We had always wondered what was in the first bay of our vintage bus behind some "secret" doors. When we first opened up the "secret" doors we were greeted by what seemed like an endless supply of pillow-type batting. In fact, every single nook and cranny of space in and
A Hacker's Take on RV House Batteries: Part 2 - Reconfiguring a Nissan Leaf Battery
When we last left off, we had cracked open the battery housing and were planning on configuring our 2013 Nissan Leaf module into sixteen 24-Volt batteries. The original plan called for 24-Volt configuration because each of the Nissan Leaf modules is configured with 4 cells, 2 joined in parallel and
Layin' it Down - Bus Subfloor
Did you think we got swallowed by the bus? Some days it feels like it. It seems like we eat and sleep "bus". In fact, I've been having dreams about the bus - wiring, dash gauges, etc. Homeschooling is about to start again, and I am so thankful to have
Bus Renovation - Part Eight - Kitty Hair on the Wheel Wells
When we removed the wheel well covers, we discovered some holes that needed to be dealt with. Some of these holes were from rivets, but some were clearly spots that had rusted through.
I guess after 50-plus years of water and debris being kicked up by the tires, even aluminum
Bus Renovation - Part Seven - The Last of the Interior Demo and Emptying the Basement
We were so close to being done gutting the interior...but not quite...so here we go again!
The previous weekend, we chiseled out most of the old subfloors, but we hadn't had time to finish all of it. So that is where we started. We had to remove the
Bus Renovation - Part Six - Ripping Out Insulation, the Frig Box, and the Worst Subfloors Ever
We last showed you how we tore down the bathroom.
Next up was taking out the box that had enclosed the old electric/LP refrigerator. We will no longer need our refrigerator to be enclosed since we will not be using one that runs on propane, so out it goes.
Bus Renovation - Part Five - Knocking Down Walls and Poo on My Shoe
We keep plugging along on the demo, weekend warrior-ing it every Saturday and Sunday. We would love to be able to keep the bus at our house so we could work on it during the weeknights after work and school, but that’s just not an option, unfortunately. Darn HOA.
A Hacker's Take on RV House Batteries: Part 1 - Researching and Deciding on our Battery
Deciding on a battery for our bus turned out to be pretty involved. Our bus came with 4 deep-cycle lead acid batteries (only 2 of which were even hooked up) and a small 750-watt inverter that connected to literally 1 outlet inside. We spent hours researching chemistries, capacities, and configurations.
Bus Renovation - Part Four - The Dump, the Corn, and $450
A lot has happened on the bus since the last post, but Juan and I still haven't gotten the hang of adding blogging and video editing into a full life of homeschool, work, and family commitments. So, we have fallen a bit behind in the renovation updates. We also decided
Bus Renovation - Part Three - It's All Coming Down!
It’s All Coming Down!
After taking out the living room furniture and kitchen, we spent the next few weekends taking apart the bus one piece at a time. Each day, we didn’t know exactly what would come next. We would start with a general plan, but you know
Bus Renovation - Part Two - Kitchen and Living Room Demo
After spending about five minutes in the bus, my allergies were going haywire. The first day we spent some time looking through it just doing inspections, taking measurements, etc. left me unable to breathe through my nose for the next few days. What was living in this bus? It was
Bus Renovation - Part One - Inspections, Cowboys, & Smoke!
After bringing the bus home and having a good look around, the first order of business was assessing all the systems and figuring out what was really in the bus. From discussions with the seller, we knew that the bus was bought from Greyhound in 1979 and converted to an