I'll be Surprised If You're Not Impressed with This Charter Bus Conversion

my name is clint lewing i'm driving a 1977 mci crusader and uh yeah i spent the last three years building this sucker [Music] this video is sponsored by crisp if you ever struggle with background noise during online calls or recording video crisp is the magic tool that blocks 100 of background noise with the click of a button click the link in the description and get 240 minutes of free use per week and don't worry about noise anymore and remember to subscribe [Music] five years ago now i think i was actually filming in baja in mexico and i decided to rent a dodge caravan and cruise through in california and i love that so much i decided you know i'm gonna build my own so i ended up picking up a 1991 uh chev g20 spent a good two years building that one out and then that van honestly went so good i tend to go big or go home i had been looking at this specific bus for a good year and a half the guy needed to sell it more than i needed to buy this specific bus so what started out around just shy of 30 000 ended up around 85 or 8 600 bucks there's actually a 7 500 kilowatt uh quad diesel onan generator in here and an inverter that turns out it's like a 5 000 inverter so i basically paid what that generator and that inverter is worth and i got the bus for free not a carpenter by trade i mean i never even took schooling in high school i've never even seen a youtube tutorial on really anything that i've done i wasn't scared to just pick up a tool and try it was nice when you can live in a house and this is the project but for the last year i was living in my project while it was you know getting finished so that's pretty taxing right like you could never escape the work i would get more and more ideas as i went so i'd like build off more and more the details in there went pretty crazy but again it's totally worth it this has been coming on three years this build but yeah now this is home [Music] this is my 1977 mci crusader it's an old charter bus that has 197 000 kilometers on the herbometer basically not even broken in always thought of doing the schooly thing once i started looking at charter buses and the prevos i'm like as soon as i saw the first one i'm like oh damn i know what i'm going to do so school buses went out the window and then i was looking for charter buses and once i saw the look of this 77 it's like done that's it 545 liters of diesel this one got so it's not too cheap to fill up but you go a long ways two brand new batteries is the 24 volt system so these batteries are brand new and that's obviously how i start and stop 7 500 kilowatt quiet diesel generator and the inverter there as well so generator is plumbed into the fuel tank 545 liters to have this one to charge my battery bank on the other side that you'll see after down the road i'm actually having built basically two drawers so all i'm going to do is hit a button here and then the drawers are going to come out as tracks on here so one drawer is going to be for tools and this is going to be the adventure drawer so when i hit that button i'll have the dirt bike come out and one wheel and the jet surf and all that kind of stuff because yeah i like to go fast on a bunch of different things so that'll be that'll be the tickle trunk on the back one biggest question that i get all the time is do you need a class one or what you need this tag axle you can actually just lift it up off the ground to get you know an easier turn around since this is only a single drive axle all you need is your q endorsements or your air brakes so this is the detroit diesel 8v71 runs absolutely amazing brand new radiators in here it doesn't run hot you can actually start stop it back here as well anybody who's trucking now that's what they started with so every truck stop i go to right they'll be coming in like here's an old detroit i'm like yeah yeah yeah so it gets a little bit of attention that's for sure i'll show you well not the power plant but what keeps the lights on and then you get a little bit more of an idea of the perfectionist that i am that you're never even going to see this but still looks pretty [Music] this is the propane and the batteries here so i have 10 13-inch deep cycle batteries and these can be charged with the generator over there or my noco genius pro it's a 50 amp charger so i can be running the ac heater everything uh while that's all plugged in i just charged these now but before that it was last year november so whoa 10 months okay so a long time without having to charge it so basically the end of the world comes i don't need to plug into anything or whatever and then yeah the propane in there as well so yeah for cooking heat all that kind of stuff one of the good pieces of advice that i'll give everyone that wants to live out on the road you might not need something this big but you need all your tools if something's going wrong so i mean yeah everything from you know from engine work to flats all that kind of stuff i have everything with me all the time yeah this is kind of a cool feature too so people ask sometimes to you where my spare tire is [Music] and there's my spare tire i definitely wouldn't be able to change this tire myself it's a little too heavy for my jack to handle but i mean there is your spare so that's it for the outside and uh now i'm excited to show you actual best part of the bus which is inside so after you what is great is this bus is an automatic not shifting through gears that kind of thing which makes driving a lot more comfortable and it's actually super comfy to drive this bus i mean this seat you know when it's aired up like you're actually on air here as well so you're just bouncing nice comfy here and you got a hell of a view and you know the music sound system it's great so yeah super comfy to drive this one this is the whole sound system and everything that i built in i have uh two 1500 watt uh hertz malay amps that are powering two hertz delay 12-inch subs and eight six and a half inch uh malay rounds so there's two on each side here and then we got six up top like a wise man joey tribiani once said to have a tv as if appearing from nowhere that's the dream well we got the dream we got an 8k 55 inch tv hidden behind there so while we're driving it's down but when we're parked like this hanging out you got your tv as well that's run off the 110 so coming off the inverter as well as the tv the xbox everything like that and this whole entertainment unit i wanted to keep everything kind of natural with the wood right so even the upholstery that i did it's it's not real but you know it's that fake kind of gator stick in just to give it texture everything that's in here is like a wood grain enhancement stain so there's zero color to it i always knew just the kind of colors i wanted instead of getting stained i just got wood that looked the color i wanted it to be right actually the like the arm rests here on this side and that side over there you see the green epoxy this is actually the center cutouts um from the back vanity over there so i just reused that and actually underneath here as well like if you just lift the cushion off like from here to here it's just a door you open up so i have all spare blankets camping stuff it's all uh you know all storage underneath here i actually made a lickenberg wood burning machine i went to salvation army spent the whole ten dollars got a microwave you just get a transformer out and it's enough to burn the hell out of this wood so burned it first got all the charcoal out and then uh yeah went with the two different colored blue epoxies to touch that's definitely worth the effort for sure on next where sir always likes hanging out especially in the winter i did get the electric fireplace in here so in the winter here in bc like this is more than good enough like it's hot in here the only thing that i paid someone to do is come in and spray the roof with the spray insulation i have silverboard the vapor berry and the walls r40 on the floor of roxol so that's the insulation and this right here my countertop my tabletop people ask you know how how do you learn how to do epoxy while you're looking at it right now so this is black walnut this uh all comes together into obviously the sink and the stove in there i'm gonna have my fresh water tank and my gray water tank in the middle luggage bay this switch right here is the pump you turn this switch on and then you'll be able when i do get the faucet in here to run and then a lot of sentimental pieces that i put in here too like this door knocker my mom brought it back from the netherlands that's the handle for this cabinet here but yeah i was lucky enough to find you know lions heads that are the handles for everything else fridge is hidden in there this is the one that used to be in the van down in california so i've traveled with this sucker everywhere as you can see but now it's in the bus the appliances that i have here unique off-grid this fridge you can run off propane 110 or 12-volt so i have it plugged in in the back but actually up top once i'm on the road i'll just hit that switch and it'll be on 12-volt and the propane bottles you saw downstairs is what runs the stove but the absolute favorite part hands down of this entire bus build is this one right here i could have just got any normal door but then i ended up getting one slab of cedar spalted maple burls in there the door took me about three weeks to make so it's worth it in the end but yeah it takes takes a long time that's for sure and now step into yeah the master bedroom right now it's a couch you know what i'm driving around but actually when i get these osage beams and i pull these all the way out this is a queen bed and i made it big enough so if i ever want to put a king mattress on here i can the van i had it where the drawers are actually the support for the bed but here i didn't want to have the bed out and have to constantly put it in and out to get to the clothes that are in here so this way you know the drawers were independent of the supports for the bed all this cedar actually had to get the the back end soaked in water for a couple days and then you know and then bent so i didn't have to cut everything and then besides that you know this is kind of dark so every board i went with the tiger torch and you know burnt with the tiger torch with that then did that because i wanted that darker this olive i mean this has got to be one of my favorite pieces of wood to work with it just turned out absolutely gorgeous just with the black and light this tree was actually in a forest fire so an ember you know hit the branch and then burned in so these are all like little fireballs there's going to be a mirror up in here but i do have again an indirect light in behind there that can be any color you want but right here i'm actually doing like to keep it pretty modern like a petrified wood sink is going to come up off here and then of course the faucet and the drain system is going to be running in along this side and the shower is actually going to be this whole corner here and how it's cut out so this is going to be the shower this is the bathroom this is olive all done with epoxy even the toilet seats done with epoxy and i burned that with the tiger torch the plumbing for this is what came with the bus so the black water system super sanitary super great and yeah like i said it looks nice so when you're sitting or doing whatever in there super comfortable i have a ranch back in alberta the old milk barn that was there i actually took these cedar beams out of there so filled all this in with you know that blue epoxy and now this is the ladder that goes up top i got a buddy of mine to weld up brackets every two and a half feet directly into that steel frame in these brackets there's these one-inch pockets so actually all on this side and that side i have railings that you know you just drop right in there when the railings are up you have the whole table barbecue's going to be here as well basically your penthouse of the bus is really what it is money can't buy the feeling that you have living in something that you built yourself 100 yes you can live a certain lifestyle but i mean the appreciation that i have when you put all that time and effort and work and when i have people in here and i see them thoroughly enjoying themselves it's like there is the payoff you know that's always what i wanted from this bus so yeah it's definitely appreciation that once you actually sit down take a breath after years of work yeah you can't buy that what this costed was the time it was the staying up till two in the morning three in the morning day in day out that's what it costs what it also costs is approaching these companies you know knowing your worth trying to work something out that's how you get this done so i just wouldn't want people to get in the idea where it's like okay if i have ten or twenty thousand dollars i can build this it's like no no no paying for it is easy the hardest thing is buying the van or buying the bus like pulling the pin and doing it right if you see it's for you i mean let's face it it's it's so popular now say if you don't like it you can sell the van for what you bought it for you know what i mean by the van get a camp stove throw a mattress in it you're doing van life it's really that simple you know the features and all the amazing stuff and living it's the lifestyle so you know and the freedom that comes i definitely wouldn't be who i am and personality wise without this you know i think that's another reason why i'm kind of happy to you know do this and share because i mean so many people message me and like they live vicariously through me or they like that or that kind of thing but i try and show people i'm like if you want to that's fine but you don't have to you know just you know pick up a van and go it's a big beautiful world out there and it's pretty incredible when you get to see it this way you know [Music] hey man how's it going can you hear me all right hey yeah yeah it's going good um i can hear you uh there's a bit of background noise though hey let me uh let me try turning on crisp does that help at all can you hear me any bit better there yeah that is a very noticeable difference so that is crisp crisp is an ai deep tech noise canceling software that it actually works bi-directionally so if you were in a noisy location on my end it would clear up your audio as well and one of the great things about crisp is if you click the link in the description it's actually free so you get 240 minutes per week of free noise canceling so then you don't have to worry about noise in any of your video calls at chris they've got a giant research team developing this technology and it works great i mean it works for dogs barking if you've got construction out your window if people are talking nearby or cancel them out i tried it earlier today while we were cooking using the pressure cooker so it was whistling and it canceled all of that out and it's free so if you click the link in the description you can get 240 minutes per week of noise cancelling and then you don't have to worry about noise anymore so i just wanted to call you and let you know about this great offer and uh have a great week jackson peace right on

Channel: FLORB

Views: 1,821,391

Keywords: Travel, tiny house, van life, van dwelling, simple living, van tour, tiny house tour, van conversion, florb, bus, buslife, bus life, charter, charter bus, charter bus conversion, bus conversion, school bus conversion, bus tour, camper van conversion, school bus, living in a bus, bus conversion build, bus conversion tour, conversion tour, build tour, tour, touring bus, touring bus conversion, skoolie tour, skoolie conversion tour, skoolie bus conversion, skoolie conversion

Id: kLpPY5IaLRs

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 12 2021