You're in good hands...

So now I have a school bus, titled as a motor home in my name. Now we need insurance and license plates.

I have been keeping my insurance guy in the loop regarding our bus conversion. I'm not sure that he thought that we could pull it off.

Well, I guess upon further review, he and the corporate insurance guys decided that we were worth the risk, Insurance for the bus for one year is less than I pay for internet for one month !!!

Ohio Motor Home Title

"Let me get this right. You bought an old school bus? Old school bus, seats and all? You tore everything out and turned it into a camper? And you want to get this thing titled as a motor home...an RV? You know you gotta have a way to cook and keep stuff cold? You got a place to eat? A place to sleep? Do you think that this is gonna be easy? I need to get a supervisor, and they are in a meeting with some political big-wig trying to get elected next year. Why don't you just have a seat til someone calls you."

Based upon stuff I've read on the most trustworthy of internet sites, I expected to run into walls made of impenetrable materials that Trump only wished that he had.

It was a freakin' piece of cake.

I knew a guy from the local AMVETS Post that was a Notary Public. I said that I would pick him up, show him the bus and show him the list of required amenities that would qualify our humble bus as a motor home. He said no problem.

I had an issue as to exactly how the form should be completed, so I stopped by my local Title Bureau in Mentor.

Well, hello Chris! (Not his/her real name)

I asked my questions as to how the title form should be filled out. She/He asked all about the bus and I showed her/him pix on my phone. She/he talked to her/his supervisor, and in 15 minutes, I was walking out the door with a clear title for a 2000 Freightliner Motor Home.

Life's been good to me so far.....

The Big Four..Gettin' Legal

So, what's the deal on legally converting a bus into a motor home.

DISCLAIMER: I live in Ohio. I bought the bus in Ohio. I got an Ohio title and Ohio license plates. If you live in PA, FL, ND, SC NM, ME, MA (I always get ME and MA mixed up), UT or any other state in the U.S of A., this may not apply to you. Then again, maybe it does, but you didn't hear it from me. Do your due diligence.

Here's the form for a title.

So we need...

     A working stove
     A working refrigerator
     A place to sleep
     A place to eat

I just wanna get legal so I can drive the bus home to work on it. Work on it where I have electricity, heat and a bathroom.

So lets get started.

I'm building a temporary kitchen counter that the range/oven (from the ol' camper) will mount into.

The stove connects to a 30lb LP tank that sits next to it. The stove works.

By the way, did you know that there is a large selection of possible LP gas connectors.

I didn't. Go to Home Depot (or wherever) prepared. Bring samples and put on your Rube Goldberg thinking cap.

Mission one..complete.

Refrigerator...We are going to use the fridge from the camper. It runs on 120 VAC and LP gas. It needs a 12 VDC control voltage from a battery to operate. Since LP gas operation requires several vents to be cut into the bus, we are gonna start with AC/DC only.

HOWEVER...If for some reason the fridge takes a dump, we would probably replace it with a 120VAC unit from Best Buy or Sams or something. In the event that happens, I have reluctantly decided to waste some space and design the area to burn about 3" on each side of the camper fridge to accept a larger apartment size unit.

Mission Two...Complete

The next step...a place to sleep.

Hmmmm...

Either I'm not sure how we wanna do this

or

We are not sure how I wanna do this 

or

Anyway, I decided on a short-term sleeping assembly that uses the mattress from the camper as well as the hinged storage cover that helped support it.

The bed assembly is designed to slide half-way between the rear wheels, or slide back as far as the rear door. This allows flexibility in deciding on a final location.

Mission 3...Bed...Complete.

Finally, what's for supper? Where are we gonna play Skipbo?

Real high teck. I took the bench seats and table from the camper and gave them a new home on the bus. The table mounts on two legs that fit into flanges on the floor. 

The table turns into a bed that upon which I would wish my most bitter enemy a good night's sleep.

But it is...A PLACE TO EAT.

Mission 4...Complete.

So, let's go get legal !!!

...in a corner at a local storage lot.

dead buzzer   dead tree

Merry Christmas.

I was half way through a diatribe on how "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza" all basically mean "I hope that you and you loved ones are safe and warm and happy, and may the next year bring you prosperity and happiness".

But this is about the bus.

The bus and the camper share a remote corner at a local storage lot.

In this corner is where all of the transformation has taken place in the past year. Well, mostly the past six months.

I don't have pictures of me removing the seats, because if I did, I would have had someone to crawl under the bus with a wrench and maybe made this easier.

Me and my buddy, Angle Grinder, ground the heads off of the floor bolts with glacial speed.

The seats also bolt to a rail that runs along the walls the length of the bus. They were no problem, but being ambidextrous would be beneficial.

If you think you are going to substantial fund your project by selling the scrap metal, all I can say is "Bwaaah...Haaa..Haaa". Not gonna happen. I found it easier to put 'em out with the garbage on Thursday night and let the scrap collectors take 'em. It's not worth risking a trashed tire at the scrap yard.

Let's take a tour, shall we?

This is Believeland...

Welcome aboard !!!

 Now that the seats have been dispatched, let the chalk meet the rubber.

I laid out a basic floor plan based on what we could salvage from the trailer.

At this time, I think that it is important to point out that the primary goal at this point is to get an Ohio motor home title and license plates, as well as proper insurance.

That is the primary objective right now. Get it legal. Get it home. Get it on the road.

Goodbye Tree...

Obviously, a very long 4 month break. Winter has a hibernation effect on me. Sorry.

Waaaaay back in October, by request of my wife, my neighbor and the City of Mentor, a large deceased Ash tree next to our house had to go.

Our choice for the task was Sam and his crew from Keep-It-Green Tree & Landscape out of Madison.

At 9am, Opal alerted us to their arrival. Sam was cool, and we worked out the safest and easiest way to bring this squirrel-perch to the ground.

After careful assessment the situation...

...and protecting the driveway...

Let the sawdust commence.

The first cut is the deepest...

"I'll cut, you pull"

And then...

Whoa, this was ONE DEAD TREE !!!

They left us a nice pile of firewood and enough mulch to dress-up the whole front yard.

And then I hibernated until mid February...

More to come very soon...

First things first...

We can not keep the bus at our home. Period. After receiving a letter from the fine folks at the City of Mentor's Economic and Community Development office regarding the lengthy presence of the forlorn trailer, and another friendly letter regarding a decidedly dead tree looming over our neighbors roof...

...we have decided not to kick the gator and maintain a low profile with the bus. I'll bring it home to work on it, but it won't stay here. It and the forlorn trailer share a corner at a local storage lot.

But a lot got done on the first visit home...

Decals...

I'm not sure exactly what rule exists concerning this, but I'm pretty sure that you can't drive around the neighborhood advertising that you are a school bus when, in fact, you are not a school bus. So off come the decals.

This was a learning process. I found out that if you "Bake & Scrape", You get a sticky black mess.

HOWEVER... if you warm the decals with a heat gun for about 30 seconds and then LET IT COOL for about 30 seconds, they will peal right off. And very cleanly....

Yeah, I know...tacky and sexist. But I couldn't pass it up. The point is that they come off very easily if you warm and peal rather than bake and scrape.

The next project was to defeat or disconnect the incredibly loud buzzer connected to the rear door.

Inside of that square, steel box dwells the world's...NAY, the universe's most obnoxious buzzing device. If the red handle (that latches the door closed) is moved upward, one would hear a noise that could be compared to a drug-crazed beaver trying to take down a steel flagpole during a lake effect hail storm.

I can't decide if this contraption was designed to not be easily removed, or is was not designed to be easily removed. Point is...it was NOT easily removed.

First, the half-bench seat had to be dismantled. Unfortunately, it was a bit easier than I expected.

In each bench, regardless of length, two legs on the aisle side are mounted to the floor with 2 bolts each. The outer side is screwed to a rail along the wall. The wall bolts easily loosened with a 1/2" socket. But...two twists of a 3/8" on the leg bolts broke them in half with a rusted taper. Hmmm.

This photo is out of sequence, but I needed something to break-up the prose.

With the seat out of the way, I thought that I could easily disengage the killer buzzer from hell.

Yeah, right.

Most of the screws securing the box from hell came out easily. Except for one. I literally had to rip the box off of the last screw.

For 5 minutes solid, the beaver went nuts. and there was hail the size of meatballs.

Just THINKING about that...Whoa...I need a break.

Late update...It's going to be a long break. But, hey, Check back soon!

It's WAY too Big !!!

"Jeff, it's WAY too big!"

That is exactly what Anna said when she looked out the front window and saw our future home for the first time. It blocked our view of the two neighbors homes across the street, which I guess could be accurately described as pretty darn big. But, really, what is "too big"?

"Too big" is a subjective term.

Too big to park on the street?  The average lot size here is 45 feet. The bus is 36 feet +/-1ft. So, yes it is too big to park on the street. Legally.

Too big to fit into the driveway? Nope. 15 feet to spare.

BUT...

The interior of the forlorn trailer is exactly equal to the distance from the back of the drivers seat to the rear of the bus. The cab and engine take up 10 feet (36' total). Any truck that's capable of towing a trailer would be around 20' long. So as Spock would logically point out, we are 10 feet LESS big.

Big or not, it is SO MUCH EASIER to back-up.

BIG TIME ground clearance. Hello, Quartzite !!!

After a brief curb-side inspection, I got the impression that the latent wanderlust pent up inside of Anna was chipping away at her armor. Something clicked.

Since that day, Anna has been immersed in YouTube "Skoolie" videos.

I could not be happier.