Motorhome Construction

The initial preparation of the bus.

Usually the first thing one does when they get possession of their bus or coach is to remove all the seats and rails. This can prove to be an arduous task in itself, as this often requires 2 people, one inside and one lucky one underneath the bus with a spanner!

The next challenge is finding somewhere to store all those damn seats, and hopefully someone on eBay to buy them. In the majority of cases, "school bus" or "council" seats are harder to get rid of than a bad case of acne, so they usually end up finding their way to the local tip or rubbish dump.

The next job on the agenda is removing old floor coverings, followed by a good clean out, and in some cases this could involve the use of a good high-pressure "Gerni" to remove years of grime and dirt from cracks and crevices.

EMPTY INTERIOR

We were fortunate enough to have purchased a bus with the seats etc already removed, and fairly clean inside. If you are lucky, the weather will turn bad, and it will rain for 2 days straight! This gives you the chance to find all those water leaks that no-one told you about.

After a few years in the weather, the original caulking compounds your bus was built with tend to dry out and crack. This soon lets the water in, and as the bus flexes and twists under normal road conditions, you soon end up with the water getting in somewhere and running along a channel in the walls or ceiling, only to emerge dead centre above your proposed bed!

You'll need a good ladder to get up on the roof, a scraper to clean flaking paint and dirt from along every joint including the guttering and around roof hatches.

We used a grey sealer made by Bostik, a little more expensive than other products, about twice the price in fact. It goes on easily with a caulking gun, and is easy to mould around corners with your finger. Damn sticky stuff, and takes a bit of cleaning up in petrol to get your fingers working independently again.

The beauty of the Bostik product is that it never fully hardens and remains flexible. Very important on a vehicle body that constantly flexes when travelling! It also handles changes in climate very well, and you can paint over it after 24 hours with oil based paints as well!

We elected to seal around all the windows at the same time, regardless if we intended to remove them at a later date. You can work in your bus on a rainy day, but not if it leaks like a bloody sieve!

The next thing was to scrub the bus with a scourer and mild detergent, followed by a good rinse. We then grabbed the paint brushes and proceeded to undercoat the entire exterior with a quality oil-based paint. Now spraying was not an option for us as the bus is parked in our front yard, and our neighbours would have been up in arms about any oversprays in our neighbourhood, so brushing was the best alternative!

Firstly and foremost, I don't care how good the exterior finish looks, as we have no intention admiring ourselves in shop window reflections while driving along, plus you can get quite a good finish with a quality brush anyhow.

The quality of the finish will depend on your initial surface preparation, the quality of the paint, and the quality of the brush. Long flowing brush strokes are a must.

As you can see in this photo, "I don't care" looks shiny enough after a good brush job. What you see is the result of a lot of sanding, 1 coat of undercoat, plus 2 coats of gloss enamel over that.

It's funny how once you start to build your own DIY Motorhome that you end up on first name terms with everyone at the local hardware. I am sure we paid for the new building extensions at Bunnings!