Skoolie Tour: This Gorgeous Crown School Bus is a Multi-Generational Relic

yeah i think i've always dreamt of being an explorer and at some point in life i kind of gave up on that i thought you know i had a house and i got a job and then also i had like a shift in my mind and decided that if that's what i really want to do then that's what i'm gonna do and i found someone that is on board with that she's an explorer herself and we wanted to carry on his grandparents legacy so they traveled on the bus in north and south america and josh has had this long time dream of being able to do the same yeah so my grandparents bought the bus in 70 and they converted into an rv they traveled all over the country until about uh 1989 after my grandfather passed my i purchased a bus for my grandmother and i lived in it from 16 to 18 years old then the bus sat forever and i've held on to it and so after i finished it it was really important to get my grandmother into this before she passed away at the age of 96 so about five months before she passed we actually got her in the bus and took her for a ride and i think there's lots of tears happening my grandma was really blown away she was pretty proud of how it came out yeah after i shared with my grandmother that i have been reconverting the bus because we kept it a secret from her she immediately went into her cabinet says wait a minute i got something for you and she actually pulled out her guest book that they've had the entire time they were traveling so that was that's pretty special we're definitely going hard on the explorer the goal right now is to actually start living in it full-time come march 2021. we're super excited about exploring the country and starting that in just under four months [Music] [Music] do [Music] hi i'm carolyn and i'm josh we're from crown and style this is our 1954 crown school bus that we have been working on for the past two and a half years we've just just finished it basically everything on the outside of this bus has been replaced aside from these three panels across here and the the roof and three panels in the back everything else has been reskinned when we did a roof raise on it so we actually cut the top of the bus we raised it up 13 inches higher and then we made a new windshield and then re-skinned the entire outside of the bus all of the windows actually are dual pane super insulated windows and they have a reflective mirror tint on them that we thought would kind of keep people from seeing it at night which really doesn't work at night however it's definitely a cool look so this is actually storage all the way almost to the to the tire so there's our dirty engine so the bus originally had a hall scott gas engine in it i think in 1982 my grandfather couldn't get parts for when it broke so he put the 262 cummins in there and we're actually in the process now because this motor is become obsolete we're actually putting a newer engine in so it'll be the third motor going into this bus we're going to do an 855 cummins and we've definitely put a little bit of horsepower and torque to it so this thing's going to move for sure this is where we have storage our gray tank is down here as well as our battery storage in here and i left the original yellow because my grandparents left it yellow when they painted the outside of the bus so i thought you know what i should keep the last little bit of you know factory looking bus and so i did the same thing when we built the bus we definitely didn't want a generator so we're really relying on a lot of solar power and a large battery so this is a chevy volt battery pack that we rewired this is actually our fire extinguisher so if something was to happen this tubing would melt and blow fire extinguisher stuff on top of the battery to keep us safe the battery is a 250 amp hour battery at 48 volts so this is a magnum energy inverter and it's actually 48 volts and a 4 400 watt peak so we have our water pump up here three stage water filter and then we've snuck in the propane water heater in here as well as a surge protector for our 50 amp service so up on the roof i have basically eight solar panels and i put them on a slide actuating setup that i built so that when i'm driving down the road i've got four solar panels that are stacked on top and then i hit an air switch and we deploy them once we get to where we're going and the reason for that was because i didn't want it to look like a big deck up there with this particular year and the round roof was very important to keep somewhat of the look of it so this was the solution that i came up with and it works actually really well so right here this is actually my area like this is my cockpit so we bought a used rv captain's chair and then i wasn't really digging the blue vibe of the velvet so we re-upholstered it to kind of match my style we left as much original as possible the gauges are all new however somewhat of a replica of the original dash it's got the original steering wheel in it the only difference is the electronic transmission that i put in here is an automatic i actually left the stick shift in here just for the look of it and everybody asked me is oh is that a 10-speed transmission i'm like well it used to be yeah so yeah we built just a little um a little cabinet we keep our first aid kit like right by the door because that's super important to us and then this is the original heater as well as the defroster up here and we kept it all original then i did replace the radiator so that it actually worked all right let's fire this thing up this thing you feel it like the bus is alive you know you're in it so because i got i got rid of this i hit the clutch still so yeah this this actually folds out into a bed so there's another piece that folds over and as well as it's also lifts up for storage underneath the entire couch so much we don't even know it's like we'll figure it out once we get on the road i guess yeah so this is a cubic mini stove that we put in and we actually piped it up through the original vented roof system that was in here when we laid out the bus we knew that we wanted this to be very open and so this is kind of like our coffee bar area and then we put four stools in here so if we have guests because we don't have a sit-down traditional sit-down table this is our dinner table breakfast table as well as our workstations so we both work remotely and this gives us plenty of room to do what we need to do for work as well as you know multi-functional so my grandparents first i'm literally standing in the same spot my grandfather was sitting in so the wood that we chose for the bus is pine and it's actually reclaimed wood from northern california as a result of the bark beetle destroying it over time so we found planks of pine that we really really liked and used for the floors and then we used live edge wood for the countertop and for the bar top so one of the things that i really enjoy about this kitchen is the fact that we have two refrigerators and they look really retro we picked the blue because it really went with our color scheme and we actually picked two refrigerators so that we had the option of using one or using both depending on how much uh we're traveling with and where we are in the country one of the other things that i really wanted was a large sink and a large countertop to be able to cook and entertain on we don't have a ton of space in here however this really helps us feel like we have more and can share that space with people who come over to visit and actually stay with us one of the other things that i really like are the deep drawers that we have for our kitchenware including plates cups cutting boards pots and pans and nothing moves while we're traveling because josh installed railroad ties as hooks the backsplash that we chose is regular tile we wanted something that was simple clean looking and easy to maintain so the tile blends in really nicely however it adds texture and it adds personality to the kitchen so one of the things that we really talked about a lot was how large to make the bathroom and we were super happy with how the shower came out we did want a large shower and we used the same silver tile that we did in the kitchen however it is a little small when it comes to the sink and the toilet it's all wood and it does you know feel really nice especially with the barn door closed we can have some private space while we're both together in the bus so we wanted some really nice storage space for our food and kitchenware so josh created this pantry with various shelves in it and this actually also doubles as a door so that if we do have guests in the front of the bus we can have some privacy for our own bedroom and this is a pull out pantry so again we have food storage and cleaning storage and again it doesn't move while we're driving as a result of the railroad ties that we use to tie it and this is the bedroom area we have a queen sized bed we have our dual air conditioning and heating system back here as well just like we do in the front of the bus and we have plenty of storage for our books and under the bed we have his and hers draws and actually under the bed as well is our large water tank we have two storage areas up above as well and then a closet space back here in which we're actually going to put a washing machine in the coming weeks thanks for doing our bus tour coming along with us if you want to follow more of our adventure check us out on instagram at crowned [Music] style [Music] you

Channel: Mobile Dwellings / Gilligan Phantom

Views: 874,759

Keywords: crown school bus, crown skoolie, crown bus conversion, crown bus, skoolie, school bus converison, coach bus, school bus tiny house, old school bus restoration, school bus restoration, diy bus conversion, crown school bus tiny house, diy rv, master builder, bus renovation, rv renovation, tiny house on wheels, tiny home, buslife, bus conversion, skoolie conversion, skoolie tour, bus conversion tour, crown bus tour, the king of school bus, crowned in style

Id: QFJHEmexje0

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020