This Adventure Rig Has a Crane, a Shop, and May Survive the End of Times

i'm gordo we're in my 2003 international bluebird school bus or what used to be a school bus this has been my project for pretty much three full years been making it into something no one's ever seen before [Music] the pillars of this build are flexibility it's not like a tiny home exactly it's not like a lot of other conversions out there it's more optimized for going out on the road on adventure type use and going out and doing weird big projects it's built to sort of be a truck when i need a truck it's built to be a camper when i need a camper it's built to be able to live out of on the road for as long as i might need to but not as a full-time living situation i had to sort of do some mental gymnastics like to make it make sense for me financially and one of the ways that i did that was to make it as flexible as i could possibly make it and as useful for as many different things i could possibly make it but also it's been a lot of fun to have sort of this creative project to just be fully my own utilitarian spaceship type vibe that i've been embodying it's been really fun to to just have full freedom to to go after that to that end the third fun thing about it is seeing people look up at me from their passenger window on the highway what is that you know like seeing other people try to figure it out is fun in its own way this bus is not quite my house it's not quite my shop it's everything but also nothing it's a paradox that's what it is what is this i'm going to tell the next person who asks what is this it's a paradox thank you for asking the original location of fuel tank on this bus was in the middle of the frame behind the rear axle and in order to fill it up it had a tube that came like way up to this level so i had to get rid of that to make my flatbed and so i moved the fuel tank up to here so this is the original tank but just in a new location and then on the other side i've added a second tank coming off of this tank i run my diesel generator my diesel heaters there's fittings on there to get fuel in and out like by a fuel pump system to the other tank so there's just at this point so many fittings on that tank both tanks are 65 gallons so my total fuel capacity is like 130 gallons getting pretty expensive these days but it gives me a lot of range so the door is the stock door and the mechanism of the door is the stock mechanism but i built a new frame and a new set of stairs to put it in this is just a big aluminum underbody storage box the catch-all storage the junk drawer if you will this is here because right inside this wall is where all my victron system and stuff is on my distribution having the batteries right here makes the wiring really simple and this is two drawers of six batteries each this is the three starter batteries and then three agm gel hybrid house batteries and then this drawer is six more house batteries i went with gel hybrids because the temperature requirements on this build were made me a little uncomfortable going with lithium because this build sits unattended in the winter for long periods of time unheated in upstate new york and it needs to be able to continue to charge and discharge its batteries it got complicated so i just went with gel for now and maybe i'll go lithium in the future this is the international dt466e and it's a 2003 model year chassis and it's been great to me honestly the school district that i bought it from had over maintained their whole fleet and so i've got detailed records of everything and then behind the engine is an allison 2000 it's still a bus it's still slow it's still huge but no complaints the bus is 36 and a half feet long everyone assumes that i added all that flatbed on there but the bus was almost that full length just as a bus body and i just cut most of it off this is my shore power hookup it's just a 15 amp plug i haven't really needed to worry about having more capacity than that i have so many other options diesel generator very fancy sliding box that i made for it five kilowatt cummins qd generator i got this generator off ebay and the generator was like 1800 i want to say it was more than that after i shipped it almost an even 2 grand because of the the ways i use this bus and the types of equipment i want to be able to run off of it um having a source of power that's not reliant on the sun and can just like provide a full five kilowatts at the flip of a switch is pretty important to me anyways to be able to run like a welder and a bunch of power tools or an air compressor and things like that and it was certainly a lot cheaper than putting a full roof of solar and a full uh huge bank of lithium batteries only to solve the problem of how do i run my welder every so often i have an issue with a diesel heater where like one of them loses their prime or like they get an air bubble in the fuel or something like that i finally got sick of like crawling under the bus to fix a leak or purge a line or whatever in the middle of the winter so i moved everything out here to this box this is a little priming pump squirts diesel out this hose and i can catch it in a cup but that lets me prime the whole line between my tank and here easily so that was a quality of life mod for myself i sort of built a secondary air system that's these two compressors and these two tanks to run the air door and to run to be sort of shop air and also it keeps the air door running when i'm parked for a long period of time then there's a bunch of open space where i'm gonna put water tanks the second diesel tank doesn't do anything other than feed a pump that pumps it into the main tank so this is my overbuilt roof rack it's very utilitarian in construction it wouldn't be comfortable to do yoga on or anything these are lte antennas for the bus network my two solar arrays 400 watts total it's just fine for me because really the most critical function of my solar is to keep all the systems that need to run while the bus is unattended running without me having to worry about it or be on the grid when i'm on the road out adventuring and stuff like that i've got two dc to dc charge controllers so i've got 720 watts of alternator charging and so if i'm driving a few hours every day that keeps my batteries topped up when it was a school bus for the school district i bought it from it was bus number 599 i painted it there because i wanted to sort of keep the the legacy of the old bus number i felt like that was cool this is sort of like the main storage and gear area right now it's just a bike and a case having the long skinny space down the middle lets me carry like really long lumber that wouldn't fit on the back or really long steel when i go to buy 24 foot sticks of steel it's one of the key things that makes it a do anything bus for me anyways do all the things gordo wants to do bus come on inside the first thing most people notice is that i redid all the dash and everything partly because i just had a pretty clear image in my mind of how i wanted it to form up but also because obviously there used to be a door here and stairs and so there was no dashboard on this side of any kind these seats came out of toyota siennas minivans out of a junkyard several junkyards really i put them all on swivels so that when there's four people in here you can face together and at some point i'll build a table that goes in between them so the overhead stuff is all electrical and systems devoted from pretty much this line forward on this side this is all my ac and dc distribution there's three places that ac power can come from on board there's the generator the shore power hookup and the inverter the center area is all sort of like the smarts of the system my victron color control is up here then that's tied into a software system of my own design that runs on a arm computer that's buried in here that powers the two touch screens most of the time they're just showing sort of a status output but i can also like control the lights from up there and all the lights are run off of a bank of by stable relays and then this same signal that these switches send can also be sent from like my phone or from the touchscreens or whatever else tie everything together because i'm an integration nerd this is the control panel for my generator my two afterburners for my two chinese diesel heaters afterburner is like a aftermarket controller that replaces the little lcd screen controller that comes with your diesel heater and those let me tie the diesel heaters in again to this same integration system you know in the winter if i'm not at the bus but i'm gonna go to the bus an hour from now i can turn the heaters on ahead of time before i get there stuff like that like in this cabinet i have lights and there's a bunch of the guts of some of that system this panel is just a bunch of ports for plugging in to all the stuff that's buried back there so if i want to like plug in a cable to get on that network and like do some debugging or whatever i've got my utility light so i can see if anything's on on fire these are my battery cutoffs so these are a blue c systems product where the battery safety cutoff is a solenoid remotely and you control it from here so you can hear it goku chunk these are the switches for my two dc to dc charge controllers i have two victron orions tr smart 12 to 12 and then these are the breakers for my solar arrays so down here is the back end of my power system just my inverter my two dc dc charge controllers that come off my engine system and my alternator and then even further down i have two solar charge controllers these are actually rv windows like frameless rv windows they just have an exterior panel of glass and no frame so it's really hard for water to creep under them so i made an aluminum like transition between the curved roof and a flat surface and then just put those frameless windows in there the natural light in here is great but also the presence that they have in terms of making it feel like you're in a some kind of spaceship or sci-fi movie set is pretty fun too there's little compartments the whole way along one up here for the driver cup holders and stuff and then on this side i've got my little sort of workspace for when i'm on my own just throw a laptop down here and under cabinet lights on the bottom of these and i used the original lenses from the ceiling you know when it was a school bus so they have the bluebird logo on them which is kind of neat up here right now it's just my books and a bunch of junk under this velcro panel is the wiring access to the roof there's a bunch of wiring behind there but then the wiring can jump from back there to this space hidden behind these boxes and either go further back in the bus or jump out and go to the roof for solar or antennas or whatever's up there on this side this is mostly parts and debugging stuff right now my like laptop that i use to talk to all that stuff and configure it the forward one has a bunch of just drivers junk in it a pair of binoculars and some stuff that i just like to keep in the bus and then the back one right now is like clean up stuff it's like paper towels and rags and trash bags like i put these cushions on here as like a little bit of a head head bonker protector that turned into a whole upholstery and fabric project obsession so we made these and these are just a velcro and snaps system that goes up and then these go up like that and then they velcro to each other if i want to have a half blackout situation or i want to have one of these windows open but still black out the bottom they fold up like that this is my little galley space my fridge and things a little bit of empty space left for when i go to add a sink but for now this is a nice little work surface i made this slide out drawer for my ice cove fridge and then it latches in place sort of a spring-loaded pull handle that latches like that i really wanted to keep the original school bus store i think that the school bus store is like a really cool part about a school bus i ended up building the door system the air system into my whole control integration mess there's a switch here that opens the door there's a switch up front that opens the door i can do it from my phone i've got a key fob i can use to open it and then that cylinder has sensors on it so i can tell if it's open or closed if i'm not at the bus the gear that runs it is in there and some other gak there's some temperature sensors and stuff going on and so this gave me a handy little spot to just shove a bunch of electronics gubbins that i wanted to keep out of the way so this is the bed system we'll call it a system as you can see there's four seats up front so this is designed to sleep four people these pins can come out and it can pin back in up here and this position is the lake everybody gets equal headroom position and this is the i'm on my own and i want all the headroom position and then when it's like that i just use this lower spaces storage got a tool box here now and like my one wheel and a kite and a backpack and some towels and all the things you know you need on an adventure this partition was a thing i came up with just to sort of divide the space a little bit without this here like being in bed feels like you're still in this room but with this little partition in this little screen you can sort of be in bed and feel like you're in your own private little space my mom and i sort of co-engineered these they snap onto the columns of the bed but then it's pockets on both sides and you can see i've got it all full up of all the things that take up space and make other storage areas messy can live here screwdrivers and markers and padlocks and carabiners and on the back side like i keep a pajama shorts in there so that if i need to like jump out of bed in the middle of the night the two window covers for that door in this door are magnets instead of snaps and then this one is the window cover for that window and i just it velcros to the carpet on that wall around the window because there's velcro on it that means i can just store it on the ceiling where i velcro all kinds of things this particular piece my mom fully made herself so thanks thanks mom i was having that problem where i'd come to the bus in the evening to like work on projects and toss stuff on the bed and then it would end up all messed up i was like maybe i should just have a big bag and it turns out yeah i should just have a big bag and i recommend everybody have a big bag for your bed it's great it's a life-changing thing i don't really have a great back story for the logo other than it felt like an important part of like making the bus and other projects that i did before the bus feel to an outsider like it looks way more cohesive like my bus with a logo on the outside of it is like oh that bus clearly exists for some kind of reason my bus with no logo on the outside of it is like i should go inside and lock my doors it's amazing how much of a perceptual difference like having sort of a cohesive thing with a insignia on it makes i built this hatch i've also got these drawers under the bed this one is pretty shallow this way but the reason it's shallow is because i have drawers on this side that are extremely deep so these drawers go as far back as they can you caught me with my meticulously organized manuals and instructions for everything because that satisfies me a great deal and then this is clothes and stuff there's like a surprising amount of storage under there when i was deciding that i wanted to build a way to move around all my tools and equipment without loading a million totes all one at a time one of the design criteria that was important to me was that i'd be able to deal with it on my own if i'm building a crane because i hate loading a bunch of individual boxes at least loading the individual boxes i can do by myself i don't know it's not the easiest task in the world i'm not going to pretend it's like a snap of my fingers and everything goes on its own but in terms of being able to manage the sheer weight of what's in these tool bench container things it definitely meets my needs so the way the crane attaches to the bus is that it just hangs from these trusses overhead and the way that it does that is with these sort of big clamp brackets but basically they reach up and around the roof rack and hang on to the truss like that this is the place that i hang my winch from and it rolls back and forth in the crane boom like that i've got this black rope with two carabiners on it that i toss over the rack like that it clips on both sides trying to lift it from below this crane boom is pretty heavy but lifting it from above it's just easier just like that and then again on the other side really had it in mind that i would have an electric system for doing the lifting really what it came down to was electrical wiring to get enough power to the winch the wiring had to be pretty heavy duty and the winch has to move so then it's like a whole system of wires that have to move and everything else i just said well i'll go with the manual chain hoist for now never bothered to do anything else the chain hoist works just fine it's a lot of work for like 45 seconds once every few months i can put up with that i just take out these pins free it from the bus this is why i only need the crane to stick out this far from the bus this is pretty much all i ever do with it see it's not really a general purpose crane it's not good for really anything that my friends wish i could do with it when they say hey i know someone with a crane it's not really useful except for this one thing each of these containers weighs like roughly 1200 pounds on its own and i'm sure there's people as we speak going to the comment section to say holy smokes gordo that's over a ton you've got hanging out back here behind your tires just like sticking way out like this how can the bus handle that and the fact is like kids weigh a lot like these buses were built for way more than this this tarp is another custom piece that my mom and i designed and my mom is the sewing sensei of the family so this is sort of like the the core of the shop let's say i made these luggage rack style things for them let's see what one is this surprise it's electrical tools and then it's sort of right up at working height and get the get in there and these are the best sorting boxes you can get they're expensive but they're worth it in my opinion if you're serious about having an organized shop but also look at that fit the top is pretty heavy so i have these straps that hook onto the handle so that it doesn't rest on its hinges all the time but this is my little hardware store of all the like nuts and bolts i need to like typically use small machine screws big nuts and bolts thread lock smaller nuts and bolts rigging hardware shackles ferrules crimping tools for wire rope and then in the lid got my bolt cutters wire rope crimping tools a bunch of wire rope for rigging stuff got to stay organized we were looking for a screwdriver earlier this is where we would have gone for that but it was all loaded up this was another sewing project where i was like hey mom please help me i have an idea and not the skills to do it lid insert that i made that holds that stuff in place and then these are also custom cases that i made this one is as you can see my wrenches so this is foam that i routed on the sheet router at my local some power tools but not all of my power tools that kind of thing times times eight this one is pretty much the same idea as that one it's got a bench top on it but this bench top on this one is a steel quarter-inch steel plate it's like a fixture table for welding these doors just come off and that's like all my welding stuff and my welder and then a couple more of these cases of fabrication tools when i like portable bandsaws in there i've got a bench grinder and a belt grinder and a few other like things that for my workflow are important fabrication tools shop lights that go into these corner posts and like stick up and out but that's this one so this is the other mode of the rear cargo space which is to be a back porch or a deck or a covered cargo area that just really gives the whole cargo area a second life as like a guest room or a screened-in porch if you're parked at a camp spot and it makes this not as much of a waste of space during the times when i'm not trying to use it for cargo these big screen windows that you can open another screen window like this and this whole back panel all the way up to the peak and down can zip just comes completely off and there's another panel that goes on there that's all screen so when it's up like that it's just this sort of big beautiful screened in space really gives a different life to this backspace like in a in a way that i'm so happy with it makes this like a you know positively delightful space you can imagine being in a nice camp spot and having a screen room like this enough room to set up a bunch of chairs and hang out is really great that's my bus i'm gordo gordo from earth on instagram and if you find any of these ideas cool and fun and you build anything like them love to see what you get up to you know message me or tag me or something hope you liked it [Music] you

Channel: Mobile Dwellings

Views: 3,821,316

Keywords: bus conversion tour, skoolie tour, prepper vehicle, mobile dwelling, tiny house tour, flatbed truck, buslife, end of the world rig, school bus conversion, nomadic living, cyberpunk, cyberpunk bus, high-tech bus conversion, welding rig, work vehicle

Id: vL3Kw7rHErM

Length: 22min 15sec (1335 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Scuffle-Muffin]

I just want to know what he does for work. That is a serious amount of kit he has there!

[u/paradisepunchbowl]

Great video, this is the type that I want to see when people are giving tours of their RV/van builds: informative, well edited, etc.

The title is inaccurate; this guy did not say it was for an end of the world type situation. It seems more like he wants it to be the a sort of portable shop for welding, electrical, and mechanical needs at burning man (or whatever) and also recreational vehicle

[u/Himbledimble]

This is an amazing build all around, but the all-custom cockpit area is absolutely jaw dropping.

[u/Detriumph]

Three days after the shit hits the fan he's out of fuel on the side of the road waiting for the roving gangs to kill him and take his cool stuff.

[u/phaile]

He must have a huge garage. Can’t leave that bus out with all that equipment laying around.

[u/floppydo]

If you enjoyed this, watch this.

[u/motaleb7258]

wow

[u/ryan848]

Insane how much talent he has to do such a range of things

[u/sid_lwa]

Dude going to Burning Man?