touch your bus yeah that again you've developed a relationship with and you have trust for uh every bit of the work on this bus was done uh at sunny merriman which is a thomas authorized dealer in virginia um that's the only people i would take the bus to and also the same folks who painted the bus as well they painted the paint spray booth there was no dust you know yeah think about all those things because they might seem like they're expensive at the time but you won't have to go back and do it a second time yeah i'd have to agree with all that and you've really you know the biggest issue you had was a turbo that went at about the time that you would expect a turbo to go and aside from that i mean you could almost call that maintenance because it's just an expectation aside from that you've really had no other issues no and we had we had one small issue when we were building it yeah we have fueled some o-rings that need to be replaced it was like one o-ring we said do them all that's and that i think that's maybe my last call it's a mentality don't cheat on preventive maintenance because the money you'll spend in the shop compared to the money you'll spend on the road is probably a factor of five yeah i mean when you factor in toes and then the shop you take it to you can charge you kind of whatever they want and they do [Laughter] that's a lot of really good wisdom there um well i don't know what else you know i think you can share with these folks i mean i think that uh every i would agree wholeheartedly with all of your sentiments especially the idea of when you buy the initial bus that's not a place to skim saving three four even ten grand on the bus up front all it takes is one breakdown and not only did you blow all of that money but in general spending an extra ten thousand dollars doesn't get you a better motor it gives you a better motor a better transmission a cleaner frame maybe better tires i mean it could be a whole lot of other things that are nicer where if you buy a cheaper bus save breaks down you spend 10 grand on a new motor well the rest of the bus still might be rusty it still might be have been neglected you know so uh i think that that's definitely money wells but i agree um well bob thank you you are definitely one of the best clients we've ever had we couldn't keep you away yeah yeah i couldn't well and like we said like when the comments are prevented maintenance like our visit every year was all yeah the same thing same thing at the bus from bumper to bumper and find small things that be or bigger later on so yeah so that's been uh i mean i i should be thanking you like you've made a dream come true and uh i know i told you earlier it's like you know you have something special that's for you when four or five years later after you first got in it yeah it's still like christmas morning yeah and i can tell you right now like i'm getting ready to push off back to virginia as we have to get done with this discussion and i can't wait to get back in the seat yeah and i mean that's that's special that's pretty good yeah so awesome yeah thank you well thanks again thanks for uh sticking around and watching the video and uh for those of you who are interested this bus is for sale it's got a clean bill of health from every person who's ever looked at it at this point so if you have any questions or want to reach out my contact info is in my profile and uh have a great day thank you cool

Channel: Chuck Cassady

Views: 567,770

Keywords:

Id: 9FqI9EViYOY

Length: 29min 54sec (1794 seconds)

Published: Mon May 16 2022