I feel like I have been watching people convert buses into homes or campers for years now. I have watched so many YouTube videos on it and finally this past summer, I convinced my husband to buy a bus! I also watched many videos on tiny homes to try to get the best layout for this short bus with a wheelchair lift.
Why this bus?
We wanted to buy a bus that we can convert to veggie oil in the future. So the best engine for that was the Ford E350 7.3 Litre Econoline Wagon. After some research and some Kijiji searches, we found one, 7 hours away.
So on a Sunday night in August we raced to London, Ontario to spend the night in a hotel with our three children and then get up and drive another hour or so to Tillbury, Ontario. It was a very long day.
After spending the day in Tillbury dealing with Service Ontario, and I have no idea why the word “service” is in the title, we were finally able to take the long 7 plus hour drive home. We actually had to go into Service Ontario 3 times before they gave me a trip permit to dive home!
The guy who owned it had a rock band and he set up the bus for his 5 band members with bunks to sleep on. It seats seven just like a mini van and it slept six. He also partitioned off the back door and wheelchair lift to keep his band equipment secure while on the road with the wire mesh.
All the things that can go wrong
We stopped several times on the way home and we noticed that the brake fluid was going down. The previous owner had the brake lines all redone. When we got home we took it to a Ford garage, and just note that not every Ford dealer has a hoist big enough to lift the bus, so that was a bit of an adventure to find the right one. They said the brake line was rubbing on something or other and charged us over $700 to fix it. They also gave us a two page list of things that would have to be addressed before we could get it registered. I won’t bore you with all of that, but suffice it to say, we’ll not be going there to get that work done, I think it was over $5000 they quoted us on the work, including an $800 headlight!! Yikes!
We took it to another guy to look at it to see what welding needed to be done and get a quote and we took it to another guy to see what he would require to safety the bus. We also took it to get some front end work done as something or other was rubbing the front tire area and we figured we’d wear out the tires on our trip out east if that wasn’t addressed first. We bought the bus on August 13th and we were planning on leaving on August 23rd. As the frontend work took a bit longer and they needed to get a part, we didn’t end up leaving our house until 5:00PM on the 23rd to undertake a 1500km journey to PEI and then NS.
We had the bus in our possession for approximately 3 nights or less to prepare for this trip. Talk about a mad rush! We got a futon off of Kijiji and a wire frame kitchen from Ikea, along with mattresses for the bunks. We also took one side of the bunks down and filled the lower section of the other bunk with storage drawers Check out our first video of our trip here.
The beginning of a long journey
During our first evening of driving, part of the steps started dragging on the ground, not good. We pulled over and GJ bent the metal up to stop the dragging but we knew the steps were the first thing we needed to get fixed. Luckily my uncle is a welder and he agreed to repair our steps for us as soon as we arrived in PEI the next night. As the steps came off, we realized they were mostly held on with spray foam, double yikes! Here is GJ sweeping some of it up. Lots of rust and a bit of foam.
My uncle did a great job and even used stainless steel to rebuild them. He was also able to get some help and get rid of the wheelchair lift for us. That allowed us to move the futon to the back wall and here are the results!
Bus conversion
During the 10 days before we left I had time to make curtains for each window and I had most of them up in these pictures. Most of the work decorating was done while on the road, including some of the purchases. I purchased these lights from Amazon and had them delivered to my mom’s in NS while we were visiting. I also picked up an electrical and water hook up kit for the bus but we haven’t installed them yet. The bus has been at the welders since we got back to Ontario, we had 2 trip permits, which is all you are allowed to have in a year, so after we get it back from the welders we still need to get it safetied and then we can use it to go camping this summer.
Here are my affiliate links to the solar lights and water and electrical hookups for the bus.
What went well
Some of the conveniences we had on the trip were a coleman stove, chemical toilet, Tassimo coffee maker, an inverter to use 120volt power, a TV with included DVD player, mini fridge, Ikea bedding and pillows, feather duvet, storage ottoman and two folding tables. The wire frame kitchen was a great addition and allowed us a place to store stuff but we haven’t hooked up the water or drain yet. We brought our water cooler but we always had a place to stay/park and an extra water tank, for drinking water, so we never used it. You can check out the rest of the videos of the trip, including when we drove into my parents driveway and we hadn’t told them we bought a bus and how we had it arranged and decorated before the summer ended.
What is next
This summer is sure to be lots of fun as we’ll finish the conversion with proper electrical and water hookups, set up the solar panels, which stayed under our futon while we were on the road, and hopefully we’ll paint the bus too! Check back to see future posts as the adventure unfolds! Or check out our YouTube channel to see what else we are up to. Make sure the check out the rest of this blog too.