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Old 09-04-2014, 11:59 PM   #1
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Queen of Peace -- '82 Int'l Bluebird w/ 20" raise, solar, et

After my the departure of my last bus, I picked up her replacement, the Queen of Peace--So named by her previous owners, the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver and the Queen of Peace Parish to whom she faithfully (haha) served from 1992-2013.

I had taken some time off from buses for personal enjoyment until the beginning of August when my live-in girlfriend and I broke up. She kicked me out, and as I was living in my office in the bus yard (I work for a bus company), I decided to start again. On August 24th, I found her!

I got her for a paltry $2000 and was happy to pay it--she's got all the things I love, a fully mechanical DT466, Allison MT643, Jacobs driveline retarder, very little rust, and only 137,000 miles on her 1982 International/Bluebird chassis and coach.

I've done this before, last time with another International/Carpenter with the same engine and trans combo, but with 230k miles and no retarder and a LOT more rust.... needless to say that bus perished on me one fateful day when a cylinder melted due to what I believe was a faulty injector...I digress

Like I said, I work for a school bus company, so I sleep, eat, work, breathe, and live BUS and these are far and away my favorite school bus setups I've ever seen. Tougher than dirt, easy to work on, and CHEAP! Plus I love the handsome grill on those mid-80's IH's! Just look at that PATINA!! The only thing I'd rather have would be an older MCI, or possibly one of these large, pusher bluebirds we have that use the Cummins 8.3 that just HAUL!! but I digress.... I'd take one of each if I could ;)

The only drawbacks to this style and age school bus are the low ceiling height, which is why I will be attempting my first roof raise. 18-20" is the planned addition and it should be interesting to see if I can get it done before the cold really sets in here in Denver (I have about 60 days).

Other improvements include a mobile-home rated woodstove, 400-800 Watt solar setup for the house batteries, 100 watt solar setup for chassis batteries, wood floors, a folding bed, and a nice kitchen area with bar seating for two. Who knows what else. My main goal is just to get the roof raised, walls skinned and insulated, and roughly liveable in 60 days...A Daunting feat, but I figure living in a bus yard, nextdoor to our shop, and nothing better to do gives me a big one up on the calendar! I can't wait to see how my plans change

Here's some photos of the day I brought her home and the first couple days taking stuff out, aka, the EASY PART!
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Old 09-05-2014, 12:01 AM   #2
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Re: The Queen of Peace

Some more visuals:
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Old 09-05-2014, 04:14 AM   #3
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Re: The Queen of Peace

cool, welcome to out madness and yours
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Old 10-12-2014, 11:14 PM   #4
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Re: The Queen of Peace

Been a couple few weeks of business around here at my job at the bus yard, but I've found time to get lots done on the QOP. Most importantly, I got the last of the steel out from the inside, including the tin lower inner skins, as well as the roof skins and scrapped those down the street.

I was also able to get the 100w solar setup for my chassis batteries installed and wired up, lengthen the wiring harness for the 20" roof raise, and complete some maintenance items on the running gear which included an oil change with a 20% lucas oil mix to help seat what i suspect are some abused rings from disuse, new fuel filters, new air filters, and a master battery disconnect install. I wrapped that up with a nice 60 mile test drive up I70 into the mountains to see how she handles the hills. I was pleasantly surprised to see the speedo reading 40mph on the steeps approaching Genessee, with the temp gauge pegged right at 200. Very nice, especially for a dinosaur like her ;)
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Old 10-12-2014, 11:22 PM   #5
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Re: The Queen of Peace

After all that prep, she was ready to head indoors for the roof raise. I'm running about 15 days behind schedule, my goal is to have the walls skinned, insulated, and the subfloor and ceiling in and insulated, wood stove hooked up, and a mattress in the back by mid-november. I would be awesome to get it painted before the winter hits, but I think I'll just get a good coat of primer on her and get the final colors on in the spring.
Once I get my bed in there, I'll be working on it as I live in it. My shop is right in front of the bus, so that will be handy, and hopefully the woodstove and insulation will make for a nice working environment

Im shooting for R18 in the walls, R20 in the floors, and R24-28 in the ceiling... expanded foam for walls and ceiling looks most promising, although expensive... Ill be using foil-backed poly-iso boards for the floor. I want this to be as efficient as I can pull off. It's more money upfront, but it will make it that much more enjoyable and cheap to live in year round.

It was a real treat to walk around in her with the raised roof. EVERYTHING feels bigger
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Old 10-13-2014, 02:45 AM   #6
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Re: The Queen of Peace

very nice, thanks for the pictures, keep them coming, and keep warm!
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Old 10-13-2014, 04:13 AM   #7
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Re: The Queen of Peace

great write-up! and cool pics
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Old 10-13-2014, 09:05 AM   #8
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Re: The Queen of Peace

Lookin Good! --- Nice job on the raise. I only went 19" on my 40' BBAA, so you got me there. What will the final outside height be with solar, a/c & such?
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Old 10-14-2014, 10:00 AM   #9
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Re: The Queen of Peace

Thanks for the feedback guys! I'm doing this mainly to try and impress y'all ;)

I can't say how awesome it has been to walk around in the bus with the extra headroom. It was scary to cut a perfectly good bus up, but Im SO glad I did it! It's a whole new beast in there.

The final rooftop height will be 11' 8", with another 3" on top of that for my low-profile deck and low-mounted solar panels. I'm going to weld up a frame/rails for mounting them on, and do the same for my deck boards, which will have the bottoms of the panels and the deck resting just on the apex of the roof curve and the sides supported by the new frame. My goal is to keep everything below 12', but I think a rooftop air unit might foil that plan. Though at the moment, I'm not entirely sold on the rooftop setup.

Ideally, I'd like to have an a/c that uses between 500-800 watts (small I know, but Im going to insulate the crap out of the bus AND have the roof almost totally covered by solar panels and my deck, so that will help) and I can only seem to find that low of power draw in window units. It might not be easy, but Im sure I could fab in a slick way of mounting it in the bus.

Unless any of you guys know of some low profile, low power rootop airs?

I want it to be solar powered. I know I know, it's silly, but, if I find one that uses the wattage range I'm looking for, it could easily be powered by 1/2 to 2/3 of my planned total solar panel output of 1180W, and leave a good portion left to charge my batteries. I've already got a 2400W continuous inverter/charger than can handle 3600 for an hour and 4800(!) for 10 seconds.
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Old 10-14-2014, 10:39 AM   #10
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Re: The Queen of Peace

Brave and Brilliant.. oh my!
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Old 10-14-2014, 02:27 PM   #11
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Re: The Queen of Peace

RV rooftop A/C units suck in my humble opinion. I've owned'em and hated'em. Overpriced, poorly built energy suckers for the most part. And you are correct regarding the new generation of energy efficient window units. The 8000 btu I am installing doesn't even kick my little Honda genset off idle in the "economy" mode. If I had a larger bus, I would install two units of around 8 -10K each and only run what I needed. Whether just a balmy day or spectating at Black Rock, with decent insulation you should be covered.

The other big pluses include various mounting options (no big, leaky hole in the roof needed, put it elsewhere)...and...you can stop at any WallyWorld and replace the whole unit for less than what any dealer will charge you just to "look at" a rooftop.

Now...ask me what I REEALLY think.

BTW...I have seen multiple window units turned into ducted basement systems that really kicked butt. Another excellent option if you have bay space (I don't).
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Old 10-14-2014, 03:25 PM   #12
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Re: The Queen of Peace

THAT is an excellent idea. Will the window units run off of an auxiliary battery set up or do you have to have a generator?

I have 3 15,000 BTU roof units in my living room that I am just itching to sell.
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Old 10-14-2014, 03:28 PM   #13
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Re: The Queen of Peace

In fact you just gave me a great idea for building a ducted set up from my 'mechanical/storage/tool shed' room at the back of the bus.
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Old 10-14-2014, 11:02 PM   #14
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Re: The Queen of Peace

All of the A/C's I'm aware of including the new gen, high efficiency units still pull too much of a load for anything but shorepower or a genny for any period of time. And they pull the most on start up. There may be someone out there with a big enough battery bank to make it work but you still have to pump a lot of juice back in to keep it all going. Some people with efficient diesel engines and big alternators even run them off the rigs main motor through an inverter for periods but that's probably burning even more fuel than a small genset.

As good as things have gotten, we still appear to be quite a ways off from solar powered A/C with anything less than a half acre of panels. If anyone out there knows of an alternative...please...share it.
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Old 10-15-2014, 01:48 AM   #15
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Re: The Queen of Peace

Au Contraire, Tango!

Right here is a standard, 8,000 BTU unit from LG that sells at the Great Home Depot for around $240.

According to the manufacturer's website, it draws 700 Watts of power, or about 6.5 amps at 120V. See for yourself right here--http://www.lg.com/us/air-conditioners/lg-LW8014ER-window-air-conditioner

That could be easily powered by 3, 295 Watt panels available from here: http://www.lg.com/us/air-conditioners/l ... onditioner

Since you'll only be running A/C when the sun is out, at least up here in CO ;) with 4 panel setup, I can run AC AND charge my batteries! Ain't that purdy?!

My inverter is rated to 2400 watts continuous, but even a cheapo 1k watt unit could probably handle running the AC.

I hate generators with a passion, if ya can't tell And you could most likely get away with running that unit off an inverter tied to the chassis battery/alternator if you wanted, since it would be drawing something like 70 amps. I think most buses alternators are rated quite a bit higher than that, particularly newer models.

Just trying to inspire dreams of comfortable summers!

On that note, has anyone tried to really insulate their buses? Im going for some pretty high R-values, and I just am curious what the real world feel is like. Ive lived in uninsulated buses many times and its brutal. Just curious how noticable the improvement is for different R-values in walls, ceilings, floors, etc. From what I can read, it seems like prioritize the Ceiling, then floor, then walls, for maximum r-value value.
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Old 10-15-2014, 09:19 AM   #16
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Re: The Queen of Peace

Excellent info Charles --- just wish I had room on my roof for more than one dinky panel but that's part of living with a shorty.
But you are cheating...you are a mile closer to the sun than most of us Flatlanders .
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Old 10-15-2014, 03:07 PM   #17
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Re: The Queen of Peace

haha! that's right Tango!

Had to take a bus to the scrapyard today, which is always sad... but, in other news, I got a new hood out of the deal and 2 15' sections of super thick battery cable out of the deal---easily $300 worth of cable here. TAKE THAT, VOLTAGE DROP
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Old 11-05-2014, 02:20 AM   #18
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Re: Queen of Peace -- '82 Int'l Bluebird w/ 20" raise, solar

With help from Chris, the highly skilled and knowledgeable fabricator I've hired, the roof raise is nearly done. We spent 3 hours today putting in the 4 main panels on the driver's side and will get the 4 for the passenger side in tomorrow. Lots of drilling, riveting, and panel adhesive, but the look is really good, Chris has higher standards than I do, which is making things looks waaay better than I was even hoping for.
It's making me think I really gotta shell out some dough to get the tools and supplies to paint it nice to do justice to his metal work
I really like how stock he's kept the structure--right down to having some top hat steel custom made to match the dimensions of the existing frame. Super clean. More pics when I can bring her home.
I'm about 14 days behind schedule, but I'm so pleased with how high quality this is turning out, there's no question it's worth it!
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Old 11-06-2014, 07:53 PM   #19
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Re: Queen of Peace -- '82 Int'l Bluebird w/ 20" raise, solar

I've always been told that you lose most of your heat/ac through the doors and windows. So if you are going to achieve those r values, don't forget the doors and windows, otherwise all that work will be for naught. I'll also have to see you're ac/solar setup to believe it. I think those panels only create that power level 20% of the time. Like noon on a sunny day. I'd guess that you'll need twice that for it to work and that might even be low. You plan on shutting it off at night?
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Old 11-11-2014, 02:18 AM   #20
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Re: Queen of Peace -- '82 Int'l Bluebird w/ 20" raise, solar

Looks like I've got another skeptic in the house!

I'm definitely NOT putting those original windows back in this baby. Ill be using 4-6 (depending on my final layout) insulated, double-pane RV windows which aren't exactly super efficient, but a lot better than single pane, and a LOT better than what I had in there before. The back door will actually have an insulated insert that will slide over its opening during the winter and the front bit of the bus where the stairwell and driver's seat is will be semi-permanently walled off into a cold room. I figure that should help a lot.

Do you have previous solar experience that makes you believe these solar panels operate so inefficiently? Their rated output is what they will make in direct sunlight on a sunny day. In all of my solar experience, I've been surprised how much juice I can actually squeeze from panels and I think there is a lot of lousy info out there ragging on how inefficient solar power is as a practical energy source, but I will say, I've had GREAT results and I'll get a huge kick out of having solar powered AC. I mean man, how sweet is that?
Having an MPPT charge controller helps maximize any less than ideal lighting, and I have every reason to believe that having 1240 watts of solar panel will be waaaaaaaaay more than enough to run a 600-700 watt A/C unit during the hottest part of the day when the sun is out!

Also, the panels on my roof and my rooftop deck will help create a "Safari Roof" to keep that hot sun off my decently-insulated bus. I'm in it to win it!

Of course, the proof will be in the pudding and I haven't seen anyone else do this before. I've done lots of calculations, however, and this should easily work out for me.
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