For sale....
SOLD!!!!!
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Uh oh, now I've really done it!
I bought "Urge" and had him towed home on April 1st, 2009. That should have been indication #1 that things were going to get crazier, and that I would be laughing at myself and my insanity at least daily from that moment on...
Anyhow, step #1 was to get rid of all of these seats. Between work, school, general day to day craziness and accumulating all of the appropriate tools, I managed to pull most of the seats out with the help of some friends.
Then I had to figure out what on earth to do with all of these seats. I didn't have a dumpster, or a trash can large enough to toss them into, so I figured, "what the heck!" I'll try to sell the darn things. Turns out, there's quite a market for bus seats. I posted them up on Craig's List and within a few days and a few phone calls, I had a couple eager buyers show up and pay me to get rid of my seats. Excellent.
I ended up making back all of the money that I spent on towing the bus.
One guy drove up all the way from New York city, loaded a bunch of the seats into his sketchy, windowless van, handed me a wad of rolled up dirty bills, and then hopped back into the van and drove off, back down to the city in time for his 3rd shift job? I counted the bills for a second time after he took off... yep he ended up overpaying me... hmm. I hope he doesn't ever come back to reclaim that 20 bucks.
The second guy (above pic) had just bought his gasser Ford
bus van, and was completely envious of my "Urge". "I wish I could afford a bus like yours" he told me over and over, "but this one was a real bargain, this one was a reeeeeeal bargain!"
"Oh yeah?" I asked, "Where'd ya find it?"
"It used to be a party bus." he told me, "the stripper pole is still in it." he was very excited to show me. I gingerly peered inside, making sure not to touch anything. "Fifteen hundred bucks!" he said.
"Not bad!" I told him, "and mine doesn't run yet, so I'm sure you wouldn't want it."
"Not for the money I'm sure you paid for it!" he said, and took off. It took all of my willpower to keep my mouth shut. I didn't want to sound like a jerk.
After all of the seats were out of the bus (and out of my life!!), I noticed that the floor in the rear of the bus had a slight sponginess to it.
"What's going on here?"
So I decided to rip up the floor.
Prevost owners: tell me if you've also experienced this!
What had happened was, there were two thin sheets of stainless steel over both wheel wells. After thousand and thousands and thousands of miles of rocks from the road being shot up and hitting against the thin metal, enough small holes had punctured through, that water started collecting and rotting through the wood and the glue. The result was some really lovely white substance oozing between the pieces of flooring.
Mmmmm.... yummy. Makes you want to lick it.
So, eventually we got all of the lovely rotting wood and steel up and out of the bus.
Pretty neat: I got a good look at the frame. There's not much to the bus!
(whoa air bag is larger than my head!)
SO.
Where am I going with all of this.
I was trying to figure out what to put down as the new floor in the bus. I decided that I didn't want the stainless there anymore, because then the same thing would just happen again. And sure it was fun, but I don't want to mess around with rotting wood anymore. Once was enough. So, I got some 3/4" Marine ply, and painted it, and fastened it down.
Alright, now what?
Now it's in my bus. I am thinking though, that I am going to take it up again and seal it with some type of undercoating like Rhino liner or truck bed liner of some sort.
Does anyone have some good suggestions or info for me?
As far as the interior goes, what should I put down for insulation? Then what on top of that?
In some parts of the bus, I'd like to put down some carpet. In other parts of the bus (kitchen and bathroom) I'd like to do some tiling.
Has anyone had any experience with flexible grout? (
http://starquartz.com/grout.html)
Thanks in advance for any feedback!
-Anja
