Other conversion folks and resources!

Here’s a list of folks and places you might look to for inspiration, how-tos, and handy items!

 

Skoolie.net: The School Bus Conversion Network’s forum.  A wealth of information and inspiration for the skoolie converter. Plenty of active people: full-timers, folks in process, and prospective skoolies all share the board, as well as the legacy of past members who’ve left their stories and wisdom.

La Boheme’s page:  The evolving journey of a 1969 Ford Ward school bus into what promises to be a lovely skoolie! (Also on Facebook.)

La Tortuga’s forum thread (at skoolie.net): A really nice ongoing description/catalog of this flat-nosed front-engine Crown, from pre-purchase on!

The Anne Marie: Taking a previously converted skoolie and remaking it!  A nicely document blog which includes the outings.

 TimBrass’ UK Short Bus: A neat sway (side-scrolling) site about making a ‘stealth RV’ in the UK with a US 35-passenger bus!  This includes all the details of getting the bus across the Atlantic.

Never a Niche’s blog: The initial story of the 1992 Ward Senator getting home and removing the rivets!  The start of a cool project.

Birdee: The conversion of a 1999 Bluebird in Northern Ontario , which includes 21,000 km worth of travelling and lots of great pictures (including the Bay of Fundy, where we want to go)!

Jatzy’s Armageddon:  Another awesome Ontario-based conversion of a 1997 Thomas short bus, with great documentation on insulation and getting some really awesome interiors done.  Includes solar and composting toilet info!

Somewhereinusa’s bus: The conversion site of a rear-engine 1991 Bluebird into an RV, with lots of cool ideas and links.  The owner was a professional driver, and has a great site with lots of travel pictures (bus and not) here.

RV Bus 4 Us:  A great conversion of a skoolie that has everything; painting, electrical, plumbing, and lots of pretty wood!

Outside Found: A skoolie conversion of a 2001 GMC/Bluebird conventional bus, plus lots of cool outdoors stuff.

TRusty Bucket: “Journey into the madness of remodeling a minimally converted school bus into an RV by a 53 year old Software Engineer and her dogs.”

Converting Our Skoolie:  A promising skoolie conversion in the early stages.  “We will be converting a 91 Thomas School Bus into a tiny house (RV) for us to live in full time as we travel the country!”

Skoolie Girl: A cool family building a skoolie from a conventional bus, including a cast iron tub and wood stove, and living there.

The Office Bus:  A new build, in the early stages, of a conventional 35 passenger bus for camping.

Two Birds: A couple who did a kickstarter to help fund their highly sustainable bus conversion and travel and provide an example for community-inspired events.

Bertha TheBus: A facebook page for the”remodeling a 1997 Thomas Int’l School Bus into a home and travel vehicle” by and for a cool couple.  Great pics of their build and where they’ve been!

The Berry Big Bus Build:  A cool-looking front-engine, flat-nosed Bluebird, in the very early stages of conversion buy an artistic guy, with an upcoming roof-raise!

GUYDOGBUS: A graduate student’s blog about transforming a bus into a living space for himself and his dog while he’s at school!  Really nicely thought out and budgeted conversion in it’s early stages.

Our Bus Adventure: The page of a family of five, their 1999 Thomas MVP, 72 passenger bus, and it’s conversion and travels.  They also have a healthy youtube channel that does a great job with the documenting of the conversion.

The Blue Monkey (A Skoolie Project):  A Facebook group that is just getting going, so it’s a bit sparse now, but it’s likely to grow over time.

Dr. Lulu’s School Bus:  A conversion of ‘Flinty’,  a 1994 Ford Bluebird, B-700 ‘ten window’, front engine, 66 passenger school bus with a 5.9L Cummins Diesel, an automatic transmission, and air brakes. Dr. Lulu (her coffee name 🙂 ) has a great page with tons of pictures and information on her eco-friendly tiny home!

The Pucketts:  The Pucketts (a husband-and-wife indie folk duo whose original music marries the smoky, dark harmonies of The Civil Wars with the whiskey-warm yearnings of The Head and the Heart) have got themselves a partially converted 30′ school bus for a tiny home, and they’re making progress on making it their own.

The Paddle Wagon: The Facebook page of  a family who needed a toy hauler for fishing equipment and paddle boards, and a regular RV just wasn’t going to cut it.  Trips, design, renovations, and all are here!

The Bus Build: This looks to be a massive reworking of a 1990 flat-nosed Bluebird, including an entire-body lift!  It looks like a really interesting build to follow!

Wanderbus:  A cute family reworking their skoolie with the view of going full-time in it this summer.

Teal Mobile: The Facebook page of a 1987 Bluebird skoolie, known as the “Teal Mobile”. It has been fully converted to a camper bus that will sleep up to 6 people with a full kitchen and bathroom and just keeps getting better.

Seismic Awakening: Glorya Marie is a 1977, 35′ Crown Super Coach which has been converted to a micro-home.  One of the neat things here is the Bus Manifesto.  A cool page.

Reeses on Recess: A couple who loves travelling has recently got a nice-looking 9-window  2003 Thomas Bus which they’ve stripped down wonderfully.  From here on out it’s the build and hopefully, travels.  Their blog is a nice mix of text and videos (I like the time-lapse stuff 🙂 ), and very nicely done.

Senza Legno, Senza Pontilli: Meaning “No Sticks, No Staples”, this 1988 Crown Pusher build is a beautiful machine (before and after the roof-raise), with a retro-looking curved back.  Most of the work has been structural so far, but there’s lots of promise here!

Discovering Us Bus: A really nice, slick-looking site from Missy (and family) about their experiences with not one, but two skoolies! These include conversion, travel, and neat things at destinations. In addition, Jeff and Missy also run Custom Bus Conversions, where they use their skills to undertake getting people skoolies, with just the basic work done or with what looks like a full, lots of bells and whistles conversion!

Our Most Excellent Family Adventure (a family of four who are downsizing from a house into a Wanderlodge) has put up a page with links to lots of places where you can locate used buses for sale! Some of these are auction sites, and there’s at least one dealer (the place where we got OUR bus, as a matter of fact!).

Central States Bus Sales has a nice page of digitally available Bluebird manuals from 1997-present.  It’s a mixed bag of forward/rear engine/propane, and there are some wiring/electrical schematics available for some buses too.

Brigantia (a 2002 Freightliner) is the bus that Kat Mon Dieu (NYC based actress, burlesque dancer, singer, costumer and Marilyn Monroe tribute artist) has been converting and upgrading.  She is doing the (seemingly) impossible by boondocking fulltime … wait for it … in New York City! You can follow along on Instagram.

 

 

 

Have a great link you think should be here?  Let me know!

One thought on “Other conversion folks and resources!”

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Rebuilding a school bus into a rolling house.